'Alias ​​Grace', Mystery of True Justice Margaret Atwood

'Alias ​​Grace', Mystery of True Justice Margaret Atwood

If "The Handmaid's Tale" is our goal, "Alias ​​Grace" comes from where we come from.

So says Sarah Polley, author and producer behind the new Netflix adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel in 1996. The historic fictional work on the titular Grace Marks, a nineteenth century waiter who was brutally accused of murdering his host and master, a maid, with help a stablehand. Real life crime rocked Upper Canada in 1843, for Victorians into an exciting trial of anyone who is forever for Marks and a hanging for a suit. After thirty years in prison, Grace is finally forgiven, but her release is a consolation prize after decades of living as a famous woman.

"Murder is a powerful word to cling to you," Mark said in Atwood's book. "There is that smell, the word - musky and oppressive, like a dead flower in a vase Sometimes at night I whisper it to myself: Murder, murder, rustling, like a taffeta skirt on the floor."

Polley brings the beloved Atwoodian story to life with the help of the famous "American Psycho" director Mary Harron. Together, they created a six-episode miniseries that put Marks, played by Sarah Gadon, as the center of gravity. He sometimes seems powerless, the product is poor and his neglect of life is merciless, and at other times as a careless and deliberate puzzle, by the internal forces we understand. Is he cold-blooded, or thrown out?

Atwood and the Polley-Harron adaptation team avoided answering that question. Come instead, the new Netflix series is at its finest when pervading the historic details that make Marks narrative difficult. In a carefully crafted world of performances, the true echoes of 19th century horror, lower-class women were degraded into sexual prey, thrown as constant targets of undesirable advancement and abortion recipients failed. Indeed, if "The Story of Responsibility" is our future fundamentalist distortion, "Alias ​​Grace" makes it his mission to paint a clear picture of the missed history that will make Gilead possible.

We spoke with Harron ahead of the premiere of the event on November 3rd. And he echoes in a polished parallel between the adaptation of Atwood's hair-raising, and explains how it feels to bring the story of Grace Marks into life.

What did not interest you with the Grace Alias?

Well, I have not read the novel yet. I do not know anything about the story that is going on, I have no prejudice about it. But this plot is fantastic. You are really attracted to this world. I have always loved the ambiguities and mysteries, as well as the very unconventional female characters, like, "Oh, poor Grace." He is very complicated. Is he good Is he bad Does the thing he experienced has turned him into a killer? All these things. I am very interested in the world right now.

Are you a fan of Margaret Atwood before this?

Yes, I'm Canadian, of course. I was also at university in the 70s when the novel came out. Or, at least, when the feature I started looking. He had a big impact on feminism at that point. I was very impressed by the story he was telling me. But I have never read it. So that is a real revelation. [Alias ​​Grace] is actually my favorite Margaret Atwood novel now.

This novel was built on a real crime that occurred in Canada in the 1840s. Do you know the story of Grace Marks at all?

I read some reviews from [Atwood] book when the book came out, but I have never heard of [Marks]. That is very mysterious. I have done many periods of dramas - my first film [the I's the Warhol]] was the 1960s, "Bettie Page" was the 1950s, "American Psycho" was the 1980s. I study literature at my university I am very interested in Victorian novels - so I always wanted to do a drama like this. This is a very interesting story in a 19th century story.

The story revolves around one of the most enigmatic characters ever written by Margaret Atwood. If you could provide a description of your own Gracemark, what is it?

This is important: He is a young girl, Protestant, from Northern Ireland. He is very competent and capable and intelligent. He is the type who can run it, but he was born in a world of extreme poverty and oppression, and he suffered greatly. He is very puritanical, like many Protestants of Northern Ireland. I can say that, because my family is from there. He has love in his heart, but the question is: With all his suffering, are they making him a better person or a worse person? With everything he has to go through, how do I finally turn it around? I talked to Margaret Atwood. Noble minded people, but not always. Sometimes, a lot of suffering can change you. It can make you vengeful and murderous. You do not know

Yes, that must be one interesting aspect of the way Atwood writes his character. You do not need to know if Grace is the protagonist or antagonist of her story. And that's not really the point. There is not much morality to it; It only explored interesting characters.

Yes. This is a true story. Although not much is known about Grace, there are certain historical records and interviews at the time. I like the real story, because the behavior is always contradictory. It's like ... why? Why do not you tell anyone? Why, when the butcher is not a door, do not you say it [James] McDermott will kill someone? You know? Funny yes, when Sarah Gadon and I were sleeping the script and notes about the characters together, we were like, "Grace, what are you thinking?" You think you know her, Grace. You think you have a line on him, but then there's a story book that puts him out of a whack. Like Simon [Jordan] during the drama. Simon keeps awake and confused, and bangs against the wall, because you can never get caught who he is.

