Fresh from the Venice Film Festival where he unveiled Ink, director Danny Boyle arrived in Telluride for the North American premiere of his drama about Rupert Murdoch’s launch of the British Tabloid The Sun in 1969.
Boyle, looking none the worse for international travel, introduced the film Friday night by noting that some people are misinterpreting the title.
“It’s not a movie about tattoos,” he informed the Telluride audience, “which a lot of people assume it is.”
The ink in question here refers to the substance necessary to print newspapers by the millions. Australian native Guy Pearce stars as Australian native Murdoch, the media baron (dubbed “the Dirty Digger” by his British rivals), who took a lightly regarded broadsheet and turned it into the UK’s most popular rag. His key move was to recruit Larry Lamb as editor, a talented if perhaps overlooked veteran of Fleet Street, the traditional home of British newspapering. Jack O’Connell stars in that lead role.
Boyle introduced O’Connell, saying, “I’d worked with this guy on 28 Years Later, but he was in a tiny bit at the end of the film, a really daft bit at the end of the film… And I wanted to work with him so much.”
In his review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond calls Boyle “the perfect filmmaker to bring this world to life. It’s set in 1969 London as the brash if trash visionary Murdoch and his handpicked editor-in-chief set out to turn a flop into a top that eventually would bleed into the entire world. It’s an era before the internet and social media demanded faster and furiouser hits and clickbait to get attention, when people got their news by picking sides.”
Hammond continues, “Adapted by James Graham from his Tony- and Olivier-winning 2018 play, Boyle has created a bright, fast-paced and lively film that matches the energy this band of questionable warriors had just after man first walk on the moon — perhaps triggering something that in different ways would turn out to be just as significant in the long run.”
Ink, which will be premiere on Netlix in January, played at the Werner Herzog Theater in Telluride (ironically, Herzog himself has been busy in Venice, premiering his latest drama Bucking Fastard, starring Rooney and Kate Mara).
“I’ve never been in the Werner Herzog Theater, and that is a privilege beyond belief,” the Oscar-winning director said. “But even beyond that, to be showing a film in a theater named after him, is to be part of the Telluride Festival… When you make a film, you feel lost a lot of the time. It’s a weird thing because when you appear promoting it, you look full of confidence, but you feel lost [while making it]. And when you get signals that someone might like the film, it means so much to you. And Julie [Huntsinger, executive director of Telluride] was the first to ring up and to say she was going to invite it to Telluride. And I cannot tell you what it’s like. It’s the rush of the ocean to the heart for a filmmaker. So, bless you, Julie, and bless you, Telluride.”
Boyle evidently is carving out time to see some other films while in Telluride.
“Was anybody at the Wild Horse Nine screening?” he asked the crowd. “There was a competition for a free holiday in Mallorca before that film. Well, there’s nothing for you [here]. I’m so sorry. It’s just the movie.”
English (US) ·