Bruno Barreto Reaching For The Moon

Bruno Barreto Reaching For The Moon

Cast: Miranda Otto, Glória Pires
Director: Bruno Barreto
Running Time: 118 minutes

Synopsis: 1951, a cargo boat arrives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil coming from New York. Elizabeth, 40, disembarks, she plans on leaving for a journey through South America on a boat that will depart within 5 days. She phones Mary, an acquaintance from New York, who lives in Rio. Mary convinces Elizabeth to stay with her and picks her up at the port.

Mary arrives at the port with Lota, her love affair of more than 12 years. Elizabeth and Lota are introduced to each other. Lota is outspoken, imposing, genuine and full of charisma. She loves to shock people. To the society of Rio de Janeiro, Lota is seen as a seductive woman, strong, masculine and intractable. Whereas, the discrete Elizabeth, is seen by everyone as the perfect translation of human fragility, an original wasp – white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, both physically and emotionally. Although there is an initial mutual incompatibility there seems to be an enchantment between them. Lota wants Elizabeth to stay in Brazil while Mary does everything possible to get rid of the suddenly inconvenient visitor.

When she finally decides to depart, although thorn with the idea of leaving Lota, Elizabeth tries a cashew fruit for the first time in her life. The fruit causes a strong allergic reaction in her, which makes her postpone indefinitely her departure. From then on, Elizabeth and Lota live an open and intensive love story in the Rio de Janeiro of the 50's and 60's.

Lota commands the construction of a Hollywood style house in the mountains. There she builds a natural swimming pool and a studio just for Elizabeth. Meanwhile Mary suffers from having been dumped, but Lota doesn't give her up either. To make it up to Mary, Lota promises to realize her dream of becoming a mother, by adopting a girl they would raise together. Mary then moves in the older house in the estate, living alone until the baby arrives. She defends as much as she can, her share of her 'ex" lover's life.

In order to get Lota's attention, Elizabeth intelligently manipulates people around her. Although strong looking and respectful, Lota is extremely insecure when it comes to deserving Elizabeth's affection.

Lota convinces her friend Lacerda, who had just been elected governor of Rio de Janeiro, that she is capable of transforming the huge rubbish area facing the Guanabara Bay and the Sugar Loaf into a local Central Park. But, contrary to her intent, this ends up separating her from Elizabeth, who feeling deserted by her lover, considers accepting a 6 months teaching assignment at a renowned American university.

Lota and Elizabeth plan a trip through Europe to rescue their now fragile relationship. It's of no use, though and Elizabeth decides to return to the USA and lecture there. Lota becomes desperate, but turns the desperation into an cruel insult that pushes Elizabeth away. In the middle of a major political crisis, Lacerda is obliged to renounce and Lota loses the park she has struggled and suffered for. Lota is hospitalised after a break-down and depressions. She is reaching out to Elizabeth via numerous intimate letters but Mary who is now taking care of her makes sure they never reach Elizabeth.

Elizabeth returns to Brazil opened to rekindle their relationship but is told by Mary that it was their tumultuous relationship that has been the deep cause of Lota's state and that Elizabeth should show her love but leaving and let her get better.

Very depressed and ill Lota leaves to New York in a last attempt to regain Elizabeth's affection. The meeting is tired, sad and silent. There is a lot of care but also a huge abyss between them now. Lota discovers things about Elizabeth's life in New York that unfortunately pushes her over the edge.

Reaching For The Moon
Release Date: July 17th, 2014

Bruno Barreto (Director) About The Movie

The Beginning Of The Process

I was offered this story way back, when Lucy Barreto, the producer of the film, and my mother, bought the rights of the book and offered it to me. I didn't even read the book, she told me the story, and I wasn't really interested.

A Story About Loss

In -97 the book, the rights of the book, Rare and Commonplace Flowers, the rights were bought, but I didn't read the book, and I wasn't interested in the story. In 2004, when my ex-wife Amy did the monologue written by somebody else, Marta Goes, it was called A Safe Harbour for Elizabeth Bishop. When I saw the monologue, Amy's performance and the monologue itself made me suspect that there was a story there that I wanted to tell. But I didn't have the angle yet.

