Adam Driver in FerrariPhoto: Lorenzo Sisti/Neon
With Ferrari, director Michael Mann pops the hood and takes a look at the engine powering one man’s journey towards icon status during a tumultuous time. Through this titular, fallible protagonist, the audacious auteur explores many of his favorite recurring themes about the male identity,...
With Ferrari, director Michael Mann pops the hood and takes a look at the engine powering one man’s journey towards icon status during a tumultuous time. Through this titular, fallible protagonist, the audacious auteur explores many of his favorite recurring themes about the male identity,...
- 12/22/2023
- by Courtney Howard
- avclub.com
While the Golden Globes logs in another year without a female directing nominee, it did break a brought in another male-dominated category. “Joker” composer Hildur Guðnadóttir received a nomination for Best Original Score, becoming the first woman in 10 years to be shortlisted in the category. Should she win, she’d be the category’s first solo female winner ever.
Guðnadóttir is only the eighth female nominee and just the third to be nominated by herself after Jocelyn Pook (1999’s “Eyes Wide Shut”) and Rachel Portman (2000’s “Chocolat”). All the others had co-composers, including Lisa Gerrard, the only woman to have multiple bids and the only female winner so far, having shared her “Gladiator” (2000) victory with Hans Zimmer.
Though Best Original Score was added at the 5th Golden Globe Awards in 1948, the category didn’t see its first female nominee until Marilyn Bergman was nominated with her partner and husband Alan...
Guðnadóttir is only the eighth female nominee and just the third to be nominated by herself after Jocelyn Pook (1999’s “Eyes Wide Shut”) and Rachel Portman (2000’s “Chocolat”). All the others had co-composers, including Lisa Gerrard, the only woman to have multiple bids and the only female winner so far, having shared her “Gladiator” (2000) victory with Hans Zimmer.
Though Best Original Score was added at the 5th Golden Globe Awards in 1948, the category didn’t see its first female nominee until Marilyn Bergman was nominated with her partner and husband Alan...
- 12/16/2019
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
Journalism hasn't looked this glamorous since "All the President's Men". "The Insider" is Michael Mann's film version of the scramble by the mighty "60 Minutes" to tell the story of tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand. And like all of Mann's films, it comes at the viewer with sledge-hammer intensity, pumped with startling, bold images, feverish acting and an exquisite soundtrack ranging from a melancholy mandolin to eerie vocals.
While undoubtedly a distortion of the journalistic process and, quite possibly, of the salient facts in this particular tale of a news organization's humiliating retreat on a major story, the film is undeniably entertaining. The trick for Buena Vista will be to come up with a campaign to convince serious-minded moviegoers that a story about big tobacco and a TV news producer can actually create tensions worthy of a Cold War spy thriller.
One helpful element is that news articles debating the veracity and issues in this film are as likely to wind up on op-ed as on entertainment pages. And edgy, mesmerizing performances by Al Pacino and Russell Crowe add luster to this extremely well-made film.
Wigand, a fired Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. executive, earned headlines about four years ago when he alleged that tobacco execs lied for years about their knowledge of the dangerous health effects of cigarette smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine.
"60 Minutes" taped an interview with Wigand for a Mike Wallace segment on the perfidy of the tobacco industry. But a CBS lawyer argued strongly against including the interview in the segment. Wigand, as "60 Minutes" knew, had signed a confidentiality agreement with Brown & Willamson as part of his severance package. If CBS induced him to break that agreement, the network could be liable for significant monetary damages.
"60 Minutes" was forced to broadcast a story that essentially explained why the show was unable to run the interview with Wigand, who was not mentioned by name. Three months later, after the Wall Street Journal repeated Wigand's allegations, "60 Minutes" did air the entire segment.
The movie -- following the lead of a 1996 Vanity Fair article about Wigand upon which Eric Roth and Mann's screenplay is based -- tells this story through two individuals. One, of course, is Wigand (Crowe). The other is Lowell Bergman, a "60 Minutes" producer who worked with Wallace for 14 years.
