PRODUCTION
NOTES
Produced by Danny Moynihan and written by Danny Moynihan, Kami Naghdi,
Christopher Simon and Cat Villiers, production took place in London
England in December 2006.
The following is a synopsis of the book: The hip, trendy New York art
scene provides the backdrop for Moynihan’s satiric debut novel, a
montage-like collection of scenes in which the author tries to mimic
structurally the energy of the Mondrian masterpiece that links the fates
of his art world characters. Moynihan introduces his wacky crew in
rapid-fire succession. At the top of the heap is Art Spindle, a powerful
gallery owner who shows the work of established artist Jo Richards and
fights to extract money from rich patrons like the elderly Rhinegolds.
Lower down on the totem pole are up-and-coming agent Beth Freemantle,
who eventually opens her own gallery, and intriguing young artist Elaine
Yoon-Jung Yi, a lesbian who seduces and stalks her paramours and then
turns her sexual escapades into video pieces. What comes after the
introductions is a nonstop series of scenes and snippets from the lives
of the various characters, covering deals, conversations and sexual
encounters that wander into some kinky terrain … IMAGES
POSTER
Review by Allan Hunter, Screen Daily:
"Boogie Woogie" is a plucky attempt to craft the kind of all-star,
multi-story mosaic that came so naturally to the the late Robert Altman. The
art world is fertile ground for any budding satirist but
the subject matter already feels stale and whilst it raises the odd
smile, Boogie Woogie never hits
the mark as a trenchant morality tale. The stellar cast might prove an
attraction for an older
demographic but it is difficult to discern a theatrical audience for
Duncan Ward’s debut feature.
It is easy enough to snigger at these shallow lives and grasping
individuals but the film
struggles when it requires them to be taken seriously.
Danny Moynihan’s novel "Boogie Woogie" offered scathing vignettes of the
1990s New York art scene and
the author has shifted the setting to London for his own screen
adaptation.
The focus here is on the friendly rivalry between rapacious art dealer
Art Spindle (Danny Huston)
and prolific collector Bob Maccelstone (Stellan Skarsgard). The
competition intensifies over the
purchase of a Mondrian Boogie Woogie painting owned by the elderly,
impoverished Alfred Rhinegold
(Christopher Lee). Rhinegold stubbornly refuses to sell but his wife
Alfreda (Joanna Lumley) might
be more amenable, especially when the offers start to nudge the £20
million mark.
The fate of the Mondrian painting threads through a loose narrative
which stretches to include the
amorous antics of Macclestone’s restless wife Jean (Gillian Anderson),
Spindle protege Beth (Heather
Graham) and her decision to establish her own gallery, punky lesbian
artist Elaine (Jaime Winstone)
and the various betrayals, deceptions and background scheming that
swirls around them.
"Boogie Woogie" takes some easy potshots at people who know the price of
everything and the value of
nothing. Christopher Lee’s Rhinegold is the film’s last apostle of
decency, clinging to the Mondrian
because he bought it directly from the artist and it is has a
significance that transcends filthy
lucre. Everyone else is simply out for what they can get, whether that
is money, sex or fame.
Spindle’s office is dominated by a sign saying Trust Me, underlining the
obvious irony that flavours
the film.
It is easy enough to snigger at these shallow lives and grasping
individuals but the film struggles
when it requires them to be taken seriously. The sketchy nature of the
storyline results in
predictable mini-dramas with little depth or substance, such as the
Tracey Emin-like Elaine using
footage of her sexual conquests in a video installation, or Bob and
Jean’s marriage ending in a
squabble over paintings, property and poodles rather than emotional
issues. These are shallow
individuals whose collective lives never coalesce into a gripping
narrative.
The performances of the ensemble cast vary from the exaggerated to the
personable with Stellan
Skarsgård’s wry, rueful Bob one of the most naturalistic and engaging in
the ensemble. Danny
Huston’s Art has a touch of the pantomime villain to him as the actor
employs a repertoire of
insincere smiles and staccato cackles to suggest the empty bonhomie of a
relentless opportunist.
