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Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo
12 December 2020 05:49:25 Found By: Iolanthe
Now Falling is appearing in so many more Festivals, it’s finally possible to put together enough quotes for a Review Round-up. So here are the best of them, going chronologically back from this month to last January when the film made its first appearance!
Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut Falling is a compelling and carefully written addition to LGBTQ+ cinema. Mortensen’s triple-threat debut - he writes, directs and stars in this touching drama - showcases his versatility in the arts, as well as his understanding of dementia and the importance of its representation in film….
Mortensen’s script does well to dissect and explore the tangled duality of personal liberation and family conservatism - and it is Mortensen’s quest for authenticity within these stories that elevates the messages at the core of the film.
Stephanie Brown
Eye for Film
4 December 2020
…it’s a really valuable work, beautifully edited and shot, with a wonderful performance by the veteran actor Lance Henriksen: a sombre, clear-eyed look at the bitter endgame of dementia. Mortensen takes a determined walk across the hot coals of family pain…
…With some self-effacement, Mortensen has conceded the performer’s alpha prerogative to Henriksen. It’s the right decision: Henriksen’s Willis, in all his self-defeating cantankerous arrogance, is so commanding. But I wondered if Mortensen could or should have shown us more about John, more about what he has gone through to arrive at this strenuously calm, diplomatic unresponsiveness. Could he have broken out more, shown more anger? Either way, this is a very substantial achievement.
Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian
3 December 2020
The biggest shock of Falling, Mortensen’s debut as writer and director, is just how careful, wistful and traditionally dramatic it is. There’s no experimentation, no sense that he’s trying to prove himself as an image maker, or peacocking with unnecessary literary flourishes in the script. This is stripped-back, robust, observational filmmaking that dares to allow a scene to be more than just a container for key information. It also allows characters to exist in that liminal space between antagonism and empathy, rather than packing them off on a formulaic journey from one to the other. To put it more bluntly, Falling is a deeply unfashionable film, but it’s unfashionable in the same way that a Clint Eastwood film is unfashionable – i.e., it still manages to exude a sense of hand-tooled quality.
David Jenkins
Little White Lies
3 November 2020
… Mortensen’s aesthetic style, paired with cinematography from Marcel Zyskind creates an impressive visual blend. There’s an almost ethereal quality in the scenes which capture moments of nature from John’s rural American childhood with a dreamlike quality. A scene featuring older Willis lost and lingering on a beach eventually wading through the water, evokes poignant similarities with a young John sifting through a lake to collect a hunted duck. This and many others make up immaculately thought-out details which showcase Mortensen’s emotionally intellectual approach to writing and directing.
Falling’s impressive showcase in the build-up of years worth of hurt and suppressed issues, paired with impressively crafted emotive characterisation allows Mortensen’s debut to shine. Stellar turns from Henriksen and Mortensen, gentle aesthetics, and blending of past and present narrative strands are just a small number of the debut filmmaker’s successes.
Culture Fix
26 November 2020
Two things are remarkable, really: one is Henriksen’s performance, among his very best in a 60-plus-year career. The other is Mortensen’s seemingly instant aptitude as a filmmaker. He has a clear eye for composition and staging; he’s visually economic but sometimes quite daring; and his script is refreshingly non-linear and rarely goes in the direction you expect. This is not A Dementia Film, as the subject matter might imply, and it offers no easy solutions for difficult questions, or obvious resolutions.
The final few minutes of the film seem to emphasise this, culminating in a coda that’s as surreal and confounding as it is poignant. As an actor, Mortensen has always managed to gently surprise, and it looks like he plans to do so as director, too.
John Nugent
Empire Magazine
30 November 2020
It’s a film missing none of the essential elements—a good script full of dramatic tension; excellent acting; and a close and painful look into aspects of human nature, love, and family.
Far Out
12 October 2020
It's an intense film, well-told, thought out and deeply felt, that delves into painful feelings, the weight of memories, and the complexity of feelings. Mortensen's performance, as always, is believable.
Carlos Boyero
El Pais
24 September 2020
While it's true that Falling is so unrelenting in its negative depiction of Willis that it can feel one-note, that's not necessarily a criticism, as Mortensen wants to relay the terror that those around Willis have to live with. The drama also imagines realities to show Willis's warped state of mind. The performances are strong, with even Mortensen staying on top of his game, despite all the work he did behind the scenes in this debut that has a touch of Clint Eastwood about it.
