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Notes on
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Scheduled to ship April 17, 2007
Radio Times Magazine -- UK
Note:
This is the same interview that appeared in
Entertainment Weekly Thanks to Lisa S, UK, for scanning and sharing this
Dame Judi on The Oprah Winfrey Show
Click here to watch the WMP Video Clip "Meet the Nominees" on the Oprah Winfrey Website Thanks to Connie E, USA, for first bringing this to my attention
Well, I'll be Damed By Valentine Low, Evening Standard 06.02.07
Femmes noir: Dame Judi Dench and Dame Helen Mirren photographed for a fictional film celebrating the art of Hollywood's old gangster movies Click here to read the Vanity Fair's Oscar Tribute So there were these two dames in a car. One of them, well, she looks like the Queen and has got a leather trenchcoat and a slouch hat over one eye and is driving this car with a big steering wheel, like it was an old Studebaker from The Big Sleep or something. The other, she has got a real mean expression on her, like the one that broad in the James Bond pictures always gives 007. From the look on their faces, it wouldn't take a private dick to guess that these dames are up to no good. Did I say Dames? That's right - it is Dame Judi Dench and Dame Helen Mirren in a still from that classic movie... er ... well, actually not from a film that anyone has ever heard of. Instead, it is from Vanity Fair magazine's Hollywood issue, which celebrates Tinseltown with a mock-up of the ultimate film noir. Entitled Killers Kill, Dead Men Die, the fantasy movie has the sort of cast list that would make the average studio boss think he had died and gone to celluloid heaven. Apart from Ben Affleck as The Shamus and Robert de Niro as The Racketeer, it includes Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Alba, Alec Baldwin, Sharon Stone and Jack Nicholson as The Killer. The stills - shot by Annie Leibovitz in collaboration with Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and Vanity Fair's fashion and style director Michael Roberts - are a tribute to movies from the Forties and Fifties such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. Mr Roberts said: "I threw in every cliché I could remember." As well as Dame Judi, 72, and Dame Helen, 61, the shoot features a clutch of nominees for this year's Oscars, including Penelope Cruz, Forest Whitaker, Kate Winslet, Peter O'Toole and Jennifer Hudson. Leibovitz said: "With a new cast and new set for virtually every shot, the project took on the scope of a real Hollywood film. "It wasn't about each person being a star. It was about the profession, the craft of acting. It was about a community of actors. "These people are the best at what they do and they brought the best out of each other. It was beautiful to see the relationships between them." Zsigmond, who worked on modern films noirs including The Long Goodbye, The Two Jakes and The Black Dahlia, said: "For me, the most interesting movies are those that use a noir technique - a lot of hard light and shadows. Nearly all my movies are more about shadows than light - even the comedies." For movie buffs only: did anyone spot the movie referenced in the picture above? It's Out Of The Past (1947), with Robert Mitchum and Virginia Huston.
Dame Judi on a drama high Herald Sun -- Australia -- February 04, 2007 In her latest silver screen adventure, Dame Judi Dench, 72, plays a north London history teacher who develops a more than passing interest in a new academic recruit to the school in which she teaches in Notes on a Scandal. Q: This film is based on Zoe Heller's book. Did you know it already? A: I did, yes, which is rather unlike me. Normally, with roles I run on instinct, though when Michael was alive, he was always my reader. Nowadays, I often give scripts to friends, but not everyone can do it, and I know I can't. Mike just knew what to pick. He'd say, `Read that line; read that little bit,' and I knew straight away how right he was. That's a facility I've got to somehow pick up myself to be able to do. But in this case, Geoffrey Palmer, Dench's co-star in the hugely popular TV series As Time Goes By, had given me the book to read so immediately I knew the story, and, well, it was one of those parts where, at the end of the day, you took all that make-up and stuff off and thought, `my God, I'm glad I'm back to normal. Q: What was it that made you say yes to the venture? A: "Well, working with Richard; we have such a history - Amy's View in London and New York, Hamlet, Iris, a TV Cherry Orchard, in which I played Ranevskaya. I seem to have just known Richard all my life, really, and he's so reliable - no, reliable isn't the word; that's not the word at all. He's rocklike, totally dependable, though even dependable sounds too boring a word. The point is, you just look at him and you know straight away what he wants the next time. I don't know the word for that. And then, of course, there was Cate Blanchett, for whom my admiration is completely undimmed. Q: Notes on a Scandal also gives you a chance to play someone nastier than has been your norm. A: I suppose, though Barbara's not a villain; she's just a victim of her own circumstances. I know several people like that, and I'm sure you do, too: people who as far as you can see never have any kind of relationship with somebody or are just desperately needy. They usually result in having animals, of course, and that's why animals are such a comfort to us all. Q: Do you watch rushes or dailies? A: I know there are some actors who know the business of film acting so supremely that they will also watch every single take on a thing. Now, if I did that - and I know it makes you better at it, I know it does - but it would make me also deeply self-conscious. I know really good actors do do all that with the rushes and so on, but with me it's about feeling that you're coming in at the right level. It's the judging of it that is always tough: where you should come in at, though it helped of course that Patrick was there a lot and, of course, Richard all the time. So we rehearsed and then we just did it. Q: People often seem surprised that you continue to return to the stage, as if your film career would have put paid to appearing live - the way it has, for instance, for Anthony Hopkins or Albert Finney. A: Oh, God, the more films I do, the more the theatre is absolutely like an old friend; I think, thank heavens there is something I can have more goes at. With Absolute Hell, I wish I was doing it tonight - wasn't it a wonderful play, and sad and funny? I know it sounds fey, but the theatre is always a salvation; I think it's something for our souls. I just think it's so essential to make people just forget themselves for a bit or maybe be more aware of themselves or be angry or enlightened or irritated or something: it keeps the nerve ends alive." Q: For legions of admirers, you're first and foremost Bond's commandant, the wonderfully named M. A: Indeed. Pierce (Brosnan) and I joined together; we were new boy and girl together; I did the four with him and this one with Dan (Craig). And isn't he stunning - just stunning? How can he do that with all that stuff being chucked at him in the press beforehand? With Casino Royale, I think M had a bit more of the pizzazz that she had in GoldenEye, and we were able to make the relationship quite strong because of the fact that he was so young and wasn't yet 007 status. On this one, I shot in Prague and Nassau; it was thrilling, absolutely thrilling. When I make those movies, I'm six feet tall. "
The LA Times -- January 24, 2007
Thanks to Connie E, USA, for scanning and sending this
Fox Searchlight Blips -- Interview with Dame Judi and Cate Blanchett Thanks to Emma for bringing this to my attention
Two New Trailers Available to Watch Box Office Data Sunday, February 11th The Judi Dench/Cate Blanchett-starrer "Notes on a Scandal" fell only 10% to gross $1.5 million. On 649 screens, the film's per-theater average was $2,427, putting its cume at $13.9 million. Sunday -- January 21st Weekly Total =
$1,167,702 Sunday -- January 14th "Notes on a Scandal," Richard Eyre's juicy drama about the testy relationship between schoolteachers Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, increased from 93 theaters to 200 and saw its average hold at a strong $9,666, less than a 30% decline from the previous weekend's $12,100. But it saw its four-day weekend gross climb about 85%, to $2.6 million from the previous three-day weekend take of $1.125 million. Sunday -- January 7th Notes on a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in a story of a teacher who has an affair with a student, took in $1.1 million in 93 theaters for a strong $11,328 per screen average. It goes to more markets this Friday (01/12). Sunday -- December 31st
Notes on a
Scandal was well back but still performed very well with more than
$400,000 in 22 theaters for an average of $18,840. 64th Annual Golden Globe Nominations ... December 14, 2006 Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and screenwriter Patrick Marber all received nominations this morning for the psychological thriller Notes on a Scandal Judi Dench, actress in a drama, Notes on a Scandal: "I am incredibly grateful that the HFPA has been able to see past my sinister deeds as the deliciously wicked Barbara Covett by acknowledging my work. This is also recognition of Patrick Marber's thrilling screenplay, Richard Eyre's impeccable direction, the ever-astonishing Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy, and our incredible cast and crew. I am proud to be in the same company as Penelope, Maggie, Helen, and Kate." Monday, January 15th, NBC Click here for the complete list of nominees
Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) Award Nominations Hollywood Reporter -- January 4, 2007 Nominations in the leading actress category are Penelope Cruz for "Volver," Judi Dench for "Notes on a Scandal," Helen Mirren for "The Queen," Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada" and Kate Winslet for "Little Children." Sunday, January 28th on TNT / TBS Click on the above link for a complete list of nominees
Evening Standard British Film Awards Guardian UK -- Sunday, February 4, 2007 LONDON - Daniel Craig was honored but Helen Mirren was denied Sunday at the 34th annual Evening Standard British Film Awards. Craig was named best actor for "Casino Royale," his debut outing as James Bond. Craig, who has won both critical praise and box office favor as the first blond Bond, is also up for the best-actor prize at next week's British Academy Film Awards. Mirren, who is an Academy Awards favorite for her turn as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen," lost the best actress prize to Judi Dench, awarded for her portrayal of a predatory schoolteacher in "Notes on a Scandal." Click here to read the entire article
BBC Entertainment News Online -- January 12, 2007 Dame Judi has been nominated for Best Actress The winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, on 11 February. Click here for the entire list of nominations
79th Academy Awards Nominations BBC Entertainment News Online -- January 23, 2007 British actresses in Oscars race British actresses Dame Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and Dame Judi Dench will go head to head for the best actress Oscar at this year's Academy Awards. They face competition from Penelope Cruz and Meryl Streep. "I'm in frighteningly good company. It is very nice of the Queen to allow me in," said Dame Judi, referring to Dame Helen's celebrated role in The Queen. The 79th Academy Awards ceremony will be held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on 25 February. It will be televised on ABC. CBS News Online
Best adapted screenplay
Click here for the full list of nominees
Judi Dench continues to earn Academy's respect
Click here to visit the CTV Online
Webpage of this interview Jan. 25 2007 -- CTV.ca News Staff The Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences continues its love affair with Dame Judi Dench, presenting her with her sixth Oscar nomination for her leading role in "Notes on a Scandal." It's an affair that has blossomed quickly. Dench, 72, has had a respectable, five-decade long career on the British stage and TV. Yet her film roles went mostly unnoticed by North American audiences until about 10 years ago, when she turned heads with her performance in "Mrs. Brown," directed by John Madden. Since then, she has managed to defy the Hollywood notion that there are no decent roles for actresses over 40, scoring leading roles in such films as "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and "Iris" -- both of which earned her Oscar nods. In "Notes on a Scandal," Dench plays a lonely and manipulative schoolteacher who develops an unhealthy obsession with a fellow teacher (played by Cate Blanchett), who is having an affair with a teenage student. Dench has said the role was one of the hardest she has ever played and that she found it a relief to step out of the character at the end of every day of filming. "I enjoyed it, but it was difficult to do," she told Canada AM from London. It was only the attentive direction of Richard Eyre that helped steer her through the dark story's rough waters, she says. "I enjoyed it hugely working with Richard, who I know very, very well," she said. "There could be many, many ways that we could have played so many of those scenes. But Richard has impeccable taste. And so yes, it was wonderful fun to do it - although it's a grim story." Critics have said Dench's performance is matched perfectly by that of the mesmerizing Blanchett, who also earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role. Dench found it a pleasure to finally work with Blanchett. "We were in 'The Shipping News' together but actually our paths never crossed. And so I was thrilled to work with her as well, absolutely thrilled." Dench has become the kind of actress who somehow manages to lend a film gravitas by her mere presence, if even for the briefest of scenes in films such as "Shakespeare in Love" and the James Bond films. But it was the former film that won Dench her only Oscar, for playing Elizabeth I, and it is the latter films that allow her the wittiest of lines. In this year's "Casino Royale," Dench gets to poke fun at the anachronistic nature of the James Bond franchise itself, declaring, "[Expletive], I miss the Cold War." "Yes, I wasn't allowed to say that for China," Dench remarked. "I had to re-dub it. It was: 'God, I miss the old times.' Not quite the same thing." There is but one disappointing aspect of her Oscar nomination, she says: she will likely not be able to attend the Feb. 25 ceremony because she will be undergoing knee surgery.
The Sunday Times -- January 21, 2007
A class act With a sinister turn as a schoolmarm on the edge, Judi Dench is stepping out of her comfort zone. That might just deserve an Oscar, says Matt Wolf Even on market day, which is Thursday, Stratford-upon-Avon seems quintessentially sleepy, and it is doubly so on a misty Thursday morning just before Christmas. A chill in the air seems to be keeping most people indoors. This isn’t quite the setting in which you’d expect to find one of our national treasures, Judi Dench, in the run-up to what will almost certainly be her sixth Oscar nomination in nine years. If Dench were American, she would doubtless be out on the awards campaign trail, like it or not. But then, if Dench were American, she probably wouldn’t have had the acting career she has had. So here she is, tucked away in her long-standing home, the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in a musical, chatting away over coffee and croissants at a high-street chain cafe. Dench is so thoroughbred a stage creature that the film part of her CV seems like a cumulative surprise. But surprising it definitely is. One has to go back to the early days of the Academy Awards, and Bette Davis, to find another performer given a comparable number of nods in quite so compressed a time. (Dench won her prize at the second hurdle, for 1998’s Shakespeare in Love.) And neither Davis nor another multiple nominee, Katharine Hepburn, were in their sixties before international renown came to call. But nothing Dench has done on screen has been more unexpected than her latest role, as the embittered teacher Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal, based on Zoë Heller’s 2003 novel. An actress who has been pretty well domesticated by her public — that’s the power of television sitcom for you — plays someone mean and not a little bit mad. And human, too. When Dench and I first met, backstage at the Aldwych Theatre in 1990, during Sam Mendes’s revival of The Cherry Orchard, she spoke then of her desire, “if at all possible, to choose the most unlikely role — that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do”. The theme pops up again as we munch our croissants, with showgoers for that day’s matinée performance of Merry Wives — The Musical doing a polite double take as they clock that the very person who has brought them into town to begin with is there in the window, looking right back at them. Up close, Dench transmits warmth, if forgivable impatience at the time that is being eaten out of her schedule, even in Stratford. American film journalists and television crews are already finding their way here. But for the moment, a bright scarf swathing her cream top, she settles in like someone primed for a good morning gossip. “I know several people like Barbara, as I’m sure you do — people who, as far as you can see, never have any kind of relationship with anybody, or are just desperately needy.” She laughs, keen not to get too gloomy on what will be a two-performance day at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, around the corner. “Those sorts of people usually resort to having animals, of course, and that’s why animals are such comforts to us all.” It makes sense for Dench to have seized this role with both hands, not to mention a cunning fury. Behind it are the screenwriter Patrick Marber and the director Richard Eyre — as with Dench, theatre animals. Playing a stern-faced school stalwart whose apparent sympathy and brisk efficiency are tilting toward psychosis, Dench illuminates for keeps the part of a lonely north London teacher who takes a comely new recruit, Cate Blanchett’s Sheba Hart, into her care — only to crack when it is made apparent that the adulterous Sheba may in fact care more for her family, husband Bill Nighy included, as well as a certain pupil. Dench has long confessed to not being a good reader of material. That gift is just one of many that prompts a mention of Michael Williams, her husband of 30 years, who died in 2001 of lung cancer and is buried in nearby Charlecote. (So, too, are his parents and Dench’s mother.) But Dench’s co-star in As Time Goes By, Geoffrey Palmer, had already given her Heller’s novel when the producer Scott Rudin approached her to do a film version. “Yes, that’s rather unlike me,” she laughs, about a scenario where she knew exactly what was being proposed. And, as with so much in her career, it was the talent involved that prompted her to accept. “I knew the story, but it was working with Richard, who I seem to have known all my life” — this is their fifth collaboration — “and also working with Cate, for whom my admiration is completely undimmed.” What about the appeal of at last playing a baddie? “Barbara’s not a villain. She’s just a victim of her own circumstance,” Dench says, in quite reasonable defence of a role that finds her narrowing her face in near-mutinous intensity as she discovers that her cherished Sheba has been having it off with a male student who, even worse, is under-age. That part is played by the striking Irish newcomer Andrew Simpson, whose amorous cavorting with Blanchett must have made him the envy of his schoolmates. Dench speaks of him most fondly: “He used to bless himself before each scene, since he’s from a good Catholic family. He was a good sport.” So one assumes. “People always say, ‘Do you like the character or not?’, but I don’t think you make that kind of judgment. You never make that judgment. There are things you like and dislike, as in everything. It’s what makes everybody so interesting. There are traits to somebody you may not like, but you still love them, as in a relationship. But you don’t actually categorically come down on one thing and think, ‘Oh, I like this, and I don’t like that.’ You just try to grade all the colours of the person so that it adds up to a believ- able whole.” Still, there’s a brilliant logic to casting Dench that it isn’t up to her to explain, and her colleagues are happy to do it for her. “It helps that Judi is very loved,” Heller tells me, “because one thing I wouldn’t want is for Barbara to be a stage villain. There’s a kind of residue of everything Judi means, particularly to a British audience, that helps make her a more human, sympathetic person, so that she’s not just a glinty-eyed old bag bringing death and destruction to all around her.” Rudin, in turn, anatomises the appeal of putting Dench in a part 180 degrees from the role of Iris Murdoch, or the financially reckless, emotionally impulsive actress in David Hare’s Amy’s View, on both of which he worked with Dench. “I wrote Judi a letter,” Rudin recalls, “at the moment when she was thinking whether to do the movie or not, and said, ‘Basically, everybody you’ve played has been one version or another of a star in the world that they’re in — but you’ve never played anybody like the audience. This is your chance to play somebody who the audience feels is them.’” Which probably isn’t the case with queens Victoria or Elizabeth I, or even Mrs Henderson in 2005. Yet that empathy with and for the audience is part of Dench’s stock in trade, as I’ve discovered in various public interviews with her. The force field of affection is palpable. But in Notes on a Scandal, it extends to Dench’s ability, as Rudin says, “to play Barbara as someone who’s in the world, engaged, and isn’t some sort of recluse or shut-in. Judi’s in that world alone, playing the gigantic deficit of her loneliness, but she hasn’t made Barbara a victim at all. You feel she’s a spiky character who has sort of made her bed and ended up in a place of her own making”. Dench, in turn, invokes by way of comparison Lady Macbeth, whom she famously played for the RSC opposite Ian McKellen: “She’s not a grim person when she comes on. She’s a person you can relate to, and suddenly she says, ‘For goodness’ sake, give me the strength to go through with this.’ And it’s the same with Barbara: it’s all to do with human failings and human strengths.” It is the humanity communicated time and again from Dench, whether in full command as James Bond’s M (“When I make those films, I’m 6ft tall”) or, that very afternoon, prompting cheers from a full house as Mistress Quickly, in the same week that this musical version of Merry Wives has been roundly, if not altogether fairly, dismissed in the press. That’s not to say that she can’t and won’t speak her mind. Regarding the reviews, Dench talks of “not wanting anyone coming and fracturing things and saying, ‘Well, this and this and this and this.’ We know pretty well, and our job is either to preserve what we’ve got or work on getting it better. It’s no good just a lot of people throwing the shit at us — there’s no point”. The point for Dench, you feel, is in continuing the work that, more than ever, is her life, especially with Williams no longer by her side. There’s talk of her finally filming, later this year, the television adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel Cranford that went south a season or two ago, while her recent revival of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever, for Peter Hall, may re-emerge on Broadway. Before anything else, though, will come surgery on a long-problematic knee and yet another go at an Oscar. She smiles when the subject comes up: “You’ve got to have a nomination to go to the Oscars; I don’t have a nomination, and you do have to have one.” What she doesn’t add is the unspoken word “yet”. When it comes to modesty, as with talent, Judi Dench is worth taking note of. Notes on a Scandal opens on February 2; Merry Wives — The Musical runs until February 10 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Dame Judi Dench learns by listening
Thanks to Connie E, USA, for scanning and sending these images from the Newspaper The actress finds empathy, even in the darkest character. By Kim Murphy, LA Times Staff Writer -- December 24, 2006 Stratford-upon-Avon, England — SHE is probably the most popular British actress in a generation, a standing earned less by her storied appearances here on the Shakespearean stage, possibly, than by her years as reigning queen of the sitcoms on BBC. It has been estimated that an election for queen would send Elizabeth II packing and put Dame Judi Dench in Buckingham Palace. Is it modesty, then, that leaves the 72-year-old actress, recipient of nearly every acting award that Hollywood, New York and London have to offer, perpetually afraid of being out of work? Reluctant to take a break, shy to ask for parts, working till her knees go out because she's afraid she'll get stuck waiting for the phone to ring? "It's just wanting to be employed in my case," she says simply. "Trevor Nunn once said to me: 'You're always in tears on the first night.' And I said, 'I'm so frightened that nobody's going to ask me to do the next thing.' I get so fearful about that kind of thing. You know, when you get in your 70s, there's lots of other people waiting there, just here —" and she flutters a hand to a place behind her shoulder, just out of view, to an apparently familiar presence. "And they're all waiting, waiting for just … that … little … push…." Needing to be needed, sudden loss and loneliness — Michael Williams, her husband of 30 years and habitual costar, died in 2001 — these are emotions the unremittingly sociable actress brought to "Notes on a Scandal," the story of a spinster's monstrous loneliness and the calculated damage she inflicts in her search for connections — a story that might have been Dench's first cinematic turn as a grand villain. Except that Dench injects the admittedly nasty role with her own improbable vulnerability. Adapted from Zoë Heller's Mann Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, "Notes on a Scandal," opening Wednesday, also stars Cate Blanchett as the bohemian young art teacher who serves as both catalyst and victim to the elder Dench's predatory friendship. Anyone who has followed the Mary Kay LeTourneau saga on the West Coast will recognize the gritty, delirious affair Blanchett's Sheba plunges into with a 15-year-old student, the dark secret that serves as the vehicle by which the aging, battle-ax history teacher played by Dench catches her newfound friend in a web of obligation and unspoken threat. Clash of expectations SET in a decaying London secondary school, the plot, under the direction of Richard Eyre (who also directed Dench in "Iris"), swoops toward disaster almost from the first halting, touching encounters between the two women, each needy in their own way, each propelled by conflicting passions that spin them like pinwheels into inevitable and disastrous conflict with each other. The elderly Barbara Covett's life of serial solitude in the throb of busy London, in which going to the laundromat can constitute a weekend's events and the casual brush of a bus driver's hand sends spasms through her groin, comes up against the warm chaos of Sheba's domain, a large, fashionable flat shared with her much older husband, petulant teenager daughter and son with Down's syndrome. Even before Barbara's discovery of Sheba's affair begins to render them, as she hopefully reflects, "bound by the secrets we share," her arrival at Sheba's apartment for an introductory Sunday lunch in a stiff, newly bought dress and carefully coiffed hair puts her painfully out of place amid the casual jeans and sweat shirts of her hosts — a small point, but one Dench plays with painful precision. "We took a long time over the look of her," Dench said last week in an interview at the old Royal Shakespeare Company theater here, where she is playing in "Merry Wives — The Musical." Dench herself manages to be elegant at 5 feet, 3 inches, wearing a soft-draped cream cashmere jacket over a brown wool sweater and trousers. (She still makes many "sexiest actress" lists, not only because of her blazing film role as Lady Macbeth some 27 years ago, but also in no small part thanks to