"Marc, you're a genius!" was Halle Berry's tearful remarks to young director Marc Forster upon receiving her Best Actress Oscar. Indeed, the Swiss-born, US-educated director is the hand that pushed Berry to new heights in her acting career -- an unusual achievement for a 32-year-old filmmaker.
"I used to think that she was too beautiful, a typical Hollywood glamorous actress. Now I think she's a real star. She's competent in any kind of role," said Forster in a phone interview with Taiwanese media.
Berry's role of a traumatized widow and mother of a lost son is one that many black actresses tried hard to land, but Berry was among the most enthusiastic, Forster said. "I saw a strong eagerness from her to get this role the first time we met. The second time, during a long talk, I told her that we had only 24 days to shoot the film and that there would be no rehearsal for actors. But I could feel from her sensitive eyes that she really identified with the role," Forster said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPRING INTERNATIONAL
Can the intense sex between the main characters forgive racism and the death penalty? This was the question asked at the Berlin Film Festival during the film's European premiere -- the only place where the long sex scenes were kept intact
"Yes, love and sex do heal the wounds, especially for Billy Bob and Halle's characters. In a way, they are two loners, and through their encounter, they have given each other life," Forster said at a press conference in Berlin.
Forster said the sex scenes are one of the most important and worrying parts of the film. "They had to be convincing so that the audience could accept the story that follows. I was careful choosing the shots and asking Billy Bob and Halle to express yearning and relief. But I insisted on using my own style and the actors were not to comment or make changes during the shooting. I was glad both of them were satisfied with the result. This is very different from the Hollywood way of shooting sex scenes. Normally you would [come to legal agreements] on the degree of nudity, how and where the shots would are taken, etc.," Forster said.
Having made Monsters' Ball, his third film, under a Hollywood studio, and now shooting Neverland with Johnny Depp, Forster said he never considered himself an American filmmaker. "My roots will always be in Switzerland," he said.
Having grown up in the mountains, Forster never watched TV before the age of 12. "My first movie, Apocalypse Now was like dreamland to me. From then on I began watching more films and writing short stories ... finding my goal in life."
"Many have asked how I could have the experience to direct such an intense film. Actually, in three months in 1998 I lost my father, older brother and grandmother. This helped me ... grow up," he said.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless