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The American
An Anton Corbijn Film
Production Notes
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Focus Features International
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Jenny Hennessy
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Anna Bohlin
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www.filminfocus.com
The American
Synopsis
The suspense thrillerThe Americanstars Academy Award winner George Clooney in the title role for director Anton Corbijn (Control). The screenplay by Rowan Joffe is adapted from Martin Booth’s 1990 novelA Very Private Gentleman.
As an assassin, Jack (played by Mr. Clooney) is constantly on the move and always alone. After a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, Jack retreats to the Italian countryside. He relishes being away from death for a spell as he holes up in a small medieval town. While there, Jack takes an assignment to construct a weapon for a mysterious contact, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten).
Savoring the peaceful quietude he finds in the mountains of Abruzzo, Jack accepts the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and pursues a torrid liaison with a beautiful woman, Clara (Violante Placido). Jack and Clara’s time together evolves into a romance, one seemingly free of danger. But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.
A Focus Features presentation of a This is that/Greenlit/Smokehouse production. An Anton Corbijn Film. George Clooney. The American. Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli. Casting by Beatrice Kruger. Costume Designer, Suttirat Anne Larlarb. Music by Herbert Grönemeyer. Editor, Andrew Hulme. Production Designer, Mark Digby. Director of Photography, Martin Ruhe. Executive Producer, Enzo Sisti. Produced by Anne Carey, Jill Green, Ann Wingate, Grant Heslov, George Clooney. Based on the novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth. Screenplay by Rowan Joffe. Directed by Anton Corbijn. A Focus Features Release.
The American
About the Production
Following the success of his award-winning first feature, the drama Control, director Anton Corbijn was deliberately looking to work on a new film centering on as different material as possible. He reveals, “I started reading thriller scripts. The theme of The American, of a loner trying to find redemption from the deeds he’s done, interested me – as did the tension and the romance in the story. Here was something I saw could be not only suspenseful but also thoughtful.
“My career for over 35 years has been as a portrait photographer; filmmaking is a new adventure for me. I’m still finding my voice. I feel that where The American does parallel Control is in the idea of trying to change one’s life; how can you maybe make good after doing wrong? Can you overcome things that might be in you which define you?”
Music – both motivator and subject in Control – was a key inspiration to Corbijn in his formative years. A certain genre of movie was as well; he remembers, “I haven’t seen all that many movies in my life, but Westerns have long made an impression on me, starting with – in childhood – Rawhide [the 1960s TV series starring Clint Eastwood]. The look, the stories, the morality of movie Westerns always attracted me. Although The American is not actually a Western, it is structured in that genre; a stranger comes to a small town and connects with a couple of the people in it, but his past catches up with him – and there is a shootout.”
Producer Anne Carey concurs, noting that in The American, as in Westerns, “there is a man who has lived by the gun, and the violence that he’s lived by threatens to infect the peace that he’s tried to find in a place that he thinks he could live in.
“I read Martin Booth’s novel A Very Private Gentleman over a decade ago, and immediately thought that it could be a sexy and entertaining genre piece with a complex and interesting lead role. [Producers] Ann Wingate and Jill Green were simultaneously closing on the rights. We decided that, rather than compete against one another, we would join forces and make the picture together.”
Wingate recalls, “I had started working on getting the book made into a movie back in the 1990s, with BBC Films. They had let it drop, and later Jill and I had been working together and I suggested reviving the project. I’d always been drawn to the love story for the lead character, a man who has had enough of escaping his life yet seeks to escape what he is.”
Green elaborates, “What also attracted us to the book was the insight into this character as a solitary figure who wants to find romance and redemption, despite his escalating inner turmoil. To have a lead character who is both an expert gun maker and assassin put me in mind of The Day of the Jackal, which also was adapted from a novel. At the time, Martin Booth was still alive, and he insisted on English/European producers for the movie from his book. So that was Ann and me.
“But Anne Carey was so keen on the project that we said ‘Why not,’ and so we got together in a happy marriage, spending probably 6-7 years working on the script.”
Carey adds, “It then took a while to find the right director and star.”
Green remarks, “When we first met with Anton, his vision for the piece very much suited Martin’s original book, and we liked his articulated visual sense of the material.”
Wingate notes, “Inevitably, after all these years, there had to be updates to the material. We had to do that more than once. What’s happened is that the movie got much closer to the feel of the novel, much leaner and as a result stronger.”
By the end of the decade, Carey reports, “Anton had become the linchpin, the one whose involvement got this to jell. In our conversations with him, it was clear that he envisioned this to be at once a classically framed and told film as well as a contemporary one in the style and the shooting.”
Producer Grant Heslov, who joined the project in 2008, notes, “Because Anton comes from the world of photography, he is able to compose his frames in a striking way – something that many directors spend their entire careers striving to achieve.
“But he also brings a perspective where he doesn’t see anything straight on; everything comes from a bit of an odd angle, which is a plus.”
Screenwriter Rowan Joffe came to, and at, the material from several angles. He comments, “When Anton, Anne, and Grant asked me to write The American, I was thrilled at the chance to adapt such a morally rich, visually arresting, and unusual novel. Though there had been several previous scripts, I decided to start completely afresh, inspired by Anton’s brilliant idea to re-conceive the story as a kind of contemporary Western.
