Twenty-six years ago, in 1970, Jack Nicholson's career took a great leap forward from a supporting role in an alternative movie called Easy Rider (which nonetheless won him an Oscar nomination) to the lead in another offbeat film, Five Easy Pieces, which was a considerable commercial success and which won him his second consecutive Oscar nod.
Pieces was not the first collaboration between Nicholson and writer/director Bob Rafelson: that had been two years earlier, when together they wrote Head, conceived as a vehicle for The Monkees, the pop group Rafelson and his partner, Bob Schneider, created.
Blood and Wine renews their director/star collaboration for the fifth time. But, for Rafelson, it belongs chiefly with two of the early films which made Nicholson's reputation. 'I think of it as part of a trilogy of studies of dysfunctional families,' he says. 'Five Easy Pieces is the first picture in which one of the primary relationships focused on Jack playing the son of an ailing and dying father.
'The second picture is The King of Marvin Gardens, with Bruce Dern playing his brother and Ellen Burstyn as his sister. Years ago, we began to talk about doing a father/son and I just couldn't get the one I wanted - until this came along.'
'This' is Blood and Wine, which focuses on Alex Gates, a womanising Miami wine dealer who conceives the perfect crime, but is unable to execute it because his libido keeps getting in the way. Matters come to a head in the aforementioned father/son conflict when Alex's stepson Jason (Stephen Dorff) falls for his mistress, Gabriella (Jennifer Lopez, soon to be seen in the title role of the Selena biopic), and comes up with a plot of his own.
Interestingly enough, the film - which also stars Michael Caine as a terminally-ill safecracker and Judy Davis as Alex's wife - was not really written for Nicholson: Rafelson conceived of it as a low-budget movie with a largely unknown cast, 'so I was looking for a surrogate Jack Nicholson, and there are not many of those'.
Then, having developed the film for some time with producer Jeremy Thomas, Rafelson called his old pal Bob for advice on casting. Nicholson didn't like any of the suggested actors. 'I don't know why you're looking around for someone else,' he growled. 'I'm the best person to play this part!'
Prod co: Majestic Films/Recorded Picture Company
Prod: Jeremy Thomas
Dir: Bob Rafelson
Guión (Scr): Nick Villiers, Allison Cross, Leora Barish
Foto (Ph): Tom Sigel
Art dir (Prod des): Richard Sylbert
Mont (Ed): Stephen Cohen
Ints (Cast): Jack Nicholson (Alex Gates), Michael Caine (Victor Spansky), Judy Davis (Suzanne Gates), Stephen Dorff (Jason), Jennifer Lopez (Gabriella).
Ventas (Sales): Majestic Films International
Duración (Running time): mins
PROGRAMACION (Screening): 11.00 & 21.00, 19 Sept, Victoria Eugenia; 16.00 & 20.45, 20 Sept, Astoria 3
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