The producer of Barney's Version, Robert Lantos, chats to us about the film, about getting small budget movies made, and the mighty Due South...
This interview starts with me being absolutely gushing about Barney's Version, with as close to fawning adoration as you can get over a very quiet phone line to North America. Don't think this is me overcompensating, though, or fulfilling my end of a deal. I had to return a screener disc last week, leaving me empty and bereft of a repeat viewing.
No, I am true to my word. Barney's Version is every bit as good as my opening salvo suggests. Better, even. But I'm trying to temper expectations. Play it down a little bit, all of which means that talking to the film's producer, the prolific Robert Lantos, is a very nice thing, indeed.
Lantos has been making films for over thirty years, a pioneer...
This interview starts with me being absolutely gushing about Barney's Version, with as close to fawning adoration as you can get over a very quiet phone line to North America. Don't think this is me overcompensating, though, or fulfilling my end of a deal. I had to return a screener disc last week, leaving me empty and bereft of a repeat viewing.
No, I am true to my word. Barney's Version is every bit as good as my opening salvo suggests. Better, even. But I'm trying to temper expectations. Play it down a little bit, all of which means that talking to the film's producer, the prolific Robert Lantos, is a very nice thing, indeed.
Lantos has been making films for over thirty years, a pioneer...
- 5/31/2011
- Den of Geek
Mordecai Richler, the Canadian novelist who died 10 years ago at the age of 70, worked for many years in Britain writing screenplays and contributing to our literary life. He wrote a series of hilarious, partly autobiographical novels about Montreal's Jewish community, two of which – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Joshua Then and Now – he adapted for the cinema. His books are quite close to those of the Canadian-born Saul Bellow, though funnier and less self-regarding; the last one, the characteristically sprawling Barney's Version, has now been filmed with a wonderful central performance from Paul Giamatti.
He plays Barney Panofsky (Richler probably borrowed the surname from Erwin Panofsky, the art historian who pioneered the study of iconography), a Montreal entrepreneur who starts out in the 1970s supporting his bohemian friends in Rome as a dealer in olive oil before returning home to work as a Jewish fundraiser and the producer of...
He plays Barney Panofsky (Richler probably borrowed the surname from Erwin Panofsky, the art historian who pioneered the study of iconography), a Montreal entrepreneur who starts out in the 1970s supporting his bohemian friends in Rome as a dealer in olive oil before returning home to work as a Jewish fundraiser and the producer of...
- 1/30/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Oscar winner Dustin "Rain Man" Hoffman will co-star with actor Paul "Cinderella Man" Giamatti in the upcoming $28-million feature-film adaptation of Canadian author Mordecai Richler's novel Barney's Version. Produced by Toronto's Serendipity Point Films, Hoffman will play the role of 'Izzy', a retired cop and father of 'Barney'. Production is set to start in Rome on Aug. 17, with scenes also being shot in New York, Montreal and the Quebec Laurentians. The feature is being produced in association with Rome's Fandango and Montreal's Lyla Films. Richler won the Giller Prize for 1997's Barney's Version, written as the autobiography of a hard-drinking man who finally calms down after meeting the love of his life 'Miriam', while recounting a life that includes friendship, romance and murder. Screenplay was adapted by Montreal writer Michael Konyves to be helmed by Richard J. "Whale Music" Lewis, noted as a writer/director of more than 50 episodes...
- 5/27/2009
- HollywoodNorthReport.com
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