With Pacino as Bergman, the producer has been transformed into a hard-charging hero, an amalgamation of an investigative journalist, spy, father confessor and legal counsel. He meets people in dark bars and shadowy street corners, makes surreptitious calls from phone booths and has the ability to sweet-talk a Hezbollah leader into giving an interview to a "Zionist-controlled" American TV network.
The movie opens with Bergman riding blindfolded in a car in Lebanon to meet with this Hezbollah leader. The message is clear: This man lives a life of danger while Wallace grandly follows in his wake to do the on-camera interviews and grab the glory.
The movie, based entirely on Bergman's point of view, portrays Wallace and Don Hewitt, "60 Minutes'" creator and exec producer, as chicken-hearts who bow to management on the film's key ethical issue and leave a source to hang in the wind. Pacino's fiery Bergman is the segment's lone champion.
This makes for excellent drama and a dandy case of righteous indignation. But given that these are real people, the viewer has the right to wonder about the accuracy of this dramatization. Wallace is known to be outraged by the suggestion that he didn't fight to air the entire segment.
Fortunately, the story's real hero, Wigand, manages not to get lost in the Pacino/Bergman heroics, largely because of a riveting performance by Crowe. The man's life falls apart because of his decision to tell tales. His wife leaves him along with their two daughters; he's harassed by his former employers; he receives death threats; and even the FBI treats him with suspicion.
The weakest element in the script is that it never really explains why Wigand agreed to the interview. But Crowe lets you feel Wigand's emotional deterioration as he clings to his sanity despite bouts of paranoia, hallucinations and heavy drinking.
The film is gifted with a number of excellent performances: Christopher Plummer perfectly catches Mike Wallace's manner and speech cadences. Philip Baker Hall's Hewitt, Gina Gershon as a CBS attorney, Stephen Tobolowsky as a corporate biggie and Lindsay Crouse as Bergman's understanding wife are all vivid characters who make striking impressions in their brief time on screen.
A major contributor to this movie is composer Lisa Gerrard who, working with partner Pieter Bourke, draws upon medieval and Middle Eastern motifs to create eerie musical passages that Mann juxtaposes with cinematographer Dante Spinotti's strong, dark images.
Some of Gerrard and Bourke's music, originally written for the keyboard, is performed by an entire string section, giving an almost acoustical sound.
All of which makes "The Insider" a sleek, hard-not-to-like package.
THE INSIDER
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Producers: Michael Mann, Pieter Jan Brugge
Director: Michael Mann
Writers: Eric Roth, Michael Mann
Director of photography: Dante Spinotti
Production designer: Brian Morris
Music: Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke
Co-producer: Michael Waxman
Costume designer: Anna Sheppard
Editors: William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell
Color/stereo
Cast:
Lowell Bergman: Al Pacino
Jeffrey Wigand: Russell Crowe
Mike Wallace: Christopher Plummer
Liane Wigand: Diane Venora
Don Hewitt: Philip Baker Hall
Sharon Tiller: Lindsay Crouse
Debbie De Luca: Debi Mazar
Eric Kluster: Stephen Tobolowsky
Running time -- 155 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
While undoubtedly a distortion of the journalistic process and, quite possibly, of the salient facts in this particular tale of a news organization's humiliating retreat on a major story, the film is undeniably entertaining. The trick for Buena Vista will be to come up with a campaign to convince serious-minded moviegoers that a story about big tobacco and a TV news producer can actually create tensions worthy of a Cold War spy thriller.
One helpful element is that news articles debating the veracity and issues in this film are as likely to wind up on op-ed as on entertainment pages. And edgy, mesmerizing performances by Al Pacino and Russell Crowe add luster to this extremely well-made film.
Wigand, a fired Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. executive, earned headlines about four years ago when he alleged that tobacco execs lied for years about their knowledge of the dangerous health effects of cigarette smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine.
