(:: History ::)
1)In Hawaii, the life of a family topples over. Because his wife has just been hospitalised further to an accident at sea, Matt King tries clumsily to get closer to his two daughters, Scottie, a lively and precocious ten-year-old kid, and Alexandra, a teenager seventeen-year-old rebel. He also wonders if he must sell the family lands, the last virgin tropical beaches of islands, inherited from his hawaiian ancestors.When Alexandra reveals him that his mother had a link, the world of Matt wobbles. With his two daughters, he goes looking for the lover of his wife. For essential week, in the course of in turn odd, disturbing and revealing meetings, he is going finally to become aware that his main preoccupation is to rebuild his life and his family …
2)A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.
Date (s) of Exit (s):
January 25th, 2012 | 
November 22nd, 2011| Accomplished by: | Alexander Payne |
| With: | George Clooney, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nice Bridges, Robert Forster, Michael Ontkean, Rob Huebel, Mary Birdsong... |
| Distributor: | Twentieth Century Fox terrier France |
| Type: | Comedy |
| Country: | USA |
| Length: | 1 h 50 |
| Original title: | Downward The |
Official Site (s):
Festivals, Evénements:
(:: Trailer for The Descendants ::)
(:: Free Streaming to Watch The Descendants Online ::)
(:: Pictures Of ::)
(:: Downloads Links ::)
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(:: Scenes of the movie ::)
Preface:A father exceeded by events leaves with his two daughters in search of the lover of his wife, having in mind to keep his united family. Matt King, interpreted by George Clooney, joins the gallery of the characters created by Alexander Payne in his previous films: it is a complex, imperfect individual, who searches his way in a world of madness, of doucesamères emotions and of surprises. Matt is neither a hero nor an anti-hero. As the envious teacher played by Matthew Broderick in The ARRIVISTE, the pessimistic pensioner represented by Jack Nicholson in MISTER SCHMIDT and the amateur of forty-year wine in loss of landmarks camped by Paul Giamatti in SIDEWAYS, Matt King isn't the man that he would like to be. His two daughters don't trust in him, his wife – from now on between life and death – deceived him, and his mown cousins see him, shone and the lands which he manages, as a dairy cow. On top of that, Matt is encircled by a luxuriant and fecund earth, splendid places which contrast strongly with his internal distress. All that is going to bring Matt to a painful but salutary realisation: even if he must for it prove to be clumsy, ridiculous, even absurd, he is going to see again his conception of love, of fatherhood and the way it acts in worthy man.
On d’un meeting man and d’un the world:
Alexander Payne was always interested in these strange situations of daily life which can prove to be at the same time odd, destructive and revealing, what explains that he is enticed by the first novel of Kaui Hart Hemmings, "The Descendants ", a book was greeted by criticism: it is a history full of contrasts in which a man tries to face up worse news, to hardest people and to the most difficult decisions of his life.
The film-maker entrusts: «The novel first pleased me because it is a deeply moving history which takes place in exotic places. She could undoubtedly take place anywhere, but what really makes her special, it is this unique decor and this middle: the well-offs and the landowning owners of Hawaii. It is very specific and completely universal at the same time. On film plan, I found it interesting because one« Honolulu cinégénique» has been yet ever seen. The cinema often showed us New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle, but Hawaii an unknown region of big screen stays. The life there is very particular, there is a special social cloth, and it intrigued me. I like the films with a geographical identity well to them. I began making my films in Omaha, then I went to Santa Barbara and me here is currently to Hawaii.»
Kaui Hart Hemmings grew in a rather original hawaiian family herself: she is the stepdaughter of a champion of surfing and hawaiian politician named Fred Hemmings Jr. This cultural identity which is his shows through in the history of a man disconcerted by what arrives at it, which scrabbles in search of the redemption. When she began writing her first news, she included into it the topics of family, of heritage, of history and of inheritance. "The Descendants " news was besides at first (edited under title "The Minor Wars"), which she first wrote across the voice of most girl, Scottie. She later opted for a total change, particularly audacious for a young woman writer: adopt the point of view of a man of age wall.
