Page 13 - Fujifilm Exposure_9 Love's Labour's Lost_ok

“We’ll start at eight
in the morning and you’ll get home at eight in the evening. The work will be very hard... but it will be worth it.”
“When it comes to the musical numbers, it really makes you think about the old days in Hollywood. Busby Berkeley had months and months to prepare a number; we’re shooting the whole thing in six weeks. As for our swimming scene, we had to film it in just one day.”
Branagh agrees he’s thrilled with the “look” of his film: “We did some experimentation with a com- bination of the actual stock and a kind of filter. In some cases there’s net stocking that Alex uses to cre- ate that slightly vaseline lens.
It creates a heightened reality which makes the women look very glamorous and the men very handsome. It’s a wonderfully warm look and so good for this picture.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost is the first film in a new deal between Branagh’s newly-formed The Shakespeare Film Company and the international financing/distribution outfit, Intermedia, which scored a big hit last year with Sliding Doors. Along with Branagh, the SFC core team comprises designer Harvey and 20- year-industry veteran David Barron.
Barron, ensconced in Shepperton’s decidedly functional David Lean Building, has been part- nered with Branagh on and off for the past seven years. Intriguingly, he was associate producer on Zeffirelli’s Hamlet with Mel Gibson before tackling the material again
directly six years on. In between he also produced In The Bleak Midwinter, Branagh’s nifty church hall comedy variation on the melancholy Dane.
But despite Branagh and other directors’ irregular preoccupation
from not making a great amount of money. Like Hamlet, but despite that we’re still very proud of it.” Barron naturally agrees that a little something called Shakespeare In Love won’t have hurt the cause. After Love’s Labour’s Lost, the SFC
Danny Boyle’s section of the port- manteau Alien Love Triangle.
As with all his more personal work, Branagh has worn hats on both sides of the camera. A bur- den? “It is and up till now it’s been necessary in order to get the films financed. But this will probably be the last time I do both things. I’ll probably direct As You Like It and just be in the Scottish play.
“This one has been much more demanding than even Hamlet. I was involved with the choreographer from the latter months of last year practicing my own dancing because I knew that once started properly I’d soon be about a month behind everyone else.
“It has,” says Branagh,” been enormous fun to sing and dance. It literally gets the old endorphins mov- ing around. We’ve at least been able to get some immediate feedback in this sometimes very frustrating, long- drawn-out process. Seeing rushes of the entire company tapping and twirling to numbers like There’s No Business Like Show Business has been very uplifting.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
Love’s Labour’s Lost
was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative
A retrospective of Kenneth Branagh’s screen career runs at the National Film Theatre throughout May
with the Bard, Barron knows only too well that Shakespeare films are not always proven moneyspinners: “It’s all a bit hit-and-miss. Where they’ve made money they’ve made money. Where they haven’t, they really haven’t.
“People continue to view Shakespeare with mixed feelings but they still love to have a film from Ken. Ken’s Shakespeare films are great but some have suffered
plan to film Macbeth and As You Like It. But they will be just part of Branagh’s overall career pattern which also sees the polymath continuing to work very selectively for other directors too.
Due out later this year are Woody Allen’s Celebrity and The Wild Wild West, an action comedy from Barry (Men In Black) Sonnenfeld co-starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline. He also turns up in
Photos inset: Alessandro Nivola, Alicia Silverstone, Adrian Lester, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Lillard, Carmen Ejogo, Kenneth Branagh and Natascha McElhone in Love’s Labour’s Lost above left: a dance sequence from Love’s Labour’s Lost; centre: Kenneth Branagh behind the camera on the set of Love’s Labour’s Lost
right: Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing (Courtesy BFI Stills)