Movies Heartbeats and the Rise of Xavier Dolan

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ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA COMEDY MUSIC TV CELEBRITY KIDS MOVIEFONE Michael Giltz Freelance writer and raconteur Posted: February 24, 2011 12:11 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index 3 42 7 3Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyHeartbeats and the Rise of Xavier Dolan Read More: Cannes Film Festival , Gay , Heartbeats , Heartbeats Movie , I KIlled My Mother , Toronto International Film Festival , Xavier Dolan , Entertainment News Sometimes, a director can become a film festival star long before they reach the general public. Usually, itmeans their work is so esoteric or avant-garde that it'sjust not likely to ever appeal to a mainstream audience.(See Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the very definition of an art house director.) But in the case of Canadian writer, director and actor Xavier Dolan it's just a curiouscase of missed opportunities by distributors andaudiences. Dolan is clearly a major talent who makesmovies that smart audiences will embrace. They justneed the chance to see his work. That's finallyhappening with Heartbeats , his sexy, witty second film that's opening on Friday at the IFC Center in New York. MOST POPULAR ON HUFFPOST 1 of 2 9/11 Responders Warned They Will Be Screened For Terrorism Ties (EXCLUSIVE) Jerry Seinfeld, Donald Trump Rip Each Other In Heated Political War Of Words PlayStation Network Could Be Down For Days FOLLOW USBIG NEWS: Celebrities | Britney Spears | LeAnn Rimes | Lindsay Lohan | Tribeca Film Festival | More... PHOTOS: The Funniest People Not On TwitterMiranda Kerr & Orlando Bloom Step Out To 'The The Funniest Someecards For Easter 2011Weekly Roundup of eBay Vintage Clothing Finds News Web Like 276K April 24, 2011 | Log In | Sign Up Get Alerts SHARE THIS STORY Submit this story Get Entertainment Alerts Sign UpPHOTO GALLERIES Like 20K Like 4K FRONT PAGEPOLITICS BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA TECH COMEDY SPORTS STYLE WORLD FOOD LIVING IMPACT EDU LOCALIt's a long overdue commercial debut for Dolan, who burst onto the scene via the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 with I Killed My Mother. Below you'll find the article I wrote at the time to introduce Dolan. It was held and held while the film was inexplicably delayed again and again and never got a decent UStheatrical debut. (It did open in Canada, where Dolan is from.) The article never made it to print because the movie never made it to audiences. But first, here's my review of Heartbeats at Cannes and some video of Dolan talking about his work. Enjoy. LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES/HEARTBEATS ** out of **** -- One of my most highly anticipated films of the fest is both a mild disappointment and a step forward for its director, Xavier Dolan. He had a smashing debut last year at Cannes with the blackly humorous drama I Killed My Mother. It won three top prizes at the Directors Fortnight and was one of the major hits of the fest. (It went on to acclaim inCanada and festivals around the world.) This year, his second film played Un Certain Regard, which iswhere young filmmakers go on their way up and elder statesmen go on their way down. At this rate,Dolan will be in Competition with a film in the next few years. Let's certainly hope so. His new movie,which has the godawful English title Heartbeats when The Imaginary Lovers is far better, is a bisexual Jules & Jim with a dash of Wong Kar Wai thrown in for good measure. The movie is interspersed with people talking about their doomed romances in faux documentary style, with an Almodovar-esque beauty(the actress has a wonderfully angular face) especially memorable. Then we meet best friends Francis(Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri). He's gay and makes little slashes on his bathroom wall every time aguy turns him down for a relationship (really? 40+ guys wouldn't want him?) and she wears vintageclothing and hangs out with him while they run down everyone in sight. Like a dappled deer, in wandersNicolas (Niels Schneider), a tall curly-haired Adonis who loves ingenuously flirting with both of them. Heshares a bed with the two friends -- innocently of course -- and is then surprised when they both developcrushes. The film is a tug of war between the two, with Nicolas either bemused or unaware of their desire.Mostly it's an excuse for Dolan to develop his skills as a filmmaker. I Killed My Mother was accomplished and had some nice framing of its characters but was by and large dialogue driven. Les AmoursImaginaires is a huge leap forward stylistically with Dolan telling much of the story through visuals. He goes a bit overboard, with some scenes playing like music videos, and his choice of classical music cuesare far more cliched than his taste in pop. But if he's to become a great filmmaker, these are exactly thesort of talents he needs to develop. Dolan and Chokri are inherently appealing, but the audience should be given more reason to care for them; they're so busy being sour and dissing each other that