To take this risk changed everything. History, and therefore novel, didn't speak any more about a clan of insane individualists who ran after selfish purposes, but that of a father trying became to narrow family links. The author tells:« As soon as I opted for Matt's perspective, history found its own rhythm. Stakes are particularly high for him …»
These stakes give reversible sound as the novel: " The Descendants " made reference not only to the fall rather odd Matt King, but also to its realisation of the true meaning of descendants. He thinks suddenly about the notion of ancestors, of family and of derivation, in what it means for him to be of hawaiian lineage and in the importance of his own descendants, his children. Kaui Hart Hemmings imagined Matt as the reflexion of a definite category of the hawaiian population, a generation from which roots go back up to the marriages which joined white missionaries and landowning owners with indigenous royal families of Hawaii, people holding their wealth of the system of the colonial plantations.
As explains it Matt, his back-great-grandmother was the princess Margaret Ke alohilani, one of the last direct descendants of the king Kamehameha, who had fallen in love Edward King, his haole banker (the hawaiian word which indicates a white or a foreigner). It is this union which is at the root of the life which Matt leads today, that of a jurist of Honolulu with roots complex and deeply anchored on islands. As a lot Hawaiian, it is a hapa-haole, a "half white", which has never made peace really with its cultural identity.
These origins gave to the novel of Kaui Hart Hemmings an additional range, because Matt's concerns concern not only what his wife made behind the back or the way it is going to bring up his daughters, but also the opinion which would have his hawaiian ancestors on his life, or of what will be able to think of it his own descendants. The book, published in 2009, was instantly approved by a large majority by criticism. New Yorker notably greeted «the way Hemmings canalised with virtuosity the voice of its hero, a destabilised mature man, while he wobbles between cynicism and feelings, making fun of himself while aspiring to the redemption.»
The author tells by smiling:« When I learnt that Alexander Payne was interested in my book, I nearly fell from it backwards! It is my favourite film director, I love his films!» Having discussed the adaptation of the book of Kaui Hart Hemmings with several scriptwriters, the producers from Hominem chose the duet formed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Actors within Groundling Theater, both men had written a scenario, "The Way Back", about which they had spoken a lot, and they showed their ease there to wobble between humour and gravity – an essential quality for the DOWNWARD script of TEA. Après avoir discuté de l’adaptation du livre de Kaui Hart Hemmings avec plusieurs scénaristes, les producteurs de chez Hominem ont choisi le duo formé par Nat Faxon et Jim Rash. Comédiens au sein du Groundling Theater, les deux hommes avaient écrit un scénario, « The Way Back », dont on avait beaucoup parlé, et ils y démontraient leur aisance pour osciller entre humour et gravité – une qualité essentielle pour le script de THE DESCENDANTS.
Everybody admired their elegant adaptation of the book. However, when Alexander Payne decided to accomplish the film, he thought that the best way of forging an intimate link with subject himself on this adaptation was to work. Payne chose to centre the history according to two threads drivers, two trips which meet: the family journey of King in Kauai on the traces of the lover of Elizabeth, and the pilgrimage of the friends and parents of Elizabeth in his bedhead, where this woman becomes, across the silence of her coma, a kind of big confessor, making come into sight secrets and suppressed emotions which in another way would have remained buried forever.
Jim Burke, producer, explains: «In Hawaii, people have a report at their origins which exists nowhere else. They know their genealogies on the fingertips. They know when their family arrived on the island, some people know their ancestors on six or seven generations, and all feel a deep connection with the place. We learnt it by meeting authentic descendants who inherited from their lands, as Matt.»
Kaui Hart Hemmings was impressed by adaptation: «I didn't get worried to know if Alexander is going to change this or it, because he had perfectly grabbed mind and tragicomic tone of the book and because it is all that counted in my opinion. I also appreciated that he takes the time to know Hawaii really.»
Alexander Payne and the producers right away thought that it was essential to venture except of off the beaten track beat and of tourist places to go to meeting of Hawaii which only his inhabitants know. This approach allowed them to understand better what means the term "going down" on an island where the ancestors always occupied a fundamental place. They so better surrounded Matt's realisation, which realises that he disconnected from his own feeling of membership in this earth which is his and that he can't be any more between his past and his future.
