“Winter’s Tale teaches us that everyone is destined to share a miracle with someone special—that magic from the heart can accomplish the impossible” Jaime Lubin Huffington Post.
(Image from musiccontact.com no copyright infringement intended)
Okay, so I admit it. I can’t wait for Valentine’s Day this year. Not because I am madly, passionately in love with the man of my dreams and it is the most romantic day of the year, but because I get to spend it with some best girlfriends, a bunch of my favourite fellas, a box of popcorn and a good old fashion romantic fairytale at the movies. The movie is Winter’s Tale.
Okay, so I admit it. I can’t wait for Valentine’s Day this year. Not because I am madly, passionately in love with the man of my dreams and it is the most romantic day of the year, but because I get to spend it with some best girlfriends, a bunch of my favourite fellas, a box of popcorn and a good old fashion romantic fairytale at the movies. The movie is Winter’s Tale.
For many fans the reunion of the cast from Robin Hood on the
big screen with Russell Crowe, Alan Doyle, Scott Grimes and Kevin Durand has
been a long time coming. While many of us would have probably preferred Robin
Hood 2 or have attended an Indoor Garden Party somewhere in the world, Winter’s
Tale is perhaps the next best thing. We have followed the making of the movie
on social media and the moment is finally here to see it. Happy Valentine’s Day
to all the fans watching this beautiful romantic movie today or tomorrow, where
ever you may be.
The information available tells me Winter’s Tale is a love
story set in New York City that transcends time. To find out a bit more about
the plot and making of the movie I watched the official trailers and visited
the official Winter’s Tale webpage. The webpage provides visitors with a synopsis
of the story, the cast list and some of the most beautiful images. I could even
construct and send a Valentine’s Day card. If I was in New York City and needed
anything for Valentine’s Day it was all there. While all this is totally
delightful and exquisite, there isn’t much about our favourite boys Alan Doyle,
Scott Grimes and Kevin Durand (Russell Crowe being the actor he is has his own
little blurb).
So I checked out the information on the movie site IMDb
film. This movie site provides an extensive range of information from plot
synopsis, photographs, technical film credits, reviews and a cast list. According
to this site there are 114 people in the cast of Winter’s Tale. While the
Hollywood heavy weights like Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly
and Will Smith are mentioned, so are our boys and their characters, Alan Doyle
as Dingy Worthington, Scott Grimes as a carriage driver and Kevin Durand as
Ceasar Tan. In the critical review section there were only three out of ten
reviews available in English. None of them it seems has seen the movie and were waiting for
opening day.
The director Akiva Goldsman has given many fine interviews
in the media recently describing the joys and difficulties of transforming the
book into a movie and making the movie in a place like New York City. Jaime
Lubin, a regular Russell Crowe Indoor Garden Party and Alan Doyle concert goer and reviewer from the Huffington Post has written a wonderful review. After reading some of these interviews I am finding Goldsman as much
a star of this movie as any of the cast. There is this fine quote from Goldsman on the need for adult fairytales in modern life “My affection for grown-up fairytales is
real. I tried to tell the story out of my own hope that everything happens for
a reason, that the loss you experience today you may one day understand was a
gain somewhere else…I think love stories are what has led us on to continue in
the face of adversity…”
Jaime then goes onto to discuss Goldsman's ideas “We need adult fairytales, we need them presented in just this way, to
remind us that the intangible wonders are absolutely plausible, because in the
most fantastic of stories there is always some basic truth about human nature.
So whether you are in New York or finding a path through another city of dreams,
remember:love may be “impossible to find”—but once found is worth travelling to
hell and back for”.
I am off to see Winter’s Tale tonight. I have included
a copy of this review to remind me of a wonderful movie, the words of Goldsman
and why we need modern day fairytales in our lives. (No copyright infringement intended).
Winter's Tale : The Lovers, The Dreamer's, and Mythical New York. by Jaime Lubin posted 12 February 2014 for the Huffington Post.
A passion project years in the making, Winter's Tale teaches us that everyone is destined to share a miracle with someone special -- that magic from the heart can accomplish the impossible.
Set in a mythical 1916 New York, Winter's Tale follows the unusual journey of a thief named Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) who falls in love with the wealthy and ethereal Beverly Penn (a radiant Jessica Brown Findlay) after a botched attempt to burglarize her house. The couple quickly realize their happiness will be brief -- she is dying from consumption, while he has a price on his head, courtesy of the demonic Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) and his Short Tail gang. When Pearly, Peter's former mentor, determines to destroy his protege once and for all, fate intervenes to send Peter Lake across centuries. Transported to the present day, Peter finds himself still enmeshed in the deadly battle between good and evil; only time will tell if his efforts to protect Beverly can prevail.
