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“We made it in the spirit of . . . just need[ing] to make this film, it’s crying out to be done, without expectations of what will happen to it,” says Paul Morrison, director of Little Ashes about his film. “But I’ve been around long enough to know it’s when you least expect it that good things can happen.”
Little Ashes (which will be released this Friday, May 8, in the United States) has been met with great anticipation. Starring Robert Pattinson, Javier Beltran, Matthew McNulty, and Marina Gatell, the film will present an ephemeral biopic of the life of Salvador Dali – a Spanish artist whose art, some say, is impossibly well done.
As a director, Paul Morrison is known for his work in Wondrous Oblivion, Solomon and Gaenor, and Degas and Pissarro Fall Out. With Little Ashes nearing release, however, his name has practically become house hold.
I had the pleasure of interviewing the thoughtful and intellectual Mr. Morrison, and, after doing so, I am convinced that he is right, “good things can happen” – and to the right sort of people.
About what brought Morrison to the Little Ashes picture, he says it was “[a] great screenplay.” Continues Morrison, it’s “an intimate human story of these three or four people’s relationships at an extraordinary moment in history of social and artistic ferment. Plus, it was about these three exceptional artists, at least one of whom was a hero of mine.”About the screenplay, which was written by Philippa Goslett, Morrison says that “the good thing about [it] is that it doesn’t attempt to be a biopic. It doesn’t try to tell the whole story, it just explores one seminal moment. Really, it’s a love story, and that’s what gives it power.” The love story in Little Ashes is one that takes place between the characters of Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca.
Dali is not the only artist whose relationships Morrison has tackled, though. 1994’s Degas and Pissarro Fall Out was also such a story. Says Morrison, “Both my grandfathers trained as artists, so I guess you could say it’s in the blood, though I don’t deliberately choose films about artists, they just seem to come.” Producer Carlo Dusi has said a similar sentiment, noting that artistic pieces seemed to find him so often that he had been planning to take some time off from them (that is, until The Absinthe Drinkers with John Charles Jopson at the helm came across his plate). As Morrison indicated, though, when you have a great screenplay and a story crying out to be told, biases and plans float by the wayside and magic gets made - thusly, Little Ashes.
About the film, Morrison says that he did not anticipate it receiving as much attention at inception, but that for casting purposes, much thought was put into selecting the perfect actors. Detailing the process of selection, Morrison says,For Lorca and Dali, I must have seen every up-and-coming young actor who was available in both Spain and the U.K. Originally, Rob read for Lorca, and I was going to cast Dali in Spain. But Rob felt so much more a Dali – the combination of acute intelligence and vulnerability and self-consciousness that the part demanded – that I switched, and brought him back to read for Dali. He was perfect. I never saw anyone in Spain who felt right for Dali, by the way.
Then our great Spanish casting director Merce Espelleta brought in Javier. His English was lousy, but he had the soulfulness and charisma of Lorca, and [he] was a terrific actor. I took the risk that he could get his English up to scratch because he felt so right in other ways.
Our original Bunuel fell through at the last minute, and Matthew read for the part in London while I was already in prep in Spain. I got the CD and was bowled over by the performance. He had the strength and bullishness, but also his human-ness shone through. Marina, by the way, is brilliant, and she invests Magdelena with an energy and vitality, and also behind it a deep sadness, that are an essential part of the balance of the characters in the movie. You can’t imagine the film working without her.
With the success of casting, there were still quite a few obstacles for Mr. Morrison and the crew in pulling Little Ashes together. Says he, the biggest obstacle was “[r]aising the money, and then having to do it on the budget we had. As ever, though, sometimes the biggest obstacles are also a source of inspiration, and I think some of the intensity of the film comes from the pressure we were under.”
Still, there were good days and bad days on set. A “perfect day,” says Morrison, “was shooting the scene where Bunuel comes upon Dali and Lorca in a clinch in Lorca’s room. Nice and contained, funny, and brilliant performances, and time enough to get all the shots I wanted, and think of some others.” Continues he, it was “also very magical to shoot in Cadaques in the little bay which was Dali’s favourite, and to know that he had stood on the same rocks with Lorca eighty years before. . .” An “awful day,” says Morrison, “was shooting the aunt’s dinner party where we had a lot of Spanish press and TV around, trying to present a front of professional calm to the, but the actors were 5 hours getting through make-up, and I was screaming with impatience as we were left with only two hours to shoot the big scene.”Even though Morrison might’ve been screaming on that "awful" day, for the most part, he is fairly reliant upon his cast to hold their own reigns. Says he, “I try to give space for the cast to develop the character and take some responsibility for their own portrayal. I like to be surprised. But I think they liked to hear from me from time to time also.” His direction, he says, is “not consciously” inspired by prior directors – because the “artists were enough inspiration . . .”