Alexander Payne relied on Kaui Hart Hemmings to guide him in the elegant mixture of American and hawaiian cultures characterising life on islands, in politics and traditions as human relations. Jim Burke tells:« When we arrived at Hawaii to make our film, Kaui Hart Hemmings became a key element of the team because she is from here. It is his earth, his people. She represented our link with reality, with concrete of the island and of people, and at the same time, Alexander could confront his ideas of the characters with the feeling and with the knowledge of Kauai to be sure that everything worked. We wanted to protect the history of Kaui Hart Hemmings because they believed in it.»
Jim Burke finds the producer Jim Taylor for their fifth film with Alexander Payne. He entrusts: «The voice of Alexander is absolutely unique. It is useless that you are specified that you watch Alexander's film, because you know it right away. And however, while carrying his mark, each of his films differs from others. I think that TEA DESCENDANTS the one is who cuts most. It is a fantastic history with tremendous characters, but what puts it apart, it is that she is very opened to interpretation. None of the protagonists is really right, no is completely wrong. It isn't the type of film that everybody will see similarly. It is a film which allows to every spectator to participate, a film which each will feel in one's own way.»
The King family:
By creating the character of Matt as the shell-shocked husband, the unskilled father and the landowning owner of uneasy Hawaii in relation to her social status, Kaui Hart Hemmings had a good time imagining who could represent this man on the screen. Already, it is the name of George Clooney that came to mind to it, an actor was known for its interpretations marked by a dark humour and a humanity always wonderfully touching.
George Clooney is one of the most famous today's actors, but the husband and father describes DESCENDANTS in TEA moved away seriously from its habitual roles. Clooney was the prisoner smooth talker of the musical of the brothers Coen O' BROTHER, the expert burglar of the series of OCEAN' S ELEVEN, the agent of the CIA of the film of Stephen Gaghan SYRIANA – role which was worth it an Oscar. He was named to Oscars for his interpretation of the lawyer of the thriller of TONY GILROY MICHAEL CLAYTON and for that of the big passenger of the film of Jason Reitman IN tea air. He also became famous as scriptwriter and film director, getting quotations in the Oscar of the best film director and of the best scriptwriter for GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. He also accomplished and cowrote very recently THE WALK OF POWER.
DOWNWARD George Parra, the co-producer of TEA, notes: «To unite Alexander Payne and George Clooney for the first time on a film was an interesting idea as much as scheming. They overflow talented both and I think that after this film, they will remain very friendly. They perfectly agreed from the first day. Alexander is an absolute, extremely serious and strict professional in his job, of exquisite one politeness, what doesn't prevent him from being able to laugh. George, from his part, is a sacred joker, he loves laughing and he is very odd. Thanks to these two personalities, he reigned an intense energy over the set. Both are very opened, very creative, and know that it is necessary to let things happen at their rhythm.»
Once George Clooney was chosen to be title role, it was necessary to unite around him the King family. Alexander Payne organised many auditions to find this special ingredient, «the mind of family», blends apart equal of love, of anger and of incomprehension. He worked with the manager of casting John Jackson, his collaborator since his first film, CITIZEN RUTH.
Alexander Payne declares: «For me, auditions are an important part of the process of creation. We auditioned very many actors and actresses for each of the roles, even those only with one retort. I want to see the actors pronouncing dialogues.»
This stage was particularly necessary to discover two young actresses capable of facing up George Clooney in the roles of his two daughters, Alexandra and Scottie. These two rebel and stubborn girls bear a grudge against Matt to have fulfiled never his father's role until now. Alexandra's hostile and anti-conformist attitude conceals his fears of resembling his mother too much, double which it is angered. To represent it, Alexander Payne chose Shailene Woodley, well-known for series «The secret life of an ordinary teenager».
Alexander Payne declares: «It is her first big role in the cinema, but she right away proved that she was ready to fill all requirements of a role which evolves of a rebel teenager, pupil of boarding school, to a young woman who tries to narrow links between his. She was the best in auditions, simply.»
Shailene Woodley tells: «I was all the happier to be chosen as at the time of auditions, I had already fallen loving history. It is a trip confusing towards maturity. I loved that all characters grow, that they mature in their capacity to be loved and win in maturity, that they discover who they are as individual and find the place within the family.»
Of her character, she says: «Alexandra also evolves. At first, it is a bitter girl, in uprising, and little by little she is going to be transformed into a young woman who fights for those whom she likes. In history, she is first introduced as a teenager who thinks and acts as victim – she criticises her parents and makes them responsible for what she finds to be a poor life. But progressively, she begins realising that her happiness depends only on her, on not her parents. It is tremendous to see her growing so. She who was so manipulative before, acts from now on to help her father to fight her demons.»
