Casey Affleck‘s Venice Film Festival Competition drama Company is launching on the Lido today.
Affleck was flanked at the film’s press conference by Adelaide Clemens, Scoot McNairy, Emily Alyn Lind, actress-producer Caylee Cowan — Affleck’s partner — and 85 year-old screen legend Nick Nolte.
Affleck told the assembled journalists that actor Ben Mendelsohn, who also stars in the film, had arrived with the team in Venice but had to return home to be with his father who is unwell.
The film also introduces Affleck’s son Atticus for the first time on screen and marks the second feature for his son Indiana. Both were seated in the front row but Affleck said he wanted to play ‘father’ and not have them exposed to questions today.
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Described as “a meditation on grief, vengeance, forgiveness, and the quiet acts of compassion that can heal even the deepest wounds”, the gothic drama is set over a single night in 1975 when a wintry holiday gathering is interrupted by a mysterious woman who recounts a tale from decades before.
Oscar winner Affleck responded to a question about whether the film was an expression of anger about global conflicts: “It’s not explicitly a political movie. But I’m not impervious to the to the world around me, so I was responding in part to all of the sort of raging conflicts in the world, and to things inside myself. And what do we do with the the stuff in our life? All of us, not just me or someone over there or people living next door to me, but everyone, with the injuries and insults that we experience, the harm that has caused us, the pain and suffering, the injustice that we feel that makes us so angry and want to lash out and fight back. Is there another way to process those feelings? Is there another way? And and there’s no answer that’s given. I was I was just exploring those those questions.”
He continued: “Chekhov said that art isn’t supposed to provide answers. It’s just supposed to formulate the problem. The metaphor he used was that the courts are there to formulate the problem, and the jury solves it. And I think the same is true for for art and for movies. What we’re doing is sort of formulating the problem. We’re not trying to to solve it or even really suggest a solution.”
One journalist lamented to Affleck that it had been years since she had last seen him at the Venice Film Festival with Manchester By The Sea [Affleck was last at the festival in 2022 with Dreamin’ Wild], and she wanted to know why he hadn’t been back since and what he had learnt about himself in that time:
“Let’s see”, he responded. “I’m 51, so I was 41, and my kids grew up, and I went through COVID and divorce and a million things, and I took all of that stuff…You know, the good thing about being an artist, the best thing maybe, is that you can take all of the hardest experiences in your life and put it into your work, and it just makes you better if you’re willing to face it all, be honest about it all, and show vulnerably with those feelings, and allow for the fact that you might not be able to really fully understand them, but you’re willing to put them into what you’re making.”
He continued: “It’s a blessing, and for me, it’s the only way that I can understand what’s happening in my own life. Sometimes I’ll see movies from five years ago and I think, ‘Oh wow, that’s what that was about. I had no idea. I didn’t know that is what I was going through at that time. That is what was on my mind.’ Because we go through our lives thinking about picking the kids up or making lunch or buying the groceries, but there’s this other stuff that’s churning deep, deep, deep down, and that’s the stuff that comes out when you’re making something. And then there you see it on the screen. You think, ‘oh, I guess that’s me’. So I think someday I’ll look back on this movie and I’ll say, ‘that’s me, and I’ll have a better understanding of what the last 10 years have been like.’
Unsaid was also the challenging period following the movie I’m Still Here, which led to Affleck having to settle two lawsuits out of court, and his name being pulled into the MeToo debate. He pulled out of presenting an Oscar at the 2018 ceremony and hasn’t been nominated by the Academy since his win for Manchester By The Sea in 2016.
Affleck was asked at one stage why he cast his kids in his new film and whether he had to drag them “kicking and screaming” to do it: “That’s not inaccurate,” he explained. “Neither one of them really wanted to be a part of this production. I think that they grew up around it and had some interest in it and a sort of innate understanding of what it was, like I did. My dad worked in the theater for many years, and so it’s passed down, I suppose, which is a really nice thing, and they were willing to be a part of this. The casting process was pretty conventional. We just hired a great casting director, Abi Kaufman, who I’ve worked with before, but I couldn’t find people. I was sitting around the house doing read throughs of this script over and over, and and I would have my two kids read the younger and older teens, and and they were fantastic. I got to the point where I was there in pre-production and they were willing to show up and do it…they were amazing and it made it the best professional experience of my life by far because I got to go to work every day with my kids and hang around and I would do it over and over again if I could. I don’t think that they will let me but I I’m gonna try.”
The multi-hyphenate was also asked why the film was dedicated to his parents. He explained that he had lost both parents this year and didn’t get a chance to show it to them, which he had wanted to do.
Affleck went on to say that Venice was his favourite place to show movies and that being a part of the Venice launch of The Assassination Of Jesse James was probably his favourite festival experience.
The full synopsis for the movie reads: “On a winter night in 1975, a mysterious woman named Evelyn arrives uninvited at a holiday gathering and tells the story of Tom, an aging hermit who rescues a stranded actress during a Colorado blizzard in 1953. To pass the night, the actress recounts an older tale of a farming couple who take in a troubled young drifter as a series of grisly murders spreads fear across the frontier.”
Affleck co-wrote the script with Ron Hansen. Producers include Steven Schneider and Roy Lee via Spooky Features, Catherine Caylee Cowan, Dan Lawler, Affleck, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, K. Asher Levin, Enzo Marc, and Anthony Katagas. Executive producers include Ben Ross via Image Nation Studios, Rami Yasin for Spooky Pictures, Ronnie Exley and Jeremy Ross via Rabbits Black, Ron McLeod, Dr. Terence Chan, Brian Meng, and Maria Breese for 3:33 Creative Productions, and Jonathan Miller.
It has been seven years since Affleck’s sophomore directorial outing, Light Of My Life.