her relentless humor, warm intelligence and often-intimidating blue eyes.) For the colorless Barbara, Dench pulled a cap over her lustrously silver pixie top to create the impression of bald spots under thin, flyaway frizz. The script called for Barbara to have gray underwear in her drawer; Dench balked, arguing that women with flawless underwear, not to mention great manicures and good cars, can be deeply damaged nonetheless. But the clunky shoes, the shapeless skirts — they created the foundation on which Dench fashioned a woman almost everyone would find a way to dislike. "The actual physical kind of demeanor of her. I mean, if you wear a kind of type of shoes and you wear a type of clothes, it informs the way you move. Your surroundings inform the way you move. The awkwardness of her, you know. She felt very awkward in Sheba's house. There were those terrible clothes she got dressed up in, and obviously she'd just been to the hairdresser's. The daughter saying, 'Are you going out somewhere?' And her having to say, 'I'm going out somewhere later on.' The unbearable thing of knowing that you've misjudged entirely." But sweet in its way, no? "Not too sweet. Sad. Sad for her." Dench's previous cinematic roles bear not the slightest resemblance. She won an Oscar for her eight minutes as Queen Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare in Love"; more recently, she portrayed author Iris Murdoch during her descent into Alzheimer's disease, the sexy spymaster M in "Casino Royale," and the irrepressible wartime theater owner in "Mrs. Henderson Presents." "Judi Dench is universally loved, and people usually identify with this magnificently generous, beautiful and brilliant person who often plays monarchs and has tremendous personal dignity," Eyre said in the production notes. "So to experience Judi Dench being caustic and acerbic and rather ungenerous we felt would be a wonderful, bracing shock. I mean, her portrait of Barbara is still deeply vulnerable, but this is not a nice woman, and I think from an audience's point of view to see Judi playing that will be quite refreshing." Dench said the devious Barbara was merely a different character, not a different process. "People say do you like the character or dislike her? It isn't a question of liking or disliking. You just try to make the person real. Understandable," Dench said. "That's our job, of course. I mean, do you do crosswords? Well, you know how you can look at a crossword in the morning, and then put it down and come back to it in the afternoon, and suddenly fill in about four or five clues? Well now, that's not a coincidence. That's because you've seen it, and that incredible subconscious takes over. It's like the way we can come to a decision about something when you wake up after having had a very good night's sleep. Somehow, it works things out for you. "I've known it when being directed, and somebody says something. With a lot of directors I have a shorthand, a code with. And they can say just one word, and I'll know exactly what they mean, and that's fed in and it kind of goes through like your computer, it kicks through something, and it might just bring out the shade that they require in a performance." Stephen Frears, who worked with Dench on "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and a couple of theater productions, counseled her with two words: "Just careful," he'd say, and then tell her what she was supposed to be careful on. "And it's enough to just inform each little thing…. As I say, I can't do it without help." Likewise, she said, she learned from Blanchett. "She's got film acting," said Dench, who has spent most of her career — and the happiest moments of it — on stage. "She has, somebody said to me such a long time ago: Less is more. But you only have to work with somebody like Cate to realize that less is more. My first job as Ophelia [in 'Hamlet'] at the Old Vic, I was the maddest, mad as a cut snake I was. But in actual fact, I need only to have chosen a very small thing to do to signify her madness. And Cate has that down to such a degree. You just know how to play a scene with her. I think she's sublime, I do." Common sense of loss IN the role of Barbara, Dench clearly finds her character unappetizing yet can empathize with her need for human contact, having lost her husband, a costar in the long-running BBC comedy series "A Fine Romance." Of course, she says, that loss came after a lifetime of comfortable companionship, whereas Barbara never had a husband. "She's had friendship she's obviously overpowered. You hear about her friend she's had in the past. She obviously kind of smothered her with affection, and in fact sometimes people have such a need in them, not only to be cared for, but to care for somebody. She needs a friend, but she also needs somebody to do things for, who needs her in return." All roles, Dench has come to believe, have to start from somewhere inside, the mental memory chip of emotion without which, her late husband always counseled, it was impossible to effectively project emotion on stage. Dench, for years, argued with him. Then she realized he was right. "Michael said your vision can't be greater than what you understand as a person. You understand within your vision — anger, jealousy, greed, whatever you have — it's the subconscious that does that. You hope that a kind of picture-book person inside you is taking those things down that you can then call on." Coming back to Stratford, where Dench lived for more than a decade as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she raised her daughter and where her closest family members are buried, has been a comfort, she said. So has playing to a live audience, which so far has responded enthusiastically to Dench's Mrs. Quickly, who in a departure from the traditional "Merry Wives" is hankering after fat Falstaff. "Somebody asked me not long ago, does the audience make any difference? I said, the audience is the only person you're doing it for. Otherwise, I'd be at home. I wouldn't have to come out this evening," she said. "Every audience is different. It's as if they get together beforehand and conspire. It's as if they think, 'We're going to be a very quiet audience,' or, 'We're going to be a very, very noisy audience.' They take on a personality, and you always know within a few minutes what kind of audience it's going to be. And they teach you something. They teach you everything about how to play. You listen to them like mad."
REVIEW By John Hartl -- Film critic -- MSNBC -- December 21,2006 “I’m Barbara.” By the end of “Notes on a Scandal,” Judi Dench has turned those words into the most threatening announcement in the English language. Playing a spinster schoolteacher who specializes in manipulating younger women, she suggests a shriveled, know-it-all vampire who has hung around for too many centuries. The movie is one of the guilty pleasures of the season — it’s essentially an old-fashioned horror film, designed for audiences who prefer simple menace to buckets of blood — and it allows Dench and Cate Blanchett plenty of scenery to chew. They should give Helen Mirren a bit of competition at the Oscars, even if it’s token. Looking about 20 years older than she does in “Casino Royale” (the camera deliberately turns her wrinkles into dunes), Dench doesn’t immediately unveil Barbara’s motives. She waits and watches as a new teacher, Sheba (Blanchett), makes her way at their London school, befriended by co-workers Barbara can’t tolerate even for a luncheon date. Eventually Sheba and Barbara become close friends, as the talkative Sheba spills out far too much information about her home life, which includes a much older husband (Bill Nighy) and two children, one of them with Downs syndrome. When Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with Steven (Andrew Simpson), an aggressive 15-year-old student, she feels both left out and excited. Most of the characters are either victims or vipers, and of course the vipers get the best lines. Barbara uses academic intimidation to keep the headmaster and her fellow teachers in line; then she turns wickedly flirtatious when she’s taming Sheba. She also tries to work her way into the graces of Sheba’s family, though the husband and kids are minimally impressed. Steven, who seduces Sheba by claiming to be abused at home, seems almost too worldly for 15. But then he is, as Barbara says, a “tower of testosterone,” and he’s willing to use all his wits to satisfy his lust. When he’s scored, Barbara, who does teach history, accurately predicts what he’ll do next to Sheba. The plot, adapted by Patrick Marber (“Closer”) from a 2003 novel by Zoe Heller, takes a melodramatic turn when the lonely Barbara faces a crisis with her cat. This happens at the same moment that Sheba is dramatically unavailable, and Barbara makes a scene that couldn’t be more public — or contrived. The director, Richard Eyre (who guided Dench through “Iris”), has a tough time steering the rest of the picture in a credible direction. At one point, he seems to have thrown up his hands and let the actors go so over the top that they can never find their way back. Nighy throws a tantrum, while Blanchett splashes on grotesque eye makeup and appears to be channeling Linda Blair’s throat contortions in “The Exorcist.” The one actor who maintains control is Dench. Barbara also has her angry moments, but Dench mostly underplays them, allowing the character’s monstrous distortions of reality to surface without pushing them. It’s a chilling touch in a film that nearly loses it.