According to Shailene Woodley, «the relation between Matt and Alexandra reflects that of many children with their parents. I think that she loves her father, but she considers him a bit as a kid, she always had the feeling that she had to act with him as though it was it the parent. It is only later only she is going to learn to let him the place to be entirely father.»
She follows: «One of the serious difficulties was to express the nuances of what she feels for her mother. It is a mixture of feelings: she is incredulous, angered, anxious, sad at the same time and scares. It was necessary that I dive in the depths of myself to deliver all that in a key stage, when Matt teaches to Alexandra that his mother won't recover.»
« Alexandra is in the swimming pool, she swims on the spot and she doesn't know how to react to this news. She feels booby-trapped, then she is allowed to run under the surface, in the only place where she can howl at the top of one's voice without feeling vulnerable. I dropped everything, liberated all my emotions of a blow, I shouted and cried as a madwoman. It was moving for me, but it made me stronger.»
« Later, when Alexandra discovers his mother, in the past so lively, lengthened without reaction on a bed of hospital, his emotions go back up to the surface with force.« In this stage, explains Shailene Woodley, Alexandra is shared between the hate which she feels for her mother and the desire to nest against her and to cry in the arms during the hours. It is a very moving instant. I think that the small girl in her would like hopelessly the mother whom she has never had and who misses her so much, and that at the same time, the young woman that she is also begins accepting that she will never have her.»
« I am grateful to Alexander to have given me enough confidence and supported me when I ventured into this difficult ground blending extravagant and brought forward situations and authenticity of feelings. He has a tremendous number of heart and we all learnt him, as film director and as anybody. When he is passionate, he doesn't keep it for him, he springs up in every direction, he clutches people. You can't make otherwise than to like life when you are by its sides. He has a tremendous number of energy and he shares it. By running me, he helped me to discover things on myself.»
She follows: «Alexander always searched the natural. He sometimes said to me: «Oh, Shai, I don't think that you would make this in true life». It is the way it succeeds in bringing to light the best to each of us.»
To get this natural was easier for the young actress than what she imagined when she was to play facing George Clooney. «He has the feet on the ground, and he always is joking or to do something of odd, what returns light and nice working ambience. I wasn't only lucky because I worked with him, but because I learnt to know him.»
Even if Matt King tries to retie dialogue with his children, he notes that Scottie, the youngest, remains for him a complete mystery, almost a foreign form of life, with which any communication is quasi impossible. To find a young actress who could control the humour of this eccentric child as well as her grief, Alexander Payne auditioned more than 300 girls in all country. In some days of filming, he still hadn't found the rare pearl, when it discovered Amara Miller, news come of 9 years native to Pacific Grove, in California.
He tells: «I received an e-mail accompanying a video of audition. At the end of barely one minute of visionnage, I told myself that we had found our Scottie. I didn't even need to see her, I knew that she would be at the height. And as it is often case in life, it was it, but in a completely unforeseen way.»
Jim Burke remembers: «Amara acted as true one pro. It is a born actress. She had never made film but she was extraordinary.» Although without prior experience – she had just played a dumb role in a show in the primary school – Amara Miller seemed to share a natural affinity with the strangeness of the baby and her particular role in family adventure – she is the only one not to be informed about what is played. Bien que sans expérience préalable – elle avait juste tenu un rôle muet dans un spectacle à l’école élémentaire – Amara Miller semblait partager une affinité naturelle avec la bizarrerie de la petite et son rôle particulier dans l’aventure familiale – elle est la seule à n’être pas informée de ce qui se joue.
She explains: «Scottie is the only one who doesn't know what takes place within the family. She is unaware that her mother is dying and that she had a link. She thinks that they go on holiday while they go to Kauai to find the man in question. She contents herself with being herself, with making what she wants in the middle of all this.»
Little supervised by its family, Scottie developed a shy independence. Amara Miller entrusts by laughing: «It is a fauteuse of disturbances! It is a small girl who makes rather well fun to get into trouble. She will continue having a good time and making the most mad knack, even if it causes her problems. She is seasoned, and she makes what is needed to meet its needs.»
