* Venice film festival hits halfway point
* Oscar buzz surrounds Hoffman, Phoenix, Shannon
* Lack of stars contributes to subdued atmosphere
* The Master is critics’ favourite film so far
By Mike Collett-White and Silvia Aloisi
VENICE, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Venice traditionally fires the
starting gun in the long movie awards season, and as the world’s
oldest film festival reaches the halfway point three actors have
set Hollywood tongues wagging with memorable performances.
Michael Shannon as a serial hitman, Philip Seymour Hoffman
as a cult leader modelled on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
and Joaquin Phoenix playing the tortured, volatile protege are
already in the frame around six months before the Oscars.
The buzz surrounding their portrayals has helped lift
spirits in Venice, celebrating its 80th anniversary this year,
although incoming director Alberto Barbera may be concerned by
the lack of A-list stars on the red carpet.
Celebrity wattage is almost as important to a film festival
as the quality of the movies, as it attracts the world’s media
and reminds the showbusiness world why notoriously expensive
Venice still matters in a calendar crammed with rival events.
As the 11-day cinema showcase on the Lido waterfront reaches
the midway point on Monday, the heaviest hitter on all levels
has been “The Master”.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film since the
acclaimed “There Will Be Blood” in 2007, it combines controversy
– the movie centres around the early days of Scientology – and
acting pedigree in the form of Hoffman and Phoenix.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy called it “a bold,
challenging, brilliantly acted drama that is a must for serious
audiences.”
Not every critic liked it, but most agreed the two central
actors were at the peak of their powers, with Hoffman as the
domineering, exploitive Lancaster Dodd and Phoenix his
hard-drinking, troubled acolyte.
Essentially a love story set against the background of
Hubbard’s founding of the Church of Scientology in the 1950s,
few would be surprised to see them nominated for awards.
The GoldDerby website, which previews showbusiness honours,
has made The Master a favourite for a best picture Oscar,
Anderson is frontrunner for best director and Hoffman and
Phoenix are in the top five for best actor.
TOO FEW STARS?
Both actors were in Venice, where Phoenix’s behaviour was
erratic and he was barely articulate at a press briefing. But
another big title, Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder”, launched
without its reclusive director and most prominent stars.
The impressionistic, poetic portrayal of a couple in love
told with virtually no dialogue was praised and panned in equal
measure, but with Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem and Rachel McAdams
all absent, its world premiere was low-key.
Turn the clock back 15 months, and Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and
Jessica Chastain all graced the red carpet in Cannes for
Malick’s 2011 movie, “The Tree of Life”.
Barbera has managed to attract rising stars like former
Disney teen idol Zac Efron, who appeared in the farming saga “At
Any Price”, and Selena Gomez who is expected in Venice to
promote “Spring Breakers” on Wednesday.
But without top names, and movies that jolted audiences in
the way war dramas “Redacted” and “The Hurt Locker” or sex
addiction story “Shamed” did in recent years, Venice stumbled.
“So far there have been a few peaks, like The Master which
is brilliantly acted, and outside of competition Spike Lee’s
documentary on Michael Jackson,” said Maria Giulia Minetti, a
journalist for Italian daily La Stampa.
“But overall it’s a subdued festival, there’s not much money
around and maybe cinema right now lacks punch,” added the
veteran of 32 Venice festivals.
Both The Master and To the Wonder are in the 18-film
competition in Venice, but outside the main lineup several
movies caught the eyes of the critics.
“The Iceman” is a re-telling of the true life story of
American hitman Richard Kuklinski, who killed more than 100
people before his capture and imprisonment.
The towering actor Shannon won warm praise for a performance
that evoked sympathy as much as revulsion, and Winona Ryder also
impressed as his wife.
Lee’s “Bad 25”, a two-hour film about the making of
Jackson’s seminal 1987 album, may have bordered on hagiography
and focused purely on the music, but it reinforced the belief of
many that the late “King of Pop” fully deserved his moniker.
There have been more than 20 female directors unveiling
movies in Venice this year, an unusually high number, including
Indian film maker Mira Nair with her out-of-competition 9/11
movie “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”.
Israel’s Rama Burshtein brought her own ultra-Orthodox
Jewish community to the big screen in “Fill the Void”.
And Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female director,
presented “Wadjda”, about a young girl seeking to break down
barriers faced by females in Saudi society.
The “Arab Spring” uprisings found expression in films
“Witness: Libya” and “Winter of Discontent”, from Egypt, while
the economic crisis made its way into movies like To the Wonder
and At Any Price.
