ENTERTAINMENT / Movies
Hollywood begins Cannes attack with serial killer movie
(AFP)
Updated: 2007-05-18 09:39
US actor Jake Gyllenhaal listens journalist's questions during a press
conference on US director David Fincher's film 'Zodiac' at the 60th
edition of the Cannes Film Festival.[AFP]
CANNES, France - Hollywood began its assault on the Cannes film
festival's second day Thursday with "Zodiac", a movie about a notorious,
true-life serial killer.
The movie reopens the unsolved mystery surrounding the eponymous
murderer, never arrested, who terrorised California in the 1960s and
1970s while taunting police with letters and cryptogrammes sent to
newspapers.
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr and directed by David
Fincher, who made the thriller "Seven", the film is the first of the four
US movies in the 22-strong field competing for Cannes's Palme d'Or.
The other features are "We Own the Night" by James Gray, "No Country for
Old Men" by the Coen brothers and "Death Proof" by Quentin Tarantino, all
to be screened later in the 12-day festival.
"Zodiac", which has already screened to solid reviews in the United
States, eschews the usual serial killer format.
It sticks to the real-life facts and characters it is based upon so that,
even though the presumed villain is identified to the audience, he is
never arrested.
"I don't think it's a serial killer movie. I think this is a newspaper
movie... a character study," said Fincher, after explaining that the
blockbuster success of "Seven" had made him leery of becoming
pigeon-holed in the thriller genre.
Although some of the murders are shown in unnerving detail, the focus of
the film remains on the characters, especially Robert Graysmith
(Gyllenhall), a San Francisco Chronicle editorial cartoonist who became
obsessed with the Zodiac killer, and a crime reporter (Downey) at the
paper.
Downey, whose electric style and past problems with drug abuse were
brought to bear on his role, was a furiously inventive actor on set,
Gyllenhaal said of his co-star, who was not present at Cannes.
"Some people would call that madness, I would call that genius," said the
"Brokeback Mountain" star. Playing across from him was "kind of like jazz
playing," he said.
Others in the cast said the script stood out for its intelligence and its
determination to avoid Hollywood cliches -- and for the thinking touch of
its director.
Chloe Sevigny, who plays Graysmith's wife, predicted the movie would go
on to become "a great American classic".
Mark Ruffalo, who plays a cop in the picture, said he was impressed by
the diligence of the Zodiac investigators who "followed the letter of the
law, no matter what their guts said."
He added that the terror that Zodiac engendered during his reign and the
professionalism of the police hunting him drew "an interesting comparison
to make between this film and where we are today" in the United States.
"For me if you're going to get into terrorism and where we are today, you
know maybe we should have been a little more diligent before going into
war," he said, referring to the US administration's war in Iraq.
Fincher agreed the slayer's threats -- which at one point prompted police
to follow San Francisco school buses around in 1969 to stop them being
shot -- amounted to "a form of terrorism". But he said the film was not
meant to be a commentary on contemporary events.
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