Interview
by Steve Buscemi
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DVD details
Actor: David Schechter, Michael Buscemi, Sienna Miller, Steve Buscemi, Tara EldersDirector: Steve Buscemi
Brand: MILLER,SIENNA
Writer: Steve Buscemi
Writer: David Schechter
Producer: Al Miller
Producer: Alan Delsman
Producer: Barbara Delsman
Producer: Bob Savage
Writer: Theodor Holman
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.78:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-12-11
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Interview
DVD Review: A fresh and unusual idea, and a tour-de-force for Sienna Miller
Summary: 4 Stars
Who's using whom? I ask myself that question every time I see a celebrity fleeing the paparazzi on television, or hear about how stars hate pushy reporters prying into their lives. Because the relationship is very symbiotic: the entertainment media makes the star; the star is fodder for the entertainment media. Each needs the other, but it's a love-hate relationship that's more about hate than love most of the time. And both sides lie incessantly. It's a relationship built on mistrust.
That's a lot of what Steve Buscemi's Interview is about. Buscemi himself plays the interviewer, and Sienna Miller, in a performance that deserves an Oscar nod but will surely not get one, is the spoiled-brat starlet with the world at her feet. (And oh, man, can Miller do a whiny, snotty American accent to perfection.) The "interview" goes on all night in her loft (a loft that strikes me as shabby for this famous actress, and probably has more to do with budget restraints than reality), and gets wilder and deeper than any real celebrity interviews do. Or does it? Has Buscemi tricked her into delving deeper into her soul than she ever has before, or is she playing him like a piano?
That's one aspect of the film.
The other is a seemingly insatiable desire, at least with some people, to bond with and have intimacy with people in the spotlight. We think because we watch someone on the screen we have some sort of right to be close with them in private, if we get the chance. Buscemi's character, although initially professing never to have seen or even heard of Miller's films, in fact does know at least a few of them, as he later lets slip, and he does seem interested in her career, even though he'd not admit such a thing so's to spoil his "sophisticated" image. Despite a studied disdain for her, he's apparently as thrilled and intrigued as any fan would be to spend an evening with this supercelebrity. He tries--he tries all sorts of things: to get into her pants; to become her confidant; to become fatherly; to manipulate her; to stroke her; to mock her; to show utter disdain for her. Sometimes the shifts are a little clunky and strictly speaking, it's all unbelievable in the real world, but no matter. Does anyone worry about strict believability when watching Jaws?
Interview works well on these levels. Some have criticized the film for being contrived--it is; how could it not be? But this allows the story to touch these private areas. No celebrity would allow something like this to go on for so long. What's her motivation for, if not bringing him back to her place (he injures himself in a taxi accident and she gives him cold compresses for his head) then for letting him stay there so long and antagonize her? In real life, if she ever did bring him home, she'd say after fifteen minutes, "Okay, you look better. Here's your coat."
But in movies, advertising executives like Cary Grant climb Mount Rushmore (in loafers no less). You have to give it a certain amount of disbelief. What is uncovered in her loft that night--and no, it's never their clothes; we do not get cliches like the two of them slipping under the sheets--seems disarmingly personal. We do get a rollarcoaster of emotions, revelations, twists and turns--some comic, some tragic and some melodramatic, as the trajectory of a whole relationship is crammed into an evening. Towards the end I was cringing because I thought they were going to dissolve into cliches as they got closer to each other; people like this don't act that way. But then there's a lovely and delicious twist that serves as the payoff, and we realize nothing's really changed for these two. I do have to agree, however, with Amazon's critic, who says the characters are mismatched, which leads to a certain amount of predictability on one side. Or as Roger Ebert wrote with insight, most "dumb blonde" starlets really aren't as dumb as they come across, or else they wouldn't have made it so far. They may not be book-smart, but they are street-smart beyond your wildest dreams. Underestimate them at your own peril!
Interview has flaws, serious flaws. There are some over-the-top scenes that don't play very well: at one point he actually attacks her in her own apartment; later she attacks him back. She lets him see her doing blow--oh come on. Their problems get a little repetitious and puffed up--parts of it are almost like "Thirtysomething" on speed. But the conceit is such an intriguing idea--an intimate night in the private world of a supercelebrity--that we go along even though we know it's simply beyond belief. Again, isn't Jaws?
Interview was originally a Dutch movie made by filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was shot to death several years ago by a Muslim fanatic. I have not seen the Dutch version but would now like to. This American re-do, produced using many of the same people as the original, supposedly waters it down a little (or, as one review put it, "makes accommodations for American tastes") yet is still edgy in that way that only a small-budget indie film can be in the U.S. nowadays--more's the pity. The budget here must have been pocket change but it doesn't matter. Interview is two people in a room, essentially--an edgier, more irreverent, sex-charged version of My Dinner With Andre--and the time flies by. In some ways Interview is what I love most about films: put two interesting characters in a room, give them improv space (many bits were made up on the spot) and let the sparks fly. No storyboards, no special effects, no laser fights or swords and sorcery. Why can't more films be like this?
(DVD looks good but is fairly bare-bones. It includes two brief featurettes that are mildly interesting, but could have been joined together to make one longer documentary. There's also a commentary with Buscemi I've not yet had a chance to listen to.)
(Addendum two months later: finally listened to the commentary. It's okay but mostly dispensable. Where Buscemi talks about rehearsals and getting inside the characters' heads and what he changed from the Dutch original, it's interesting, but too much time is spent patting the backs of everybody who worked on this film or who has worked on a Buscemi project before. Possibly this is necessary because these people worked hard for what was essentially scale, and they did it not for the bucks or the glory but for the love; still, after he mentioned his buddy the sound effects editor who worked on eight of his other films for the fourth time I got bored.)
Description of Interview
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 11-DEC-2007
Media Type: DVD
After directing three films and an Emmy-winning episode of The Sopranos, Steve Buscemi turned to Holland--specifically to the work of Theo van Gogh. Before his 2004 murder by an Islamic extremist, the Dutch filmmaker (and Vincent van Gogh descendent) was planning an English-language version of his 2003 Interview--even considering Madonna for the Katja Schuurman role. In Buscemi's reconfiguration, the actor plays jaded journalist Pierre. Once a war correspondent, he now takes any gig he can get. When his editor assigns him an interview with tabloid fixture Katya (Sienna Miller, doing her finest work to date), Pierre grudgingly acquiesces. Their first meeting in a restaurant is a bust. But through a chance second encounter, they continue their verbal volly in her roomy Manhattan loft, where Pierre discovers that Katya is sharper than her image suggests, and she learns about his tragic past. They flirt, fight, kiss, and cry. By the end it becomes clear that one of them isn't being completely honest. As an acting exercise, Interview gets the job done, and Miller?s American accent is especially convincing. As a story, it's less satisfying, not because of the minimal cast or stage-like setting--My Dinner With André made a virtue out of similar limitations--but because the opponents aren't evenly matched. They're also less agreeable than Louis Malle's dining companions. Interview is first in a trio of van Gogh adaptations, with Stanley Tucci attached to Blind Date and John Turturro to 1-900. --Kathleen C. Fennessy