Then I went to read the book Rare and Commonplace Flowers, which had nothing to do with the monologue and I thought, oh that's interesting. Lota's character is very interesting. More important than telling a story, is why tell this story. To talk about what? So, why do I want to tell the story? What for? And it started to come to me, above all, because of the poem One Art, which starts with 'The art of losing isn't hard to master." 'Lose something every day." So maybe this story should be about loss and Bishop's [loss], and I started to think about what the conflict was between Bishop and Lota. And I became obsessed about the theme of loss. And I thought, I think that could be the common denominator. Because yet, I also had the concern, to tell a love story about two women. I didn't want to make a niche film, a film that is going to be appealing just for a very small, narrow segment of people. Lesbians around the world. No. So, what could be, what could resonate from that story? Because I think that when a story works, it is very specific, but at the same time it has a resonance. It is like the Western; the Western became so universal, and yet it's so specific, the genre of the Western. Because it talks about mythology, it resonates with the world; even the Italians had their own version, Spaghetti Western. So, and I thought that loss is the common denominator. I'm not going to do a biopic of Bishop or Lota. I'm going to do a story about loss and Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares just happen to be the characters.

Storyline

The story is a love story; it's a love story between two women. Completely different, because one is the dysfunctional, weak, alcoholic loser and the other one is the strong winner, provider, do-er… and when they meet, they fall in love. They are completely different. But the weak keeps getting stronger and stronger because she had to deal one way or another with a lot of losses. Like her father, losing her father when she was 8 months old. Losing her mother when she was 5 years old. She saw her mother being taken away and institutionalized in a hospital for mad people. But although she was an alcoholic, she was a drifter, she didn't have a home, she kept getting stronger and stronger, and she ended up winning the Pulitzer for poetry. The other one, Lota, played by Gloria Pires, from a very wealthy, well to do family in Brazil, she just kept getting weaker and weaker because she didn't know how to deal with loss and when she lost the great love of her life and her greatest project, which was the Flamengo Park, downtown Rio, which was a fantastic work in terms of magnitude, in terms of scale because it was a landfill park in the Rio bay. It's considered till today one of the biggest constructions in history, and she couldn't deal with loss at all.

Main Actresses

Miranda Otto was giving, I don't know, 500%, even more. She became Bishop. She really became Bishop. It was, I mean that is a blessing and a curse at the same time for a director, because it's hard, but it is ultimately a dream for a director, because the amount of ideas, it's so she would come to the set every day with so many ideas and she was so tuned into every word of the script, not only dialogue, but the description, the scene description. So, that was, I think that in the 19 feature films I've made, I've never worked with an actor that was so committed and so obsessed with the character. And that was fantastic. And so was Gloria who had gotten, who was in the project way before me, because the producer offered it to her way before me, when the rights of the book were bought. And last but not least, Tracy Middendorf also with Mary, which is a supporting character, but very, very important because I think the character that really knows the art of losing is Mary's character, because she is the one who experiences a big loss and has to live with it because she was married to Lota, not married in the legal sense, but they were living together, and then Lota dumps her, drops her for Bishop, being Bishop, Mary's ex-roommate at Vassar, so the reason why Bishop met Lota was because of Mary. So you could say that Bishop stole Mary, stole Lota from Mary. So, and she, Lota, because Lota doesn't know how to lose, Lota doesn't let Mary go. Mary wants to go back to the States and she says, 'Why?" You have nothing to gain going back to the States and your family, they are ashamed of you, just stay here and remember that girl that you wanted to adopt, let's adopt her now. So, she was like a Brazilian sort of coronel, so to speak, the Brazilian farm owner, who controls everything, and is kind of like a dictator, very generous, very charming, but very authoritarian. There's actually a line in the film in which Mary says to Lota, 'I have no other option than to love you."

Inspiration

Edward Hopper was very much one of the inspirations, because Hopper's work is very much 'chiaro" and 'scuro", light and dark, and that's what this film is very much about, it's about what we choose to see, things that are in front of us and we don't see and then when we do see it, it's too late we should have noticed before, it's very much about timing also.

Multiple Time and Places

It was quite a nightmare to have to jump all over the place in terms of time and space, above all, time. The film covers 15 years. In terms of looks and makeup, although I purposely, I didn't want the audience to be so aware of when and what year this story was. I wanted the audience to be very much aware that time was going by, but not precisely in what year we were, the story is. Of course, there are moments in the story in which that's going to be very clear because Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, that's pretty engrained in the collective unconscious, and she won the Pulitzer, for those who know Bishop, in 1956, so there are some, the coup d'état in Brazil in 1964, and the only date that is made very explicit is in the beginning of the film in which I established that it's 1951, in titles but that's it. Then I don't ever mention any date anymore because I very much wanted this story to be told in a timeless manner, because I think it's a timeless story. So, I didn't want the audience to be so rooted and marked down with the exact period.

