We weren't at all sure what this would be like, but needed no further recommendation to see Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen in action. The latter's American accent slips somewhat but they are both charismatic and believable. It's written by Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner.
Had we realised it was Kaufman - who once impressed us with The Unbearable Lightness of Being - we might have been more confident. (In fact one of his other films, The Right Stuff was also up for viewing. Next weekend, maybe.)
It's essentially the relationship between the two in the thirties in the Spanish Civil War (they're particularly affected by the Fascists winning), a brief moment of peace in Cuba, then to China and Finland, taking us up to WW2. It uses lots of clips and we marveled at the way they are integrated into the story, by (sometimes slowly) shifting from monochrome to colour and back, or by inserting fictional characters into the clip like in Zelig. Some of the montage work is great too - the editor is Walter Murch, so that was money well spent.
Great cast: David Strathairn (Dos Passos), Rodrigo Santoro, Molly Parker, Parker Posey, Tony Shaloub, Santiago Cabrera (Capa), Lars Ulrich (fictional filmmaker), Peter Coyote, Joan Chen, Remy Auberjonois, Jeffrey Jones and Robert Duvall (and, uncredited, Brooke Adams, who was in his Invasion of the Bodysnatchers).
Camera: Rogier Stoffers. Great makeup too.
Features two interesting sex scenes, for a change: one in a hotel room that is being shelled, the other in a theatrical dressing room. Quite a moment too when Hemingway launches into Spanish battle with Gellhorn right behind him. Though the time he slaps her, hard - you know it's over.
Good interview with Kaufman here, covering its gestation, and the incredible fact that it was all shot in San Francisco, using various tricks he'd learned from previous films. The main Madrid hotel set is very well used - production designer Geoffrey Kirkland (Children of Men, The Right Stuff, several Alan Parker films).
The same director's Henry & June was also about another famous literary coupling, this time between Henry Miller and Anais Nin.
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