In “White Noise” by Noah Baumbach based on the novel by Don De Lillo, he is a professor of Hitler studies. At the ceremony Zelensky’s message, video with the names of 358 minors killed
The stars on the red carpet (including former First Lady Hillary Clinton), the long shadows of the war in Ukraine in the Great Hall. Venezia 79, like it did in Cannes in May, opens its doors to current events with the presence on video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who draws attention to “a horror that doesn’t last 120 minutes like a movie, but for 189 days. We must not play the game of Russia, which wants us to put up with the war. The voice of cinema counts. Glory of Ukraine” and ends with the names of the killed minors, 358 to August 29, scrolling at the bottom of the recorded message. The Venice 79 star parade opened with an antidivo par excellence, Adam Driver, who starred alongside Greta Gertwig in the opening film White Noise, which Noah Baumbach published, based on the complex novel by Don De Lillo, published in 1985 (published by us at Einaudi) . . Black polo shirt, dark glasses to hide the look that oscillates between sarcastic and bored, the usual expression of those who can’t wait to find themselves on a set instead of submitting to the obligations of promotion. For the New York-based screenwriter-director, Driver has gone a long way over the past decade: penniless artist to Frances Ha, aspiring filmmaker (Young You Were), Ben Stiller’s client who lives next door (The Meyerowitz Stories), the famous theater director deals with the final scenes of a tangled marriage with Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story). This time it’s Jack Gladney, holder of a very popular university course in Hitler studies, one of the Fuhrer’s most respected experts (the only flaw he’s secretly ashamed of is the fact that he doesn’t know German). Set in an imaginary American Midwest, in the mid-1980s, Jack lives with his fourth wife, Babette, with their three children from previous relationships and their most recent arrivals. Family life, university, ambitions to succeed mix with fears, fear of death, the search for happiness, until an environmental catastrophe that forces everyone to evacuate the city jeopardizes everything. A foreword from 40 years ago that, reread during the pandemic, seems to speak of our present, explained Baumbach, who sewed the role of the professor on to his favorite actor. “It was a pleasure to have him in the film fatter and older than he really is. There aren’t many actors who would have believed that. I got him to put on a wig, lifted his hairline and found a walk that suited the character. These are things that immediately influenced his way of entering the role ».
Distracted and stressed
Driver throws it on the joke, when someone asks him about his bacon and hair (salt and pepper with a slight receding hairline), does he happen to feel like a warning of what to expect as he gets older? “First they put an artificial stomach on me, then it didn’t help anymore because I got fat on the set. Now I’m pretty happy with my physical condition,” replies the 38-year-old actor. As much as Baumbach underscores the relevance and timeliness of De Lillo’s pages – “I re-read the book during the pandemic and it struck me as a relevant story compared to our present. Regardless of the era it’s set in, it’s its language that sounds familiar” — how much Driver preferred to stick to the script, he says. “It’s very well written. The almost theatrical rehearsals we did before shooting helped me a lot. I didn’t look for an intellectual key, I stuck to the concrete. At a certain point while reading it clicked, I got into the role. He is a guy who gets distracted by everyday life, children, work. I find his stubbornness interesting in hiding the fact that he is stressed out, willing to deny the evidence so that everything appears normal and – while the apocalypse may be coming – he stays seated until dessert at dinner. Has Covid affected us? Yes and no. Of course, thanks to the virus, we were familiar with certain things, such as masks.” Appearing in a scene from the film, a new collaboration between Baumbach and Netflix (he’ll arrive December 30th after visiting the cinema), with a budget he’s never had that big enough for him to allow for action scenes and quotes from the titles has on which it is formed. “This genre of cinema, disaster films, romcoms, family vacation films is a common language that I used in White Noise.” Where a phrase rings out: “Family is the cradle of disinformation.” “It seemed to me to be a great representation of not just America, but the world in general, the way we get information today. That’s right, isn’t it? Maybe. We’ll never know”.
August 31, 2022 (Modification August 31, 2022 | 20:51)
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