During this year's TIFF master class, you are telling the name of the key to bring you performance? "It was foundry." What is the process of casting Sarah Gadon in the role of Grace? How do you know he is the man?

I once worked together, six or seven years ago, in a movie called "The Moth Diaries," in which she played 16 years [actually]. I've seen hundreds of people for the role I'm in, and he actually recorded auditions for him on his computer, because he was filming overseas. As soon as I saw it, I thought, this girl is amazing. The moment you meet him, he's kind of an old soul, a very impressive person. And working with him, he is very subtle. He does what I really like about actors, he does a lot of layers. He made adjustments very quickly. Even as a young actress who has not done a lot of movies, she can make this incredible halal change and imply a lot going on beneath the surface. And also, with Grace, you want someone who is very beautiful, but who has a mystery to them, which he likes easily. You can actually see the face for a long time. And with Edward [Holcroft] too. You know, there's a long scene where they sit in the talking room. You want to be able to linger on their faces.

What kind of research do you do before filming - in terms of reading about real times and crimes?

Margaret Atwood has taken some books. She gave Sarah Polley like a book list, and I read it specifically - a 19th-century woman account traveling through Canada. It's really interesting on the girl's condition as a sexual prey. It's always interesting to read contemporary accounts that give an attitude at that moment. Margaret Atwood has many languages. I am deeply disturbed by periodic inaccuracies and dialogue of anachronism, but Margaret Atwood has done all the work. He really likes, not only how people talk, but what they think and what their behavior is. You know, women think in a very different way [in the 1800s]. Grace sees life as very different from women today looking at life, or seeing sexuality, religion, everything.

But in terms of the kind of research I need to do, it's more with the production designer about the true price of the right world. And for Sarah Gadon, she has to learn how to do all this homework! He must learn how to sew and weave. I do not want him to pretend, and he will not either. He's done so much, so he has to be so good at it that he can do it without looking. And it must be completely natural. He spent weeks studying. The home workforce is the whole story in that.

Watch [Gadon] as Grace, you really can see calluses in the wake.

Right! I was with the makeup department and I was like, "You have to frown." He has a beautiful hand, you know. So, he did some of it himself, and then our makeup team also bothered him.

You spend time at Kingston Ontario Correctional Institution, where Grace Marks really spends time during her life. Like what filming there?

That's another interesting thing. When I read the manuscript, as they write, it is a much larger cell. The Kingston Correctional Institution, as well as to the correctional museum, we saw the reproduction of jail cells from the 19th century. It's almost a 5 foot coffin, about the size of a single bed. And that's where people spend half their lives. I am so enamored with this, with that idea [Grace] buried alive for years - all the prisoners are. So I have to convince everyone, because it makes it harder, makes less. He can still stand, because we're wider. I know it will be difficult to shoot, because the production designer agrees with me - it's important and we need to.

Another thing that comes out of the museum, which is not the original manuscript or the book, is this thing called a "box", where they enter the inmates into this upright coffin. There is a scene with Grace where you see a face in a small hole in the wood and she screams. We just saw the box, and I asked Sarah [Polley] to write it down. It's full It's medieval. I mean, the rules ... You are whipped for seeing or whispering or if you laugh or smile. That's barbaric, and we want to show it real.

Is it hard for Sarah Gadon to perform? Does the original setting carry a different kind of gravity than the manuscript?

I think so That's hard for him. I went inside the box to see what it was like and I was like, oh my God, let me out. I would not force an actress to do, but I think the big actress who takes it seriously wants to go there and acquire some of these things.

One of my favorite lines from NYT's 1996 note about "The Grace Alias" reads: "There is nothing like the spectacle of a female criminal tried by a saint or a demon." This is definitely a central theme in Atwood's book. How did you and Sarah Polley discuss this "debate" in your adaptation?

Sarah Polley has a very good quote on this subject, about women who fit in and play with others' expectations of them. Women play different roles and play with different people in different situations. [Grace] says, "My dear person is a female demon, a man I think is innocent. What woman is important? The Victoria woman, responded, had all these pictures on them.

I also like the idea of ​​a woman being seen and able in a different way, without you knowing the truth. That's a much more complicated female character. One of the things I love about Margaret Atwood is that she never likes, "She wrote about the harsh social pressures and injustices that do not always produce the best of people, like the relationship between Grace and Nancy [Montgomery], the shaman of society, both working class girl, one of whom is pregnant and has managed to scratch a bit of status for herself.I think Margaret Atwood has a women's view because they can be like in a cage - they can eat each other, because there is little security for them honestly, how difficult social arrangements can produce competitiveness and competition.You want to think is always woman [supportive], but

How does it feel to have Margaret Atwood on set? And directing him in a cameo role?

