MALEFICENT gives audiences a glimpse behind one of the most beloved fairy tales of all time, SLEEPING BEAUTY, as shown through the eyes of its villain. Is it enough to enchant its viewers?
MALEFICENT takes us on the journey into the legend behind the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty that we have all grow to love and know. Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) was actually a good-natured fairy in charge of protecting her magical kingdom. Somewhere along the way Maleficent finds true love in a young boy named Stefan, only to be betrayed by his quest for power. Driven by revenge, Maleficent places an irrevocable curse on Stefan’s firstborn daughter Aurora (Elle Fanning). As the child begins to grow, Maleficent’s jaded heart begins to melt, and her love for the girl she set out to hate begins to take over. Unfortunately, as her cold heart begins to grow warm, there is no escaping the curse she bestowed upon young Aurora, and she is destined to fall into a sleep like death unless true loves kiss awakens her.
Let me start off by saying that Angelina Jolie was the perfect person to play the role of Maleficent. She does an incredible job of portraying both a villain, and a heroine at the same time. Her duality is beyond impressive. Although I felt that the film lacked a character as strong as her, I felt that her performance was more than enough to carry the film. The role of Sleeping Beauty was not a shining role in this film, so I felt that Elle Fanning didn’t really have a chance to make her character her own. She was great, but in the grand scheme of things her role was secondary. They didn’t let the character of Sleeping Beauty adequately develop, or grow as a character. She was a boring placeholder. The same goes for the character of Stefan, played by Sharlto Copley. Although we see a glimpse of how his treacherous act drove him into a life of insanity, we don’t really see his struggles of growing up in poverty, nor do we see the man he came to be because of his circumstances. Audiences would really benefit to see how he came to the drastic decision to betray his one true love in such a vile way. How can we understand why exactly he would choose to betray the one true person that has loved him against all odds without a proper backstory? He is a great actor that was not utilized properly in this film.
I get that this film was originally intended for children, but when they decided to take a turn and focus on the dark, more adult aspects of this fairytale the CGI lost me. The beginning of MALEFICENT looks like a cheesy children’s film, whereas the rest of the film concentrated on darker, more dynamic imagery. These two do not blend well. Robert Stromberg, who makes his directorial debut, had an incredible amount of pressure to create a mind-blowing, dynamic film since he comes from a visual effects background, and was the production designer for OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, ALICE AND WONDERLAND, and AVATAR. He did not, however, deliver. The set design of MALEFICENT looks hokey and fake. The gnomes and fairies of the beginning world look like they could have easily been pulled from a made for TV movie. You worked on AVATAR! Did you really think that audiences would expect these half-assed CGI effects?
WARNING : SPOILER ALERT
There is one thing that I will stick up for when it comes to this film. I am sick of critics throwing out the rape-revenge theory of this film. Yes, Maleficent endures a violation that breaks her heart and ultimately changes who she is, but this is not of a sexual nature. Is this a violation? Sure. Keep in mind that this is a children’s movie, and in no way does anything sexual happen. Despite her wings being ripped off (so that her love can convince the dying King that she is dead and inherit the throne), this is not a sexual violation. Sure, something precious was taken from her, and I can get where this theory is coming from, but you kids are digging a little too deep. What ever happened to taking a movie for what it is, without throwing too much meaning into it? If this were the story of a male fairy seeking revenge after his lover stole his wings we would not be having this conversation. Does this stem from the fact that Disney has, yet again, strayed from the formula of the handsome prince coming to the rescue? Perhaps. Now that the strong female leads are taking center stage, it feels like there is a little bit of a revolt coming forward. Sure, Maleficent transformed into the villain that we all know her to be because her heart was broken, but a prince did not fix her broken heart. The love of another human being did. The love of a girl who could have potentially been her daughter broke the spell. We, as females, can all relate to feeling a desire for revenge after heartbreak. It’s human nature. Men feel it too. The fact that they show the downfalls of acting on raw emotion… that is where the true story lies. The concept of the good and evil sides of a villainous character has played a serious backseat to this ridiculous “rape / revenge” concept that people are talking about, and it’s a shame. If anything, this should be used as an example of how revenge is never the answer, no matter how badly your heart is hurting. I’m proud of Disney for reinventing the fairytale, and providing little girls with stories of self empowerment. Besides Angelina Jolie portraying the perfect Maleficent, this is the only other good thing that I can truly say.
If you are going to attack this film, attack it for its poor secondary character development and tacky CGI intro. Don’t attack this film for taking a chance to reinvent a classic fairytale into something that girls today can now relate to.
The film stars Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville. “Maleficent” is produced by Joe Roth and directed by Robert Stromberg, with Angelina Jolie, Michael Vieira, Don Hahn, Palak Patel, Matt Smith and Sarah Bradshaw serving as executive producers. Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay.
Overall Rating : 3 out of 5 stars… because Angelina Jolie is incredible
MALEFICENT explores the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the classic “SLEEPING BEAUTY” and the elements of her betrayal that ultimately turn her pure heart to stone. Recently, WAMG sat down with director Robert Stromberg, as well as stars Elle Fanning and Sharlto Copley in a roundtable discussion (with a small group of press) to talk about bringing the classic story to life… with a twist. Check it out below. Also, be sure to tune in Monday for my exclusive interview with actor Sam Riley.
Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king’s newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficentrealizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever. The film stars Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville. “Maleficent” is produced by Joe Roth and directed by Robert Stromberg, with Angelina Jolie, Michael Vieira, Don Hahn, Palak Patel, Matt Smith and Sarah Bradshaw serving as executive producers. Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay.
The part that resonated the most with me was the theme of female empowerment. I’m wondering what were the challenges bringing that to life. I would imagine with our modern day sensibilities, you sort of have to do that.
ROBERT STROMBERG : I was drawn to the strong female character. Maybe I picked up a little something from James Cameron because he loves the strength in female characters. We had discussions about that in the past. She is a superhero in her own right, but the strength of being a female and how to stay strong yet find the softer emotional attachment, it was a really interesting conundrum. It was fun to play with that.
We’ve seen you talk about, how as a child, you always had a dream to be a Disney princess. So what are the realities of then finally getting to be one, and it’s not just something animated.
ELLE FANNING : I know. It’s crazy. That was my dream when I was little. People would ask, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I would say, ‘A Disney princess.’ That’s the ultimate goal in life. And to be able to say that you actually – I’m still like pinching myself to say that I’m Aurora. It’s so weird for me. A little girl came up to me the other day because she had been seeing the trailers and stuff. And she asked, ‘Are you Aurora?’ And I’m like, ‘I guess I’m Aurora.’ It’s like crazy.
You get to own it.
ELLE FANNING : Yeah, I get to own it [laughs]. Yeah, it was a really special thing, and also, my first meeting that I had, because I heard that there was going to be a Maleficent movie, so I was like, I know it’s going to be from the villain’s point of view, but that means there has to be a Sleeping Beauty in it. So my ears perked up, but then, Rob [Stromberg], the director, wanted me to come in for a meeting – he and Linda [Woolverton], the writer – and from there, that meeting they gave me the part, and that handed over the script. And that was kind of like handing over the crown. And I was like, ‘Oh!’ That ride home, I was reading it in the car. And I kind of got motion sickness reading, but I was still reading it. I was so excited.
This is an exciting character for you because you get to flesh out the character more than past stories have done. What was your approach to take him and build on what we’ve seen?
SHARLTO COPLEY : I suppose I don’t like generally playing villains, which is interesting. What attracted me to this was, I suppose, the idea of playing a character that in a very female-centered form, is almost like a cautionary tale to men; I sort of saw it like that. I always have to find some sort of way in to play the character that I think is true to human nature, not just one person. So a lot of people might look at this role and go, ‘Oh, what a horrible man and really crazy!’ For me, it’s so universal what I’m actually drawing on to play him; I’m just doing it in an extreme way. So the man who works his whole life and make a hundred million dollars but has traded his wife in for someone younger and never spends any time with his kids – all he ever really gave them was money and maybe started with the best of intentions years ago of wanting to be the good husband and provide is an example of that you’ll see all around you. For me, Stefan is an extreme example of that sort of male drive and ambition and ego, if it runs away with itself, what it can do, and often actually does do.
What is it about villains that you don’t like that makes you not typically choose to play them?
