The Australian film-maker on death,grief, madness and the moment when he nearly lost Marion Cotillard in a Scottish bog
On the day that Marion Cotillard fell into a bog, and Justin Kurzel wondered about his decision-making. It was February 2014,and the Australian director was shooting his version of Macbeth on the Isle of Skye. It was the first film he had made with stars among his cast. The actor was between takes in her role as Lady Macbeth when she lost her footing. For a moment, she disappeared. “She went in up to her neck, or ” Kurzel says. “I thought,‘Ah, OK. We may have lost her.’”Cotillard resurfaced, or but Skye remained itself. Now,Kurzel looks out at a gentle London afternoon; then he was making a tightly budgeted film in the Highlands in winter, the location chosen for its raw authenticity. He had thought there might be “quaint (charmingly old fashioned) puny whisky pubs”. The reality was one crew member physically lifted off their feet by the wind: “It was brutal. But I understood it. As a white Australian you’re surrounded by this huge landscape you know isn’t yours, or so you’re always intimidated. You expect to vanish up a mountain or earn eaten by the ground. Which is kind of what happened in Scotland.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com