we don't get to warm up to them like we should. The eye candy of Nicolas should just be an excuse for them to spar asonly friends can. And Dolan uses the Wong Kar Wai trick of repeating a pop song over and over and overagain but only proves how difficult that can be to pull off. He also finds the perfect ending -- a nice visualmoment -- only to tack on a coda that is thoroughly unnecessary. The movie looks great but seems tohave been made on a dime (if that makes any sense), which is another good sign. Hopefully Dolan -- whois also acting in other films -- will continue making movies at a furious pace and keep pushing himself togrow artistically. He's got a great film in him and perhaps a great career as well. And here is video of my chat with Dolan at the Toronto Film Festival. Popeater: Brad and Angelina's Strict Nanny Requirements Shelterpop: Unplugging Appliances: Do I REALLY Have to Do This? What To Do About Smelly Feet Noam Chomsky Is the World Too Big to Fail? The Contours of Global Order AOL Real Estate: Prince William and Kate to Live in Royal Mansion TV Squad: Maria Menounos Relives Her Paparazzi 'Wardrobe Malfunction' on 'Lopez' (VIDEO) DON'T MISS HUFFPOST BLOGGERS 1 of 5 Sam Waterston Saving Easter Island’s Marine Ecosystems David O. Russell FDR Said it All in 1936 -- Who Will Follow in His Steps Today? More Celebrity News at People.com Like 1K Like 1K Like 1K Like 664 Like 3K Like 55 Like 52 Lindsay Lohan Is 'Angry' About Jail Sentence READ MORE Antoine Dodson Arrested READ MORE Stefano Langone RevealsHis Relationship Status READ MORE Royal Wedding Guest ListRevealed: Who's Going? MATRICIDE MOVIE WINS PLAUDITS AT CANNES Montreal's out actor-director Xavier Dolan triumphs at Cannes CANNES By Michael Giltz At a Cannes Film Festival dominated by veterans like Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee, Lars Von Trier and Michael Haneke, one of the break out successes was 20-year-old Xavier Dolan, who triumphed at theDirectors Fortnight with his debut feature I Killed My Mother . Dolan wrote, directed, initially bankrolled and stars in the film, which garnered three top prizes, including best French language film and best firstor second movie (their version of the Camera d'or). Chatting with wit and charm in English (though French is his native tongue), the suitably disheveled Dolan (scruffy one-day growth on his chin, hair flopping about magnificently), sat at the private beacharea of the Hotel Majestic, discussing his meteoric success with the waves crashing in the background. "I wrote the script in three days, a first draft, very rude, very dense," says Dolan. "It was really rough. That was in October, 2006. I just wanted to evacuate some anger, some hatred that I had towards myadolescence and my mother. It went awry, I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Then in 2008 I took itout and decided to rewrite it." So while technically the project has been three years in the works, it still seems to have come together with remarkable ease. "Wrote it 17, filmed 19, and giving this interview, 20" he laughs in agreement.The film is a brutally funny look at a maddeningly precocious teenager and his long-suffering single mother. Hubert (played by Dolan) criticizes the way she eats, the way she dresses, the way she drives, thechannel she listens to on the radio and on and on. His mom (a terrific Anne Dorval, who looks somewhatlike Shirley MacLaine circa The Apartment ) may not get his reference to Jackson Pollock, but she's not a disaster as a mom. Hubert is genuinely cruel, but he's so funny about it you can't help laughing. On theother hand, if his mom decided to take Medea as a role model, you'd understand completely. Complicating matters is his indifferent father, exile to a boarding school when his grades fall, and a damned cute boyfriend that Hubert's mom knows nothing about. (Their scene of making love whilepainting is the only one Dolan edited on his own; it's quite sexy and indicates that perhaps the director TOP VIDEO PICKS 1 of 10 Lindsay Lohan Back in the Slammer Beckhams In, Obamas Outat Royal Wedding Olsen's Wacky Fur Outfit MOST DISCUSSED RIGHT NOW 1 of 2 HOT ON FACEBOOK 1 of 3 HOT ON TWITTER 1 of 2 More Celebrity News at Popeater.com'Bed Intruder' Star AntoineDodson Arrested Paul Reiser's New Show Yanked After Two Weeks Tyler Perry To Spike Lee: 'Go Straight To Hell' Mel Gibson Opens Up: 'I Could Easily Not Act Again Viral Star Antoine Dodson ARRESTED Like 5K Gwyneth Paltrow Is Right. We're All Jealous. (Of Her and George W. Bush.) Like 4K twsuccess Antoine Dodson Arrested For Marijuana Possession http://huff.to/edLaIo purplehayz RT @HuffingtonPost : This is what happens when you tickle a penguinhttp://is.gd/vuV9u8 - It's still cute - Aviva loved it! doesn't always want to be in control.) Is Hubert really angry at his dad but lashing out at his mother because she's the only one around? Is he pushing her away in anticipation of being rejected when hecomes out? Is he just a cranky teen with an unusually sharp tongue? One of the strengths of the film is how our sympathies grow for both Hubert and his mother, not to mention how the film begins in comedy and then gets more