Shooting In 2 Countries

In Brazil, we actually spent 8 weeks, I would say, yeah, because we only shot 3 days here, so we shot 51 days in Brazil and we were shooting 6 days a week, so it was over 8 weeks there. The difference between shooting in Brazil and here is that in the United States, there is more method, more procedure, and so, things are more organized. What was very exciting here was that we were shooting just for 3 days, but the commitment of the American crew was as strong as, the commitment and excitement, was as strong as the one from the Brazilian crew, they read the script, they were very excited and very enthusiastic about the story and at the end of the 3 days, they were like that was very exciting and I think we got great material, and that, in the United States, because there's a big industry here the crews can be just professional but not enthusiastic as opposed to Brazil in which the lack of professionalism, sometimes, because there's a lot of great professionals there as well, but is overcome by the enthusiasm.

A Foreign Sight

It's definitely a story in which Brazil is looked at through the eyes of a foreigner. Very sharp, accurate, very, really acute look and not patronizing at all and that's one of the aspects that I most love about this story. Elizabeth Bishop was ruthless, and yet she loved Brazil, but in a very, very precise and restrained way. And I love that.

A Hard Production

It was the hardest shoot ever. Of the 19 feature films I've made this was the hardest. I don't know exactly why. I guess it's because it's a story very much about, it's a story in which the subtext was more important than the text, so I had to be very, very focused on what was happening in between the lines. So, what was not being said was really as important if not more important than what was actually being said. It was the first time in the 19 feature films I've made that I was telling the actors to go slower, and making pauses, sort of spacing the lines, pacing the lines instead of speeding them. Of course every line should have a cadence, but in this film I found myself really going for the so-called dead moments, the so-called breathing moments, breathers. And it wasn't falling flat. It wasn't. Those quiet moments were very pregnant of tension and meaning, so that was very interesting. I guess that happened because the characters are very strong, dense, dramatically speaking they had a good density in the sense of structure. They were dramatically very well structured, the characters.

Lucy Barreto (Producer) about the movie

The Origin

It was Christmas '95. I got the book Rare and Commonplace Flowers from the editor. I read the book in one night and the day after I called the writer, Carmen Lucia de Oliveira, and I told her I want to do a film with the book. And I want the option, but unfortunately, I have no money, I cannot pay you right now, but I can assure you that I will produce this film.

Meeting Lota and Bishop

I should say that I met both of them around '57, '58 at a lunch at Samambaia. Luiz Carlos and myself, we came for this lunch where both of them were there, of course, and there was also Vinícius de Moraes, Cal, the poet, Carlos Leão 'Caloca", the painter, and Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Lacerda, and at that time, I could look at them and they were all the time looking at each other, Lota to Bishop, and Bishop to Lota. Even when they were across on the other side of the room, living room, they would look at each other, they would smile ironic smiles, and the film is in a way, has this atmosphere, it's a film about emotions, feelings, I should say atmospheres.

Gloria Pires

She is part of this project from the beginning. Probably, she doesn't remember, but this was 17 years ago, and from the beginning we were together, the writer Carmen Lucia de Oliveira, myself, and Gloria. We are the three women that were together from the beginning. There were no men involved.

She's Lota! It is incredible how she, we say, 'incarnate"? She incarnates Lota and nobody else could do that. For a moment she was engaged in other projects and we had to think about somebody else because there were dates that we had to obey, and I couldn't think about anybody else.

A Family Production

The film was produced with my daughter Paula Barreto and directed by Bruno. It's… I don't know how many films I produced for Bruno. We have a lot of things in common. Personality, character that is quite close in approaches to things. To work with your family, it's a lot of pleasure and sometimes very difficult of course, because you mix things, no? And from time to time, I really had to call their attention, we are a family, but we really have to act as not. Take the advantage of working in a family but paying attention not to go on the wrong side of it. This I think it's kind of, being raised in an American school, I think I learned this practice to be very pragmatic and from time to time, I call my husband, myself, my children, right now for instance, I have my grandchildren working with me and once I had my mother working, we were at a moment, my mother, Luiz Carlos and myself, my three children Bruno, Fabio, and Paula and the two grand-daughters Julia and Helena. And from time to time, I would have to say, 'Enough!" because it was too much, we would be working the whole day, the whole time. And from time to time, I would take a break and I would tell them 'Bye!"

