Luca Guadagnino defended Timothée Chalamet, at least in part, regarding the “Marty Supreme” star’s viral comment that he doesn’t want feature films to be like “ballets or operas.”
The Italian director did this just as he was preparing for the Italian premiere of American composer John Adams’ 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer.
Guadagnino, who is credited with launching Chalamet’s career with “Call Me By Your Name,” was asked about Chalamet’s biting sarcasm in a weekend interview with Italian daily La Stampa ahead of the April 19 premiere of “The Death of Klinghoffer” at Florence’s prestigious opera festival Maggio Musicalle Fiorentino.
“I don’t use social media, so I don’t understand how one (single) comment can turn into a global controversy,” Guadagnino said.
“Perhaps Timothy could have saved himself,” he added. “But he is young, smart and sensitive, and he is afraid that cinema will become marginal. That is why all imaginations should be nurtured. We must unite the arts, not separate them.”
Chalamet infuriated the global ballet and opera community last month when he said on “A CNN & Variety Town Hall Event” that he didn’t want theatrical film screenings to end up like “ballets and operas” where “nobody cares” anymore but artists want “to keep this going.”
The Florence event, which hosts Guadagnino’s opera, was one of the aggressive groups. “Timothée Chalamet, stop by Fiorentino’s Maggio Musical and see John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. This production is directed by your old friend Luca Guadagnino, so we know it’s going to be a masterpiece,” Maggio Musical said in a social media post.
“See for yourself that opera is alive, vibrant and actually matters to people!” Maggio’s post added.
In an interview with La Stampa, Guadagnino, who will be directing Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in Maschera” at Milan’s historic Teatro alla Scala next year, said that he directs operas “not as a filmmaker who does opera to get media attention, but as a director who does opera through and through.”
The Death of Klinghoffer, which revolves around the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and the murder of American Leon Klinghoffer, was described in a 1992 Variety review as “part passion drama, part docudrama, part modern ballet” and described the opera as “a solemn exploration of suffering and loss that attempts to address current events from the perspective of their deep roots.”
In an interview, Guadagnino said that composer Adams and librettist Alice Goodman “deeply explored the estranged, mythopoetic, mythopoetic aspects of two peoples (Jews and Palestinians) forced into a symbiotic, antagonistic, and therefore deeply unsettling relationship.”
Asked about his upcoming feature film, Artificial, reportedly about OpenAI and featuring an all-star cast including Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro, Jason Schwartzman, and Yula Borisov, Guadagnino said the film is “almost complete.”
Guadagnino said Artificial is “a story about kids betting on a utopia of self-generating artificial intelligence, with all the ethical implications this brings.” The Amazon MGM Studios film is scheduled to premiere at the Venice Film Festival this fall.
