Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris has been writing and directing movies since 1981, but it wasn’t until the 49-year-old made her fourth feature film, “Antonia’s Line,” which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1995, that her name became known to international cinema audiences.
Gorris’ most recent film is “Mrs. Dalloway,” based on the 1925 novel by Virginia Woolf. Written by Eileen Atkins and starring Vanessa Redgrave in the title role, “Mrs. Dalloway” is one of Woolf’s most piercing studies of English upper-class society.
Set on a single day in London during the summer of 1923, the film revolves around two quite different characters. One is Clarissa Dalloway, a gentle but mournful woman in her late 40s, who finds herself questioning the major decisions of her life even as she plans for a gala party at her home that evening. The other is Septimus Smith, an emotionally scarred World War I veteran who is barely holding onto his sanity as he seeks shelter from the storm that is his life.
Tribune — Why do you think the producers came to Holland to find a director for “Mrs. Dalloway”?
Gorris — It was obviously a result of my having won the Academy Award for “Antonia’s Line,” which made people think that maybe I was suitable for this, that or some other script. My earlier films were very Dutch, so no one thought of me as a director outside of Holland. An Academy Award puts you on the map.
Q — But is the Oscar the only reason? Might they also have seen similarities between “Antonia’s Line” and “Mrs. Dalloway”?
A — Perhaps. Both films are about time. “Antonia’s Line” is one long flashback. In the first three minutes of the film, the old woman wakes up and thinks back on the previous 45 years. In that sense, it is a story told backwards. “Mrs. Dalloway” occurs in a day, a very specific day, the 13th of June, 1923. But something happens to time again, and all through the day, Mrs. Dalloway thinks back to when she was 18, 30 years younger. She keeps coming back to the present and drifting back to the past.
Q — How familiar were you with “Mrs. Dalloway” specifically, and Virginia Woolf’s work in general, when they asked you to direct?
Gorris — Well, not at all. I’m somewhat ashamed to say I studied English when I was younger, but I never got around to Virginia Woolf. . . . So after reading the script that was sent to me, I went to my bookcase and pulled out the novel, which had been there since 1969 or so. I read it and liked it, so we agreed to meet in London, where I said I would do it. I knew Vanessa was attached to the project already, because Eileen (Atkins) had written it for her, but I did wonder why they asked an outsider–one who wasn’t English–to do an eminently English book by an eminently well-known English novelist.
Q — When you read the script, followed by the book, did you feel it was especially filmable, despite what many people have said over the years about Woolf’s “unadaptability”?
A — Well, some of the things I hadn’t completely understood in Eileen’s script suddenly became clear from the novel. But it’s not a book that I would have felt confident adapting myself. As a matter of fact, to be quite honest, I wouldn’t even dare.
Q — Because?
A — I would find it far too difficult. I’d be afraid that I couldn’t find the key. But then, I am always afraid of adapting books to the screen. I’ve never done that myself. All my scripts have been originals.
Q — Is this the first time you’ve ever directed a film from someone else’s script?
A — Yes.
Q — And did you find it easier or more difficult than you expected?
A — Well, a bit of both, I guess. What I found was that if you write your own scripts, because you wrote them, you know exactly what you want to do with them. You sometimes even write that down specifically. And you also know the emotions that go into it. It’s all sort of cut-and-dried in your mind, and all you have to do is convey it to the others. For something you haven’t written yourself, it’s not so clear cut, and there are more possibilities. You discuss it in a different way with the actors. I found it quite pleasant, actually. I found it, in a sense, liberating even.
Q — Were there things in the book that you would have liked to have seen in the film? Or things that you thought would have been better left out?
A — There were a number of things that I thought: “What a pity that’s not included.” But you simply can’t get everything in. Take the specter of World War I, for instance. People in English society didn’t speak of the war in 1923, it just wasn’t done, despite the fact that the losses were so horrendous. So Virginia Woolf talks very little about it in the book. It’s only vaguely alluded to when Mrs. Dalloway meets an old friend in the park, and they talk about someone who lost a son in the war. All of that pain and emotion, Woolf put into the character of Septimus Smith. I guess it’s not for nothing that she never has the two main characters meet. That’s very strange, both for a novel and for a film. It’s also very undramatic, isn’t it?
Q — What was it like working with Vanessa Redgrave? Challenging? Intimidating?
A — Well, she’s a star, and that, as such, is always intimidating. But she was very nice and very good, and, of course, what she brings with her is an enormous body of experience.
Q — A number of Dutch directors have left the Netherlands in the last few years and settled in Hollywood. Has a trend been established?
A — Well, I think Paul Verzhoeven (“Basic Instinct,” “Starship Troopers”) always wanted to go. He made some brilliant Dutch movies, like “Soldier of Orange,” but his heart was in Hollywood. Jan DeBont (“Speed”) was originally a cameraman, a very good cameraman, who came to Hollywood with Verhoeven, and found that he wanted to make his own movies there. That’s about it for now, but more Dutch directors want to get out of Holland, just so they can make more than one film every five years or so. State-funding is very limited.
Q — And what about you? Have you heard Hollywood’s clarion call?
A — Well, I’m not much interested in a huge American budget. But if I got a chance to do a film in Hollywood, well, I probably would.
