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Fall From Grace
In Ireland Divine Rapture has become a byword for a failed project, but what really went wrong? Pavel Barter tells the whole story for the first time, with contributions from producer Barry Navidi, director Thom Eberhardt, and actresses Debra Winger and Elaine Symons.
‘Time goes on’, sighs actress Debra Winger. ‘The stories that you remember for whatever reason are often the traumatic ones, the ones like this. Divine Rapture was a life lesson, that’s the best way to put it.’ Certainly a life lesson for anyone involved in filmmaking. Few could have thought that this €12m movie, starring Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp and John Hurt alongside Winger, would have collapsed after 12 days in production – least of all the residents of Ballycotton, a small fishing village in Co. Cork that welcomed the production with open arms.
Leaving bruised egos, dented pride, and empty bank balances in its wake, this disastrous production has become a fable for filmmakers – a warning sign that the movie-making machine can sometimes eat its own. For her part, Debra Winger claims to be haunted by the experience. ‘I sometimes wake up with a start, wondering if everyone has been financially taken care of. I still can’t believe it. It wasn’t a fly-by-night production – it had big equipment, it was a regular movie.’
The story begins in that Mecca of broken promises: Los Angeles, 1989. Twenty-nine-year-old Barry Navidi, an Iranian-born producer who had one movie to his name (John Huston’s final film, Mister Corbett’s Ghost), met screenwriter Glenda Glaris and read her script on the plane back to his home in London. Divine Rapture was originally set in Italy, but after a number of rewrites the location was changed to Ireland. Once the script was polished, Navidi began approaching investors, directors and actors so he might begin budgeting and raising money.
‘Before Marlon Brando came on board I had other talent attached – Ben Kingsley, Albert Finney, Isabella Rossellini… I had a number of great cast, but it was tough to put it together and at the time there wasn’t much in the way of tax incentives’, says Navidi. Divine Rapture changed from weighty concept to hard, fast reality when Navidi met Brando’s lawyer in London; he in turn passed the script on to the infamous actor. Brando said yes, telling the producer that it might get him Irish citizenship. The project was kick-started.
The full article is printed in Film Ireland 117.
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