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Jolie, Pitt get emotional unveiling Daniel Pearl film
(AFP)
Updated: 2007-05-22 16:51
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt spoke emotionally about love and family as
they premiered their new film Monday about the murder of US reporter
Daniel Pearl by Islamic extremists.
"A Mighty Heart" starring Jolie, produced by Pitt and directed by
Britain's Michael Winterbottom, was warmly applauded at a packed
screening, with some critics saying it was the actress's best work since
her 2000 Oscar for "Girl, Interrupted".
Hollywood's golden couple was joined at the Cannes film festival by
Pearl's widow Mariane, whose book on her husband's murder while
researching terrorist networks in Pakistan in 2002 is the basis of the
movie.
The 31-year-old actress said she was at about the same point in her
pregnancy with Pitt's child when she began filming that Pearl had reached
when she confronted her husband's kidnapping and subsequent beheading.
"I remember being six months pregnant and thinking 'I can't imagine at
this time not having the father with me and being concerned about his
life and trying to eat and trying to remember to get some sleep'," she
said.
"So as a woman it just made me so much more connected to (Mariane) and
aware of her and also knowing that carrying that life inside, that little
boy that's half Danny that is so so amazing and her love -- I'm sure
there couldn't also have been a greater gift at that time to help pull
her through something like that."
Pitt, 43, said starting a family with Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, had pushed him to pursue work that
mattered.
"As a father, too, I look at my kids and realise that they will inherit
this world, and I know this is true for Mariane as well and we want to do
everything we can to throw our weight in and make it a little bit
better," he said.
Pitt, who is also in Cannes for the premiere of the all-star caper
"Ocean's Thirteen" on Thursday, said he had been inspired by Mariane's
courage and empathy for other terror victims.
"The strength of Mariane through this situation -- for me it was an
epiphany. As Angie said, she had every reason to come out of this
embittered and angry and full of hatred and instead has shown us another
way," he said.
"It lights the way for me."
Jolie, who underwent a complete makeover to play Pearl, a Frenchwoman of
Cuban and Dutch origin, said the film had also made her and Pitt
reconsider the role of the media and the hounding they face daily by
celebrity photographers.
"There were the scenes where there were paparazzi and I felt sorry for
her (Mariane), thinking 'My god, what this must be like for somebody in
that situation, that I really can't imagine -- going through that, having
that kind of media coverage for something as difficult as that and for
somebody who is not used to it...'"
The A-list couple also gently teased each other during the press
conference.
When Pitt was asked to follow up on Jolie's remarks about religious
conflict and reconciliation, the distracted actor apologised with a
laugh: "I was wafting in the words of...what's her name."
Pearl said she had developed a friendship with Jolie and Pitt and was
very pleased with the film.
"We've grown quite close," Pearl said. "I think of my son who will one
day see this film -- it was a great moment of pain but it is addressed
(in the film) by someone who loves me and that means a lot to me."
The film, which is screening out of competition at Cannes, recreates a
scene in the book in which Pearl sharply attacks a CNN reporter who had
asked at the time whether she had seen the video of her husband's
beheading.
In a poignant exchange, the journalist appeared at the Cannes press
conference to ask Pearl: "Could you forgive me now if you haven't yet?"
Pearl replied: "I accept your apologies."
Winterbottom said he saw the film as a continuation of themes covered in
his 2006 feature "Road to Guantanamo," a docu-drama about three British
citizens held at the US lockup in Cuba for several months without charge.
But he dismissed a reporter's question about whether his sympathy for the
former Guantanamo inmates meant he empathised with Pearl's killers.
"They were in a sense caught up in the sort of post-9/11 conflict in the
same way that Danny and Mariane were I think," he said. "Of course it's
completely wrong...but it is part of the same situation."
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