By Lindsey Bahr, Film Writer
VENICE, Italy (AP) --Jude Law plays an FBI agent investigating the violent crimes of a white supremacist group in “The Order,” which premiered Saturday at the Venice Film Festival.
An adaptation of Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s nonfiction book “The Silent Brotherhood,” Nicolas Hoult was cast as Robert Jay Mathews, the charismatic leader of the group which was considered the most radical hate group since the Ku Klux Klan. Their crimes, including bank robberies and armored car heists that the group was using to fund an armed revolution, led to one of the largest manhunts in FBI history, in 1983.
“What amazed me was it was a story I hadn’t heard about before,” said Law, who also produced. “It like a piece of work that needed to be made now.”
He added: “It’s always interesting finding a piece from the relative past that has some relationship to the present day.”
Law made the trip to Italy with his director, Justin Kurzel, and co-stars Hoult, Jurnee Smollett and Tye Sheridan for the premiere.
His character, called Agent Huss, is an amalgam FBI agent and not based on a specific person. This, they said, was important for positioning him within this story.
“He represents an awful lot of us,” Law said. “He felt his hardest work was behind him and in fact he had his biggest battle ahead of him.”
Kurzel, an Australian filmmaker known for the 2015 adaptation of “Macbeth” with Michael Fassbender, said he’d always wanted to make an American film in the vein of dramatic thrillers from the 1970s like “The French Connection,” “Mississippi Burning” and “All the Presidents’ Men.” He tried to make this film with the classic simplicity he admired in those classics.
Hoult felt it was a “difficult story to tell and difficult characters to inhabit,” but praised his director for helping to create a safe and creative environment as they explored the darkness of Mathews. He’d just recently learned, on the boat over to the Lido, that Kurzel had told Law to actually follow him around one day to get into character.
“The first time we spoke was in the first scene we interact,” Hoult said. “It gave a great energy.”
And all were struck by the parallels to today. Though no one wanted to comment directly on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the film, they hope, speaks for itself.
“The history of America is very complex,” Smollett said. “This level of bigotry is not new and it has existed in our nation since it was founded. As artists we get to hold a mirror up to society….explore the very complex sides of humanity, the ugliness, the darkness in order for us to learn from it and hopefully not repeat it.”
“The Order” is playing in competition at Venice, alongside ” Maria,” ” Babygirl,” “The Room Next Door,” “Queer” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”
Vertical Entertainment will release the film in theaters later this year.
After Documentaries About Taylor Swift and Brooke Shields, Director Lana Wilson Turns Her Camera To NYC Psychics
Filmmaker Lana Wilson had never thought much about psychics. But the morning after Election Day in 2016, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she found herself drawn towards a sign that promised "$5 psychic readings" and wandered in.
Much to her surprise, she found it to be a rather profound experience. She can barely even remember what was said, but it was emotional and comforting. And it would set her on a seven-year journey to make a documentary about this strange and misunderstood tradition, "Look Into My Eyes," which expands in theaters this week.
"I think I had totally misjudged the whole psychic tradition," Wilson said. "I had trivialized it and seen it as this silly thing, despite the fact that millions of people around the world engage in it… I'd had this personal experience where I, as a lifelong skeptic, found comfort in a psychic one day. So part of my initial perspective was what if it doesn't matter if it's real or not?
In the years since that fateful encounter, Wilson's own profile has raised significantly for her documentaries about Taylor Swift, " Miss Americana," and Brooke Shields, " Pretty Baby." But the idea of the psychics lingered. The film, unjudgmental, funny and poignant, takes viewers inside the homes, and sessions, of several New York City psychics
Wilson spoke about her process, her revelations and why she decided to not take Shields up on her offer to be one of the subjects in this one. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Did you find many of your friends shared your own assumptions about psychics?
WILSON: One of my closest friends is a therapist and she immediately got it. She was like, "This is totally different than therapy. But, also,... Read More