Kaleem Aftab
cineuropa.org
18 September 2020
Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is an earnest family drama etched in jagged memories and an elegant waltz between past and present. His sensitive handling of the material creates a quietly affecting reflection on the ties that bind and provides an unusually juicy role for Lance Henriksen as the belligerent, bile-spewing patriarch…
…Mortensen’s own performance is as understated as the film, making John a dutiful son of almost saintly patience straining every sinew to avoid confrontation. Scenes in which he finally lets rip are all the more effective for his earlier restraint.
Allan Hunter
Screen Daily
10 September 2020
Mortensen’s heart is in the right place; he wants us to understand these characters, as difficult as it might be to do so. With a more conventional director at the helm, Falling could have been reassuring, polished awards bait; instead, it’s something richer and more discomfiting. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I saw it. So will you.
Norman Wilner
Now Toronto
10 September 2020
The film does a super solid job of balancing the multiple facets of John’s life. Be it his gay marriage, his Mexican speaking daughter, or his time spent serving his country. Rather than belabor any one point over the other, Mortensen peppers in each of these dynamics to perfection while still delivering the importance and power of each of these attributes. That is to say, it’s not a ‘gay’ movie, it’s not a ‘political’ movie, it’s not an ‘Alzheimer’s’ movie. No, it’s a movie about a complicated, quiet, and modern-day life… Mortensen would tell the audience at the film’s closing night Q&A that “there’s no shame, no matter how hard it is, in forgiving and accepting. No matter how much you might hate them. You’ve only got the 1, or the 2. When they are gone, they are gone.”
“Falling” is both a story about a trying child/parent relationship, and it’s a film that you should watch.
Toni Gonzales
Awards Circuit
11 February 2020
Viggo gives a beautifully understated performance here, letting Henriksen (whom it’s nice to see in a really meaty role, again) carry the load and dive into Willis’ damaged psyche, giving a riveting performance, which allows the supporting cast to do just that: support a pair of great actors doing what they do.
Vsmoviepodcast
28 January 2020
As a director, Mortensen doesn't make things easy for himself: We figure that a film like this is headed for some kind of redemption, but Willis seems completely irredeemable for much of the film. But Mortensen is too smart to go for an easy reconciliation, instead exploring shades of resignation and acceptance, particularly in the wake of an argument that can stand as a father/son version of the one in "Marriage Story" — primal and fearsome, it goes to places so dark that all the characters can do afterwards it attempt to crawl out of the wreckage.
"Falling" is a finely drawn character drama, as you might expect from much of Mortensen's acting career, and a film that pays attention to small details that bring these people to life.
Steve Pond
The Wrap
24 January 2020
Having quietly spent years augmenting his acting work with prodigious output in music, poetry and visual arts (not to mention founding a publishing house that champions other artists' work), Viggo Mortensen finally takes the director's chair in Falling, a masterful family drama taking a compassionate view of a father whose faults are impossible to ignore…
…Falling doesn't transform its emotional landscape into a simple question of rejection or forgiveness. It's comfortable knowing that meanness and affection can exist in the same person, and that tolerance, even when it only flows in one direction, benefits both giver and recipient.
John DeFour
Hollywood Reporter
24 January 2020
“Falling” is unpretentious and perfectly accessible to mainstream audiences. Mortensen’s patience, his way with actors and his trust in our intelligence are not unlike late-career Eastwood, which isn’t a bad place to be so early in one’s directing career.
Peter DeBruge
Variety
24 January 2020
Since discovering his sexuality, his father Willis has questioned the truthfulness of John’s reality in such insensitive ways that it’s hard to picture why any son would stick around to help – blood or not. But in that regard, Mortensen delivers such a defining performance that is so capable of impacting many whose experience is similar. His character’s reservations is matched with a nuanced delivery of emotion that feels as passionate as it is affecting.
Part of what makes Falling work for me is its dedication to not hide the ugly truth in what could’ve been a story that settled for stereotypical character growth and a happy ending. But if truth be told, it’s also what makes Mortensen’s Falling a difficult watch.
Brittany Witherspoon
Popculture Reviews
24 January 2020
In Mortensen’s most notable directorial flare, Falling flashes back and forth between John’s childhood on the farm and his present-day life in California as a well-to-do suburban husband to his Chinese-American partner, Eric, and father to their daughter, Monica (Gabby Velis). There’s nothing novel about interwoven timelines, but Mortensen’s vision of how the two interact is poignant and meditative.
