Viggo Mortensen saw other people disappear. The actor, best known for starring in Lord of the Rings and Promises of the East, among other acclaimed films, releases his debut as director of Falling this week. The film also stars Mortensen as a middle-aged gay man looking to care for his father with dementia (Lance Henriksen), and comes from the circle of actor and director’s relatives who revel in the disease.
“It’s a very private story,” Mortensen said, “When I started writing it, my mom had just passed away after having dementia for a few years, I’ve noticed it up close with a lot of other people in my family, so I started writing stories I’d heard at her funeral. they were stories that looked like the ones I already knew, but some were the same story but told from another point of view, which I discovered strange. How can other people, the same person, the same event, otherwise?”
Mortensen continues, “made me think of the subjectivity of memory. I thought she was attractive as a story, and then the way those occasions I was writing in my pocket had to do with other periods and issues of sight, I think. I started writing it as a short story, and then I learned it was very visual, so maybe it’s a script. “
Mortensen said he’s been looking to direct for years, but it wasn’t until now that he was able to get enough investment to make a film. Even then, Falling has noticed some stops and exits, where the money fell at the last minute. Aside from Mortensen’s acting talent, this lack of money was a great explanation as to why he appears to be both in front of the camera and behind.
“Originally, it wasn’t my concept to play in the movie. I had enough to do,” Mortensen said, “But when I couldn’t find cash for the first time and I knew how complicated it was going to be, I thought, ‘Well, I’m already working hard with Lance, we already have a date of accepting as real actors. ‘of my character’s scenes are with Lance, so I put on my manufacturer’s hat like, ‘Well, Viggo’s not going to charge us in cash. ‘”
Mortensen continues: “These are years of work, so you must publish it correctly. We were very careful with the whole cast and I think he’d be right. Selfishly speaking, I had the job in the house. I’m just watching Lance build those crazy, beautiful, unsettling, provocative curling mountains of a performance. “
Falling’s main plot is that John (Mortensen) takes home his elderly father Willis (Henriksen) to California for medical examinations and searches for homes imaginable to approach his circle of relatives, which also includes the husband of John Eric (Terry Chen) and his sister. Sarah (Laura Linney). But this situation is intermingled with flashbacks about the previous stages of their lives unfolding on Willis’ farm. It’s simple enough for the viewer to notice the difference, as Willis is played through Sverrir Gudnason during those scenes and John. through a trio of young actors, but the difference is much less transparent to Willis, who doesn’t let dementia stop him from yelling at his circle of relatives (often using homophobic or racist language) as if he were the only one who understood something.
Dementia is not uncharted territory for cinema. Julianne Moore won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2015 for her painting of an Alzheimer’s patient in Still Alice, and last year in Josh Trank’s Capone saw Tom Hardy painting the notorious gangster during his last senile phase. But because of Mortensen’s close and private encounters with dementia, the director believes there are vital things films miss induce in describing the progressive loss of reminiscence.
“There have been other films about dementia in recent years, however, in these, the user gets confused,” Mortensen says. “But in my experience, they only deform if you write them correctly. You think, ‘No, Dad,'” you couldn’t have had breakfast with Johnny, he died 35 years ago. ‘You do that and they squash, because that user dies for them. So I was just looking to show that what they see and don’t forget is very genuine and very profitable for them, unless you spoil them. “
Falling will be available in theaters, digitally and on demand on February 5.
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