SHARLTO COPLEY : I just…I don’t know. I suppose I’m not really a naturally brooding person. As a child, I was cast as Happy in “Snow White” when I was 9 by my teacher. It’s like, ‘Which child is the happy one, is always smiling? Sharlto.’ [Laughs] I suppose my default position is more happy than brooding and interested in doing evil things. Also, I think in today’s society there’s a lot of glamorization of villains as well, which I find very strange, especially if you come from a violent place like South African like I did. It’s very easy to glamorize violence as a nation. I think in America – now getting very carried away – it’s easy to glamorize warfare in video games or in movies or whatever when you’re doing to war with Iraq. If suddenly you were going to go to war with Russia tomorrow, suddenly it would just change everything again. You’re suddenly back in a society that’s going, ‘Whoa, whoa, what?’ Society has gotten to that point of being safe and protected and not really understanding what evil and violence actually means.
What impressed you most about working with Angelina Jolie on this film? She this wonderful duality to her character.
ROBERT STROMBERG : That’s my point. When I first learned I was doing this film, she was attached. There was this visual part which is perfect – of course it works. What I was pleasantly surprised was the depth of emotion of the character that she had been preparing for a long time to bring that to this iconic image. It’s this superpower. We had talked at length about how we wanted to escape from this one dimensional character which you can argue the character is in the classic telling of this. Her character goes through so many emotions but we wanted her character to be dark but explore how to have fun with evil and then to have redemption, regret and other emotions. She did her homework. She was ready. I just had to be there to capture those moments. I always like the first takes because they feel like the most honest takes. It wasn’t too much experimenting with this.
Would you say this part hinges on her playing it?
ROBERT STROMBERG : Absolutely. There are a lot of great actresses out there. First of all, in real life, she’s a strong person and a mother – ironically with some adopted children. You can apply all of those elements to the character in the film. That’s what probably makes it very honest and something that everyone – especially her – relates to. In my opinion, it wouldn’t have been the same emotionally if it were played by someone else. I was very fortunate to have her.
What were lessons that you learned from her both as an actress and just Angelina as a person?
ELLE FANNING : I mean, I think that she’s the perfect role model. I feel like whatever she’s like wanted to do, she’s done. Now, she’s directing and being a mom. It’s like she’s done everything, and she’s still not done with doing everything she wants. It’s just so incredible. You hear that name, and it’s like, such an intense name. And you think of all the pictures that you’ve seen of her and her at events and stuff. And you find her to be very – I was kind of scared. I was like, ‘Oh, she’s going to be really intense lady.’ And then you meet her, and it’s like she’s not – she’s still like everyone walks into a room and everyone looks at her. She’s so powerful. But I got to know the side of her that was more sensitive and really playful. Like they would yell cut, and all her kids would like – they were on set all the time – they went to her. And she’d be holding Vivienne and Knox on her hip. Like to see that, and learn she’s very into the detail of things. She’s very specific like with her outfit. Like it really mattered, every little thing mattered which to me, I learned from that as this character’s going to live with her forever, in her acting career, for life. So for me, I took that away to always really pay attention to all the little details. They all come together to make the final.
Your character also has a physicality to her too. Did you go back into Disney archives and look at the Mary Costa and the dancing girl.
ELLE FANNING : Right. Well, I had seen the Sleeping Beauty ballet. I do ballet, so that was – I don’t know. I think that one of the reasons that I do dance is like because it helps with acting, and it helps your physicality of it. Even though you’re playing someone with bad posture, you know the muscles to use to kind of do that. But I did watch – I’d seen the animated one so many times, but I watched it again right before we started filming because she has certain hand gestures. Like the way she walks and her posture. So I tried to bring all of that physicality into this one because that’s what you fall in love with when you see her. You fall in love with kind of the outside because she’s kind of one-dimensional in the animated. So for ours, we tried to make her more layered and have that depth. But then on the outside, look like the character that you love.
To that point, given the name of the title character and the legacy she carries from Sleeping Beauty, were you happy to see the PG approach here – that it’s not necessarily about the evil but about the second chance and righting a wrong?
SHARLTO COPLEY : I think fairy tales over ages have interesting messages. I resonate with the idea of love saving you from pain and darkness, which is does. So in the story, it saves Maleficent from that, but it doesn’t save Stefan – he’s too far gone. The way I played him and certainly how I saw it was that he always loved her, the whole way through, but he had compromised something that he could never come back from; the guilt of that drove him literally crazy. All he could do now was hang on to that typical go at power; he couldn’t allow himself to be wrong and go back and let love same him, basically. That was attractive to me; the idea of that message in the tale was interesting to me.