“With that in mind, I wove together my favorite passages from the book, simplifying the overall structure into a character-motivated thriller with a streamlined plot, a powerful redemptive theme, very spare dialogue, and a wild Italian landscape that acts like a character in its own right, exerting its transformative, melancholy beauty on our hero and assisting him in his journey to redemption. George Clooney’s interest in my first draft allowed me to continue refining subsequent drafts with him in mind; that was a considerable dramatic boon for the script as well as a rare opportunity to craft a character for one of the greatest movie actors alive.”
For Corbijn, the question of just where to film in – as called for in the script – Italy was critical to pre-production planning. He reflects, “The surroundings had to be a character in the movie. I had a clear idea of how the landscape should look, and I wanted to use towns and villages as a back lot.” Accordingly, the filmmakers were loath to attempt “casting” another country instead.
The name of the movie, however, did change; after going by the novel’s title, Corbijn baptized the film as Il Americano before it finally became The American.
In terms of specific Italy locales, all concerned had been transfixed by Abruzzo, a mountainous region located east of Rome and spreading from the base of the Apennine range of mountains towards the Adriatic Sea. Remote and majestic, the area is “a raw environment, an honest landscape of a type that is rarely seen in movies,” marvels Corbijn.
By the winter of 2008, the filmmakers had chosen their Abruzzo locations, as Corbijn and Joffe together and, prior, Carey had all made scouting trips. Then, on April 6th, 2009, the Abruzzo region was hit by an earthquake. There were over 300 casualties; 60,000 people were suddenly homeless; and many parts of the ancient town of L’aquila – less than 70 miles northeast of Rome – lay in ruins.
It was also on April 6th that Corbijn was meeting with Clooney to finalize the latter’s plans to produce and star in the movie. Corbijn remembers, “We discussed our shared hope that filming The American would help to boost the region economically, what with the money spent during production and the finished film encouraging tourism in the future.”
Executive producer Enzo Sisti adds, “I started with the production in April. Everyone – Anton, George, Focus Features – was saying, ‘We must go with Abruzzo. They need a film like this, and our movie needs a beautiful region like this.’”
Wingate notes, “The atmosphere gives you a different view and a different feel; it’s not the pretty Tuscany or Umbria, or the beautiful Florence or Rome, of so many movies.”
Corbijn says, “The terrain is rugged and rocky; it’s not generally where tourists go. But it’s a wonderful area that needs preserving; beyond even the earthquake, oil drilling is harming the landscape.”
Heslov sums up the region’s appeal to the production as “not just an Italy we haven’t seen, but one filmed in a way we haven’t seen it, by way of Anton’s take.”
The filmmakers also immediately stepped up to avail themselves of Italy’s new financial incentive, which was 10 years in the making and had been formally passed just a few months before the earthquake hit; The American was the first movie to do so before filming began. Carey offers, “The big benefit is that you get the money during production, unlike with many tax credits where you have to wait 1-2 years.”
Clooney visited L’aquila with actor Bill Murray on July 9th to support quake victims who were living in tents, and to inaugurate a movie theater in a tent camp in San Demetrio. He promised that filming of his new movie would begin in the region in September.
As the production firmed up its commitment to the region and the fall filming schedule, casting continued. Corbijn already knew that he had found the right actor to play Jack, stating, “This is a character George hasn’t played before; it’s always interesting when an actor finds something new. He’s so good with dialogue, and in this movie he is playing a man of few words who is always on the lookout and constantly in a state of tension.”
Heslov adds, “Jack is someone who is only now finding moments of beauty in his life. Even if he now makes the right choices, does fate have a different idea for him?
“George brings this stillness to the role of Jack, who spends a lot of time in silence. That’s a challenge for an actor, to keep the inner life going on-screen.”
Green offers, “This role reminds me of George’s work in Michael Clayton, in that he can convey so much through his eyes alone.”
Carey notes, “Audiences instinctively place their trust in George, which is important to our establishing the character of Jack.”
Wingate says, “It’s a much darker role for George, yet he embodies the character so well. We were all rather ecstatic to get him to play the part.”
For the casting of the Italians who have an impact on Jack, the filmmakers were set on hiring actors who were established in their native Italy yet not necessarily known internationally.
Veteran actor Paolo Bonacelli was cast as the priest, Father Benedetto. Whether the role is large or small, Bonacelli feels that “every scene is useful to know the role, know the character. The ‘little scenes’ are important – and one must study, study, study.
“Father Benedetto wants to be a friend, but Jack is very cautious. To me, as an actor colleague, George Clooney was professional and kind.”
To play the prostitute Clara, the woman who cues Jack’s realization that another life might conceivably be on the horizon for him, Italian leading lady Violante Placido was cast. The director says, “Violante is a classic Italian beauty, and is an intelligent actress in front of the camera. She doesn’t overplay, with big gestures all the time, which was important because she has to represent heart in the film. She is a sexual being on-screen, which the role absolutely required, yet she also has that old-fashioned movie-star quality…
“…as does George, of course, which is why chemistry between them came naturally. That was a tremendous asset, because directing intimate scenes was new to me. I wanted to impart a raw feeling to them, given the darkness in Jack’s character. In their first scene together, I shot it to focus on Clara; through looking at her, you see what he sees in her and you sense a change for the characters. I wanted to achieve tension and sensuality, without cutting away.”
“Those scenes aren’t easy,” admits Placido. “But, any scene can be difficult; in a way, you’re naked any time you act. George put me at ease; I appreciated this because I’ve worked with actors who are insecure and try to make the other actor that way.”
Placido sees Jack and Clara as “two souls brought together because they each have something extreme in their lives – their jobs – that isolates them. They first relate to each other with their bodies, with animal instincts, but then they become more intimate personally – which scares them both.