Connie E, USA -- Account of this film -- December 19, 2006 She's not Jean Hardcastle,
that's for sure! Barbara Covett is played convincingly by a great actress It's Judi's chance to play Iago, Shakespeare's male villain in Othello. Iago gets mad at Othello for passing over him to promote the less qualified Cassio. Barbara, feeling slighted by Sheba (Cate Blanchett), responds out of proportion. If you have read the book, you still don't know how the film ends. I didn't find any of the characters to be someone I wanted to hug - not even the hapless cat (portrayed convincingly by a tabby who sat still and did nothing - probably as directed by Richard Eyre.) The plot does keep your interest, and I always look forward to seeing Judi's latest project. Just don't expect to love her character unless you're a very forgiving person.
Judi, Judi, Judi! I’ll Take Notes
By Rex Reed -- December 19, 2006 -- New York Observer I know that they’ve been sleeping. I know they’re not awake. But I hoped in the year-end glut of holiday movies that the Hollywood Santa would be good for goodness’ sake. Instead of a turkey with trimmings, we got a bag of stale Chicken McNuggets. When the people who make movies yelled “It’s a wrap!”, they were not talking ribbons and bows. In the dozens of films I have seen in the past weeks, I have still seen nothing better than Babel and nothing worse than Borat. In keeping with past history, a mediocre year ended with some distinguished performances in films of little or no consequence. In this final column of 2006, here is the residue, followed by my annual choices of the Best and Worst of what happened in the last 365 days at the movies. Notes on a Scandal wins my prize for the best acting of the year. It’s a film of scalding intensity, with a hypnotic, detailed, three-dimensional performance by Judi Dench that is positively historic! Yes, everyone knows she is arguably the greatest actress alive today, but nothing she has ever done will prepare you for this. In a role unlike any she has ever tackled, Dame Judi plays Barbara Covett, the antagonist of Zoë Heller’s acclaimed novel What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal, a lonely, repressed, aging and embittered veteran history teacher with lesbian tendencies who lives an isolated and barren existence with only her sick cat for company. Barbara yearns so desperately for companionship that when a new arts teacher—a feisty, attractive free spirit named Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett at her best)—joins the faculty, Barbara likes what she sees and spins a deceptive web of seduction that takes both women to places dark, dangerous and beyond imagination. Let the emotional fencing begin. The doughy, cynical spinster’s infatuation with the tweedy blond novice progresses gingerly at first, as Barbara weaves Sheba into her counsel, pouring tea and dispensing advice on everything from choosing the right friends to classroom strategy (“Teaching is crowd control”). Analyzing everyone within spitting distance with one withering glance, Barbara is so humorous and bitchy that the naïve Sheba becomes disarmingly friendly and candid, unloading her intimate feelings to Barbara too fast, unaware that her new mentor is writing it all down in a journal. Sheba is married to a gregarious lawyer (Bill Nighy), the mother of a son with Down syndrome, and too vulnerable for her own good. When she makes the mistake of having a secret sexual affair with one of her 15-year-old students, Barbara seizes her moment of superiority. First threatening, then protecting her younger friend by not telling the authorities, Barbara cleverly places Sheba in her debt. It proves to be the ultimate tool that a masterful control freak dreams about. By the time Sheba finally ends the affair for good, she’s totally under the influence of “trusty old Barb.” Under the guise of friendship, Barbara maps out her plans for a final sexual conquest like a general strategizing a battle, and extends her power to poisoning Sheba’s marriage, alienating her loyalty to her children and destroying her life, career, reputation and self-esteem. The result is as much a thriller as it is a character study. The finale will turn your knees to jelly. Greatness informs every scene. The brilliant screenplay is by Patrick Marber, who wrote Closer. The sensitive, illuminating direction is by Richard Eyre, the former head of the National Theatre and one of the world’s leading theater and film directors. (He directed Stage Beauty and Dame Judi in Iris.) The camerawork by the legendary Chris Menges captures a mood of suspense that is visually unshakable. And the performances boil the blood in your veins and freeze the breath in your throat at the same time. Watching Judi Dench orchestrate the ultimate downfall of another human being with diabolical cruelty and endearing charm is devastating. Ms. Blanchett holds her own, building to the explosion within her heart with a rage that is shocking. The internal complexity of their performances will leave you shattered. In a weak year, everything about Notes on a Scandal is electrifying.
Review of Notes on a Scandal
by Malinda Lo, December 20, 2006 -- AfterEllen.com Online Review Early on in the new film Notes on a Scandal, aging British schoolteacher Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) looks down through a high-school window to watch dozens of young students pouring into the school yard. We see her from the vantage point of someone standing on the ground; her face is small and somewhat obscured by the glass, but the look of disdain on her face is clear. It is an image that calls to mind the sinister Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, at once trapped inside, yearning to be free, yet dismissive of the outside world. Barbara Covett peering through the window — like Mrs. Danvers, longing for her dead mistress — is symbolic of the madwoman in the attic, a metaphor that has long carried with it the heavy baggage of misogyny, mental illness and sexual repression. Amid these familiar storytelling tropes is the obvious elephant in the room: Barbara Covett is a closeted lesbian. She is so closeted that even she does not admit to herself that she is a lesbian, although her relatives and her co-workers all seem to know that she is one; indeed, they ask after “Jennifer,” a woman whom Barbara previously presented to her family as her “companion.” But Jennifer, Barbara tells them with studied carelessness, has married and moved away. There is a new woman in Barbara's life: Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the school's new art teacher. Barbara immediately befriends Sheba, who is flighty and girlish and beautiful, and their relationship is never fully believable — until Barbara discovers Sheba having an affair with a 15-year-old male student, and threatens to reveal all to the school authorities. Now, there is a reason for them to be “friends”: Barbara could ruin Sheba at any moment. The film is based on Zoe Heller's critically acclaimed novel, What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal (2003), which is written entirely from the perspective of Barbara, who keeps journals recording every moment of her relationship with Sheba. Barbara is critical and bitter, and judges everything and everyone she can in the pages of her notebooks. In the film, Dench translates Barbara's cruelty and neediness from the page and into a grasping, emotionally stunted, withered woman who gazes with obsessive yearning at the young and vibrant Sheba, who is all physical passion and momentary delight. Barbara takes advantage of Sheba's weakness without apparent guilt or remorse. Her obsession is not based on any real physical passion — she recoils at the accusation, late in the film, that she might desire Sheba sexually — but rather it seems to be based on a deep emotional void. She wants Sheba to fill it, and she won't take no for an answer. This is always the root of the lesbian stalker in film: emotional desire, not necessarily physical. That desire remains unspeakable, thereby underscoring the perversity of lesbianism. The word “lesbian” itself is never uttered in the film at all, but nearly every other term that suggests deviant female sexuality is employed to describe Barbara. She is called a witch; she is called a vampire. Even worse, she is called a spinster and a virgin — something that is simply pathetic for a woman at her advanced age. In Notes on a Scandal, all of the stereotypical qualities of the psychotic lesbian stalker are laid upon the character of Barbara Covett. The character of Sheba does not fare much better. She is married to a much older man and has a sexual affair with a teenage student. She is practically the main character in a morality play that warns women to make an appropriate match with a man, or else risk becoming a dried-up old spinster with lesbian stalker tendencies. But the vast majority of critics who have reviewed Notes on a Scandal — which has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards — lavish praise on the film, completely ignoring the thick thread of sexism and homophobia that binds this thriller together. Dave Edelstein of New York magazine writes tolerantly, “Anyone who has ever felt possessive about a friend will recognize him- or herself in Barbara Covett's covetousness.” Newsweek says that Barbara is “a deliciously nasty piece of work.” And Time praises Notes on a Scandal as “the perfect antidote to all those warm, forgiving schoolboy dramas we've endured through the years.” Though several critics acknowledge that Barbara is “a scheming lesbian” (Time) and that the film pulls out “the obsessive lesbian-stalker angle” (Variety), only Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter is clued in to the sexism in the script: “in tone and theme, the film has all the hallmarks of playwright-screenwriter Marber's stark, uncompromising misanthropy, if not misogyny,” he writes. And perhaps it is not surprising that so far the only review to point out the film's problematic portrait of a lesbian is The Advocate, which notes somewhat mildly, “the role does not in any way fit the notion of a politically correct gay character.” Political correctness, it is true, is not a hallmark of Notes on a Scandal. But can the skill of Dench and Blanchett — who do deliver excellent performances — excuse the problematic story itself? Is there room for a film in which a stereotypical, psychotic lesbian exists and, in fact, is rendered larger-than-life in all her wicked, shocking glory? For me, there was nothing “delicious” about Notes on a Scandal. After leaving the screening, I felt distinctly disturbed — and not in a good way. Perhaps I lack a sense of humor. Or perhaps I simply haven't seen enough of this year's earnest, Oscar-chasing films to be able to praise Notes on a Scandal as “a satisfyingly nasty awards-season tonic” (Variety). Notes on a Scandal was extremely disheartening. One year after Brokeback Mountain brought a gay love story to mainstream audiences, featuring mainstream actors and a mainstream director, where is the lesbian equivalent? We get Notes on a Scandal, starring the Oscar-winning Judi Dench and the Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett. You couldn't ask for a more stellar cast. But the story itself seems to claw its way up from the dusty 1950s and '60s, when films like The Children's Hour underscored the perversity of lesbianism. When I left the screening room after watching Notes on a Scandal, I thought to myself: I would never, ever, recommend this movie to anyone who has even the slightest difficulty with accepting lesbianism. The problem is this: Notes on a Scandal is very well made. It has the ring of truth that only A-list actors can bring to an art film. It is, in fact, so convincingly professional that most critics can easily overlook the stereotypes embedded in the film, blinded by the glamour of Dench and Blanchett's skillful acting. But Dench and Blanchett do not excuse the film. Notes on a Scandal is one of the most sexist and homophobic films I have ever seen.