Review by Leslie Felperin, Variety:
Blighty's contempo art scene, in all its venality and outright
absurdity, is crying out for a good, scalding satire. What a shame that
the black comedy "Boogie Woogie" delivers little more than a lukewarm
spoof. Debutant helmer Duncan Ward and scribe Danny Moynihan (adapting
his novel) are clearly aiming for an Altmanesque portrait of a milieu,
but despite an impressive cast, the flat script and clumsy helming
hardly put this in the same league as "Ready to Wear," let alone "The
Player" or "Nashville." Unless PR and marketing departments get the tune
exactly right, "Boogie" will remain a B.O. wallflower.
Several helicopter shots of the Thames ram home the point that the
action is set in London, although actual street views are few and far
between. Here, amoral art dealer Art Spindle (Danny Huston) runs a
gallery that employs ambitious Beth Freemantle (Heather Graham) and
rollerskating ingenue Paige (Amanda Seyfried).
Spindle is desperate to buy a Mondrian, titled "Boogie-Woogie," off
ailing Germanic tycoon Alfred Rhinegold (Christopher Lee, with a beard
that makes him look like Michael Haneke), but Rhinegold's wife (Joanna
Lumley) and secretary (Simon McBurney) play Spindle off against rival
bidders, including voracious collector Bob Maclestone (Stellan
Skarsgard). Maclestone is having an affair with Beth, while his wife
Jean (Gillian Anderson) beds upcoming artist Jo Richards (Jack Huston),
who's supposedly going out with Beth.
Meanwhile, Beth is keen to open her own gallery using money from
Maclestone and plans to exhibit the work of artist Elaine (Jaime
Winstone), a sexually predatory lesbian whose salacious video diary will
rep the centerpiece of her first show. Like nearly everyone here, Elaine
is willing to betray any friend or lover to get what she wants, even her
best-friend/manager Dewey (Alan Cumming), the pic's only sympathetic
character.
Moynihan's novel was originally set in the New York art scene, in which
the author swam for a while as an artist and curator. The relocation of
the story to London may explain why its tone feels several shades off
the mark throughout. When characters here talk about aesthetics, the
guff sounds like regurgitated bits from Artforum; when they're just
talking normally, it sounds like wooden, soap opera-speak. It all seems
a waste of a cast that, collectively, might have been more than up to
the task of something more improvisational in the style of Altman.
One would think helmer Duncan Ward -- whose eclectic resume includes a
docu about Polish artist Leon Tarasewicz, and who is married to powerful
British curator Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst -- would have known how to
recalibrate the script to get the nuances of the milieu right.
Unfortunately, the helming throughout is strictly pedestrian.
The British art scene's ultimate insider, the artist Damian Hirst, is
flatteringly mentioned in the dialogue and credited onscreen as the
pic's "art curator." (Many of the artworks shown here -- nearly all of
them by name artists such as Bruce Nauman, Gavin Turk and the Chapman
Brothers -- are known to be in Hirst's collection.) It's tempting to
speculate that his involvement may have inhibited the filmmakers from
crafting a more savage, incisive portrait, lest Hirst's chums were
offended.
Even technically, the pic reps a subpar effort, from the shoddy lensing,
credited to John Mathieson, to the old-fashioned, intrusive jazz score
by Janusz Podrazik and Nigel Stone. The somewhat incoherent final reels
suggests emergency triage in the editing room, which means pic at least
has a brisk running time.
Financial Times (UK):
Based on Danny Moynihan’s notoriously à clef novel of New York’s
artists, dealers and collectors, the plot has been transplanted across
the pond with a distinguished Anglo-American cast, and has suffered a
sea change into something rich and banal.
The multi-strand stories of connivers, lechers and modish
self-advertisers make one long for Altman. Rather than richly disparate,
the movie seems merely fragmented. Director Duncan Ward’s first feature
gives glimpses of the requisite swish and style but none of the
characters are more than token villains or martyrs and you wait for
something to unite the bittily episodic. Danny Huston’s wolfish charm as
a (double, triple) dealer recalls Jack Nicholson as a panto villain.
