"...love me"
acting. I'm sick to death of people suffering elegantly in English country
gardens.' "A Month in the Country' had its share of pastoral romanticism,
but scratch the surface and a very different picture emerges, a vision
of alienation and fear, of increasingly noisy desperation. Dispensing with
the cosy period trappings, these same characteristics become more and more
evident in Firth's powerful work in the BBC's harrowing Falklands play
'Tumbledown' and his new film, the Anglo-Argentine "Apartment Zero."
first part
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"I really lived
through "Tumbledown", and this film was like an apology for me, a chance
to go to Argentina and try to understand the place." Argentina is one of
Firth's obsessions; another is his work, which he discusses passionately.
'Neurotics and paranoids and villains are the hunting ground for an actor.
As soon as I see a character with problems - it's something to play: you
get to do the walk and the twitches... ' Firth plays Adrian, the quintessential
Englishman abroad: arrogant, repressed, alone to the point of madness...
'You can take the hang-ups and see it to its conclusion; it's like splashing
around in the mud, much more exciting than putting on a winged collar and
walking around with your hands in your pockets.'
Not surprisingly
for a film that goes for broke in every scene and frequently gets there,
'Apartment Zero' has had an unusually mixed response, winning festival
prizes and comparisons with Hitchcock, Chabrol and Polanski, and inspiring
a number of walk-outs. 'Oh God,' groans Firth when I ask what he thought
of the final cut, 'yes, I was pleased because I expected not to be. Despite
odd pretences the film has, ultimately I was pleased because I found it
very truthful to the experience I had in Argentina. Have you ever heard
real Argentinean tango? It's unfulfilled, very scrappy... there's a romantic
yearning, the Parisian-sounding accordion, but the direction it's going
in is positively weird - I think the film has that quality.'
'Positively
weird' could also apply to another new project, "Wings of Fame'. Something
like "After-Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous', it is set on an isle of
purgatory where your continuing fame amongst the living determines the
standard of your accommodation... Firth describes it as 'very strange and
very funny'. It was directed by a Czech nuclear physicist, and also involves
Peter O'Toole, Busby's Babes, Einstein and Lassie!
The ace in
this had of jokers will be Milos Forman's version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses',
'Valmont'. set for a November release in the States. Firth is already playing
down the inevitable comparison with "Dangerous Liaisons'. 'The two films
are as different as I am from John Malkovich; he plays loveable rogue...
I don't'. He also scoffs at the idea of a career boost: 'It's a silly notion.
Each job is its own enterprise, it's a very personal process. More people
will probably know who I am after "Valmont", so big deal, they'll forget
again in a few months... as long as it doesn't close any doors.' |
