GERMANY: Steven Soderbergh's 'The Good German' premieres at the Berlin Film Festival

Steven Soderbergh's 'The Good German', which opened to poor reviews in the U.S., premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, with the director and his leading lady Cate Blanchett hoping for a more positive reaction from the European cinema-goers. Steven Soderbergh and his leading lady Cate Blanchett on Friday (February 9) brought their Germany-themed 'The Good German' to Berlin, where the film is running in the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival. 'The Good German' is based on Joseph Kanon's novel of the same name and is set in the 1940s post-war Berlin. It tells the story of U.S. war correspondent Jake Geismer (George Clooney) who returns to Berlin to cover the upcoming Potsdam Peace Conference, where allied leaders will determine the fate of Germany and Europe. The film is set against the love story between Geismer and Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a woman irrevocably changed by the war, who has had to turn to prostitution. Tobey Maguire plays Jake's driver Corporal Tulley, an American soldier taking advantage of the unstable situation, who suffers a dramatic fate. The undercurrents of the darker sides of human nature, greed, power and violence are prevalent throughout the film, which is shot entirely in black and white and features file footage of the bombed-down Berlin. Soderbergh required his Oscar-winning, A-list cast to learn some new tricks for the film, which he said he wanted to make following old-school cinema making styles. "Before we started there was a little manifesto in which I tried to describe to the actors what we were attempting, and basically it was just a reminder that the style of performance sixty years ago in Hollywood is very different from the way actors are encouraged to act today. Before Marlon Brando, before Montgomery Cliff, before James Dean, it's a very externalised, outward style of performance, and it can be very weird to do, because it is the opposite of everything you've been told to do and everything you've been trained to do, at least in films," the director told reporters at a news conference. Blanchett, whose character Lena provides the mystery and the romance in the film, was also required to learn some German lines for her role. Attending the premiere of the film on Friday evening, the actress, who this year is nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in 'Notes On a Scandal' said she had expected the film to be dubbed in Germany and admitted to feeling somewhat terrified knowing the German audiences at the Berlinale would get to judge her accent. "I know, I assumed that once it made it over to these shores it would be dubbed, but now it is in the festival of course it won't be, but I hope people will be forgiving of my German, I tried my best," she said. Earlier in the day, at a news conference for the film, Blanchett was repeatedly asked about her Oscar nomination. The actress, who in 2005 won an Academy Award for 'The Aviator' said the past year had been an interesting one. "To be part of "Babel" was really remarkable, I mean it was a remarkable year, to have made "Babel and "The Good German" and "Notes on a Scandle, it was a bit of a bumpy year for me," she said. While 'Babel' and 'Notes on a Scandal' turned out to be box office hits, 'The Good German' did not open quite as favourably in the United States. Asked whether he expected the European cinema-goers to have a different take on his film, Soderbergh said he hoped for a better response than the 'angry' reviews in America. "I've made a couple of movies that have gotten very different responses in Europe than they have got in the States, I am getting the sense now that this is going to be one of the most dramatic examples of, you know, thumbs up - thumbs down. Because I mean, people were angry, the reviews in the States we really bad, so it's going to be interesting," he said. Blanchett added that she hoped the Berlinale, known for its hard-hitting selection, would aide in the process. "I hope so, I mean it is a very intelligent, complicated and ambitious film, and I think that that's the platform that a festival gives a film like this, is that people are cinephiles and they understand I suppose the cinematographic references as much as they do the subject matter and hopefully they'll understand what Steven and all of us were trying for," she said. Also attending the premiere was German actor Christian Oliver, who plays Blanchett's husband in the film. The actor said he was happy for the opportunity to work with the cream of Hollywood, but added the topic of the movie was naturally equally appealing for him. "What was special for me was obviously that "The Good German" is a German topic, German history, but what is nice is that the film is timeless, the film is just as acute and relevant today as it was the, and it was of course good how Steven Soderbergh approached this theme," he said. 'The Good German' is one of 22 films competing for the coveted Golden Bear awards at the Berlin Festival, which are handed out on Saturday, February

ITN Source | February 15, 2007

Tags:. .cinematographic. .theyll. .dubbed. .jakes. .equally