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a14 people & arts
Wednesday 7 september 2022
Farrell and Gleeson reunite with Martin McDonagh in Venice

By LINDSEY BAHR shot mostly in Inishmore,
AP Film Writer where his father was from.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Martin And before production
McDonagh has returned started, they had several
to the Venice International weeks of rehearsals in Gal-
Film Festival with “The Ban- way. Farrell said it “felt so
shees of Inisherin,” which is beautiful to be back where
having its world premiere Martin’s plays had been
Monday night in competi- performed.”
tion. Venice is a bit of a good
It’s his first film since “Three luck charm for McDonagh,
Billboards Outside Ebbing, who in 2017 received the
Missouri,” and a reunion festival’s top screenwriting
with his “In Bruges” stars prize for “Three Billboards
Colin Farrell and Brendan This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Colin Farrell, left, and Brendan Gleeson in “The Outside Ebbing, Missouri,”
Gleeson. Banshees of Inisherin.” which would go on to be a
Farrell on Monday said that Associated Press box office smash, get him
he and McDonagh have he designs.”The film is set festation of a little donkey.” examined male friend- a best picture and screen-
talked about working to- in 1923 on a remote island Kerry Condon plays Padra- ship in a different way. But, play nomination at the Os-
gether again, and they off Ireland’s west coast. ic’s sister Siobhan and Barry he said, despite the time cars and win two acting
have a “mature agree- It tells a story about long- Keoghan is the tormented that it’s set in, it is a “mod- Oscars for Frances McDor-
ment” where they’ll accept time friends Padraic (Far- young Dominic, who try to ern film” in how it presents mand and Sam Rockwell.
if the other wants to pass. rell) and Colm (Gleeson) help Padraic mend things. these two friends. “The Banshees of Inisherin”
And yet, Farrell said, he at a fraught moment when “He has an innocence “The way the idea that is competing for the Golden
also can’t imagine “ever Colm suddenly decides to where he can’t compre- these men would talk to Lion and other top awards
passing on anything (Mc- end the relationship. He’s hend why his friend of so each other in a natural way this year, against films like
Donagh) writes because decided that Padraic is many years has cut him about feelings is debatable Todd Field’s “TÁR” and
he’s such an extraordinary dull, and Padraic, in turn, is out,” Farrell said. “It shakes if it would transpire at that Darren Aronofsky’s “The
writer and I’m always so shattered. him to his core ... He lives point,” Gleeson said. Whale,” before it opens in
deeply moved emotion- “It’s hard to ghost some- in a beautiful life and that The film also marks Mc- theaters on Oct. 21.
ally and psychologically one on an island,” Farrell beauty is taken away by Donagh’s first production in The 79th edition of the
by the worlds he creates laughed. His character, he Brendan’s Colm.” Ireland, which he said was Venice Film Festival runs
and the characters that said, is the “human mani- Gleeson liked how the film “a dream of mine.” They through Sept. 10.q

Reimagining the fate of a doomed Renaissance duchess

ter of a real girl in Renaissance Italy. ning with the day she comes to believe she will
In her first novel since the lovely “Hamnet,” be murdered, and diving all the way back to
which won a National Book Critics Circle her conception. And although we are told her
Award and other prizes, O’Farrell again reach- fate from the start, we come to believe that
es back to the 16th century to imagine the in- this teenager is a match for the evil simmering
ner life of a figure about whom the historical in the palace courts around her. Observant
record is thin but intriguing. and compassionate, Lucrezia is an outsider in
In “Hamnet,” that was Anne Hathaway, Shake- that world.
speare’s wife. Here, it’s Lucrezia de’ Medici, She finds some freedom in nature and art. But
who died under suspicious circumstances in although she is a gifted artist, nobody consid-
1561 at just 16 years old. Although the official ers any future for her other than as a powerful
cause of death was illness, it was rumored that man’s wife.
her husband of less than a year, Alfonso, Duke O’Farrell has cited Robert Browning’s poem,
of Ferrara, killed her. “My Last Duchess,” as inspiring her interest
That murkiness gives O’Farrell plenty of room to in this Renaissance story. The poem paints a
look for skips in the historical record and build creepy picture of Alfonso showing a strang-
Hitchcockian suspense. er a portrait of his deceased wife, which he
The Renaissance palazzos and castellos por- keeps behind a curtain so only he can look at
trayed here have gorgeous, sunlit exteriors but it. O’Farrell found a real portrait of Lucrezia in
dark, thick-walled interiors. Norm-shattering art a Florence gallery, and it radiated intelligence
and commerce coexist with rigid social hierar- and mystery. The novel dwells on a technique
chies and superstition. popular in the Renaissance called “overpaint-
This cover image released by Knopf shows “The Lucrezia was part of the most powerful family ing,” in which you apply the final layers of
Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell. in Florence, the Medicis. Being a girl, she lived paint on top of an existing image, either cov-
Associated Press
a confined existence, unable to venture much ering it or allowing the old and new images to
By JULIA RUBIN beyond her rooms. (The dim, dull life inside the merge. Lucrezia frequently uses this practice,
Associated Press palazzo contrasts with the glare of the lively just as she learns to hide her true self beneath
Stories of high-born girls confined to castles, square outside; an offhand description is given a formal, superficial surface.
forced to marry young, and pressured to have of a statue the Medicis have put outside their Likewise, O’Farrell has taken a historical foot-
sons on pain of death are the stuff of dark door – it’s only Michelangelo’s “David.”) note – the death of a 16-year-old duchess –
fantasy these days on HBO. Novelist Maggie Things slowly become even more claustropho- and overlaid it with strokes of bravery, cruelty,
O’Farrell comes at that scenario in a different, bic after Lucrezia is married off against her will. love, loyalty and more to paint a different
more psychological way, through the charac- The novel jumps back and forth in time, begin- picture.q