NEW YORK REVIEW December 18, 2006 -- New York Magazine As Barbara Covett, the diarist narrator of the deliciously overripe psychodrama Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench regards the world with pruney disdain—with pursed, shriveled lips and a tongue always poised to deliver acid rejoinders. But on the inside, this little gargoyle is roiling with passions—and ever in search of a female soul mate. She’s certain she has found one in Sheba (short for Bathsheba), the new art instructor at the London high school where she teaches and played by a blonde Cate Blanchett, who is airy yet ripe, breathtakingly beautiful yet somehow unfinished: tantalizing prey. When Barbara spies Sheba going down on a 15-year-old student, she knows she has a royal road into the young woman’s confidences. The film, directed by Richard Eyre and written by Patrick Marber (from a book by Zoë Heller), does nothing to soften Barbara’s monstrous narcissism, which borders, at times, on the delusional. And yet she is, as they say, quite a character. Her stratagems, heard in voice-over (“She has nowhere to turn but trusty old Barb”), would make Richard III smile approvingly, and when her emotions are aroused she’s a banshee—she’s feral. It’s appalling to watch the trap close on Sheba, who is married to a much older man (the delightful Bill Nighy) and has two children, one with Down syndrome. She’s self-destructing anyway—she feels smothered by her life (full of love as it is). When she tells her new friend “family doesn’t give you meaning, it gives you an imperative,” Barbara doesn’t hear that as the cry of a disturbed young woman but as an invitation to liberate her. Notes on a Scandal is another squirm-und-drang movie: too creepy-sad to be a comedy, too intense to watch quietly, without letting out frequent whoops. The score, by Philip Glass, is a study in egregiousness—the usual busy undercurrents with a top layer of bombast. But it does suggest something of Barbara’s turbulent inner life, and it gives the picture momentum. Anyone who has ever felt possessive about a friend will recognize him- or herself in Barbara Covett’s covetousness. And anyone who loves live-wire acting will gasp in awe at Blanchett, more emotionally exposed than ever, and, most of all, at Dame Judi, who’s so electric she makes you quiver. —Reviewed by David Edelstein, New York Magazine
January / February 2007 Issue of Premiere Magazine
Thanks to Connie E, USA, for scanning and sharing
this EXCL: Patrick Marber on Notes on a Scandal
Source: Edward Douglas December 14, 2006 -- Coming Soon Online Interview Writer Patrick Marber certainly has a flair for the dramatic. After adapting his own play Closer into a film for Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, he adapted Patrick McGrath's novel Asylum into an intense thriller starring Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen. Both films dealt with the serious subject matter of love, betrayal and obsession, as does his forthcoming adaptation of Zoë Heller's novel, Notes on a Scandal, which stars Judi Dench and Cate Blachett. The venerable actresses play schoolteachers whose relationship deteriorates when the elder teacher discovers an affair between the younger woman and one of her students. It might be surprising to learn that the writer of these riveting dramas that leave you shaking and in a sweat, actually got his start as a comedian and comedy writer for Steve Coogan, something Marber had a chance to explain to ComingSoon.net when we sat down for a chat with this fascinating British writer. ComingSoon.net: Did the producers come to you to adapt Zoë Heller's book into a movie? Patrick Marber: Yes, Scott Rudin acquired the movie rights, sent the book to me in 2003. The weird thing was the night before I received the book, my wife was in bed reading the novel and going "Oh, this is great!" "Oh, I love this, this is hilarious, you've got to read this!" And I was like, "Finish it and I will." And then the next day in the post, the book arrived from Scott going, "Do you want to do this book?" I was very excited to read it because my wife had been having such a good time with it. I read it over one weekend and called Scott on Monday and said, "Yes, I'd love to do it, but God knows how." Have you read the book? It's really difficult, daunting when you read it, to think how do you do this as a film and yet, such an amazing protagonist to work with. So I was really seduced by wanting to put Barbara on screen. I thought that this was such a great movie character. CS: Had you worked with Scott before? Marber: Yes, him and Robert Fox produced "Closer" on Broadway and then they were the executive producers on the Mike Nichols film, so I've known them both for a long time. CS: I know the book was written long before the whole Mary Kay Letourneau incident… Marber: Yeah, but there was still a lot of that about, these cases in England. While I was writing the screenplay and while we were making the film, friends were sending me cuttings all the time like "Here's another one!" They seem to be happening once every three or four months in England and here, obviously. CS: From your comedy background, one wouldn't think of you as someone to do these dark thrillers but you seem to be doing a lot of them. Marber: Yeah, well they are dark, but I think of them as comedies really. I think "Notes on a Scandal" is fundamentally, it's a drama… it's funny up until to a point, and then it's not. But you see even when it's at its darkest, that's when it makes me laugh the most. It's the sort of awfulness of what happens and the mess that people make. It's a very strange story, and I love that. There isn't anything quite like it, and I suppose that was one of the things when I read the book. I know exactly who this woman is, this Barbara, but I've never seen a story about a woman quite like this, so that was very attractive to me. Then Scott said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could get Judi [Dench] to do it." CS: Oh, you knew that Judi Dench might play the part even before writing it? Marber: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Scott had sent Judi the novel and said that, "I want Patrick Marber to write this. Are you at all interested?" And Judi said, "Yeah, I'd be really interested to read the screenplay." So she knew it was coming, so it was quite a lot of pressure while I was writing it, thinking, "Sh*t, I hope Judi likes this." CS: One of the great things about the film is that distinctive voice-over, so were you thinking of it in her voice while writing it? Marber: Well, not in her voice, because I didn't know what voice Judi would use for it, 'cause she doesn't do it entirely in her own accent. It's slightly… she makes Barbara less posh than she is. And I was sort of writing it for Cate [Blanchett] too. I'd said to Scott when I read the book, "Well, you've got Judi, fantastic! But Cate would be fantastic, too. What do you think?" And he said, "Look, well write it, let's see." We both wanted those two and [director] Richard Eyre fortunately agreed and the actors wanted to do it, so it all fell into place pretty quickly. By the time I'd written the second draft, we had the director and the two actors and the studio, so it was great. CS: Had you worked with Cate before? Marber: Well, Cate was going to be in "Closer" and I know Cate pretty well, because my wife's an actor and they've done a play together in London in 1989, so I've known Cate a while. CS: She was going to be in the play of "Closer"? Marber: No, they'd done a David Hare play called "Plenty" in the West End, so we'd all become friends, and then Mike Nichols cast Cate in "Closer." She was going to do the movie, and then she got pregnant. We nearly worked together then, so yeah, it was very nice to work together here. CS: When you got this book from Scott, did you get in touch with the author Zoë Heller? Marber: Yes, very much so. That was the first thing I did, because it's very important to me that the novelist is happy with who's adapting their work. It's also very important to me that the novelist doesn't want to adapt it themselves, because I'd immediately walk away. I don't want to have that relationship with someone where I'm going to be very intimate with their work and commit an act of piracy on it—by which I mean plundering what I want, rejecting what I don't want—you commit kind of an act of loving violence on a book. I wanted to make sure that the novelist was okay about that, and that she basically approved of me as the writer. We met in New York, and at the time I was in New York working with Mike Nichols on "Closer." I met