What Scottie needs, it is that they devote time to him and of attention, and her makes everything to get them, what drives to rather amazing stages. Amara Miller entrusts: «I had to make a finger of honour to George Clooney! He stayed as two circles of custard there! Each time I rethink at the head, I died from laugh!»
It is the first time that Alexander Payne runs a child in a major role, but he worked with Amara Miller as he would have made him with an adult. «Amara has it of tremendous that she doesn't need to be treated as a child. It is an actress with a very sure instinct. I could say to him« Play It more as this or as it», or «Mark a time of stopping between these two retorts», and she included my indication immediately. The best, when actors are run, it is to tell them the truth. It is what I could make with Amara.»
Around King:
While Matt King tries hard to find the bases of paternal behaviour to Alexandra and Scottie, characters evolve around him – friends, enemies, relations – who don't cease making him deflect of his cape. Alexander Payne explains: «The casting of this film represented for John Jackson and me a new and interesting challenge. They have to set up that not only a credible nuclear family, but also more distant parents and friends' community who all, belong to a rather narrow enclave in terms of social class and of breed.»
For the role of Brian Speer, catalyst of events – the mysterious estate agent whom Matt King follows during almost all film – Alexander Payne chose Matthew Lillard, more knew for his interpretation in Scream and for that of the funny character of Sammy in SCOOBY-DOO.
When Matthew Lillard came to make a reading of the role, he went out persuaded that he had failed. «I entered, and there was about five superb types which waited for their turn, for all with this physical appearance of Californian star of cinema – square jaw, pectoral muscles and biceps. I told myself that I had no chance. Already on the base, chances so that I play the lover of the wife of George Clooney were more than slim …»
Matthew Lillard however gave everything during reading and nevertheless took out everything happy to have been congratulated by Alexander Payne. Four months later, he received with stupefaction a call of the film director which taught him that he was kept. Alexander Payne tells: «It is his approach« pressed »who pleased me. I like when the actors quickly play. Afterwards, I said to him that he should pass his auditions more often with his kids who wait for him in the car!»
Matthew Lillard notices: «It was a chance as there is only one of it in life. All, us other actors are dreamt, to take part in a very special plan and to live an experience so unique as that one. I believe I have been never« the standard choice »during a casting. I am except habitual criteria, but it is just as it that Alexander chose to me – because it is a nonstandard film director. He makes choices which put his separate films.»
The actor explains regarding his character: «Brian becomes without knowing it the worst enemy of Matt King but also, perhaps, the one who is going to liberate him. It is a go-ahead type, a spouse and a loving father, but with a terrible defect. He first saw at the wife's of Matt a financial opportunity, but he thinks he is drawn away too much far, too quickly, and he is sudden, he is in an untenable situation. What is amusing, it is to see the character of George Clooney operating on such transformation when he launches in my research. But later, Brian becomes a kind of oracle who returns him to his family so that he finds greeting.»
Judy Greer is also known especially for her funny roles, as that of series " Mad Love «. She plays here the wife deceived by Brian Speer, Julie, a woman the soft voice which meets Matt King for the first time on a superb beach of Kauai. She declares: «I was enticed due to the fact that my character upsets preconceived ideas. This woman is much more than an ingredient of comedy. It is a very modern maternal face. A wife pragmatic, sensitive and implicated, ready for everything to keep its united family whatever happens. I loved that Alexander puts a character very put down in this situation.»
When situation turns nevertheless in chaos, it is Julie, and not Brian, who is in the centre of a billowy stage, when she goes to the hospital to make amends to the wife of Matt, plunged into the coma, and whom she ends up being taken to her. Judy Greer entrusts:« I can understand Julie's reaction, even if its behaviour can shock. I think that she visits Elizabeth because she is flustered and preoccupied. Perhaps that she wants righteous man to see the own eyes the woman who got from her her husband. When you discover that your husband deceived you, you are pervaded by a feeling of jealousy, of anger, the impression that you aren't any more in your place, that you are of no use. By grief also. Perhaps that she wants righteous man to see the woman who destroyed all of that she thought to have. She feels at the same time a feeling of absolute commiseration for Matt's situation. The beauty of the stage, in the way it was written, it is that all that is contained in this only instant. Julie is immersed all at once by what she feels in the depths of herself.»
