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Berlin - It was 21st January 2008 when Oscar winning actors Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson and Director Rob Reiner flew into Berlin to promote their recent box office champ "The Bucket List". On the same day stock prices were tumbling around the world, London FTSE 100: - 3.6 per cent, Paris Cac-40: -5 per cent and the Frankfurt Dax was struggling against a drop of - 6 per cent. It seemed oddly appropriate, therefore, that the film in question follows the global travels of two baby boomers with a desperate urge to fight the dying of the light.
The one-hour Press Conference that took place in the Konzert-Halle, Gendarmenmarkt was kept deliberately light - how else do do promote a film about death?. Nichcolson grabbed centre stage and exchanged knowing quips with a bouyant Reiner and a poised deadpan Freeman ("...the only darkness in the film...is me"). Their agreed mantra of the day seemed to emphasise their mutual respect - underlying Nicholson`s scripting work on set - and repeat recent audience reviews that their film is more about life than about death. Between the layered jokes Nicholson was keen to note how the film has "a lot of sentiment (but isn`t) sentimental" and Reiner was quick to underline the film`s knowing similarities with his earlier film, "Stand By Me" (1986) - both films about a growing friendship that is tested by death and life`s grim uncertainties - "bookends", he noted.
As a creative team their main work was in the areas of balance and tone - clarifying, that is, the blend of serious drama and comedy. And it seemed, however, as though Warner Brothers still needed convincing, "We pitched while Morgan made three movies", winked Nicholson; and on the question of good screenwriting? "Keep it simple" was the advice, knowing what effects you can achieve with the most basic of dialogue. Which is, of course, elementary with the Nicholson personae working on the screen. That personae broke out of its box with the questions from the floor. Berlin, any changes? "Not so easy to find the clubs"; does he have his own Bucket List?..."I can`t say cos all my current girlfriends might get mad at me". The most dispiriting aspect at this point in the proceedings were the run of cliche questions from the Berlin press corps that, with only slight variation simply repeated eachother. Any reflections on your own mortality?, was a favourite. "No", repeated Freeman, with his characteristic good grace.
As the hour ticked to its close Nicholson upped the ante with an answer to a female correspondent - any things he plans to do in Berlin?. They were, he paused in a drawled whisper, only there for a day, "...and you don`t look like a fast lady to me". At which point it was an appreciative Danke Schon, Aufwiedersehn and a clamber through the mass of TV cameras and cables and into the cold wet drizzle of mid-winter Berlin. And back to those tumbling stocks...and a cancerous global Bucket List that`s nothing to laugh about. Autor: Alan Taylor E-Mail: kinowords@hotmail.com Abfassungsdatum: 21.01. 2008 Photo: © Warner Bros. Pictures Verwertung: Weltexpress, Berlin All rights to the author Update: Berlin, 21.01. 2008 |
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