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Ang Lee's Life of Pi opens 21 November 2012: USA, Canada, and--Taiwan
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/16/a_life_changing_film_for_the_young_actor_of_pi/singleton/
A ‘Life’ changing film
for the young actor of
Pi
By Jake Coyle
http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
Associated Press
Friday, Nov 16, 2012 10:45 AM EST
Suraj Sharma as Pi Patel, Life of Pi
NEW YORK (AP) — The only thing more unlikely than a movie about a boy adrift on a ship with a Bengali tiger is the tale of the film’s star.
Teenager Suraj Sharma went along with his acting brother to a Delhi, India, audition of Life of Pi purely as a favor, motivated by the promise of a free meal.
“He said, ‘Come with me because I don’t want to go alone,’” Sharma recalled in an interview at Lincoln Center shortly before the film premiered at the New York Film Festival in September. “I said, ‘Fine, as long as you buy me a sandwich afterwards.’ That sandwich got me ‘Pi.’”
For a film about the wonder of faith, Sharma’s experience is one that stretches belief. Despite no prior acting experience or ambition, he managed to separate himself from 3,000 applicants and emerged through four rounds of auditions as the star in one of the most anticipated movies of the year.
For Life of Pi to work, Sharma — now 19, 17 when filming started — had to succeed. And many think the film, to be released Wednesday, not only works, but is a legitimate Oscar contender — a 3-D magic act from director Ang Lee that translates Yann Martel’s 2001 best seller into a colorful cinematic language.
In it, Sharma plays Pi Patel, who, as a child, precociously combines Christianity, Buddhism and Islam into his own blend of religion. When his family is uprooted to Canada, the ship taking Pi, his family and many zoo animals, sinks in a storm, leaving Pi alone and clinging to life in a raft boat.
Making the film meant working with one of the most revered directors in movies. It meant spending months shooting in India and Taiwan, where a giant water tank was built for scenes at sea. It meant learning not only how to act, but how to swim.
“I can’t put it in words,” says Sharma, a bright and earnest kid who humbly recognizes his good fortune. “It’s too much. It was emotionally and spiritually and physically exhausting. I would never be able to tell people what I went through exactly, but hopefully it will come through in some ways.”
It was a journey Sharma’s parents (both mathematicians, fittingly) had some reluctance about, as it would mean missing a year of school. Lee argued a year spent working on Life of Pi would be more rewarding than a year of school. Sharma’s mother performed a ceremony that made Lee her son’s guru — a new role for the director.
“I couldn’t even tell a joke in front of him. I had to behave,” Lee jokes. “I had to look after him. Normally when I work with actors, they move on and I move on. … I can pretty much say he started at the top — getting this kind of reception and making a movie. So I want to make sure he’s grounded and still getting his education — not only in school but in life. He should be OK if he doesn’t get crushed by what’s coming.”
“He’s a good boy,” adds Lee. “It seems like he can take it.”
In Life of Pi, there’s nowhere for a young actor to hide, either. For a long stretch of the film, Pi is alone in the skiff with only the tiger, which was digitally added. Sharma had the added pressure of acting extensively in front of a blue screen, with little to go on other than Lee’s directions.
“Honestly, I still feel like I don’t know how to act,” says Sharma. “It was just him. I was just an instrument. He has this thing — suppose you’re really nervous and stressed out and going crazy — he’ll look you in the eye in a particular manner, and no matter who it is, you just go: whoosh! He’s like a Zen master or something. He makes you so calm that you just let him mold you into whatever he wants to mold you into.”
Sharma is now in his first year at Deli University where he’s concentrating his studies on philosophy.
“I’m pretty sure I want to end up in the film industry,” he says. “I don’t know if I want to act or not, but I do want to be part of making magic.”
Aloysius J. Gleek:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEv8KMN1eYs&feature=related[/youtube]
Published on Oct 30, 2012 by ndtv
Eminent filmmaker Ang Lee whose is all set with his upcoming film, Life Of Pi talks to NDTV about his experiences in India while filming for the film and how the country turned out to be his big inspiration.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/node/59504
An Early Review Of
LIFE OF PI
Sails In!!
Ace Rimmer
Published at: Nov 07, 2012 12:35:53 PM CST
I just returned from the gala screening of LIFE OF PI (in 3D) at the AFI Film Festival, which kicked off Thursday with HITCHCOCK and will continue with LINCOLN, HOLY MOTORS and the Palme d'Or winning AMOUR among others.
The screening was opened by a virtual Ang Lee, who popped out of the screen in 3D and looked pretty damn exhausted. Apparently he finished it two weeks ago and said this was the hardest film he'd ever made. Then he mentioned it was all about faith. Nuf' said.
Went into PI more curious than excited. The novel is a really solid piece of fiction, mixing intense survival story with thoughtful meditations on God and capping the whole thing off with a semi ambiguous, rug pulling twist. In fact it's the ending that I remember best from the book. It turns a memorable ride into a very clever, thought-provoking journey. If any of this sounds boring to you, look away now.