Luke Hicks
Film School Rejects
24 January 2020
In many ways Falling is a tough film to watch, as we’re essentially voyeurs, watching horrible family dysfunction without it ever really amounting to much, other than the fact that there’s some grace to forgiveness even if its undeserved. One can’t fault the craft or the acting, with Mortensen low-key as the kindly son forced to keep in his simmering rage… One thing FALLING does that’s terrific is that it gives Lance Henriksen a showcase role. One of the best in the biz, Henriksen’s been perennially underrated ever since the eighties, and approaching eighty he’s as good as he ever was, sinking his teeth into the role with vigor…
…It’s a passionate debut for Mortensen but it’s not an easy watch.
Chris Bumbray
JoBlo.com
24 January 2020
It's a confident, assured directorial effort by Mortensen, who breezes through the various time periods (with Borg/McEnroe star Sverrir Gudnason as young Willis) with ease…
…Falling makes the case that it is never too late to move beyond the hurt and chart a new course. It's a passionate, heartfelt debut for Mortensen, and a film many will relate to because of how tough the material is to watch.
Travis Hopson
Punch Drunk Critics
24 January 2020
You will find all previous Quotables here.
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© Viggo-Works/Iolanthe. Images © Brendan Adam Zwelling/HanWay Films/Perceval Pictures.
Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo
5 December 2020 11:22:27 Found By: Iolanthe
Categories: Media
Quotable Viggo
There are ideas that come up frequently in Viggo interviews, one of which popped up again in the recent El Pais and Curzon interviews. This is the idea that memory is a ‘story that we tell ourselves’ and that we are constantly constructing our own reality. So this week we have a very philosophical Quotable. Viggo’s insight that we create and live in our own stories plays with the idea that memory isn’t always accurate, but it is a deep reflection of our sense of self and how we perceive the world. It also explores the different aspects of ourselves which we present to the world and how we weave events into our life story.
“Memory is a very strange thing, very fallible. It’s a story that we tell ourselves. We all remember the same moments in a different way…I believe that memory makes each one of us tell a story and that this has to do with wanting to control what happens around us.”
Viggo Mortensen: "The first thing I think about when I wake up is death"
by Borja Hermoso
7 September 2020
El Pais
“When you’re talking about memory and discrepancies and how subjective memory is, you start to realise that memory is more a collection of feelings that evolve over time than it is a collection of facts. We try to control the past to feel comfortable subconsciously in the present.”
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen and Lance Henriksen on Falling
Curzon Cinema Blog
26 November 2020
“This world is a dream we all contribute to, in one way or another. We are part of the dream, if we are aware or not, if we like it or not. These pictures are a part of my dream, of the way I exist and act in the world.
When I show them, when I look at them or we speak about them, they include also another dream: the dream, the memory how the light was in that moment, how the place where they were taken was. They are 'memory' of a light, exactly how they say 'picture' in Iceland: lijosmynd, that is lijos (light) and mynd (memory).
To take pictures means to lock the memory of the light as it was in that exact moment.”
Viggo Mortensen, The Photographer Of Dreams
By Giovanni Valerio - translated by Cindalea
Panorama First
July 2008
We are the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories we tell about others, the stories we read about everyone and every thing.
Viggo Mortensen’s heroes
Ethan Gilsdorf,
Boston Globe
3 March 2012
“What one remembers from childhood is often mixed with things we are told. Memory is like poetry, just one version of reality, not accurate at all."
Viggo Mortensen: "Writing and acting are like being a kid again"
By Eduardo Bejuk - translated by Zooey
Gente
25 August 2009
To Viggo, poetry is a way to leave reality behind in order to reach another, purer reality, away from those commonplace moments and the difficult situations for which there's no apparent relief. Poetry, to him, is a way to put the world into perspective.
About Them... "I like a brave woman"
By Salvador Llopart - translated by Ollie, Rio and Zooey
La Vanguardia
14 March 2010
How much of your life is in your stories and poems?
Like all writers, I write many different things, but you always create using your own life, even if everything is imaginary on the page. As much as you invent a totally distinct world, there’s always something of yourself, even if you don’t realize it. I contribute my experiences as a person who’s modern
led all over and has had a somewhat unusual bond with language. Canciones de invierno [Winter Songs], for example, has things that seem to be very true and very much mine, and they aren’t. Maybe the writings where I hide or invent myself are more my own than those that are directly autobiographical.