Confusion also reigns at Scott's Thorson's, the stepfather of Matt, interpreted by a veteran of the baby and of the big screen, Robert Forster (JACKIE BROWN, MULHOLLAND DRIVES). This ancient serviceman kept the bad-tempered temperament of a sergeant on a ground of labourers. He already confronts the illness of Alzheimer of his wife when he learns that the life of his daughter is threatened. He canalises all his frustration by putting back error on Matt. Robert Forster comments: «For Scott, his son-in-law is a deep disappointment. He has a lot of money but he isn't either very dynamic or very motivated, he was therefore never at the height with Scott's eyes. It isn't what the ancient serviceman calls a man. Scott ordered men all his life, and Matt doesn't answer his criteria.»
On the side of Matt's family, things don't take place better, especially when he starts to call into question a contract concerning the sale of the earth of the family to a local promoter who wants to make golf. It puts Matt in direct conflict with his cousin Hugh, played by Nice Bridges, laureate of two Goldens Delicious Globes.
Many different elements attracted Bridges Nice in scenario. He notes: «Both first have as name Alexander Payne and George Clooney. I longed to turn with them. They count each among the best in their domain. To work with them is going to be willy-nilly interesting.»
It is also his personal links with Hawaii which pushed Bridges Nice towards this plan: this place is as its second home, he came very often since childhood there and studied to the University of Hawaii. He entrusts: «On islands, you can see life taking place. There, they could keep the simplicity which misses everywhere else.»
The character of Hugh returns to Matt the picture of a way of life whom he reappraises suddenly. Nice Bridges explains: «Hugh is interesting. As Matt, he comes from a family mixture between Missionary and hawaiian, but wants him to sell the earth from which they inherited. He justifies this position by saying that this earth will be sold to a local businessman and not to somebody who will instal in it a supermarket but what he wants when all is said and done, it is the money.»
Nice Bridges adds: «I also think that Hugh thinks to watch over Matt at an instant when his cousin perhaps doesn't have all his divining – even if Matt, he, tells himself that he sees things apparently for the first time of his life. Hugh really wants what is better for Matt, but he doesn't want either that he is stupid, and for him, not sell this earth with so much value am simply stupid!»
Sid, the best too intrusive friend of Alexandra, is original and a bit puerile boy. It is played by Nick Krause, a young actor who goes up. This intruder in the life of the family King is going to end up bringing his own contribution iconoclast in their adventure. Nick Krause explains: «Sid brings a little of humour and lightness in Alexandra's life, it is for this reason that she sees him frequently, that they trail along together, especially in difficult time. Sid is so much relaxed that he forgot any social convention. He never knows what it is necessary to say depending on circumstances and he is unable to act tactfully. Even if he is always full of good intentions, he simply doesn't know how to act.»
This lack of amazing chronic tact is often worth it troubles, as when the grandfather of Alexandra dangles him a slap because he made fun of his wife. The stage is one of the favourite of Kaui Hart Hemmings. «I love him, she explains, because she is absurd while ringing so plainly! It is almost only dialogue. I love these instants in a film where there seem to happen few things seemingly while in fact, he goes without it tremendously.»
Although Sid hits people around him, he becomes a factor of meeting as efficient as unlikely for the family. Nick Krause comments: «Finally, Sid becomes little by little a part of this family while situations very more mad they some than others don't cease piling up. Its trip, it is to be a place in this new family which re-forms. It is a misfit who meets the father of a girlfriend, but in the final, he and Matt are much better going to understand each other than what they would have been able to believe.»
The producer Jim Burke sees Sid as an essential link in history. He explains: «He ends up allowing Matt to get closer to his daughters as ever he would have made it if this young man hadn't been there. Matt realises that Sid is finally the only one to whom he must speak. Sid becomes his intimate friend, even if it is a rather unusual intimate friend» Just as Sid, the longstanding friends of Matt, Mark and Kai, cause a dynamics to the family King – they are the only ones to know with whom the wife of Matt had a link. It is two actors come from the world of the comedy that interpret these roles, Rob Huebel and Mary Birdsong. Ce sont deux acteurs venus du monde de la comédie qui interprètent ces rôles, Rob Huebel et Mary Birdsong.
