那麼開花將會有一個月左右的空檔，接著七月就會去澳洲拍攝科幻片「The Cross」了。
They're wrapping up on 'Main Street'
Urban yet small-town Durham provides the setting for another film
DURHAM -- There is a brick wall in downtown Durham, the side of which is covered with peeling green paint. It sits pretty much in the center of the city, and beside it rests a small urban park.
A few blocks away, there is a large, rambling white house with Georgian columns, and across sits a television station, a wall and black iron fence. And a few miles away, in an unassuming warehouse off Cheek Road, the cast of the movie "Main Street" shoots interior scenes in flats -- rooms built within the warehouse. One is made to look like a hotel suite where Colin Firth's character is staying, another like the small, modest dwelling in which Amber Tamblyn's character resides. This mix of beauty and dilapidation, of the industrial and the traditional, embodies the reason Durham not only inspired the late Horton Foote's screenplay -- it's also why Durham was chosen for the shoot.
"Main Street," the latest movie to be filmed in Durham, began shooting mid-March, and will wrap up sometime during the first week or two of May, said David Linck, unit publicist. Durham was chosen not only for its accessibility, but for its authenticity.
"Where you shoot a movie makes a huge difference," said Firth, known as Mr. Darcy from the BBC's production of "Pride and Prejudice," as well as his lead role in "Bridget Jones' Diary."
While Firth plays a Texan, Tamblyn, known from her role on the TV series "Joan of Arcadia," her new role on "The Unusuals" and the movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," is playing Mary, a young local who's never left town.
"As an actor you get to adapt to the people, the personalities" of where you're filming, she said. "I think we're very lucky to be shooting in the place the movie takes place."
Being in the real location of the script, rather than a stage designed to look like the screenplay's settings, provides a sort of immersion for the actors even though Durham will not be portrayed in documentary fashion. Most members of the cast are staying in hotels right in Durham, and they have been eating at local restaurants. Many are pleasantly surprised by Durham's food scene, and shout-outs have gone to The Piedmont, Nana's, Watts Grocery and Magnolia Grill.
"I feel like Durham is its own character," Tamblyn said. "It's got its own energy."
Firth said Durham's real-life vitality countered a cental theme of the script.
"It surprised me how much this was not a dying town," he said.
When Foote visited Durham five years ago, he was inspired to set a screenplay here after driving down Main Street on a Saturday afternoon and finding his vehicle to be the only car on the road.
The result was "Main Street," the story about a small Southern town that has seen better days -- specifically, tobacco days. When a stranger, played by Firth, arrives with a controversial plan and offers to better the town in exchange for the use of the abandoned tobacco warehouses as storage for hazardous waste, tough decisions must be made in the midst of changing times.
Foote, who died last month at 92 after writing some of America's finest plays and movie scripts, including Academy Award winners "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Tender Mercies," was known for writing about ordinary people, small towns and the human condition. Downtown Durham's restoration, prevalent today, was just taking flight five years ago, though the current economic recession gives the script a timelier feel.
Discovering Durham
Firth, after looking up images of Durham on Google Maps, was not particularly excited about Durham as a destination but was happily surprised upon his arrival.
"You go a mile in every direction and it's green paradise," he said. He's taken his family to the Nasher Museum, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens and Eno River State Park. "I feel strongly about how gorgeous it is here."
It was not a difficult decision to film in Durham, said Jonah Hirsch, one of the film's producers. He toured the city with Foote five years ago.
So far, Hirsch said, Durham has been a dream. There's never traffic, there are endless locations to choose from, and the cast and crew have been able to maintain privacy.
"We're getting good cooperation from the city," Hirsch said. "People are friendly."
And so are the actors. High schoolers Sarah Catherine Carter, 15, and Grace Rakauskas, 16, spent much of their spring break hanging around the public shoots and were tickled when Firth paid them a visit, even signing an autograph.
"It's so weird because it's in Durham," Grace said.
Locals will also enjoy looking for family and friends who may have been filmed during the outdoor shooting downtown. Extras were brought in from all over the state.
Other characters include Georgiana Carr, an aging tobacco heiress, played by Ellen Burstyn, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," and her niece, played by actress Patricia Clarkson.
Actor Orlando Bloom plays a Durham cop, and actor Andrew McCarthy has a supporting role.
"Main Street" is the latest of at least 20 films to be set in Durham, said Shelly Green, chief operating officer, president and CEO-elect of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. The filming of "Bull Durham" in 1987 boosted the careers of Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
"We can look urban, we can look small town," Green said. "In the end of the day it's a movie, it's fiction, and I don't think it portrays Durham in an unfavorable light."
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发表于 2009-4-27 20:29:54
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顶一下！
踩一脚！
发表于 2009-4-28 10:59:06
楼主
呵呵 这样也好 时间不是用来浪费的