Viggo Mortensen - All of Us are Mestizos
by Carlos Shilling – translated by Ollie, Remolina, Rio and Zoe
LaVoz
November 2010
“In the act of filtering, there can always be manipulation. Spanish psychiatrist Rojas Marcos said on one occasion that it is impossible to live without a small dose of self-deceit.
We all lie to each other and to ourselves; everyday we show ourselves to the world in a different way. You wake up and look at yourself in the mirror, you brush your teeth, you choose your clothes, and you prepare coffee....Without thinking about it, you create a man with his own personality and that is different to the one from the day before, and that you show to the first person you see. There is a very good phrase in an X band song (my ex-wife’s band): ‘Life is a game that changes while you’re playing’.”
Mortensen Code
By Sol Alonso - translated by Remolina
November 2008
Source: Vanity Fair (Spain)
"Patches of recorded feeling vanished, irretrievable. There is no point in trying to remember and rebuild the word houses, word hills, word dams, or word skeletons like some sort of archeology project. There may be pieces I recall or inadvertently retell, but every word will be new, will go somewhere, will die no matter what I might do to tame or hold it."
Viggo Mortensen on his lost writings
Introduction to Best American Non-Required Reading
Houghton Mifflin
2004
Even Mortensen's memories of early childhood are deeply spiritual. He tells me about the time he crawled into the woods and fell asleep. "I was sleeping under a tree, and it was very peaceful," he says. "And then a dog started barking, and that's how my parents found me."
You are always escaping, I say.
Yeah, he says. He calls his mother - on my cell phone, because he doesn't have one - to double-check his recollection. "Hi, it's Viggo. Sorry to be calling so late," he says. "Oh shit. You're in the middle of it? That's funny. Is it the tape? [She was watching a tape of The Two Towers.] O.K., sorry, it's just a quick question and then I'll let you get back to what you're doing. Remember there were a couple of times I ran away? And the time the dog came and found me in the woods? How old was I then? About one and a half. O.K. But, anyway, the dog came and found me and I was sitting under a tree? Happy? Sleeping, right?"
Big look of consternation.
"I was sitting in the middle of the woods crying? I thought I was sleeping. Are you sure?"
Finding Viggo
By Alex Kuczynski
Vanity Fair magazine
January 2004
“…..you know, no one looks at the world like it really is. Everyone looks at the world like they want it to be. When it comes down to it, everyone is in their own 'dream world', we could become crazy if we thought of the world like it really is.”
Dreaming About Telling Stories
By Einar Fal Ingolfsson - translated by Rosen and Ragga
Morgunblaðið
29 May 2008
You will find all previous Quotables here.
© Viggo-Works/Iolanthe. Images © Toni Galan.
Iolanthe's Quotable Viggo
29 November 2020 06:49:13 Found By: Iolanthe
Categories: Media
Quotable Viggo
We heard the sad news this week of the death of Maradona who – despite controversy – was one of the greatest footballers ever to run onto a pitch. Viggo met him once on a TV programme and gave him his San Lorenzo socks. Which is probably about a Viggo a gesture as it gets! He has also met Pele (and suffered the fate of many hopeless fans), and his childhood football hero ‘The Frog’. Yes. You’ve probably guessed it. This week is football Quotable week.
Mortensen speaks five languages, and seems happy to discuss football in all of them.
Interview: Viggo Mortensen, actor
Scotsman.com
9 February 2012
We really seem like two children, both fifteen years old at most. Instead, we make almost ninety years together. I’ve been speaking with Viggo Mortensen for twenty minutes, and the only topic we’ve been able to discuss are old and blessed soccer player picture cards.
A Latin Man Comes From The North
By Riccardo Romani - translated by Cindalea
GQ (Italy)
May 2007
Gulliver: Why San Lorenzo and not River or Boca?
Viggo Mortensen: Because I have blue blood. I went to the doctor for a check-up, and he told me so.
Chat with Viggo Mortensen
By - translated by Margarita
Reforma
18 November 2005
Oh God,no! Viggo Mortensen is wearing the sweatshirt of San Lorenzo, the Argentine soccer team of which he is a big supporter. The effect is what I feared: all male journalists present at the meeting with the actor unleash questions about who will win this game, this season, the derby ... with the result that the first 20 minutes with one of the most fascinating men in the world are wasted with talk about sports!
