Bridging the gulf between European prestige and Hollywood scale, PolyGram's lavish costume drama comes laced with bankable stars, a Major-style out-of-competition screening and a director whose name would surely be welcome on any studio's slate.
Based on Henry James' novel, The Portrait of a Lady is Jane Campion's highly anticipated fourth feature, following 1989's Sweetie, which won the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress; 1990's An Angel at My Table, which picked up seven awards at Venice, including the Silver Lion; and 1992's The Piano, which won both the Palme d'Or and three Oscars Best Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress heralding a director with the sensitivity to satisfy art-house sensibilities and the accessibility to win mainstream appeal.
The Portrait of a Lady reprises The Piano's stranger-in-a-strange-land premise. Nicole Kidman (To Die For and Kubrick's forthcoming Eyes Wide Shut) headlines as Isabel Archer, a headstrong young woman who rejects the cultural and social restrictions of 19th-century America. Aided by her uncle, Mr Touchett (Sir John Gielgud) and an admiring cousin, played by Hal Hartley regular Martin Donovan, she gathers the funds for the then traditional 'Grand Tour' of Europe and sets off to see the sights of England and Italy.
Along the way she meets Countess Gemini (Shelley Duvall, Roxanne) and fends off amorous advances from the likes of Richard E Grant (Jack & Sarah) and Viggo Mortensen (Albino Alligator). Isabel eventually becomes entangled in the twisted machinations of a duplicitious acquaintance, Madame Merle (Barbara Hershey, Beaches), who leads her into an ill-starred marriage with the self-serving Gilbert Osmond played by John Malkovich in a cross between his intellectual abroad in Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky and the devious lethario of Dangerous Liaisons. Other players include Mary-Louise Parker (Boys On The Side); Shelley Winters (Heavy); Christian Bale (Little Women), and rising Italian star, Valentina Cervi (La bionda).
Campion regards The Portrait of a Lady as 'the hardest thing [she has] ever done.' The adaptation alone took several years, with the Wellington-born director collaborating again with An Angel at My Table's screenwriter, Laura Jones. Campion, 'dying for dialogue' after the silence of The Piano, ensured the emphasis went on developing James' conversation and characters while playing down analysis and repetition.
The shoot, Campion says, was 'a long, hard journey,' with 'the tension of a major scene every day.' Production was spread over two seasons, winter and summer, and involved moving locations ten times in all between England and Italy.
Nevertheless, the filmmakers did have the blessing of access to real-life locations such as the Coliseum in Rome, the palazzi and gardens in Lucca, and Salisbury in England. Campion also found she could put more of herself into the project compared to her previous literary adaptation, An Angel At My Table, where the personality of author Janet Frame took precendence. She regards the result as 'a fairytale, with Osmond representing the underworld into which Madame Merle leads Isabel, who escapes at the end.'
The Portrait of a Lady may also be part of PolyGram's fairytale ascent to Majordom. Having already sold in every territory, the film is one half of PolyGram's double whammy of potential box-office belters at the Lido this year (its production arm, Propaganda Films, was behind festival opener, Sleepers.) Also in Propaganda's production pipeline are The Game, starring Michael Douglas and directed by Seven's David Fincher, and A Thousand Acres, a Laura Jones adaptation of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange and director Jocelyn Moorhouse attached.
Yet regardless of its stars and generous budget for an adaptation of a 100-year-old book, The Portrait of A Lady secures its art-house credentials by making its world premiere at Venice. As for Henry James whose works have recently been adapted for Renaissance's The Wings of a Dove and Montreal fest screener The Pupil the American ex-pat who became a British citizen looks set to oust Jane Austen as Hollywood's literary darling. Adam Minns
Prod co: Propaganda Films
Prod: Monty Montgomery
Dir: Jane Campion
Scr: Laura Jones
Ph: Stuart Dryburgh
Prod & cos des: Janet Patterson
Music: Wojiech Kilar
Ed: Veronika Jenet
Cast: Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Barbara Hershey, Sir John Gielgud, Martin Donovan, Shelley Duvall, Richard E Grant, Shelley Winters, Mary-Louise Parker, Christian Bale, Valentina Cervi
Running time 142 mins
Int sales PolyGram Film International
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