Rob Huebel was delighted to be able to play in one of the most dramatic stages of the film, that where Matt bursts at home and demands details on the link of his wife, while it is lengthened in a vegetative state on a bed of hospital. Both actors chose to play this stage on a narrow border between anxiety and absurdity. Rob Huebel comments: «It is a delicate stage because she was to be serious and odd at the same time. Mark and Kai are horrified because they knew about this link and because they are supposed to be the best friends of Matt. They try to go astern, to avoid confessing him the identity of the lover of his wife, they try to defend Elizabeth, but it is only stirring his anger. Finally, as Mark wants to keep his friendship with Matt, it reveals him the identity of the lover. I think that it is what would make most men.»
Ron Huebel follows: «This lively and complex stage works mainly because Alexander has talent to put his actors at ease completely. It is the most definite film director with whom I had opportunity to work. At the time when a stage is begun, he has already imagined every nuance, every gesture, and they feel at ease because they know that there is a good captain in the bar.»
Mary Birdsong comments: «Kai is in a particularly difficult situation when Matt discovers link because his fidelity is divided. Elizabeth, the woman of Matt, was her best friend. Currently, Kai is torn between the attachment to Elizabeth and his desire to tell the truth. For her, Elizabeth was a free, intriguing, awfully living mind, and she wants to protect her. Alexander Payne bets on actors who come from very different horizons. He has a very original mind, which works as no other one. I find that the casting of this film is a very eloquent illustration. He saw in each of us, however different we are, something that is going to serve its history.»
Reality in paradise - visual style:
The places where take place the stories of Alexander Payne always played a key role in its films, but with TEA DESCENDANTS, these characteristics are even more flagrant. From the beginning plan, film director and his team, constituted by regular collaborators, were conscious that they are going to go where few film-makers had ventured to tell an intimist family drama in the middle of the luxuriance of Hawaii. The visual style of the film, across the photograph and decors, reflects all contradictions and amazing juxtaposition of today's hawaiian culture. The modern is next to the ancient, the urban brushes nature, growth and opening towards future are placed side by side to the desire to preserve past.
Hawaii am the most recent of fifty States which constitute today's America. Its history goes back up in 1500 years, when Polynesian explorers put in the water their crafts equipped with veils in the light of stars to earn the fecund slopes of these volcanic islands. Later, colonists arrived from all Polynesia – Tahiti, Samoa and Tonga – and instituted a matriarchal culture having its own language, its customs, its forms of art and its legends. In 1810, the king Kamehameha, leader of the Big Island, joined all islands in one and the same Kingdom of Hawaii. Shortly afterwards, the first Christian missionaries arrived, followed by colonialist coming of the American continent. In 1893, a group of American businessmen overturned the hawaiian monarchy, opening the way towards annexation. Entretemps, culture continued evolving and fitting, blending American stocks with traditional hawaiian way of life.
When Hawaii an American State in 1959 officially became, it was nicknamed «the Aloha State», a hawaiian word impossible to translate who expresses a mind sincere, frank and opened anchored in an unconditional love of this earth.
To film islands with a new eye such as they are today, at the same time pervaded by the promoters, the suburbs and by the surfers and the Polynesian traditions, Alexander Payne called the manager of the photograph Phedon Papamichael, with which he had already worked on SIDEWAYS. This one tells: «From the reading of scenario, I knew that it would be a different film. This history is mainly based on dialogues, what has in general as result a less visual film. But here, it was the opposite. Because the frame, Hawaii, was an integral part of the geographical and emotional journey of the family King, pictures and landscapes are going to play a major role. It was very important to pick up the beauty of environments to include the conflict which is born at Matt's at the idea of selling the family earth.»
Phedon Papamichael divided the film between two Hawaii: Honolulu, an urban frame in feverish activity, and beauty sublimates natural landscapes of Hanalei Bay on the island of Kauai, with a colour sea sapphire and the rainforest to the bright greens.
The manager of the photo explains: «We wanted to show the city life of Honolulu but also the beauty of the coast, to make understand what is in danger to be lost as well as the very strong link in past and in History. It is for this reason that we decided to turn in broad format, what Alexander had once made only, for The ARRIVISTE. We found that it would be amusing to see these small human characters confronted with the splendour of the landscape.»