with Zoë one evening, and we had a nice chat where I said, "This is what I think I'm going to do. These are the changes I'm going to make. What do you feel about it?" and she said, "Fine, fine, do whatever you want." Her father was a screenwriter, famous one, Lucas Heller, he wrote "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane," funnily enough, and she's married to one as well. So she knows what screenwriters do, and she said, "Look, I really like you as a writer. Thank you for having this conversation. I don't want to do this myself. Do whatever you want. I'll read it if you want me to, I won't if you don't." And I said that I did want her to read it and she read every draft and gave notes. It was a proper process. CS: Did you have the same sort of relationship with Patrick McGrath when you adapted "Asylum"? Marber: Exactly the same, and I pride myself on still being friends with Patrick and still being friends with Zoë. It really matters to me, because I love their novels. It's interesting you say that because "Asylum" and "Notes on a Scandal" are the same story, not exactly the same—a woman has a transgressive affair and an older person observes that affair from a distance and uses that to try to get closer to the woman. It's sort of similar, but completely different and I probably shouldn't mention "Asylum" in a "Notes on a Scandal" interview, because it was death at the box office. CS: Well, I liked it, and I know others who did as well, including Rex Reed, who raved about it! Marber: Yes, he loved it! Well, I hope it's one of those films that over the years, people go "That was a good film!" I liked it. CS: It's interesting you compare the two movies, because obsession seems to be a heavy theme in much of your recent work. How did that end up being something you write so much about? Marber: It's not so much that I'm interested in obsession. I'm just interested in characters who are extreme or who are pushed into extreme situations psychologically, because I feel that gives me more to write about, and I'm turned on by that. So I'm always looking for material where people are going to transgress their normal moral position, because I think watching someone slide is very, very interesting. I'm just drawn to that. The next film I'm writing, which again is even more difficult to write than "Notes on a Scandal," I'm going to do Ian McEwan's "Saturday" which is seemingly impossible, and the protagonist in that is content and this will be my first content protagonist. So yeah, I'm interested in that, but generally yeah, I want to write stories of conflict and people who are in conflict with themselves. That interests me. CS: I'm very surprised how somebody who started in comedy has made a name for himself by writing tense drama. Was that something that was always just bubbling under? Marber: It feels the same. The comedy I wrote was quite dark. I worked a lot with a character comedian called Steve Coogan. Have you seen "Alan Partridge"? Obviously, it's different, but it's kind of the same. It's characters and it's people saying words, and Alan Partridge is kind of a lunatic self-obsessed guy interviewing funny people. It's different but it's still writing and it's still difficult. It felt like a big leap when I wrote my first play, back in the mid-'90s, 'cause I went from being a comedian to being a playwright over the period of a year. That felt like a huge leap. Once I started writing dramas, then writing movies seemed like a logical progression from that. That was the really big step, suddenly writing a play, and the motor of it being the story rather than just an opportunity to write jokes. CS: Let's talk about directors. We know you work with the novelists while adapting it, but once you have a script done, do you just hand it to the director and are hands off? Marber: Hell, no! I'm there! It varies a lot. Richard [Eyre] comes from a theatre, he's very collaborative, wants the writer around. We were to and fro a lot. David McKenzie [director of "Asylum"] not from the theatre, totally different attitude to the writer. Happy for me to be on the set, but at the time, my wife was having a baby while he was filming "Asylum" so I didn't go on set. It was multiple locations, but once we'd done our work on "Asylum," David felt it was his script, but he didn't change it. Richard I think liked having me around on the set. It was the same with Mike Nichols [director of "Closer"], he wanted me there in case something came up or something didn't work. I kind of enjoyed both. Sometimes it's nice not to be there. Sometimes it's great to be there, it varies. CS: I noticed that your first play "Dealer's Choice" was about poker. Has anyone had an interest in adapting that into a film? Marber: When the play was on, Film Four wanted to do it, and they actually commissioned me to write a screenplay of it and paid me. I failed to write the screenplay, so I had to give them the money back. There have been approaches over the years, and I've always held it back because it's my first play, it's very precious to me, not because it's so great or anything, but because it's my first play and it changed my life. It made me a writer rather than a comic, so I don't know. I'm just holding onto it, I just don't know what for. I just don't feel like selling it to anyone. I just think if someone's going to do a movie of it, either I'll do it or it'll never get done. CS: You mean you'd want to actually direct it as a film? Marber: Might want to direct it or might just want to be able to control the screenplay. I might want to write one on spec and then give it to a director I like, but the truth is that it's not really a movie. It's a play set in three rooms, and it's about six guys playing a game of cards. CS: The subject matter of poker just seems so huge here and everyone is so obsessed with it. A good portion of the new Bond movie is just them playing a game of poker. Marber: Oh, is it really? I'm going to have to go see it. Oh my God! But I wonder which of the writers wrote that scene. Do you think that Paul Haggis brought that to it? I'm so annoyed I didn't get the job. I'd love to write a Bond movie, who wouldn't? CS: Now that you're writing movies, are you still interested in writing plays? Marber: I have just written a play; it's in rehearsals at the moment in London. It's a play version of Molière's "Don Juan" [called "Don Juan in Soho"]. Rhys Ifans is playing the lead Don Juan, and he's amazing. CS: Your theatre work has been referred to as "in your face theatre"… Marber: Oh, no, that was just some guy who wrote a book, and I really didn't want to be in a book called "In Your Face Theatre" and I told him that, but he said, "I'm putting you in the book anyway." That was what he came up with, that phrase, for a group of playwrights at the time, and I said, "We're not in your face playwrights. You diminish us by calling us that." And he said, "Well, I've sent it to the publishers, that's what the book's called." CS: So you wouldn't consider your movies "in your face filmmaking" I guess. Marber: Well, I wouldn't mind Julia Roberts in my face, she's okay. I take the phrase "in your face" to imply some kind of aggressive thing, and I didn't think "Closer" was an aggressive film. I thought it was a rather elegant film. In a way, I think, "Notes on a Scandal" is a more aggressive film. CS: As far as returning to comedy, do you still keep in touch with Steve Coogan? Marber: Yeah, yeah, yeah… we have vague plans to do an Alan Partridge movie at some point. Yeah, we talk about stuff all the time. CS: Do you think it would be hard for that to translate over here, since so few people know about that show? Marber: No, it would just be a funny character hopefully, but I don't know if we'll ever get 'round to it. It's just one of those things we talk about, have done for five years. CS: What are your feelings on the whole awards thing? I remember being rather upset when "Closer" didn't get nominated for your screenplay. Marber: I was upset, too! CS: Do you think that the writers' branch of the Academy might favor American writers for some reason? Marber: I really don't know. I hope not, but I really don't think so. Some British writers have won prizes. Julian Fellowes won for "Gosford Park." I just felt they didn't like the screenplay enough to nominate it, that's fair enough. All these awards, for writers they actually mean something because you get paid more, and it puts you on some other list, I guess, but it's not why you write the stuff. It's not why you do it. Patrick Marber's latest, his adaptation of Notes on a Scandal, opens in select cities on December 27.