Reaching for the Moon

Reaching For the Moon is a film about two human beings that suffered a lot, that had a lot of losses, and how they overcame these problems. Bishop with more ease, but I wouldn't say that because she was helped by Lota a lot. She found somebody that really loved her and that would fulfill her and would give her support for her to write, to blossom. And Lota was somebody that wouldn't really, she was a winner, she always had everything she wanted. She belonged to a very wealthy family and being so she was used to having whatever she would like to. She was not used to losing anything, and this was really difficult for her. And I think that this film can bring you, brings to you a lot of thoughts about human beings and human life.

A Dream that Came True

It's a dream that came true. I can't believe that this really happened because you can imagine '95, right now we are in 2013, this is almost 18 years. I'm very happy because we are celebrating the centenary of Bishop's birth that she was born in February 8th, 1911. And I always dreamed about that. When it would take such a long time I would say to myself 'Oh my God, I hope I'm going to be able to do it before the anniversary of her birth", and I'm very happy about this, that it happened.

Gloria Pires (Lota) about the movie

The Invitation

When Lucy called me to say that she had bought the book and that she was interested in telling the story about Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, of course I was very pleased and very thrilled to tell the story. This is an unknown story for us in Brazil. Almost no one knows about this love story about these two very interesting women.

Preparation of Character

I can say that I've been preparing myself through all these years because from time to time Lucy would call me and update me about the steps they were in, when they were planning to shoot the film, so almost every year, I kind of grew up a little bit this character and I think that maturity has helped me a lot during this process.

Acting In A Foreign Language

By the time I knew that we would make the film, I, my concern was about the language. Most of all, it was the language. Well, it was my first time acting in English and it's a huge difference, because first of all you must think all the time in another language and during the scenes sometimes you feel like adding something, but when it's not your mother language it's so difficult, but I think the result is OK.

Rehearsals

We rehearsed, we read the script a few times, we made some adjustments and we had a very creative and a very nice environment. It was very nice, very playful. So, we used to talk and discuss a lot about a few subjects.

Lota and Bishop

When they first met Bishop was very weak. She had a lot of health problems: allergies, asthma, all these kinds of things, and Lota was very strong - her will, her desire and, but the thing is that I believe that at the end of their lives, Lota was very, very sick so they kind of changed roles that's very interesting for the script I think.

The Character's Construction

I've been building up this character for all these years, but specifically I was very, very concerned with the English of course, how should I say the lines and how to address to different people, and I didn't have much concern about the body language. I've already played a film which I switched the character with the husband, so that the wife and the husband should switch the character, so I would play him and he would play me, and I think that it was kind of an exercise that I did.

Intimacy

I believe that having a good relationship with Miranda and Tracy was something very, very important because we should have fun, we would talk about the kids, our daughters and sons, and have fun together, and it helped to build up the air of intimacy that we should have.

The Approach

The way Bruno put it, Bruno and Matthew, the way they put it in the script it was already very elegant. I don't think that the film is about sex. The film is something more than this. The way people blend themselves when they are together in a very long relationship. I believe they were married for twelve years, so they built a house together and Bishop rediscovered herself during this time. And Lota could exercise her will of protection, she would protect everybody, her friends, she was kind of a mama she would take care of them. So, I think the film is a very wide discussion about all these subjects, different cultures, same sex and living that reality back in the fifties which was very different from United States and Europe, here in Brazil, the homosexuals were really hunted, they would be arrested, they would be put in mental hospitals. This kind of violence it was not an easy situation, but since they belong to a higher social level, they would have some facilities like living outside Rio, living in Samambaia which was like a dream.

Lota and Lacerda

Since Lota and Carlos Lacerda were very close, very, very close friends like brother and sister, during the process of shooting, I, we realized that sometimes they would dress alike, like the glasses, the outfit, and this was something that helped me too. Getting this 'man-ish" way of saying some things to him.

International Career

I had no expectations about an international career. I am always looking for a character, an interesting project, a story that must be told. That's what I look for, what I'm looking for… I don't know, let's see.

Maturity

It was a huge challenge, in many aspects. I don't think that 17 years ago I could add as much as I could do now, because of my maturity as a woman and as an actress, and I had fun, a lot.


Reaching For The Moon
Release Date: July 17th, 2014