The trailers left me a little uninterested. Visually stunning of course, but the overwhelming, uplifting score and title cards declaring WHEN ALL YOU'VE EVER KNOWN IS LOST and FIND YOUR COURAGE didn't exactly peak my interest or flatter the complex source material. It seemed Ang Lee had sidestepped the unfilmable challenges of the narrative and decided to distract audiences with a smorgasbord of kaleidoscopic colors, effects and action.
Well, as it turns out, LIFE OF PI has all that and much more. In fact, I'd say this is Ang Lee's TREE OF LIFE. Something deeply meaningful he's been building towards his whole career. With a bit of Ang Lee's GRIZZLY MAN and Ang Lee's CLOUD ATLAS to boot. Still with me?
What he's done here is taken the novel's main ideas, nature, nurture and the search for God and delivered it with intensely personal panache and breathtaking visual sequences. As with those other projects, one feels the auteur's hand here as clearly as you feel it with Malick, Herzog or the Wachowskis and it is both very honest and very demanding. As with those films, some may be rubbed the wrong way here. LIFE OF PI will not be embraced by everyone. It may not be a journey all will be compelled to take again. But I urge you to take it once on the biggest, brightest screen possible.
LIFE OF PI is stunning. I don't use the term lightly either. There are things done here visually that left me gasping and my jaw wide open. More so than CLOUD ATLAS or even AVATAR. In fact, I'd argue that Ang Lee manages to fully immerse you Planet Earth style in this extraordinary world in a way James Cameron promised but failed to deliver satisfactorily with his mega-blockbuster. To see such a methodical, visual director firing on all cylinder's is an absolute joy and it would be impossible to recall more than a fraction of the exquisite, intricate details here.
Things will stick out for everyone though. For me, I have never seen the sea represented quite so magnificently as it is here. We go from terrifying, storm churning tsunami's to queasy waves, to a sun drenched, still-water paradise to astonishing, luminous, night-time underwater vistas. And much more. Throw in sharks, flying fish, a whale, zebra, hyena, meerkat and countless other creatures of all shapes and sizes, elegantly realized, and you'll wonder where Cameron can possibly go next with AVATAR 2. The ball is definitely in his court. That goes for the 3D as well. If you're a champion of the format, this is right up there. If not, you owe it to yourself to see what a brilliant craftsman is able to do with the canvas. I still found the picture too dim and look forward to experiencing the bright colors in 2D. But you can't argue with craft.
To my relief, Lee was able to inject the imagery with the deep symbolism they need to really sing. The opening act of PI shows a young Pi (the excellent Suraj Sharma) getting involved with multiple religions and butting heads with his family. Questions are raised and statements made that address some pretty big philosophical topics and it is here that the audience will either perk up or shut down. If they do let themselves be engaged however, viewers will find the spectacular journey that follows to be far more meaningful and the head spinning coda, far more satisfying. Or as so many did with TREE OF LIFE, they might find the ambiguous, explicit symbols a bafflement and the earnest delivery a bore.
In GRIZZLY MAN, Timothy Treadwell looked at wild bears and found love and meaning, while Herzog mused that all he saw was "the chaotic indifference of nature.” In LIFE OF PI, Ang Lee gives us a ferocious Bengal tiger and two possible outcomes. In it's eyes we either see the friendly, soulful proof of God's existence, or merely a confused reflection of ourselves.
There were times during LIFE OF PI that I found myself drifting out of the film and marveling at the spectacle from a distance. Lee performs an amazing balancing act with all the elements at his disposal but at times the philosophy felt a little unbalanced and the ending didn’t completely stick the landing. It's more about the journey than the destination here but it’s almost all captivating. The framing story contains what were in my opinion the films strongest and weakest performances (by Irrfan Khan and Rafe Spall respectively) and sometimes feels a bit dry. Their last scene together is their best though. The relationship between Pi and the tiger is something better experienced than described here. It is the centerpiece of the film and a massive accomplishment on both a technical and emotional level.
LIFE OF PI is not a film I will watch many times over. Not because it is a failure, but like a few other survival stories, the viewing itself can feel like a bit of an endurance. In the novel, staying on a lifeboat for such a huge chunk of the story made for compelling reading but in the film, you do feel Ang Lee pulling somersaults to compensate for the one location. Beautiful somersaults.
I don't think this will have a chance at the Academy Awards, with an entirely international cast and scenes of animal on animal violence (which will definitely turn off some viewers). Some will hail it a masterpiece, others will raise eyebrows and scoff at the philosophy while admiring the visuals and astonishing animal realizations. I'll admit, the rich visuals will stay with me longer than the thoughtful story, which is saying a lot.
LIFE OF PI is a film you will want to own because you want to show it to others. You will screen it for the more open minded, opinionated of your friends to see what they think it all means, knowing that at the very least they will applaud you on your visual taste. Or you’ll show them TREE OF LIFE.
Front-Ranger:
I'm happy about the movie coming out, but I'm a little miffed that there's already a book called The Making of the Life of Pi. Where is the equivalent book about Brokeback Mountain after seven crying out loud years? :P
Berit:
I hope that it will be shown without the 3D thing. I'm practically blind on my right eye ;) so 3D doesn't work that good for me even though it is better now than when it first was used. Looking forward to the movie though ::) :) ;)
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