Robert_eb
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2001
- Messages
- 965
Is anyone else looking forward to the new Billy Bob Thornton film Levity? It was the opening film at the Sundance Film Festival & from what I've read it looks to be a pretty interetsting film.
http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?...&page_number=1
This is the premise of Levity, Solomon's directing debut. Best known for writing such comedies as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Men in Black, Solomon based the story in part on his college experience tutoring a teenager at a maximum security prison; the boy had been convicted of murder. "He was trying to grapple with the idea that he had taken somebody's life," Solomon says. Like Thornton's character, Manual, "he kept a photograph of his victim-and that detail really stayed with me."
The film finds Manual, upon his release, tracking down the victim's older sister (Hunter) to apologize. "He's obsessed with her forgiveness," Thornton says, "which in a way is selfish, and he knows that." Hunter adds that "all of the characters are searching for redemption in some way," from a self-destructive club kid (Dunst) whom Manual encounters, to an unordained minister (Freeman), who runs a soup kitchen and enlists Manual's help as a parking lot attendant. "This is a movie about isolated people," Freeman says. His character allows teens to park for free on his property, in exchange for a 15-minute sermon.
Solomon and cinematographer Roger Deakins (The Man Who Wasn't There) shot the $7 million film in Montreal, partly per Thornton's request (his soon-to-be-ex-wife Angelina Jolie was shooting Beyond Borders there) and partly to enhance the film's tone. "Manual is a ghost, really," Thornton says. "I'm not sure how audiences will respond to him, but I hope they'll sympathize, because I think we should all be there for a lost soul."
-Brooke Hauser
http://www.premiere.com/article.asp?...&page_number=1
This is the premise of Levity, Solomon's directing debut. Best known for writing such comedies as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Men in Black, Solomon based the story in part on his college experience tutoring a teenager at a maximum security prison; the boy had been convicted of murder. "He was trying to grapple with the idea that he had taken somebody's life," Solomon says. Like Thornton's character, Manual, "he kept a photograph of his victim-and that detail really stayed with me."
The film finds Manual, upon his release, tracking down the victim's older sister (Hunter) to apologize. "He's obsessed with her forgiveness," Thornton says, "which in a way is selfish, and he knows that." Hunter adds that "all of the characters are searching for redemption in some way," from a self-destructive club kid (Dunst) whom Manual encounters, to an unordained minister (Freeman), who runs a soup kitchen and enlists Manual's help as a parking lot attendant. "This is a movie about isolated people," Freeman says. His character allows teens to park for free on his property, in exchange for a 15-minute sermon.
Solomon and cinematographer Roger Deakins (The Man Who Wasn't There) shot the $7 million film in Montreal, partly per Thornton's request (his soon-to-be-ex-wife Angelina Jolie was shooting Beyond Borders there) and partly to enhance the film's tone. "Manual is a ghost, really," Thornton says. "I'm not sure how audiences will respond to him, but I hope they'll sympathize, because I think we should all be there for a lost soul."
-Brooke Hauser
