By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

DIRECTING ICONS WONG KAR WAI AND MARTIN SCORSESE CELEBRATE THE GRANDMASTER

Posted Thursday, August 15th, 2013 - Comments Off on DIRECTING ICONS WONG KAR WAI AND MARTIN SCORSESE CELEBRATE THE GRANDMASTER
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DIRECTING ICONS WONG KAR WAI AND MARTIN SCORSESE CELEBRATE THE GRANDMASTER IN NYC

Director Won Kar Wai and Martin ScorseseGRANDMASTER'New York, NY – August 15, 2013 – Filmmaking legends Wong Kar Wai and Martin Scorsese met in New York yesterday to celebrate the upcoming release of Wong’s kung fu epic THE GRANDMASTER. The Weinstein Company, who is releasing the film theatrically, recently announced that Scorsese is lending his name in presentation of the picture, deeming it MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS ‘THE GRANDMASTER.’

The film, which stars internationally beloved actors Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, and Chang Chen and is executive produced by Annapurna Pictures’ Megan Ellison, will open in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto on August 23rd and nationwide on August 30th.Filmed over the course of 22 months in a range of stunning locations that include the snow-swept landscapes of Northeast China and the subtropical South, the actors underwent several years of rigorous and extremely challenging kung fu training for their roles in the film. Years of research before production and a virtual battalion of martial arts trainers on set ensured that THE GRANDMASTER portrays both the Chinese martial arts and the world of the martial artists with unprecedented authenticity, with fight scenes choreographed by renowned action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (THE MATRIX, KILL BILL, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.)Said Scorsese: “Wong Kar Wai has turned martial arts into a modern dance.  Every movement hit with precision, every emotion drenched with underlying honor. THE GRANDMASTER, arranged with both elegance and fury, left me mesmerized.”

“Marty has always been a great inspiration,” said Wong Kar Wai. “We are so thankful for his support of the film.”

Commented TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein: “Marty Scorsese’s reaction to THE GRANDMASTER couldn’t have been more enthusiastic.  When Marty champions a film, nothing is better; it is the ultimate seal of approval.  I look forward to audiences seeing this wildly entertaining and artistic film.”

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon