Hollywood celebrates 'graphic' content

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Hollywood is engaged in a round of celebration honoring one of the relatively unsung arts of film, production design, with a special emphasis on the work of six-time Oscar nominee Dante Ferretti -- best known for his work on "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles," "The Age of Innocence" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Cinecittà Holding are honoring Ferretti with "Drawing Dreams: Dante Ferretti, Production Designer." The academy is hosting an exhibit of drawings, clips and models from his films, while LACMA is exhibiting a retrospective of his films. Cinecittà Holding engaged the services of Italian architect Ico Migliore to design the exhibit.

In conjunction with the Ferretti celebration, the academy and the Art Directors Guild will present "Arresting Images" on Nov. 7, using film clips and panel discussions with leading designers to illustrate the impact that production designers have on films.

Ferretti was 17 when he decided he wanted to design films. The following year, he began to work and study at Cinecittà, the legendary Italian film studio.

"When you are young and going to see movies, you say normally I want to be an actor," said Ferretti, "but I liked to see period movies."

By 1970 he was collaborating with the great Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini on "Medea," starring Maria Callas as the powerful but tragic Greek sorceress. He went on to make seven more films with Pasolini, including "Il Decameron" and "The Canterbury Tales" (1971).

Ferretti made five films with the legendary Federico Fellini, including "And the Ship Sails On" (1983), "Ginger and Fred" (1986) and "Casanova" (1976).

Ferretti has been nominated for art direction Oscars for "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1989), "The Age of Innocence" (1993); "Hamlet" (1990); "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles" (1994) and "Kundun" (1997). He was also nominated for his costume design for "Kundun."

In an interview at the academy, Ferretti told United Press International it felt a little strange to be looking at a retrospective of his work.

"For me, I think always the next, never the past," said Ferretti. "But I feel this is important. It's an honor for me."

Ferretti also admitted he liked what he saw, as he surveyed the exhibit.

"I look behind, I think I did good stuff," he said.

Equally at home recreating contemporary big city locales for Martin Scorsese's "Waking the Dead" and dreaming up surreal settings for Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," Ferretti is best known for period designs -- such as Jean-Jacques Annaud's "The Name of the Rose," Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles," and Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence."

Ferretti said he loves research and loves designing period films.

"I prefer to do period movies because I have more job to do," he said. "When you're shooting in the middle of the street, you need just a location manager more than a production designer."

Ferretti said his approach to recreating a period is to see himself, not as a modern designer looking back, but as a designer of that period.

"It's like when an actor wants to be a character," he said. "If I make something in the 18th century, I start to think I'm from the 18th century. Otherwise, it's just a production design that copies something. I don't want to copy."

Ferretti is working on Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Charles Frazier's best-selling novel "Cold Mountain" -- starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger in the story of a wounded Confederate soldier who struggles to return home after the Civil War, hoping to reunite with his sweetheart.

Francesca LoSchiavo, Ferretti's wife and set decorator -- a four-time Oscar nominee in her own right -- made the trip with Ferretti from Transylvania to attend the program at the academy.

This Christmas, Ferretti's handiwork will show up on U.S. theater screens when Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" opens.

Ferretti recreated Manhattan of the 19th century on soundstages at Cinecittà -- and he is pleased with the results.

"It's great stuff," he said. "It's very believable. Everything is more real than real. No fantasy"

Ferretti said he considered himself lucky to have been associated with Cinecittà.

"It's a big tradition in Italy to have fantastic painters, plasterers, carpenters," he said. "So to work at Cinecittà is something very important for a designer."

The LACMA film series will feature "And the Ship Sails On," "Arabian Nights," "Kundun," "The Name of the Rose" and "Baron Munchausen."

"Arresting Images" will feature clips covering the last 100 years of film -- from "Trip to the Moon" (1902) to "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001). Other clips include "Intolerance" (1916), "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), "Dr. Zhivago" (1965), "The Last Picture Show" (1971) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979).

Speakers will include Robert Boyle ("The Birds"), Terence Marsh ("Dr. Zhivago"), Bill Creber ("The Poseidon Adventure"), Rick Carter ("Forrest Gump") and Jim Bissell ("Jumanji'").

The program will also kick off a companion film series at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which will show 12 films from Nov. 9 through Nov. 24, with introductions by production designers and other filmmakers. The UCLA program is also being presented in collaboration with the Art Directors Guild.