At the same time, both men wanted that the film remains faithful to the particular style of Alexander Payne, simple and without embellishments – almost an anti-style. The film director explains: «I want to turn my inventions in a quasi documentary style. It gives in the history of the paces of report.»
Phedon Papamichael comments: «One of the first requirements of Alexander, it is to make sure that the photograph never comes to hinder narration. He really likes realism, to the point where if they are going to turn in outside and to the point where there are three pruners not far, he is going to incorporate their job in the stage. Or else, when we turned in the bar where George Clooney meets Bridges Nice, Alexander found important that are present the true clients of the bar, the repeat customers, with a view to realism. It is the same thing for light. It is always very natural, to the point where the public must never realise that he watches a film« artistic». We want that the public becomes attached to the characters and follows them without nothing coming to distract them. Emotions are so dense and the so powerful writing as it is useless to reinforce dramatic intensity artificially by means of pictures.»
Hawaii door often in itself its own dramatic intensity. Phedon Papamichael notes: «Light is a true challenge there because she always changes. It is possible to pass in the space of one and the same plan of a sky covered in the bright sun. Fortunately, Alexander and George, himself film director, can perfectly react over instant, so it is possible to reverse stages, what brings a precious suppleness in job.»
A part of the DOWNWARD action of TEA takes place elsewhere that on solid ground – in the open sea in the ocean or even in swimming pools. Donation King, a manager of the photo specialist of the underwater pictures, took responsibility for the stage where Shailene Woodley screams primal while it is everything in the bottom of the family swimming pool.
The young actress remembers: «Don waited for me under the water with its odd camera. I dived, I swam towards him and he moved back in front of me very very quickly, in a timing perfectly adapted to mine. It was a fantastic stage to be turned.»
One of the memories preferred by Phedon Papamichael was the filming of the climax of the trip of Matt, when King arrives on their ancestral lands at Kauai and that the young person Scottie pushes Matt to review her intention of selling to foreigners. He tells: «It is a very strong instant. We conceived plan so that the family climbs up to the summit of the mountain, without their knowing what is going to be discovered. It begins as a normal tracking but with continuation, when they arrive at the end of the road, the camera rises all at once and reveals this spectacular view. Suddenly the characters are grabbed, confused by this beauty. It is one of my favourite stages.»
Alexander Payne also found leader interior decorator Jane Ann Stewart, her collaborator on all his films since the beginning of his career. She explains: «Alexander's aesthetic sense and mine meet. And we also have the same sense of humour, the taste of the absurd, with a small macabre side, where nothing, in human condition, is above the comedy.»
Leader interior decorator knew very exactly what to expect when Alexander Payne contacted her. «We both had many to teach on hawaiian culture, and we plunged literally indoors to be able to go in the middle of things and of history, be able to understand frame, mind, texture of history.»
For the home of Matt King, Jane Ann Stewart drew inspiration from the novel and consulted her author, Kaui Hart Hemmings. She entrusts: «The contribution of Kaui was very precious. For example, she made me discover the punee, a kind of mattress which they unwind and which is also used as couch, and she helped us to establish the history of the family in details.»
Leader interior decorator found a hawaiian home which could correspond, but in that it was missing that an essential element, the banian big who adorns the lawn in front of the home such as he is described in the book. She therefore made it one transplant. «This tree reflects the idea of the family across the way branches are established and of that they stretch.»
As with the photo, the difficulty for Jane Ann Stewart was to put all decors in the raw reality of which is very fond Alexander Payne, but with a tropical key. «Alexander always wanted a varnish of authenticity, even of banality. But this film was a chance for me to go a little farther to terms of colours, all over the exotic petrol of the places where takes place history. It was just necessary to have a good reason to put this or that object here or there, a piece of furniture, or a picture in a room. These elements had to underline the characters and remain authentic according to places.»
This authenticity deeply moved Kaui Hart Hemmings when it came to visit the set. She could see her history coming to life, and redraw the sometimes amusing, sometimes painful way, a family – in Hawaii as elsewhere works. «It was marvellous to return to Hanalei Bay, where arrived my own ancestors. It meant for me a lot to see the actors and the technicians knowing better and better this so special place. It was a chance for me to go back to my own family, to narrow links with my community. To write a book is a solitary firm, but with a film, beauty domiciles in distribution.»
