Ahh, for the innocent days of UAC in the 50's!
Sean Penn Says Not Enough Films Tackle Politics
CANNES, France (Reuters) - The Cannes film festival has been overshadowed by politics, but actor Sean Penn still thinks there are not enough film-makers tackling current events.
Labour protests by entertainment workers and hotel staff have dogged the French Riviera resort and on Monday, U.S. director Michael Moore unveiled his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," one of a slew of films with political themes.
Penn, who was outspoken in his criticism of the war in Iraq, said the United States under President Bush provided fertile ground for inspiration.
"I don't think there is any art that doesn't respond to the times and I don't frankly think that there's enough political films here or anywhere," he told Reuters in an interview.
"The politics, as we understand politics to be, are so present in our lives right now that any painting that doesn't reflect it in some ways is dismissible to me."
The Oscar winner stars in "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," based on the true story of a struggling furniture salesman who planned to kill President Nixon in 1974 by ramming a hijacked airliner into the White House.
The movie is showing out of competition at Cannes.
Aside from the eerie parallel with the September 11, 2001, attacks, Penn said the story, set during the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal of 1974, was an interesting parable for modern times.
"It's the story of somebody who feels that there's a hand at their throat and that bit by bit they act to remove that hand. Often when people's hearts are oppressed and silenced they will act in extreme and violent and horrible ways," he said.
"So I'd like to think that in the parallel that this dramatizes well, there will be some thoughts provoked about how to fix the problem before it happens," Penn added.
The 43-year-old actor gives a finely calibrated performance as Sam Bicke, whose refusal to compromise with social values he considers corrupt causes him to lose his family and his job.
He is joined once again by Naomi Watts, his co-star from "21 Grams," virtually unrecognizable as his beleaguered ex-wife.
Penn is coasting on a career high after winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in "Mystic River."
Last year, he was lambasted by certain sections of the U.S. press for his highly publicized trip to Iraq in the run-up to the war, and there was talk that Hollywood would blacklist actors critical of the government.
Penn saw his Oscar win as a sign of hope.
"I think what it says is that while it's absolutely a real concern that the venue for debate is being diminished, that the tolerance for it is still in the will of the American people, still in the will of the business I work in and evidently in the will of the audience," he said. |