Oh, that's fun. I do not need too much. There was a lot of panic because the schedule was wrong. It was like the second day of shooting, and he waited with heavy costumes in temperatures of 90 degrees for hours. We're like, "Ahhhh." But he is very good about it. And I think he is very comforted, because in his trailer says, "Difficult Women." It's his name in [episode].

How much, if equally, can he adapt?
I do not know, I do not know what it is. Sarah shows many concepts at every stage, I think. I think [Atwood] is quite out of hand, but Sarah Polley is very anxious because it is so faithful, so she looks for it a lot.

Obviously the whole show will soon appear after the "Handmaid's Tale" Season 1. If there could be more fandom around Margaret Atwood, now the castle soon. Many fans see "The Story of Responsibility" as a feminist show that always inspires a lot of activism. Do you imagine "Alias ​​Grace" as an open feminist show?

This feminist in that sense is a neglected and important health article, that is, the lives of female servants realistically. The story of Mary Whitney afflicts tens of thousands of girls. Hundreds of thousands of pregnant girls, raped or seduced and abandoned, are sexual foods for upper-class men. And that is the part of history that is completely abandoned, you know, what life these girls are like.

Sarah Polley says that "The Grace Alias" comes from where we come from, and "Hand Paintings Story" is where we can go. It's politically important to know where you came from in an accurate way. The same thing with what we see slavery or Confederation and Civil War. It's important for us to go back and say, "We're past versions, but there's another version we need to be aware of?" In this case, there is a rather ideal view of the country house, and the happy servants of their masters and masters who take care of their servants. Is this true? No! The waiter was extraordinarily exploited. Young women, who prey on sex for all youth. They will be pregnant, and they are the end of them. How does it feel to have an abortion then? Well, we'll show it to you. This is not even long ago, and we are growing out of our society. We must remind ourselves of that. I remember when I lived in London, there was an idea to return to Victoria's values. Well, that is Victorian values: child labor and young women thrown into the streets. That is our history.

The theme seems very relevant when a president wants to "Make Great America Again."

[Laughs] A lot of the time we want to idealize the past, and it can have a political agenda behind it. People idealized the 1950s in America for the same reason - it was Reagan's thing. Let's get back to the '50s. Well ... segregation. In terms of women's stories, there are many stories that have never been told and perspectives that have ever been implemented. "The Grace alias" is not necessarily a call to action [like "The Story of Persecution"], but that's not an important perspective.

You have a history to showcase women's stories. You've made a movie about Valerie Solanas, Bettie Page and Anna Nicole Smith. Are there other grumpy women, who might be interested in highlighting the movie?

Right now I'm casting for this Manson girl project. The interesting thing is: How do these normal-looking and hippy girls end up doing these things? What's with the cult? Why did they give more of their wish to this mad leader? Part of the film was set in the early 70s, when they were imprisoned, and part of the story is told from Manson's farm. People are not really interested in girls when they tell the story. They do not really show how it happens - how they can do these things. How can they? How are they? What's the story there? There are teenagers in their early 30s who come and give classes to Manson girls and write books about them. I am always interested in unproductive stories. And it's not a straightforward story of noble struggle, but it also sees a fairly complicated issue of female behavior. Can not be more complicated than the Manson girls.

Leonardo DiCaprio's return to "American Psycho" is partly because the fan base at the time was made up of teenagers, and because you already have Christian Bale. What was it like to buy a studio back then?

Okay, I got fired, so what's it like. [Editor's Note: Harron was finally fired as director "American Psycho."] Or you could say that I did not want to meet DiCaprio and I did not want to learn it. I told you I was going to portray a Christian, who was not famous at the time. Leo is I think everyone I'm me. There are two things: I think Leo is a great actor but he has no right to do. Christian is right for that. And I will never make a movie if I do not think its superiority is right. American Psycho, "they will completely rewrite the script and I will lose control of the tone, I also consider it inappropriate for this actor with a great young female fan base to play this role.In so many levels, there is an advantage with Christianity Bale to have someone who is not so famous, because people do not have a lot of prejudices.

I'm very, very specific about casting and I've been through a lot of casting battles. I do not think I've ever been with a movie without a casting seminar. This is the only thing that makes-or-destroys me. I really would not do a movie if I did not think it was right for that. No good movie ever made if lead is wrong. Making movies is quite difficult. But Netflix is ​​very good. They say, "You do not have to weigh the stars." And I thought this would be the star of Sarah Gadon.

Is it easier throughout your career to train yourself in that arena and have a position of power in this casting dilemma?

No, it does not. And you'll think it will happen.

Last question: Why is "I Shot Andy Warhol" not available for streaming anywhere?

I just saw Christine Vachon, the producer, at the premiere of Todd Haynes ["Wonderstruck"], and she said they wanted to get her rights back. That's one of those things, the company that is full of rolls. This does not destroy the film is not available. There are all great actors in it. Lili Taylor. Justin Theroux's first film! I want to see the movie again. So we're working on it.