Though fans of Helprin's 800-page chef d'ouevre will note some major departures from the book, Goldsman has done a masterful job of distilling the winding, somewhat ambiguous narrative into a resolute and rapturously beautiful film. From the grand, sweeping shots of New York's skyline (accompanied by Hans Zimmer's triumphantly affecting score) to the most intimate vignettes between Peter and Beverly where nothing else seems to matter but their divine connection, Goldsman has created a feast for the senses. His detailed dedication results in a world presented so exquisitely that one hopes to crack the screen open and crawl around in its deliciousness. Outstanding credit goes to production designer Naomi Shohan and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel for creating a three-dimensional universe that doesn't need the bells and whistles of commercial 3-D. This is what movies are supposed to be.
Goldsman says: "My affection for grown-up fairytales is real. I tried to tell the story out of my own hope that everything happens for a reason, that the loss you experience today you may one day understand was a gain somewhere else...I think love stories are what has led us on to continue in the face of adversity".
That idea of predestination regarding loss and love cuts deeply for Goldsman (one can see hints of his personal struggle borne out in Peter Lake's experience), but the cast gathered for Winter's Tale celebrates a different kind of affection just as powerful -- friendship. The film enabled Goldsman to reunite with such former collaborators as Crowe (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man) and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), while rounding out the ensemble with stars galore: William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, and Matt Bomer all appear in pivotal roles. Sharp-eyed viewers can also spot quite a few colleagues of Crowe and Goldsman's in blink-and-you'll-miss-it parts.
"It was a beautiful collision of actors and actors' souls," Goldsman notes.
"Everybody loves Akiva," producer Michael Tadross (Sherlock Holmes) comments. "They all came to work with Akiva. His script was one of the greatest I've ever read, and his vision for it was so clear, his enthusiasm so evident, and that made it such a pleasure for all of us."
Naturally a great deal of the movie's magic lies in the setting, New York City. Whether in 1916 or 2014, Goldsman gives us the City That Never Sleeps as we wish it were, full of guardian angels and all-revealing light. Still, because production took place in and around the city itself -- controversially not long after Hurricane Sandy -- every location retains complete realism (I found myself finger-counting places: "I've been there, I've been there, I was just there yesterday...").
Goldsman confirms, "The story blends a reality-based environment with the unexplained that exists behind the world we see. It's a straightforward emotional narrative, yet within that naturalistic world is a world where magic happens and people live for centuries."
Indeed, where in our world is there a more liminal space -- liminal meaning "transitional" or "crossing a threshold" -- than the Big Apple? This enchanted island, where we walk around cloaked in our own and others' history, has always been the primary destination for the Earth's dreamers. No wonder that Goldsman chose such a site for the ultimate war between angels and demons. (And of course, New York becomes my own city of miracles all the time, for where else could I have gotten the inside scoop on the production from the Short Tails themselves?)
Though Winter's Tale seems at the surface a black-and-white morality story, each character is nuanced enough to provide spellbinding shades of gray. Take Farrell's Peter Lake, who steals objects without any compunction but repeatedly risks his life to save the innocent. Or the angel Gabriel (Finn Wittrock), who has voluntarily fallen from grace to stay on an imperfect Earth. If you enjoy rooting for the villain, as I often do, you will find no better entertainment than Russell Crowe as Pearly Soames. The agent of chaos is bad to the bone, but even his rage-fueled obsession with Peter Lake is understandable from a certain point of view.
Goldsman compares the onscreen showdowns between Farrell and Crowe to a ballet: "A fight is like a dance for them, the way they learn the steps and execute them as if they've known them their whole lives. It was pretty awesome, what these two men could do with their fists".
The tide of moviemaking appears to be turning toward Goldsman's brand of magical realism; films like Winter's Tale give us a reason to hope that we can surmount any odds as long as our heart is in the task. We need adult fairytales; we need them presented in just this way, to remind us that the intangible wonders are absolutely plausible, because in the most fantastic of stories there is always some basic truth about human nature. So whether you are in New York or finding a path through another city of dreams, remember: Love may be "impossible to find" -- but once found it is worth traveling to hell and back.
