Sandy George from SBS Movies sent some questions to David and his responses are as follows:
“Every filmmaker dreams of getting a film into Cannes. Why do you think The Rover did?
Hopefully, it feels like a film they haven’t seen before – it’s tense and unusual – and because the central performances from Guy and Rob are really extraordinary.
You have said that the film is “not a post-apocalyptic film”, that “this is an Australia that has broken down into a kind of resource-rich Third World country.” Can you expand on that?
I didn’t want the world of the movie to feel like we’d been reduced to psychotic apes because of a single cataclysmic event. Rather, I wanted it to feel like the entirely plausible and frighteningly possible result of the world we live in today: economic and environmental collapse, as a product of rampant greed and exploitation, reduce Australia to a dangerous resource-rich third world country. Infrastructure, products, and an economy of sorts still exist – they’re just broken, fragile and the world of the movie as a consequence is dangerous and unpredictable.
For the many people who know and love Animal Kingdom, what would you say to them about how the film is most different from or influenced by or still shows the David Michôd touch.
I think it will feel like it was made by the same guy who made Animal Kingdom. The Rover is much leaner in narrative and more epic in landscape but, like Animal Kingdom, it’s still about the sadness and menace of people trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make any sense.”
Read the rest of Sandy’s interaction with David at SBS.
‘The Rover’ director, David Michôd, talked about casting Rob and Guy and their characters in the movie. From the Cannes’ French Press Kit (click on the link to read the full interview and the press kit – in French)
How did you choose your actors?
I had Guy Pearce in mind from the beginning. We needed a man who was his age, who had a quiet and mysterious strength, who had is talent and his extraordinary attention to detail. I didn’t forget the pleasure I had working with him on Animal Kingdom. Rob (Pattinson) came later. We met, I liked him a lot and then he did some screen tests for me, awesome tests, full of life, never forced or artificial, and it was done. And there is something very exciting in having the opportunity to show the world that a star underestimated and reduced to a certain image actually has a wealth of unexploited talent. I quickly found out that Rob is a great actor. And I look forward to everyone can realize the same.
If Guy Pearce’s character is the “Rover”, how do you define Robert Pattinson’s?
He is also a “rover”. Guy is a rover in the sense of “wanderer”. But in classical English, “rover” is also used as affectionate term for a dog. Rob follows Guy everywhere, a bit like a lost dog would.
The 67th Cannes Film Festival official screening guide is out and now we have for confirmation for The Rover and Maps To The Stars’ World Premieres at Cannes:
The Rover will have it’s world premiere on May 18th at 10:30pm (local time) at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
Maps To The Stars world premiere will be on May 19th at 10:30pm (local time) at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
“The Rover has its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, where it has been given a prestigious midnight slot. (Other Australian films to land a coveted midnight screening include The Sapphires, The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and Strictly Ballroom.)”
“Robert Pattinson metamorphosis! Cannes special issue will be on sale from next Wednesday!”
Preview:
“That’s it, Robert Pattinson has definitely moved up a gear and left Twilight behind him. It will be in two highly anticipated Cannes Film Festival 2014 movies: The Rover , western post-apocalyptic hyper violent, brutal and uncompromising, and Maps to the Stars , his second collaboration with David Cronenberg after turning Cosmopolis , family psycho drama that autopsy Hollywood. The opportunity to put also on the cover of next issue of Premiere, Cannes with his special report providing an update on all films and events of the 2014 vintage Croisette.
And also the opportunity to interview Robert in long, wide and across: he talks about the film below his sex scene with Julianne Moore in Maps to the Stars ( “I was breathless, soaked … and not at all “ ), hyper intense shooting The Rover ( a “hungry” movie ) in the middle of the Australian desert, what Cannes is for him, directors James Gray and Romain Gavras … Above all as shown in our coverage, the opportunity to discover the former Edward Cullen as no one has ever seen for a photo shoot … colorful, say. Proof by picture.
Number-in which can be found among others the story of the epic reboot of Godzilla, a meeting with Emily Blunt , etc. -. available on newsstands next Wednesday.
Maps to the Stars released on May 21 and June 4 The Rover”
Between May 14 and 25, the Cannes International Film Festival will play host to some of the most gifted and glamorous faces in movieland. Empire, whose face likes to think it combines both qualities into one geeky visage, will be there covering every gala, screening and soirée worth physically breaking into. But which movies will hoover up the most attention in the Midi? Our very own Damo-on-the-spot, Damon Wise, has picked his ten to keep an eye out for.
Category: In Competition Director: David Cronenberg
Cronenberg has been a frequent visitor to the Croisette since Crash made the competition in 1996. Maps To The Stars – written by Bruce Wagner, screenwriter and author of the eccentric Oliver Stone-producer mini-series Wild Palms – promises to be the kind of fractured genre riff that has characterised the director’s recent work (notably A History Of Violence), dealing with a dysfunctional Hollywood family. Evan Bird, playing a troubled former child star, heads up an impressive cast that includes Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska and Robert Pattinson.
Category: Midnight Screening Director: David Michôd
David Michôd, who made a big splash with his debut, Animal Kingdom, has been tucked away in the Midnight Screening strand, which suggests that his latest film, ostensibly another crime drama, might not quite be what it seems. Though you wouldn’t know it from the trailer, The Rover is actually sci-fi variant set in a post-apocalyptic world, this time starring Guy Pearce as the title character, who teams up with Robert Pattinson to track down the gang that stole from him.
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