OUT OF COMPETITION – Guillaume Canet, the American escapade

For his first film in English, the French actor and director has tackled a remake, on American soil, of a feature film by Jacques Maillot that came out in 2008 and in which he was one of the two leading actors: Blood Ties.

Photo from the film © RR

For a long time, Guillaume Canet felt like the making of Blood Ties would never end. Prior to the filming and when it actually started, for the choice of his actors as well as finding locations to shoot, the director came up against very strict rules that govern the way that films are made in the United States. “I really had some surreal experiences that I had never encountered before, not even on my first film. Everything was a problem. I was directly confronted with another culture and another way of making films,” the actor admitted.

With regard to his involvement in Blood Ties, Canet explains that this is the first time that a role he was given made him want to direct the film. “I knew that Ridley Scott was trying to buy the rights to the remake. So I had to move very fast,” he added. When he launched into the project, the director already had in mind the texture he wanted to give the film, but he was looking for someone who could help him transpose this story, originally based in France, into Brooklyn in the 1970s. This is how the film came to be cowritten by James Gray, whom the actor had met and very quickly convinced to come on board.

Blood Ties, which narrates Chris’s release from prison for good conduct after a settling of scores, brings together a constellation of actors at the height of their careers, including Clive Owen, Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard. Presented Out of Competition, the film is the French actor’s fourth feature film after Mon Idole (Whatever you Say) (2002), Ne le Dis à Personne (Tell No One) (2005) and Les Petits Mouchoirs (Little White Lies) (2009).

Benoit Pavan

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Monday 20 May / Grand Théâtre Lumière / 11:30 am – 7 pm.
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