Notes on a Scandal
GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 12/12/06) -- Premiere Magazine Dame Judi Dench goes nuts with the acting in this high-calorie melodrama, based on a novel by Zoë Heller and adapted by screenwriter Patrick Marber (Closer) and director Richard Eyre (Stage Beauty). Dench plays Barbara Covett, a fearsome history teacher at a British comprehensive school (you know, the type that used to get called a battle-axe) who develops an unhealthy interest in the school's fresh-faced new art teacher, Sheba Hart (Blanchett again, better here than in German). Said interest is countered, or rather inflamed, by Barbara's contempt for Sheba's "trendy politics" and, to Barbara at least, distasteful family: older husband, pouty teen daughter, down syndrome-afflicted son. Said contempt, which is expressed via Barbara's journal, is recited in pungent tones by Dench in voice-over. (Yes, this is another one of those movies wherein the smartest person in the room is also the most emotionally stunted, vindictive, etc.) When Covett (and how about that last name, folks?) discovers Sheba's grievously ill-advised sexual affair with a statutorily young student, she sees a chance to "protect" her new "friend" — in the mad hope, of course, to enfold her and steal her away. When things look not to work out as planned, a betrayal explodes the whole situation. If the resultant wreckage is a little underwhelming, and the film's coda useless and trite, the getting there is pretty absorbing: Marber's dialogue is cutting, Eyre's direction brisk, and the interplay between Dench and Blanchett (who, as a relative naëf, kind of has to play straight woman — no pun intended, given the nature of Covett's pursuit of Hart — to Dame Judi) convincingly roiling.
Notes On A Scandal Geoffrey Macnab in London 11 December 2006 -- Screendaily.com Judi Dench’s superb performance galvanises Notes On A Scandal, Richard Eyre’s impressive and acutely observed adaptation of the Booker-nominated novel. Probing away relentlessly at such uncomfortable issues as paedophilia, class envy, sexual jealousy and blackmail, it is a film that has the same queasy, claustrophobic feel as such 1960s British films as The Servant or The Killing Of Sister George. The film is bound to receive critical applause (and potentially awards recognition as well) for Dench and Cate Blanchett, but Notes suffers from a certain generic confusion that may make it tough to market. Early on, as we hear Dench’s voice-over, it appears that this is shaping up as yet another of those well-crafted but stolid literary adaptations that British cinema specialises in. Later on, the hysteria catches hold and the film lurches into the realm of Gothic melodrama. The challenge for Fox (which releases the film in the US on Christmas Day and in the UK in early 2007) is to try to appeal to two very different groups: the older, upscale audiences, who relish seeing Dench in films like Iris and Ladies In Lavender; and younger cinemagoers who’ll be attracted by the horror elements, tight plotting and whiff of scandal. If both constituencies can be kept happy, box-office should be reasonably brisk. The beautiful Sheba Hart (Blanchett) has just joined St George’s School in north London as the new art teacher. Her arrival is noted by her colleague Barbara Covett (Dench), who confides to her diary that she can’t work out whether the novice “is a sphinx or simply stupid.” She is clearly attracted to Sheba, who is a hopeless teacher, and helps her quell a near riot in her classroom. The key moment comes when Barbara spies on Sheba having sex with a 15-year-old boy, the freckle-faced Steven Connelly (Andrew Simpson) – and it’s her knowledge of this scandalous affair that gives her the leverage to force her way into Sheba’s life. By deciding not to reveal Sheba’s indiscretion to the headmaster (a stickler for propriety), she not only seems to save the younger woman’s career but her marriage too. But Barbara’s silence comes at a price. Eyre allows the audience to see most of the events from Barbara’s viewpoint. She may be an embittered and lonely lesbian but she has an eye for absurdity and a very sharp turn of phrase. Like the kids in the school, with their feral instinct for honing in on any weakness in a teacher, she can immediately spot the unhappiness and tension in others’ lives. With her cunning and her craving for acceptance, she sometimes seems like an older spinster version of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. “They do things differently in bourgeois bohemia,” she tells her diary with disdain after lunching with Sheba and her family, Sheba’s Down’s Syndrome son, her petulant daughter and much older husband (Bill Nighy). In contrast Sheba is a more ambivalent figure. On the one hand, she is vacillating and self-pitying (“a fey person” as Barbara calls her.) Initially, it is hard to have too much sympathy with her when she starts her affair with the 15-year-old boy, but later she becomes a sort of Madame Bovary of the London suburbs, a woman clinging to her youth who has somehow convinced herself she should be allowed to misbehave after spending so many years looking after her disabled son. She is as open and ingenuous as Barbara is closed and manipulative. “He’s 16 in May... it’s not as if she is some innocent,” she protests in an attempt to justify her own behaviour. The two lead actresses work well together. Dench admirably makes us care for a character who is lonely, vulnerable and sexually unfulfilled as well as full of malice. At the same time the spite is still there: think of Bette Davis at her most curdled and cruel in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane or The Nanny and you’ll come close to the essence of what Dench captures here. Cate Blanchett, a very strong actress, doesn’t at first glance seem natural casting to play such a weak-willed figure as Sheba, but she gives a subtle and ultimately moving performance. Patrick Marber’s screenplay ensures that the focus on characterisation is combined with satirical bite and real narrative drive. Eyre largely avoids prurience and ensures the film retains humour and pathos, even at its darkest moments. The cleverly observed coda helps it end on a note that is both chilling and surprisingly upbeat - and even offers the remote possibility that Barbara could return. Technical credits are noteworthy, with the recruitment of Philip Glass as composer an especially astute decision. His heady, atmospheric score, at times reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s music for Hitchcock, adds a sense of dramatic scale and tension that a film set against the backdrop of a north London school might not otherwise enjoy. Veteran cinematographer Chris Menges throws in some eye-catching close-ups of Blanchett at her most luminous while helping give the piece a visual dynamism.
Mad women on rampage in "Scandal" The Hollywood Reporter -- December 11, 2006 This may run counter of the auteur theory, but "Notes on a Scandal" feels much more like a film by writer Patrick Marber than by director Richard Eyre. Eyre does a fine job overseeing performances by a terrific cast that rings true until female hysteria takes over the final act. But in tone and theme, the film has all the hallmarks of playwright-screenwriter Marber's stark, uncompromising misanthropy, if not misogyny. That would mean neurotic women daring to experiment with unconventional if not outlaw sexual relationships ("Asylum") and the depiction of love as tawdry acts of betrayal and exploitation ("Closer"). While "Scandal" is indeed based on a novel by another writer, Zoe Heller's "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal," Marber never bothers to import into his screen version any of the wit or subtlety that so pleased its literary critics. Instead, he goes for a dispiriting hard-heartedness. To whom will such a film appeal? To misanthropes perhaps? Perhaps lonely, bitter folks with no Christmas bird to share with friends or family. Remarkably, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench almost make sense of these extreme characters. Possibly enough enthusiasts of these fine actresses may turn out to deliver a modest art house boxoffice for Fox Searchlight. T | |