serious and darker (without losing thehumor). Variety calls it a "genuine crowdpleaser" with "much to praise," though very much a first effort. The Hollywood Reporter said it was "uneven but funny" and "audacious" but centered most of all on Dolan, whom it said has "an exuberant cinematic and comic imagination." In short, it's a remarkable success when literally hundreds of films come and go at Cannes and don't attract the slightest attention. And it's a gamble that paid off: Dolan sank hundreds of thousands ofCanadian dollars of his own money into making the $350,000 (Canadian) film. Dolan didn't inherit a trust fund: it was money he'd been saving from a series of commercials he acted in when he was a little boy. "I did 21 commercials for this drug store chain called Jean Coutu," explains Dolan. "I was running around the aisles and I was kind of evil, grinning and laughing and destroying almost everything in my way and itwas quite funny. This is not really serious, but it did start everything and [thanks to the money he madefrom it] made everything possible after." He would have continued acting, but his isolation at a boarding school in the country made that virtually impossible. "All the auditions were very far," says Dolan, who cites films like Death In Venice and My Own Private Idaho as major inspirations. "I did audition but the lack of availability made casting directors not angry,but forget me. When you're not free, you don't exist anymore." Besides, as an awkward adolescent, even when he did make an audition, he never seemed to fit the image they wanted. "I still did auditions but it was the same thing: too old, too small, too tall, too young. I got bored of hearing that." So, naturally, Dolan wrote his own screenplay and showed it to an actress friend, Suzanne Clement (who plays a friendly teacher in the film). Her encouragement gave him the impetus to keep working on thefilm and sink his life savings into it. "Everything," says Dolan, whose floppy curly black hair makes him look like a Romantic poet or perhaps Johnny Depp in his 21 Jump Street period. "Every dime. I have no regrets. I'm here, talking to you." He also has no regrets about mining his personal life for the screenplay, including a gay bashing at boarding school. "I've always been gay," says Dolan. "Being a kid I always dressed in my mom's clothes or had things with other guys but I never thought that meant I was homosexual. I had girlfriends at primary school which was cute, I guess. I was excited by girls. But then at the end of primary school, elementary school I mean,I would start to think about guys a bit. And then in high school, it became obvious and I was reallyunhappy about that. "The bashing scene was something inspired by reality. That was the entrance into gayness. They said, 'You fucking fag,' so it was pretty clear [why they were beating him]. I'd been there two years. What'spretty amazing is that I never told anyone at the school [I was gay]. But apparently for them it seemedobvious. But I'm not that effeminate. Seriously, I'm not the fabulous guy. It's ok, but it's not me. Was itso obvious? I always had a doubt. Maybe they'd seen me doing something? I think I kissed someone oneday and I think that they saw this." That'll do it, I suggested. "That'll do it, I think," he agreed. Expansive, and funny and self-deprecating about his English, the one pensive moment came when I asked him if his mother had seen the film yet. "She hasn't seen it," he says. "She will. Not yet. Before the premiere in Montreal. For the moment she hasn't seen it." Will that be awkward? Even though the film ultimately has warmth for both mother and son Hubert HUFFPOST'S BIG NEWS PAGES NBA Afghanistan Fast Food Gas & Oil NASA Hockey Brian Williams Gabrielle Giffords Mexico MORE BIG NEWS PAGES »'The Hangover 2' Trailers: New TV Spots... Dan Savage Gets on the MTV, Savages... Lindsay Lohan Quickly Released From Jail After... 'The Office' Season Finale: Jim Carrey Joining...clearly gets all the funniest and meanest lines. "No. It'll be fine." At that Montreal premiere, Dolan might just go with friends since he's not in a serious relationship. I asked if he was dating anyone. "No," he said. Surely the movie will change that? "I'm really difficult; I'm really picky," he smiles. "And I'm just unbearable." Here's one of the string of ads Dolan made for a Canadian drug store chain. He would later use the money earned on these shoots to self-finance his first film. Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews . Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz More in Entertainment... Sponsored Links Mom Is 55, Looks 30... Her clever $5 wrinkle therapy angers Botox Doctors. Find Out How! FDXNews8.com SHOCKING: Apple iPad for $24.87 TODAY ONLY: Auction site to give away 1,000 iPads for $24.87! NewsToday9.com Trade Free for 60 Days. Buy a link here Plus get up to $500. Apply at E*TRADE Securities. www.etrade.com/tradefree DO NOT buy Auto Insurance! 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Movies Heartbeats and the Rise of Xavier Dolan

📄 Movies Heartbeats and the Rise of Xavier Dolan

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