Cynthia Nixon A Quiet Passion

Cynthia Nixon A Quiet Passion

Cast: Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine
Director: Terence Davies
Rated: PG
Running Time: 125 minutes

Synopsis: Cynthia Nixon gives a career-best, tour-de-force performance as the legendary 19th Century poet Emily Dickinson in the luminous and intensely moving new film from award-winning filmmaker Terence Davies (Distant Voices Still Lives, The House of Mirth), named by The Guardian as -Britain's greatest living director'.

Born into privilege in 1803, Emily Dickinson spent most of her life on her parents' estate in Armherst, Massachusetts. In her youth, the introverted Emily is depicted as a fiercely intelligent young woman who exchanges forthright opinions on life and art – and, more particularly, on the place of women in a patriarchal society.

Emily becomes more and more reclusive as the years pass, gradually withdrawing from society. In her cloistered existence she is consumed by poetry, but the lack of recognition – fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1800 poems were published in her lifetime – and her frustrations regarding gender inequality and creative integrity make for an ever more vociferous dissention…

Gloriously realising Dickinson's interior world, Davies gives great weight to the role in which her family, and their various bourgeois guests, play in her life. It's Emily's encounters with her sister (Pride & Prejudice's Jennifer Ehle), brother, mother and father (Keith Carradine) that provide the hinge around which the film is structured.

Stunning in both its sumptuous production design and also in the respect and love that it brings to its subject, the seamless manner in which Dickinson's sharp-sighted verse is integrated into the narrative is one of A Quiet Passion's many joys. Davies' portrait may just be the perfect match of filmmaker, actress and subject.

A Quiet Passion
Release Date: June 22nd, 2017
www.aquietpassion.com.au

About The Production

Emily Dickinson was first featured in Terence Davies' work in his 2008 visual ode to Liverpool, Of Time and The City, which contained Terence reading Dickinson Poem 301.

I reason, Earth is short -- / And Anguish -- absolute -- / And many hurt, / But, what of that? I reason, we could die -- / The best Vitality / Cannot excel Decay, / But, what of that? I reason, that in Heaven -- / Somehow, it will be even --/ Some new Equation, given -- / But, what of that?

'The poetry is so sublime, I think she is America's greatest poet, and she should be read." Said Terence Davies. Working with the same producers from Of Time and The City, Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos, Terence Davies began development on A Quiet Passion in 2012.

'Emily Dickinson is one of America's greatest poets." Sol enthused. 'When Terence Davies said he wanted to tell her story we were sceptical – a film about a morbid, obsessed recluse?! But then the script arrived and we're still laughing. It's a work of enormous wit and pathos."

Casting
When it came to casting Emily, there was only ever one actress for Terence Davies. "I wrote the screenplay with Cynthia Nixon in mind," Terence Davies said. "It was the kind of dream casting you hope for. I never, for a moment, imagined my wishes would materialise."

'Our producer Sol, in a former life, was a photographer. Sol took Cynthia Nixon's photograph, and he superimposed her face onto the daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson. She looked exactly like her. I knew she was right."

'We didn't know it at the time but when we approached Cynthia Nixon she was already a huge fan of Emily Dickinson, having grown up with her work." Sol remembered. 'She's the perfect fit – a performance that's truly breath-taking."

A Dickinson aficionado, Cynthia became officially attached to the project in late 2012. She was enthralled to play one of America's favourite poets; 'She wrote so many poems, almost 1800 poems. They're intensely personal. Some of them are very ecstatic, and some of them are deeply sad, and some of them are both of those things at once, and sometimes you feel as if she is speaking directly to you. I guess I've always felt a kinship to her."

American stars Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine and Emma Bell all became attached to the project in early 2015, bringing even more internationally celebrated actors into the Dickinson family. Sol remembers, 'It was a long search for our supporting cast, but, like all journeys, we arrived at the perfect ensemble, with Jennifer Ehle and Keith Carradine taking on the roles of Emily's sister and father."

