The Playgoer: New Alan Rickman Interview

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

New Alan Rickman Interview

My Name is Rachel Corrie is now touring at the Galway Arts Festival in Ireland, and so co-dramatits Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner have given what seems like a new interview to the Galway Independent. No breaking news, no mention of the controversy. But if you're following this, worth checking out.

A sample from Rickman:
We were never going to paint Rachel as a golden saint or sentimentalise her, but we also needed to face the fact that she'd been demonised. We wanted to present a balanced portrait. We hoped to find out what made Rachel Corrie different from the stereotype of today's consumerist, depoliticised youth.

Correction: Maybe not enitrely new interview, as someone claims down in Comments...

5 comments:

Mark said...

I *really* wish they would stop claiming that Rachel had a "passion for the music of Pat Benatar", which is a terrible misinterpretation of a passage from her writing. The single reference, in an email, says "I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers."

It's obvious to anyone under the age of 50 that someone of Rachel's generation might "dance around" ironically to an old hit by Pat Benatar (probably "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"), but was probably not a "fan" of her entire oeuvre. I doubt that Rachel was collecting entire albums/concert bootlegs, etc. (which is what one does when they have a "passion" for someone's music) of Pat Benatar, an artist well before her time and, um, not one who has inspired legions of fans among politically active young people.

It's a passing reference to a happy moment that the authors insist on blowing up into something that tells us What Rachel Liked. Not a big deal, except that they're positioning themselves as the guardians of her voice and it really undercuts them to keep repeating something like this that is obviously ridiculous on its face.

Anonymous said...

Hi, great to see that you still floow what's going on with MNIRC. Just FYI, the article from the Galway Independent entirely consists of quotes from the article "Let me fight my monsters" that Katherine Viner wrote for the Guardian and was published 8 April 2005.

veradee

Anonymous said...

That someone doesn't only claim it but can actually prove it.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1454963,00.html

veradee

PeonInChief said...

Yeah, Playgoer, this is old stuff. I guess Viner and Rickman don't want to have to find new ways to say the same thing, so they just refer reporters to the old stuff. Also the reporters who are doing the festival don't have time to hunt down the authors, actors etc., so they very often crib from other interviews.

Playgoer said...

Veradee,

I assure you, I did not mean to doubt your veracity. I just wanted to refer readers to what you said... In any case thanks for the link.

Yeah, looks like probably they pulled quotes from previous interviews. All I know is that they were not interviews I remembered.

So the only real news coming out of Galway is probably that another actress is filling in for Megan Dodds (who's probably resting for NY).

Sorry for the misleading post, everyone. I blame the Galway Independent for not properly sourcing!