Venice hails Hollywood
2004-09-02 13:42
Venice - Hollywood rolled out its big guns at the Venice International Film Festival on Thursday as John Travolta and Denzel Washington showed off their latest movies.
Washington is plugging Jonathan Demme's blockbuster The Manchurian Candidate, a remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 classic starring Frank Sinatra.
The taut psychological thriller, which stars Meryl Streep as a razor-tongued US senator, features Washington as an US army major suspicious of his experiences in Desert Storm.
It was applauded by critics at a preview, and appeared to vindicate festival director Marco Muller's decision to embrace Hollywood in preference to lower budget movies this year in a bid to appeal to younger audiences.
Washington also stars in British director Tony Scott's kidnap drama Man on Fire.
Travolta's latest film A Love Song for Bobby Long is an altogether quieter affair. It features the star slipping effortlessly into the character of an alcoholic, white-haired literature professor, complete with the classic drawl of America's deep south.
This sentimental first feature by Shainee Gabel tells the story of a misfit teenager, played by Scarlett Johansson, who returns to New Orleans on her mother's death to find Travolta, the bawdy drop-out professor of the title, and his protege-turned-biographer Lawson Pines, played by Gabriel Macht, living in her house.
"The story is set amid the haze some of us create between reality and fiction in order to survive," says Gabel. "That escape can provide reinvention and delusion in equal parts".
The story of three people rediscovering their past features a strong performance from Johansson, who has already won the battle for Venice's hearts and minds with her stunning performance, as well as presence, in last year's festival with Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation.
Johansson, not yet 20, is also on the jury given the task of choosing the recipient of the Golden Lion for the festival's best film among the 21 in competition.
A French film, 5 x 2 (Cinq fois deux) by Francois Ozon, immediately put itself in contention when it was warmly received by critics at a preview.
- SAPA