The film also featured a melee of international talent from the UK and Belgium, including Jodhi May, the youngest ever winner of the Cannes Best Actress Award, who had previously worked with Terence Davies on House of Mirth. 'Our experience in Belgium was superlative in every department – even the few spoken parts cast there totally delighted our director Terence Davies." Hurricane Films producer Sol commented. 'We are now looking to shoot more productions there!"

The Crew
Whilst the majority of the cast was new to Terence Davies, for the crew he looked a little closer to home. Having worked with producers Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos on the acclaimed documentary Of Time and The City and 2015's emotive drama Sunset Song, Terence once again turned to the Hurricane Films duo to produce A Quiet Passion.

The producers have been vital to Terence. 'Roy and Sol's support has been key over these past few years – we've all become family." Roy and Sol relished the prospect of developing the project. 'When Roy and I first received the script, it arrived on a Saturday morning." Sol recalled. 'We both thought, well, there goes the weekend – no doubt we're about to embark on a very depressing journey through the life of Emily Dickinson! Then we both had the same experience – we started laughing out loud. The sharpness of the language, the wit of the characters – of course Emily had to be funny! Terence Davies delivered a delightful script that surprised us all."

Hurricane Films producers Roy Boulter and Sol Papadopoulos collaborated with coproducers Peter De Maegd and Tom Hameeuw from Potemkino. 'Our co-producers in Belgium were exceptional. They were perfect partners in what was never a straightforward operation. What film is? Every challenge was overcome with great collaborative spirit." In order to attain exceptional visuals to accompany the magnificent script, Terence Davies turned to a Director of Photography he had worked with previously, Florian Hoffmeister, Having worked with Florian on The Deep Blue Sea in 2011, Terence enthused about pairing with the talented DoP once more. 'I've been fortunate in my film career to work with some of the geniuses of Cinematography – Florian is among them, he is a true artist."

Filming
In May 2015, A Quiet Passion began filming in AED Studios in Belgium. In order to authentically capture the feel and essence of Emily's home, the team in Belgium brought Massachusetts life to Antwerp, reconstructing interiors from the Dickinson Homestead in the studio.

Whilst on set of A Quiet Passion, Terence Davies declared himself 'the happiest I've been in over forty years of filmmaking". Of Cynthia Nixon's captivating take on Emily, he said, 'We spent an afternoon doing all the poetry, just as a guide track, as some of the shots are timed to the poems. When we were in post-production, Cynthia Nixon's agent asked if we wanted to do ADR, and I said no, they were just so wonderfully read."

Of the film, Sol said, 'The shoot in Belgium is what every producer dreams of. A great cast and crew working happily to schedule, only 15 minutes outside the great city of Antwerp."

In June, after 6 weeks in Belgium, the shoot moved to the USA. In Amherst, the Dickinson hometown, the team filmed at the Emily Dickinson Museum and Homestead; Emily's former home. Here they captured the lush Massachusetts exteriors.

The soundtrack to the film features a combination of pre-existing tracks, piano solos and orchestral pieces. The pieces were hand-selected by Terence Davies. 'When writing, at the end of the film, I thought, it needs something, it needs something. And then I remembered Charles Ives. He wrote two wonderful pieces; Decoration Day and The Unanswered Question. I knew they were right; you have to feel it, it comes instinctively." The two Ives pieces were orchestral numbers recorded in Belgium, featuring artists from the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, whilst the piano solos were taped in the Royal College Manchester.

In March 2016, the film premiered at Berlinale International Film Festival. Finally bringing his Emily Dickinson to the big screen delighted Terence Davies. 'If people went to the film and then started reading her poetry, that would be an achievement, because I think she deserves it," said Terence Davies. 'She had a posthumous reputation, and I think that's very very unfair, I don't know how great artists bear that. She deserves to be applauded forever."

A Quiet Passion
Release Date: June 22nd, 2017
www.aquietpassion.com.au