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With Twilight and How To Be star Robert Pattinson in the cast, and with his recent successes outside of Little Ashes, his fame is bringing a lot to the table for the release of this picture. About that, Morrison says, “I don’t follow it very closely, but mostly it has been great for us.” On the other hand, “where Rob has been misconstrued,” says Morrison, “and seemed to be putting down our movie when that wasn’t what he intended,” it can be irritating. Though, says Morrison, “I’m delighted for Rob for his success, and delighted, too, that he will draw a new audience to the movie. The fans of his who have seen it so far, who I’ve spoken to, seem very positive.”Over all, Morrison says he is “hoping it does well, so I can say goodbye to it knowing it will help me get the next one off the ground.” The next ones, he says, will be “a contemporary romantic comedy, a blues movie set in early sixties Chicago, and a movie about another painter, Charlotte Salomon, who was the Anne Frank of the visual arts.” The film about Charlotte, coincidentally, will also be produced by Little Ashes’ producer Carlo Dusi.
So, will you be seeing Little Ashes this weekend? Comment below and let us know!
- For my interview with Carlo Dusi, producer of Little Ashes, see here.
Comments
I WOULD see it this weekend, but according to the website it's being released very limitedly. It also isn't being released in all areas on Friday, such as it is not coming to Boston until May 22nd, which was a total bummer since I have been looking forward to this since Jan when I first learned of it.
I really want to see it but it doesn't seem to be playing anywhere near me :-(
Great Interview!
Same here. I'd like to see, but I'm having difficulties finding a theater that will be playing it in Minneapolis. I'm really bummed...
love rob and love dali - really looking forward to this film =]
this interview is great and hearing rob talk about it too has really got me hooked!
It's not coming any where near me either and I'm very upset about it. Does anyone know if it will be released on DVD at some point?
this is a movie that i am only going to see because rob is in it but truly i just did a report on salvador dali and he is not gay so that was news to me when i saw a sean where salvador and Fredrico get intimate, that was alittle scary so i dont know?
This is not the only Robert Pattinson movie not showing.. It is very aggravating for us fans... Guess we'll all have to be patient.? (ARRRGH)!!
I am so very glad that Portland has a very liberal theater crowd - and its very own film festival! - so there are multiple theaters playing "Little Ashes." I will definitely be going to watch it.
Gina - it is coming to dvd, i forget where i saw the listing about it to verify the date for you but i believe it's sometime in august..
I'll have to wait until July when it comes to Kansas City, MO, but I will definietly drive there to see it.
I have been anticipating this movie for months. I will be seeing it this weekend and if it's as good as it sounds, probably more than once.
I am going to see it on Sunday in SF with 3 of my friends. It looks like its going to be a great movie, I will report back on Monday.
Hi, just came back from the premiere of Little Ashes, ah, I adore me some Robert P. Unbelievably sexy and artistically brilliant! Stay-tuned, I'll be talking about Robert's,[Dali] character, on Chicago Enneagram Examiner
I saw it a couple of months ago in Ottawa and LOVED IT!!!
I had to see it again and again and got the DVD from UK and know it will be released in America too.
It is a magnificent movie, and both Pattinson and Beltran are extraordinary in it. They are spot on and extremely sensitive and vulnerable in their performances. The rest of the cast is very good too.
Very well made, daring, heartbreaking!
On my top list now, without a doubt!
The director tried a new thing: instead of filming the actors speaking in Spanish and English subtitles provided, he had all the actors speaking English with a thick Spanoish accent. All our theaters in the US suffer from terrible acoustics (I saw it at the first class Anjelica cinema in Houston, Texas) and the generation of baby boomers suffer from hearing loss of which I am one. The dialogue was muddy and unintelligible. The filming caught all the beauty of Spain which inspired Lorca in his beautiful poems, but I, a Cuban American, fluent in both languages found myself missing out on the dialogue and the reading of the poems. Being a long ardent reader of Federico Garcia Lorca I had a terrible and dissapointing time with the movie.
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