Comments on: Cherry Darling

By: John Tracey

John Tracey — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:55:56 +0000

Unlikely travellers is screening on Sunday as part of Brisbane International Film Festival.

details – http://www.biff.com.au/festival/Programme.aspx?Control=FD&code=818

I have just seen a 3 hour version of it (The launch is a 90 minute film)

I am very impressed and am sure that MacLennan and Hookham will have lots of egg on their face after it is released.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:30:03 +0000

While I’m all for diversity in films, another practical point to be considered in medium to big budget film making, beyond the need to get established names onboard to attract investment and pre-sales, is that film shoots are long, boring, sometimes physically demanding and often volitile environments. shotgunned by producers going “Time! Money!” with nervy underwriter reps lurking in the background figuring out potential insurance liabilities and the studio and distributors fretting over how that “intriguing” choice would rate in previews.

Under these circumstance, it’d be a brave film maker that would cast a physiologically-challenged and inexperienced actor in a key role. No value judgements here, just pointing out that once a certain level is reached in mainstream filmmaking, they can barely handle the emotional cripples that plague the industry, never mind the real ones.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:33:46 +0000

Thanks, via collins.

By: via collins

via collins — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:51:54 +0000

Grindhouse/Death Proof do have an Oz distributor.

They’re releasing, albeit seperately – that is to say, against the intentions that Tarantino/Rodriguez had initially – sometime this year.

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 08:31:12 +0000

Sure she was playing a deaf woman, but there was no need in most of the scripts for her to be deaf.

Will Smith usually plays a black guy too.

By: Bismarck

Bismarck — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:18:27 +0000

Yobbo, all the Marlee Matlin roles I can think of had her playing a deaf woman - perhaps they weren't originally written that way and were revised when she came up as a casting option. Her voice marks her as deaf. Anyway, now I can't watch her without thinking of that episode of Family Guy.

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 03:22:27 +0000

There’s a telemovie of Stewart in Moby Dick.

I think the explanation is more simple than anyone makes out.

There aren’t enough disabled people who can act and are attractive enough to be on the big screen.

Marlee Matlin has had a reasonably successful career. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption that her good looks are the reason why, she’s not the only deaf woman in the world. And she’s been cast in many roles that don’t specifically call for a deaf actress.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:08:31 +0000

And to be blunt I am more interested in seeing Patrick Stewart play Ahab, and drawing on all the Star trek associations he brings with him, than in watching an unknown and less intertextually interesting actor who happens to fit the part inasmuch as he has only one leg.

Is there a movie? I am out of touch, and me both a Patrick Stewart and Melville fan.

That intertextuality with Star Trek works interestingly – as I discovered recently when I saw a young Patrick Stewart in Blakes Seven.

By: Helen

Helen — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:25:43 +0000

I recently enjoyed performances by Rima Hadchiti in The Pillowman at the Malthouse (she doesn’t really have a disability except that she is very small) and Simon Laherty as Lucky Phil in Noise.

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:07:42 +0000

NB – I didn’t actually answer my own question in the post, Laura. I don’t disagree with a lot of what you say, but it’s worth discussing why actors with disabilities either end up playing in stereotyped roles and what the nature of those stereotypes are. There are some actors with disabilities, for instance, who have quite successfully played many roles where their disability isn’t an issue, and others who have handled the issues from a perspective outside the usual tropes – eg. Amy Purdy in What’s Bugging Seth?