"60 Minutes" taped an interview with Wigand for a Mike Wallace segment on the perfidy of the tobacco industry. But a CBS lawyer argued strongly against including the interview in the segment. Wigand, as "60 Minutes" knew, had signed a confidentiality agreement with Brown & Willamson as part of his severance package. If CBS induced him to break that agreement, the network could be liable for significant monetary damages.
"60 Minutes" was forced to broadcast a story that essentially explained why the show was unable to run the interview with Wigand, who was not mentioned by name. Three months later, after the Wall Street Journal repeated Wigand's allegations, "60 Minutes" did air the entire segment.
The movie -- following the lead of a 1996 Vanity Fair article about Wigand upon which Eric Roth and Mann's screenplay is based -- tells this story through two individuals. One, of course, is Wigand (Crowe). The other is Lowell Bergman, a "60 Minutes" producer who worked with Wallace for 14 years.
With Pacino as Bergman, the producer has been transformed into a hard-charging hero, an amalgamation of an investigative journalist, spy, father confessor and legal counsel. He meets people in dark bars and shadowy street corners, makes surreptitious calls from phone booths and has the ability to sweet-talk a Hezbollah leader into giving an interview to a "Zionist-controlled" American TV network.
The movie opens with Bergman riding blindfolded in a car in Lebanon to meet with this Hezbollah leader. The message is clear: This man lives a life of danger while Wallace grandly follows in his wake to do the on-camera interviews and grab the glory.
The movie, based entirely on Bergman's point of view, portrays Wallace and Don Hewitt, "60 Minutes'" creator and exec producer, as chicken-hearts who bow to management on the film's key ethical issue and leave a source to hang in the wind. Pacino's fiery Bergman is the segment's lone champion.
This makes for excellent drama and a dandy case of righteous indignation. But given that these are real people, the viewer has the right to wonder about the accuracy of this dramatization. Wallace is known to be outraged by the suggestion that he didn't fight to air the entire segment.
Fortunately, the story's real hero, Wigand, manages not to get lost in the Pacino/Bergman heroics, largely because of a riveting performance by Crowe. The man's life falls apart because of his decision to tell tales. His wife leaves him along with their two daughters; he's harassed by his former employers; he receives death threats; and even the FBI treats him with suspicion.
The weakest element in the script is that it never really explains why Wigand agreed to the interview. But Crowe lets you feel Wigand's emotional deterioration as he clings to his sanity despite bouts of paranoia, hallucinations and heavy drinking.
The film is gifted with a number of excellent performances: Christopher Plummer perfectly catches Mike Wallace's manner and speech cadences. Philip Baker Hall's Hewitt, Gina Gershon as a CBS attorney, Stephen Tobolowsky as a corporate biggie and Lindsay Crouse as Bergman's understanding wife are all vivid characters who make striking impressions in their brief time on screen.
A major contributor to this movie is composer Lisa Gerrard who, working with partner Pieter Bourke, draws upon medieval and Middle Eastern motifs to create eerie musical passages that Mann juxtaposes with cinematographer Dante Spinotti's strong, dark images.
Some of Gerrard and Bourke's music, originally written for the keyboard, is performed by an entire string section, giving an almost acoustical sound.
All of which makes "The Insider" a sleek, hard-not-to-like package.
THE INSIDER
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Producers: Michael Mann, Pieter Jan Brugge
Director: Michael Mann
Writers: Eric Roth, Michael Mann
Director of photography: Dante Spinotti
Production designer: Brian Morris
Music: Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke
Co-producer: Michael Waxman
Costume designer: Anna Sheppard
Editors: William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell
Color/stereo
Cast:
Lowell Bergman: Al Pacino
Jeffrey Wigand: Russell Crowe
Mike Wallace: Christopher Plummer
Liane Wigand: Diane Venora
Don Hewitt: Philip Baker Hall
Sharon Tiller: Lindsay Crouse
Debbie De Luca: Debi Mazar
Eric Kluster: Stephen Tobolowsky
Running time -- 155 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/4/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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