Viggo Mortensen: "Do I look sexy?"
By Simona Coppa - translated by Ollie
Grazia
9 October 2012
Wearing all manner of Buenos Aires and soccer trappings (socks, bracelet, and a San Lorenzo pin, plus a complete mate set and the sports section of The Nation on hand), Viggo Mortensen greeted the Argentinean press on his recent visit to Buenos Aires….. He takes off his black boots and allows us to see the wide stripes on his socks in the colours of the team he loves.
Viggo Mortensen: The Biggest Soccer Fan In Hollywood
By Lorena García - translated by Margarita
La Nacion
16 November 2005
I met Maradona once on Susana Giménez' program.... The idea was that his arrival would be a surprise at the end of the broadcast, but someone got excited and told me a few hours before going to the station. I took with me in my pocket a CASLA t-shirt with "10" and gave it to him during the program. I told him that there was a gap in our lineup because of injuries (maybe it was Walter Montillo that was hurt, I don't remember now) and that the following day, since we were playing against River, maybe he would like to join us. The idol took it very well and Susana, who's a Cuervo, laughed too.
In the last minutes of the program, I took off my boots to give him the San Lorenzo socks I was wearing and I think I told him that he'd have to look for the shorts himself. He also accepted that gift with a lot of dignity and in an extremely generous spirit. If he thought that I was an idiotic Cuervo, he didn't say so.
Viggo Mortensen
In This Heat
By Viggo Mortensen and Fabián Casas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Sobrevueloscuervos.com
18 December 2013
"I'm spreading “the cuervo gospel” all over the world. That's not only my mission, but my career, that's my job. Cinema, poetry and all the rest are hobbies. Spreading the cuervo gospel, that's what I'm dedicated to..."
Viggo Mortensen
In The Name Of The Father
By Natalia Trzenko - translated by Ollie and Zooey
La Nacion
22 June 2010
"Every time I go to Argentina, I go to the San Lorenzo store and I buy all the decals they have because I have the habit of sticking them up in cities, airports, in the stadiums of other teams, " he recounts and ends with a sly smile, "to mark territory."
"We are all artists" - Viggo Mortensen
By Susana Parejas - translated by Ollie and Zoe
7 Dias
2 September 2012
“[Football] is theatre. Theatre in the sense of watching not so much the winning and the losing, but how people behave, on the pitch and in the stands, when they win and when they lose. It represents the best and the worst of human behaviour.”
Viggo Mortensen: intellectual nourishment in a world of artery-clogging culture
By Dan Masoliver
Shortlist.com
20 December 2018
‘If CASLA loses, I'm devastated for a while and when they win, the world seems like a stupendous place.’
Viggo Mortensen demonstrates to this newspaper that the great never lose their humility
By - translated by Ollie and Zoe
TiempoSur
9 June 2013
"I would rather see San Lorenzo win the tournament than get an Oscar, definitely."
Viggo Mortensen
By Juan Cruz Sanchez Marino - translated by Graciela
GENTE
26 December 2008
As he turns away I see that his football shirt has been signed by a player called The Frog, who wrote: “Thank you for being simple,” which I ask him to explain. Is he thanking you for being a half-wit? He laughs. “I think he means thank you for being real. He was a childhood hero of mine. A great player. Kept it simple.” Simple is the last thing you would ever think of Mortensen. He’s very complicated, but also very real.
Sympathy for the devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009
'Yesterday, my limousine was blockaded by people. The fans were banging against the windows. I opened the door and escaped down a small alley. And who did I run into? King Pelé and his bodyguards. I asked for an autograph...but his bodyguards stopped me. King in his limousine, poor beggar in the street. A good lesson,' concludes Mortensen, who invites you to reflect on the morality of such a story.
Viggo Mortensen - The Lord Touches All
By François-Guillaume Lorrain - translated by Margarita
27 October 2005
Source: Le Point
"Have I behaved? I haven't talked about San Lorenzo too much, right?"
Viggo Mortensen in a Todos tenemos un plan interview
Soledad Villamil - Viggo Mortensen: Brothers In Arms
By Nazareno Brega - translated by Ollie and Zoe
Clarin
29 August 2012
You will find all previous Quotables here.
© Viggo-Works/Iolanthe. Images © Unknown.
Last edited: 31 May 2023 15:42:13