Letters to the Editor
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Cuban
Marianne Pearl is part Cuban. So only a part-cuban actress should play her?
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Isn't anyone else sick of Angelina's preening and playing world savior?
She is like the Paris Hilton of of the U.N.
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I would like to see it
The concept didn't grab me, but based on clips and reviews it actually sounds like a really good movie.
As for the casting- the race thing seems like a bit of a pile-on. This is a personal story, not a story about "blackness". If it was about slavery or the life of African-Americans, then yes, it would be obvious to cast according to race, but this is an intensely personal tale, about one womans greatest tragedy so I would presume that it is more important to find someone that the subject is comfortable with.
Plus, Mariane Pearl isn't "black" and certainly not African American, finding a perfect racial match would have been a bit of a stretch.
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Hester
This is not about Jolie but the director's failure in having a white woman in this role.. Yes I am sure many cuban actors could have protrayed the role of Mariane Pearl..
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Here we go again...
It really would be nice to read a movie review without being subjected to the tired "9/11 changed everything" mantra which has been so widely used and abused in the past six years.
The "world we now live in" may indeed be more unstable than before that morning in September 2001 (mostly due to the disastrous policies of the current president and his band of Neocons), but the world before certainly wasn't idyllic, and positing it as such does a severe disservice to history and Americans who would be guided by it.
If Ms. Zacharek finds the world "newly confounding and complicated," one can't help but assume that she just wasn't paying attention before. And though ahistoricism, worn as a badge of patriotism, may be popular at the moment in Washington, it isn't a responsible worldview for an adult.
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Dear Lord Thrasher
I understand, Thrasher, what you're saying about people of color in films, but I'm sure that Winterbottom picked Jolie (or got the project with her already attached to star in it) because Brad Pitt was the producer. Do you think the movie would have been made (or would have received as much distribution) if she weren't in the film? If they had taken an unknown part-cuban actress (can you even name one?) and cast her in the role as Marianne Pearl?
The movie isn't a documentary. It's a movie.
I also think its wrong for you to say all of the good roles go to white actors, when the last crop of Academy Award nominations were the most diverse ever. Very rarely (in recent years anyway) has an American film cast a white actor to play a person of color. (I can only think of the Human Stain off of the top of my head.)
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Regarding being "a person of color"
According to Wikipedia, Mariane Pearl is of Dutch-Jewish, Afro-Latino-Cuban and Chinese Cuban descent.
In the absence of an actress with this background who looks like Pearl, which color would you pick?
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Stackey-Ackey: HBO Film 'Year of Sitting Bull" example of white actor protraying American Indian
This film was released this year as a matter of fact.. there are numerous other films which have white actors "passin" as people of color..of course thankfully this ugly practice no longer is the rule..
BTW Lord Thrasher looks good in print I bet it sounds nice as well please chant it for about 10 times real fast..
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Mariane Pearl wanted Jolie, not Winterbottom
So Thrasher, if you're going to make such a criticism, get your facts straight first. When Winterbottom signed on, Angelina Jolie had already been lined up for the part and apparently Mariane Pearl had wanted Jolie to play her. They're friends, apparently.
From a Washington Post live chat with Winterbottom:
Michael Winterbottom: When I first met Angelina, it was with Mariane. They were already friends, they knew each other. They seemed to me to be incredibly similar. We spent a lot of time talking about Mariane's experience, but their views on the world, the way they talked about their children and their families, they seemed to share a lot in common. It seemed perfect. If you're making a movie about a difficult time in a person's life, it makes sense for them to trust the actor. When we showed the film in Cannes, at the press conference afterward, Mariane said she had asked Angelina to play the part, which I hadn't realized. So I think clearly Mariane recognizes Angelina as a kindred spirit, and I hope that comes through in the film.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/12/DI2007061200562.html
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Anonymous: You are very dense please try harder to defend Hollywood's racist casting practices
My point is Mariane Pearl as a woman of color there are countless female actors of color who could have been casted for this role..
BTW some of these woman of color actors are also jewish if that will make you happy... I hope now you wil not call me a "scwartza" which does sound better than the n-word but of course is the morphed modern yiddish word for calling me the n-word..
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So you're saying that Mariane Pearl's wishes for her own bio pic should be ignored?
nuf said.
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Mariane never interview woman actors of color !!
In truth her selection was flawed but she was not the director nor did she have the authority to make that call.. My point remains that white actors more than often get to pay roles that are beyond the reach of actors of color and not because of talent but because of the racist and myopic practices and attitudes of directors who are often white and have never casted a person of color in a lead role from Winterbottom to Allen and the like..
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Mariane is not qualified to be a director nor was this her Bio Film..
also she is not an actress nor a film writer..nuf said...
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Film suffered because of shadow casted by Jolie's celebrity
It was at best an average film which underachieved in truth....
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Re: tonia67
Yes! And all of the journalists feeding off of this image of martyrdom.
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Thraher lives in his own reality
Winterbottom said Pearl asked Jolie to play her
And Angelina's husband was the producer, so it sounds as though there's some relationship between the couple and Pearl. They're friends. If she writes stipulations into her contract that she requests a certain person play her, she can. Jolie was cast selected to play PEARL before the director, WINTERBOTTOM, was even selected.
How hard is that for you to understand?
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Best Review
Stephanie Zacharek's review is the best I have read about this film.