A ‘natural’ candidate for the Golden Lion from day one, Poor Sods! (in theaters January 25 next year) stunned critics and audiences alike, with Yorgos Lanthimos visibly thrilled to win the festival’s top prize. Greek by birth and Londoner by adoption, 50, started at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where he won for Un Certain Regard with Tooth Tooth and then won the award for The Lobster, in 2018 at Venice the director received Grand Jury Prize for The Favourite. , then an Oscar leading man. Poor Folks!, inspired by the novel of the same name by Scotsman Alasday Greir, defies definition: a little gothic costume comedy, a little feminist apologist, visionary and entertaining, it focuses all the attention on the main character Emma Stone in the film’s role of Bella, a sort of female Frankenstein who is taken by the mad scientist Willem Dafoe has implanted a fetal brain and is ready to explore the world through adventure and unbridled sex.
What impact does winning the Golden Lion have on you?
“I am very happy and grateful to the Exhibition, the Biennale, the Jury, my team, consisting of all women and only one man, the writer who gave us a magnificent gift with his book, and the screenwriters. And, of course, the main character Emma Stone, an incredible actress: without her the film would not have been made. It took us 4 years, but it was worth it.”
Did you stick to the novel or did you make any changes?
“I restructured the book, which is a visionary and complex political essay, to focus on Bella’s perspective and her journey to discover the world.”
Does the film have any connection with today’s reality?
“Absolutely yes. Despite the fact that the action takes place in 1922, it talks about freedom, the role of women, relations between the sexes. And in general about the freedom of a person to see the world through his own eyes. Bella has a free mind that strives for emancipation.”
Lots of sex scenes: was it embarrassing to film them?
“No. We used the services of an intimacy coordinator, a person who now oversees intimate scenes on all film sets. He calmed the actors down.”
But did Emma Stone have difficulty filming these scenes?
“No, she is a great actress who is not ashamed of her body. There was no script for these scenes: we sat and decided together what was best to do. Poor creatures! This is the fourth film Emma has made with me, and we don’t even need to talk to understand each other.”
Another main character in the film is Mark Ruffalo, an adventurer who introduces Bella to the pleasures of sex.
“From the first day of rehearsals, he showed himself to be hilarious: every time he showed up on set, we couldn’t stop laughing.”
Was filming Poor Creatures tiring?
“It was like in all the films. But the process was also very exciting.” Read the full article
on Il Gazettino