The Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron defines his series ‘Contempt’, with Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen, as a “long-form film” and “a challenge.” And he makes it clear in an interview with EFE that it is “a crime” of the film world that Kline, whose performance in the series is exceptional, has disappeared from the screens for years.
Cuarón has come to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which concludes on September 15, armed with the seven-episode series ‘Disclaimer’, a powerful reflection on “the relationship we have with narratives” shot for Apple TV+.
“I would call it a long-form film, a film that deals with important themes. Within these themes, there is one very important one, which is the relationship we have with narratives and the role our judgment plays in the way we perceive those narratives,” the Mexican clarifies.
Apple TV+ has defined ‘Contempt’ as a psychological thriller centered on the past of Catherine Ravescroft (Blanchett), a prestigious and successful investigative journalist, wife and mother of a teenager, but whose perfect life and marriage begin to fall apart when an unknown author publishes a novel that exposes a secret that has remained hidden for more than a decade.
A challenge for Cuarón
At 62, six years after his last feature film, the acclaimed ‘Roma’, and a decade after his last series, ‘Believe’, Cuarón explained that since he read Renée Knight’s novel ‘Disclaimer’, on which ‘Contempt’ is based, he couldn’t get it out of his head.
“From the moment I started reading the novel, which was still in its galleys when the author sent it to me, a movie formed in my head. I read it before ‘Roma’, but I didn’t see how I could adapt it to a conventional film format,” he confessed.
“It wasn’t until later that I was thinking about long-form films that I’ve always admired, like ‘Once Upon a Time in America,’ ‘Fanny and Alexander,’ ‘Twin Peaks,’ or Lars von Trier’s ‘The Kingdom.’ I’ve always been intrigued by that long-form format. Plus, I’ve never made a very narrative film, my films are hardly ever very narrative, and I wanted to flex that muscle. I said, ‘Well, I’ve never done it, maybe I just don’t have the talent to do it. ’ But I wanted to take on the challenge,” he added.
Cuarón faces the challenge with an exceptional triumvirate, led by Blanchett and Kline, accompanied by an unexpected Baron Cohen. But Kline’s performance, as a father consumed by tragedy, stands out.
The secrets
At 76, the American actor known for works such as ‘Sophie’s Choice’ (1982), ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ (1988) or ‘The Last Robin Hood’ (2013), he has not starred in a film or television series for years. A situation that Cuarón considers unfair.
“I think it’s a crime for cinema that Kevin was ignored for so long. He’s an incredible actor, with enormous versatility, and as he shows in ‘Contempt,’ he’s capable of playing anything from really dramatic characters to a boot-sniffing scoundrel speaking Italian in ‘A Fish Called Wanda.’ The range of possibilities that Kevin has is endless; it’s great,” he exclaimed.
Throughout much of his work, Cuarón has explored personal and emotional secrets and their impact on relationships, such as in ‘Y tu mamá también’ (2001), ‘Children of Men’ (2006) and even in ‘Roma’.
The director believes that secrets are a human necessity.
“I believe that secrets exist in humanity because they must have some mechanism for survival, and above all, for social survival. I would not judge the secret as something extraordinary because I believe that it is something that we coexist with. Now, within those secrets there are some that we keep and that turn out to be harmful to ourselves and to the people we love around us,” he said.
“When you keep a secret, you may have it, but you are repressing some aspect that is immediately affecting the way you relate to other people. “Secrets can have very damaging consequences, both for others and for ourselves,” he concluded.
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