It must be interesting in general to play opposite Angelina Jolie, but to see her in the horns and costume – tell me about the sheer fun of doing those scenes with her.
SHARLTO COPLEY : What was interesting to me was that Angie has, I think, an enormous range as an actress to play very soft and vulnerable if she wants, or very hard and like,’ leave me a long, I don’t need you,’ as a woman. There are very few actresses who can do that whole range. And there’s fewer, still, movie star actresses who are known and loved by people that will choose a role where they are going to say, ‘I hate you,’ to a baby and know that they can come back from that and know that the audience will know there’s still heart there. I think when I first met her, one of the things she had said, ‘I hope we work together one day,’ she had spoken about what I did with my character Wikus (from District 9) as well, where you’re playing with those layers of constant vulnerability and toughness, and incompetence or competence, these different aspects we have as actors. So to do that with her, to know that she’s going through that, my character is going to explore the opposite of what I did with Wikus – he’s going to start nice and end badly. There was a lot of back story with the characters that doesn’t make it into the cut of the film in the end which was a lot of fun, which was the degradation of their relationship whereas he’s getting older and suddenly he’s feeling inadequate because he doesn’t have wings and he wants to be the man in this relationship and she doesn’t understand that as a human he wants to build things – what’s wrong with wanting to build castles and what’s wrong with ambition? I don’t have magic; I need to chop trees down to burn wood to stay warm – it’s not magic! What’s wrong with that? So we had a lot of fun, playful, off-camera all the time arguing from the position of our characters, me arguing on behalf of humans and men, and her [for] magical creatures and women. It was pretty fun.
I’m wondering what the breakdown of practical versus CG was like? Did you have a preference?
ROBERT STROMBERG : AVATAR was pretty much all motion capture. ALICE IN WONDERLAND was all green screen. When I did OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, I wanted to reintroduce set. It was only after learning the importance of scene by scene what should be built and what shouldn’t. I brought all of that knowledge into this film and realized that, we have a lot of visual scenes, but we had a lot of emotional scenes. I wanted actors to physically touch things and go through real leaves and walk on grass. It helped them. It helped me in terms of blocking scenes. It became crucial in that we didn’t have a lot of things that weren’t actually there. Again, pulling from the experience on those other films what’s going to be there and creating things so you can get an honest, emotional performance talking to a tennis ball.
How was Angelina able to handle the physical nature of her role – flying and such?
ROBERT STROMBERG : She was gung-ho to do everything. There are limitations. There’s a point where we realize some things have to be either a stunt person or CGI – not just for the obvious reasons of danger but so we can do some things we can do with the character that would take her into that superhero quality to it. There are some of the fight scenes she did a lot of it. But then you get into some shots that require almost acrobatic-like moves, we had to talk about other ways to accomplish that.
I’m curious because there is a definite difference between 14 and 16. Do you enjoy looking back on the film now as kind of a time capsule, or is it kind of slightly awkward in your youth too?
ELLE FANNING : It’s funny because movies that I’ve looked back on now, that maybe when I did them I was too young to see. And it’s kind of looking at it like baby albums. You’re like whoa. You get to – and it also like captures the way you were in that time. So it’s fun for me to look back at them and I like it. I kind of enjoy it. Like that’s little me. But now, I look at this, and I think I look younger. I feel like whoa, even though it doesn’t feel like that long ago, but I guess it kind of was. It’s like a documenting each stage of life, yeah.
NCM Fathom Events, Mr. Wolf, Arts Alliance Media and the Royal Opera House invite you to journey to an enchanted world of princesses, fairy godmothers and magic spells with the captivating Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty as it comes to the big screen in a special one-night event on Thursday, March 20 at 7:00pm (local time) to select cinemas nationwide.
Don’t miss Marius Petipa’s enchanting ballet as a wicked fairy places a fatal curse on the baby Princess Aurora, which the good Lilac Fairy softens to a sleep of 100 years and only a prince’s kiss can break the spell.
Like Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty is instantly recognizable to those unfamiliar with ballet. The princess will be played by American Sarah Lamb who danced in The Royal Ballet’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in November of 2013.
Marius Petipa’s classic 19th-century choreography is combined with newly created sections by Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon. First staged in St. Petersburg in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of classical ballet: a perfect marriage of Petipa’s choreography and Tchaikovsky’s music and a glorious challenge for every dancer on stage. Today’s The Sleeping Beauty not only captures the mood of the original but shows that this is very much a living work for The Royal Ballet, growing and changing with the Company while celebrating its past.
