Intervistato dal Telegraph a Cannes in occasione della presentazione del suo nuovo film, Viggo Mortensen non ha disdegnato di guardare al suo passato e ripercorrere con sguardo critico il periodo della lavorazione della trilogia di Peter Jackson, svelando particolari inediti sulla genesi della trilogia, opinioni personali sulla qualità dei tre film e sul metodo di lavoro di P.J.
Intervista originale qui:
http://www.telegraph...ty-for-CGI.html
Anybody who says they knew it was going to be the success it was, I dont think its really true, he says. They didnt have an inkling until they showed 20 minutes in Cannes, in May of 2001. They were in a lot of trouble, and Peter had spent a lot. Officially, he could say that he was finished in December 2000 hed shot all three films in the trilogy but really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy it just wasnt done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadnt been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to video.
Mortensen thinks rightly that The Fellowship of the Ring turned out the best of the three, perhaps largely because it was shot in one go. It was very confusing, we were going at such a pace, and they had so many units shooting, it was really insane. But its true that the first script was better organised, he says. Also, Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie, yes, theres Rivendell, and Mordor, but theres sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; its grittier. The second movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit, one and two, its like that to the power of 10.
I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him, Mortensen adds. But you can make a choice, I think. I asked Ridley when I worked with him (on 1997s GI Jane), 'Why dont you do another film like The Duellists [Scotts 1977 debut, from a Joseph Conrad short story]? And Peter, I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie. The special effects thing, the genie, was out of the bottle, and it has him. And hes happy, I think.
La traduzione dell'intervista (presa da un sito concorrente) la metto sotto spoiler:
Parole di fuoco, dette senza peli sulla lingua e senza l'alone di buonismo/diplomazia che in genere saltano fuori quando gli attori parlano del proprio passato e dei registi con cui hanno lavorato. Specie se in film così importanti (dal pdv cinematografico) come la trilogia del Signore degli Anelli.
Il paragone finale con Ridley Scott è una mazzata finale non indifferente, considerando le ultime due porcherie sfornate dal buon Ridley ...