Gillian Anderson does a self-conscious grande dame turn as a millionaire
collector’s wife who pleasures young artists as avidly as her husband
grabs art – any art – while the film proceeds to equate acquisitiveness
with lust, art with sex.
The general bile is relieved by Christopher Lee’s brief appearance as
the dying owner of the eponymous Mondrian, the object of scheming
cupidity throughout the film. This genuine art lover adds decency to the
Hogarthian roistering – though given that he is an unbelievably wealthy
plutocrat, it is hard to understand his wife’s (Joanna Lumley) worries
about penury. A glitzy cast (Charlotte Rampling, Alan Cumming, Heather
Graham) makes a token effect. Abrasively consistent, uncompromisingly
real, Jaime Winstone emerges as the one convincing human being, a
cockney lesbian video-artist whose autobiography ruthlessly films
everything from Sapphic sex to suicide. Otherwise the film fumbles too
many chances (custody squabbles over poodles, a gift-wrapped foetus): it
should have been blacker and funnier.
The Herald:
This sardonic adaptation of Danny Moynihan's 2000 novel does for the
art world what Robert Altman's caustic satire The Player did for
Hollywood. Reworking his own book, Moynihan and director Duncan Ward,
who has made a number of art-themed documentaries and who is married to
a well-known curator, have made a fine job of relocating the action from
New York to contemporary London.
In this post-YBA landscape, we meet a slew of shallow, self- centred,
greedy and morally bankrupt individuals, all of whom shaft one another
both figuratively and literally. Among them are Danny Huston's dealer
and Heather Graham's disloyal PA, who are intent on purchasing one of
Mondrian's Boogie Woogie paintings from Christopher Lee's elderly owner
and conniving wife Joanna Lumley, Stellan Skarsgård's philandering
collector and Gillian Anderson's equally adulterous trophy wife, and
Jaime Winstone's up-and-coming video artist and the agent she
unceremoniously dumps. That last is played by Alan Cumming, and it's
telling that his character, along with Lee's art lover - the only half
decent people in the film - end up sharing the same fate.
The ensemble cast have a blast playing a collection of utter swines, and
although this is far too dark a portrait to be a laugh-out-loud comedy,
it's nevertheless a deliciously nasty experience
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy, Den of Geek:
"Boogie Woogie" is a multi-narrative British film based around the
London art scene, full of collectors, artists and various hangers-on.
Art Spindle (a devilish Danny Huston, turning his character's snickering
into a running joke), a dishonourable art dealer, is trying to get his
hands on a Piet Mondrian painting - the Boogie Woogie of the title - but
is challenged by rival Bob Maccelstone (Stellan Skarsgård), and both
face the difficulty of actually convincing long-term owner Alfred
Rhinegold (Christopher Lee) to give up the painting.
Meanwhile, Dewey (Alan Cumming) is finding out the hard way that nice
guys finish last, Rhinegold's wife Alfreda (Joanna Lumley) and butler
Robert (Simon McBurney) are secretly trying to up the value of the
Mondrian, and everyone professionally involved with Maccelstone and
Rhinegold are sleeping with each other like Twin Peaks' pilot.
Despite the presence of Damien Hirst as a consultant
and a cameo from Gaetano Jouen, Duncan Ward's film doesn't offer any
real insight to what the post-YBA art scene is, which is a shot in the
foot for a satire. Danny Moynihan, adapting from his own novel, decides
to simply drop artists' names into characters' conversations while
teaching us that people are ruthless in the search for success. Well,
duh. To illustrate this, director Duncan Ward falls into a dull visual
style, allowing his film to look like an ITV movie and showing a clumsy
hand in keeping a consistent tone throughout.
It's a shame, because the art world could do with
being knocked down a few notches in a smart, vibrant manner. However, it
seems that everyone involved with Boogie Woogie is confused as
to what film they're actually making. Ward is unsure whether to make his
satire a biting drama or a cruel comedy; instead of writing an
appropriate score, Janusz Podrazik hits the 'light jazz' demo on his
Casio; editor Kant Pan cuts haphazardly in the middle of scenes, killing
any natural flow.
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