These are one-night events with no encores, so they should not be missed by any ballet fan. This is perfect family-friendly entertainment and a wonderful opportunity to plan an indoor winter outing that will both entertain and educate young dancers or any young person interested in the arts.
ENTER TO WIN
A PAIR OF TICKETS TO SEE A SPECIAL ONE-NIGHT EVENT AT THE AMC CHESTERFIELD 14
THE ROYAL BALLET PRESENTS SLEEPING BEAUTY. THURSDAY, MARCH 20!
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO PURCHASE TICKETS VISIT:
1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA. 2. ENTER YOU NAME AND EMAIL IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION BELOW 3. WINNERS WILL BE CHOSEN THROUGH A RANDOM DRAWING OF QUALIFYING CONTESTANTS. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the 1959 animated classic “Sleeping Beauty” as the second film in its series “The Last 70mm Film Festival” on Monday, July 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The film will be introduced by animator Andreas Deja (“Winnie the Pooh,” “The Princess and the Frog”) and character designer Mike Giaimo (“FernGully: The Last Rainforest,” “Pocahontas”).
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, “Sleeping Beauty” earned an Academy Award® nomination for Music – Scoring of a Musical Picture (George Bruns). It is the last fairy tale produced by Walt Disney (after his death, the studio did not return to the genre for feature-length films until 1989’s “The Little Mermaid”). It is also the first animated film in the Technirama widescreen process.
The 70mm short “Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot” (1957) will be screened before the feature at 7 p.m.. It has the distinction of being the longest-running motion picture in American film history, still running daily in VistaVision at the twin Patriot Theatres in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
“The Last 70mm Film Festival,” a six-film series, will run Mondays through August 13, showcasing 70mm classics from different genres as well as rarely screened 70mm short subjects. The remaining screenings in the series are:
July 23
“Grand Prix” (1966)
July 30
“The Sound of Music” (1965)
August 6
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)
August 13
“Spartacus” (1960)
Series passes and tickets for “The Last 70mm Film Festival” are now sold out. A standby line will form on the day of the event, and standby numbers will be assigned starting at approximately 5:30 p.m. Any available tickets will be distributed shortly before the program begins. Ticketholders should plan to arrive at least 15 minutes before the start of the event to ensure a seat in the theater. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For the latest pre-show details call(310) 247-3600or visitwww.oscars.org.
For more information about the Academy’s public events, visit:
SLEEPING BEAUTY, the shocking retelling of the classic myth, is now available on SundanceNOW.com and cable VOD before the film is released in theaters on December 2nd
SYNOPSIS:
SLEEPING BEAUTY is a fascinating depiction of a young woman’s reckless decent into a shocking world of erotic desires.
Lucy (Emily Browning) is a young university student possessed by a kind of radical passivity. She lets a flip of a coin decide the outcome of a random sexual encounter and she displays an uncomplaining patience when facing the repetitions of her various menial jobs that fund her studies. One day she answers an ad in the student newspaper and interviews for a job to be a lingerie waitress. But she is secretly being initiated into a world of strange new work; one where she will have to give into absolute submission to her clients by being sedated; becoming a Sleeping Beauty.
Eventually this unnerving experience begins to bleed into her daily life and she finally develops the will to break the spell by discovering what happens to her while she sleeps. With a fearless performance by Browning, Leigh creates a bold cinematic vision; one where Lucy, both in her clandestine sexual adventures and in her mundane daily existence, lives with the same unflinching and brutal honesty.
IFC’s Sundance Selects has acquired the U.S. rights to SLEEPING BEAUTY, the Julia Leigh-directed Cannes Film Festival which premiered May 11th. The film stars Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie, Peter Carroll, Chris Haywood, and was produced by Jessica Brentnall.
“You will go to sleep: you will wake up. It will be as if those hours never existed.” Death-haunted, quietly reckless, Lucy is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission. This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep.
Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects, said: “For the last 5 days, people throughout Cannes have been discussing SLEEPING BEAUTY. We are thrilled to introduce Julia Leigh and her arresting debut to American audiences, and to continuing the discussion.”
According to Deadline, UTA brokered the deal with Sundance Selects acquisitions exec Arianna Bocco. UTA reps Leigh and Browning, with the latter managed by Michael Aglion and Catherine Poulton in Australia.
