Henry Fool (1998)

Wissenswertes

• Gedreht in: New York City und New Jersey

Henry Fool is a 1997 American black comedy-drama film written, produced and directed by Hal Hartley, featuring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Parker Posey. Set like previous Hartley films in less affluent parts of Long Island, it recounts how the lives of a fatherless family are overturned by a mysterious outsider and how, as in The Unbelievable Truth, expectation and reality again conflict.

Production

Henry Fool was directed, written, co-produced and composed by Hal Hartley. He began writing the project in the 1980s, and spent years developing and fine-tuning it. Significant writing took place in 1995, and Hartley realized that Henry would be the story's main character, rather than Simon. Hartley wanted the story to incorporate current events, adding elements such as Congressional races and Internet censorship.

The characters of Henry and Simon were partly inspired by the relationship between writers James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Goethe's Faust was also an inspiration for the film, with Hartley comparing Henry to Mephistopheles. Another inspiration for Henry was John Falstaff, while Hartley compared Simon with Kaspar Hauser.

Hartley chose not to show Simon's poem to the viewer, believing that films about artists "always get it wrong when they show the art. And they let the audience participate in the judgment of the art, whether the art is good or bad". He said that "for the most part, the artistic worth of Simon's poem is not the issue. The issue is the manner in which Simon's life changes as a result of knowing Henry and how that change begins to threaten Henry".

Henry Fool marked the feature film debuts of Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, and Liam Aiken. Ryan and Urbaniak were both stage actors. Ryan was cast after Hartley saw him in a play by Richard Foreman called My Head Was a Sledgehammer. Ryan said that Hartley wanted an actor "larger than life, likable, but also patently absurd". Urbaniak had previously appeared in short films made by Hartley.

The start of filming was delayed several times because of financial setbacks, and Ryan had a year and a half to discuss his character with Hartley. Henry's confession is briefly glimpsed in the film, with Ryan's handwriting. Months before the start of production, Hartley gave him a notebook to write in, so it would be ready for filming.

Auf Wikipedia weiterlesen · Text aus Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Daten aus Wikidata.