IMAX Film industry watches to see if 'Beowulf' rewrites the rules [The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.]

Film industry watches to see if 'Beowulf' rewrites the rules [The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.]Knight Ridder/Tribune "Business News "
Nov. 16--A swamp thing in high heels -- part lizard and covered in gold.
That's what Angelina Jolie saw when she finally got to evaluate her performance in "Beowulf," the "digitally enhanced live-action" movie that opens today on regular, 3-D and IMAX 3-D screens. She was surprised. Even shocked.
"I didn't expect it to be that REAL," she said, parting those famous lips with a little smile. "Well, to tell you the truth, I felt, suddenly, shy. I felt EXPOSED."
She phoned Brad Pitt. "I thought I'd better warn him."
The setting was the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills the morning after the film was finally made public.
People in the industry are saying "Beowulf," adapted from what many believe to be the oldest surviving fictional story in the English language, could be the newest trend, the film that changes movie-making forever.
It uses computers to record the movements and expressions of actors and turn them into animated creatures that don't necessarily look at all like the actors. Members of the cast assembled to compare notes on how they turned out.
Ray Winstone, a portly (make that plump) 50-year-old, plays Beowulf, a blond Adonis with six-pack abs. Anthony Hopkins, the Oscar winner for playing Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs," plays the drunken, boisterous King Hrothgar, whose kingdom is threatened by Grendel, the pesky party pooper. Whenever the king throws a big blast in the royal mead house, Grendel shows up to wreck the place and leave a few bodies.
Crispin Glover (Marty McFly's father in "Back to the Future") plays the deformed, slobbering Grendel. You might say Gollum, that little irritant in "The Lord of the Rings" was the forefather to Grendel -- created via the same "digital live action" technique.
Gollum, though, mingled with live actors. "Beowulf" is entirely animated -- the first such film aimed at an adult audience. "The Polar Express," also from director Bob Zemeckis, pioneered the technique but was aimed at children. So was the similar "Monster House."
With a budget of $150 million, "Beowulf" could be a setback for the process if audiences find the characters look weird rather than either real or compelling.
Jolie, clad in white slacks and blouse offset by long, dangling earrings, said her role as Grendel's mother is not a typical "motherly" role. This is Mommie Wierdest.
"She's evil. She's temptation. Those are very fun to play, but I have children. I thought this would be the action film, the animation film, that they could see me in. Then, I saw the poster. She looks pretty nude, doesn't she? But I like my tail. Her tail is quite an amazing thing, isn't it? And I hardly knew it was there when we were filming. They told me it was there, but I couldn't imagine."
No makeup. No costumes. No sets. Jolie and her co-stars gathered in a large, empty space in front of six cameras. Sensors were placed all over their bodies, particularly on the face and around the eyes, to do a better job than "The Polar Express" did in catching the emotion of the characters.
"I was two months pregnant, and I did this entire movie in 2-1/2 days," Jolie said. "I loved the speed of it. We just did one take after another. Moving. Imagining. My body was in a harness part of the time, and I was lifted up into the air. Fighting. Attacking. Then, Bob wanted an underwater scene, so they put me on this thing with wheels on it, and I did swimming motions as they wheeled me around.
"Playing this part in the usual way would have taken months. The makeup alone would have taken up half of every day and, still, it wouldn't have looked like this. This is so freeing."
Jolie said she took the role because "I like playing a demon. It's something different. So much of movie-making has become a business. There is a tendency to have lost contact with the creative side of things. On the other hand, this is a risk. None of us knew exactly what we were doing, and I like that. Bob makes you remember you're trying to be a creative artist."
Of late, Jolie's reputation as a free soul and an Academy Award-winning actress (1999's "Girl, Interrupted") has been overshadowed by her relationship with Pitt and her endeavors on behalf of refugees in underdeveloped countries. She's the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She became involved with the effort when she was in Cambodia filming "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001), adopting Cambodian refugee Maddox. She has since adopted Zahara, an Ethopian refugee, and Pax, a Vietnamese refugee. (She and Pitt also have a daughter, Shiloh.) Jolie says she gives a third of her salary to charitable causes to help refugees, uses a third for living expenses and sets aside the other third for savings.
In 2003 she received the U.N.'s first Citizen of the World Award. She authored "Notes From My Travels," about her work.
She's never been one to avoid subjects, but she deflects personal questions.
"The myths are far more interesting than the truth. I try not to talk about my private life because I don't think it's that interesting. I have to save something. Who cares if I make a fool of myself? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me."
But the mixture of myth and fact are fascinating to explore when it comes to Angelina Jolie. Far from a dilettante, she began studying acting at age 11 at the Lee Strasberg Institute, where her late mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, also studied.
Her father, Oscar winner Jon Voight ("Coming Home") was often away. They remain estranged, although he worked with her in "Lara Croft." Her godparents are actors Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Schell. After work in modeling, she got serious film roles and majored in film at New York University, making student films directed by her brother, James Haven. The closeness of their relationship was made famous in her Oscar acceptance speech.
She was married for three years to her "Hackers" co-star, Jonny Lee Miller, and for two years to her "Pushing Tin" co-star, Billy Bob Thornton, 20 years her senior. They divorced in May 2003. In an interview with The Pilot later that year she said: "I haven't had sex for two years, partially because I'm not interested and partially because I'm working so hard. I'm thinking of taking a lover sometime in the next six months." In 2004, she began filming "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" with Pitt.
Today, she looks almost alarmingly thin, offsetting the perpetual rumor that she is pregnant. Her long-sleeved blouse hides any hint of the Tennessee Williams quote that is reportedly tattooed on her left forearm: "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages."
Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com Story jumps herey
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