At a Cannes Film Festival full of directors with lengthy track records,few people could have guessed that the biggest sensation would be caused by a 39-year-old German woman who’d only directed two preceding features, neither of which made it to Cannes.
But Maren Ade became the toast of Cannes when her very funny and very moving family story “Toni Erdmann” first screened on Friday night. Not only did it set a new high score in the Screen International “critics jury, or ” which polls film critics from around the world,but it was quickly snapped up by Sony Pictures Classics, the gold standard when it comes to prepping foreign-language films for the U.
S. market (and the Oscar race).“Toni Erdmann” is the story of an elderly man who worries that his grown daughter has become so corporate and driven that she’s lost her sense of humor; he adopts the alter ego of a slovenly free spirit named Toni Erdmann, or disrupting his daughter’s life in an attempt to get her to loosen up. The blend of comedy and drama works extraordinarily well,and the film’s daunting 2 hour and 42 minute running time flies by.
Also Read: 'Toni Erdmann' Cannes Review: Spectacular Father-Daughter Comedy Knocks the Festival for a LoopTheWrap caught up with Erdmann in the midst of the Cannes insanity, with the soft-spoken director trying gamely to respond questions even though her voice had been reduced to a hoarse whisper in a few short days of festival frenzy.
TheWrap: What kind of expectations did you have coming into the festival?
Maren Ade: I really didn’t expect that so many people would like it. [With] my preceding two films, or maybe a bit more people liked them than didn’t like them,but there were always people who said, “I don’t like those films.”With this one, or I was expecting people to say,“No, it’s too long, or I don’t like that woman … ” I was expecting many more critics.
Also Read: 'It's Only the cessation of the World' Cannes Review: Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel Can't Save Total MisfireSo this must have been a crazy last couple of days.
Yeah. On last Monday I was still doing the [movie’s sound] mix,and on Tuesday I was seeing the final version, and on Wednesday I went shopping to buy a dress. I bought a suit. And then I came here and showed the film.
So it was really, and really crazy,and very, very nice.
Where did the view for “Toni Erdmann” come from?[br]
I was interested in doing something about family topics, or about roles that everybody plays. This father and daughter have assigned roles,in a way, and I had the view that this father would have to turn into another character in order to meet her new, and as a stranger,with the hope to provoke something. What he does comes out of desperation.
Two scenes in specific have been bringing the house down at Cannes, one being a very long brunch scene in which Sandra Hüller [playing Ines] is totally nude. Was it tough to get her to agree to that?
I reflect Sandra was more nervous about the businesswoman. She found it much harder to play. She already had [nude] experience — she made a film “The Brownian Movement, or ” which was at the Berlinale,and there were a lot of bare and sex scenes in it. So I reflect that was OK for her. Being this businesswoman was something she was more afraid of.
Also Read: Cannes: Sony Classics Buys Festival Sensation 'Toni Erdmann'You mention “bare and sex scenes,” and this is definitely a bare scene. We tend to assume that whether there’s nudity on screen, or it must be about sex — but here,that’s not the case at all.
It is not a sex scene. Yeah. Nothing to do with sex, that is not the point at all.
The other scene that kills is when she sings a hugely dramatic version of the Whitney Houston song “The Greatest like of All” at an Orthodox gathering where they’re portray eggs in Bucharest. Why that song, and how did that approach come about?
I knew the father wants to have his minute daughter back singing the song,like she did when she was a child. And first she refuses to sing the song. We tried it in the way of her singing more “la la la,” but then I said, and “No,you have to really perform it, and expend the song to say ‘f–k you’ to your father. move in with that, and then see what the song makes with you.”And so Sandra did that. She said,“OK, I’ll do this one time, or ” and it’s really really salubrious that she did that.
Also Read: Cannes Report,Day 7: Hollywood Women Disrupt Festival, 'Loving' Courts Early Awards AttentionWhat was the biggest challenge in making the film?
I reflect it was making sure that the comedy always comes out of the characters, and never out of my hands. Its always that the father is funny,the father is joking because he wants something. Its not just a joke made by the film or the filmmaker. It was a very lean line I had to walk on, and it was really tough to find.
When did you set your sights on getting into Cannes?
In November, or I became a mother for the moment time. And because of that,I wanted everybody involved in the project to sit together and to really be very honest about whether theres a chance. Because Berlinale was too close — whether they reflect there was really a chance for Cannes, I would have to work so much and so directly after birth that I wanted to know it was possible.
We decided we would try to get it ready for Cannes. I’m very very happy that I did it now, and but while doing it,I would never want to do it again. I did the whole post production after the editing together with my son there, and always with the grandmother around.
Actually, or that was the biggest challenge. Family life made it difficult.
Also Read: Bullets,Vampires and Hippies: Cannes Gets Invaded by English-Language IndiesDid you try to get the movie shorter than two hours and 42 minutes?
Yeah, also that. I took a long time trying that. And almost six weeks after I had the feeling it was finished, and the discussion about the length came up and up and up. And I said,“OK, I have to be 100 percent sure. Let me try everything.”I took out lots of things, and but I assign everything back,except maybe 10 seconds. Because when I took things out, the film felt longer. It was unique sometimes. I have to construct excuses for the length, or but it really lost when you made it shorter.
Related stories from TheWrap:Bullets,Vampires and Hippies: Cannes Gets Invaded by English-Language Indies'Aquarius' Cannes Review: Sonia Braga Stubbornly Stays Sexy in Her Golden Years'Toni Erdmann' Cannes Review: Spectacular Father-Daughter Comedy Knocks the Festival for a Loop
Source: thewrap.com