From director Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, EUROPA) and writer Christopher Hampton (DANGEROUS LIAISONS, CARRINGTON) comes TOTAL ECLIPSE, the true, fact-based story of the great 19th century French poets, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. David Thewlis , winner of both the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and New York Film Critics Circle Award for his astounding performance in Mike Leigh's NAKED, stars as Verlaine, a volatile alcoholic torn between his lovely yet conventional wife and the seductive, dangerous and brilliant Rimbaud. Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, the talented star of WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE and THE BASKETBALL DIARIES, stars as the wild, young Rimbaud, a poet whose life and work was fueled by an insatiable hunger for intense experience, unbounded by rules or consequences. Rimbaud's was a revolutionary vision that has inspired rebel artists ever since, from Jack Kerouac to Jim Morrison. Romane Bohringer, the Cesar winning star of SAVAGE NIGHTS, THE ACCOMPANIST and MINA TANNENBAUM, stars as Verlaine's loving wife Mathilde, who finds her husband magnetized by the intoxicating lure of Rimbaud.
Audacious,
demanding and provocative, TOTAL ECLIPSE is the story of a
volatile romantic triangle and the lives it consumes. Like
AMADEUS, it illustrates the easy cruelty of young genius and the
constantly warring creative and destructive forces that exist
within the artist.
Ultimately, as described by director Agnieszka Holland, TOTAL ECLIPSE is "a story about love. Verlaine loves Rimbaud because he finds him totally, powerfully exceptional. Rimbaud loves Verlaine because for a moment he thinks he has found the companion to share his search of the absolute."
Although
the film is set in the 1870's, it is profoundly contemporary,
partly because of the diverse personalities of the cast and its
universal depiction of romantic and creative obsession. Says
Holland, "Poets then were not the insignificant civil
servants of literature that they are today. They reinvented their
existence moment by moment, using their creativity. Verlaine and
Rimbaud were in fact very different but both thought they could
find everything, try everything, with no limits or
boundaries."
Screenwriter
Christopher Hampton, a Rimbaud scholar at Oxford who adapted TOTAL
ECLIPSE from one of his earliest plays, found the story to be
a "means of posing a number of questions around a central
puzzle, namely, what does it mean to be a writer? What could one
reasonably hope to achieve? What were the pleasures and torments
and what, if any, the responsibilities? Might one change
the world, or would it prove beyond one's abilities even to
change oneself?"
For both David
Thewlis and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film was a risky, daring
choice. Comments DiCaprio, "The role of Rimbaud is one of
the most important of my career and one of the best roles to play
for a young actor. Rimbaud wanted to change the world from one
day to the next. He was someone courageous, who didn't worry
about the consequences of his actions. I live my life thinking of
the consequences. Shooting this film, I learned not to worry
about what the others thought of what I was doing. It wasn't
easy, but it changed me."
David Thewlis, who shot to prominence playing another difficult, troubled soul -- Johnny in Mike Leigh's controversial NAKED -- does not see Verlaine as a sympathetic character. Says Thewlis, "He was brutal and possessive. I've learned in the long run that it isn't necessary to love the characters I play. However, I feel great compassion for Verlaine. He's a weak man, prone to violence and alcohol. His real drama lies in the clear separation between the life he leads and the life he'd like to lead."
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