VENICE DISPATCH
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
The Australian actor volleys with Greg Williams on the Cipriani tennis court and with journalists on the Lido as he premieres his music documentary, What Love Builds, at the Venice Film Festival.
If there’s one question Russell Crowe wants to stop being asked it’s to define the difference between music – which he’s been creating since he got his first guitar in 1970 – and acting. His documentary, What Love Builds, which charts his musician side during his long career, and had its world premiere out of competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, aims to answer that query once and for all. ‘The film attempts to explain the two things are completely intertwined for me,’ he told journalists as he arrived to debut the film. ‘Everything comes from the same creative source so hopefully I won’t get asked that question too many times after people have seen the film. Everything that I do as a film actor is informed because I know how to drive an audience, live, even if they’re not in the room. That doesn’t mean that I’m any kind of a slave to the audience, it’s just that I’m aware – and that purely comes out of coming out of rock and roll and theatre.’
Having started out as a teen in the ’80s (as a solo artist under the name of Russ le Roq), Crowe has been in numerous bands over the years, performing in tandem with his growing stature as an actor. ‘Film is great, it’s a cerebral adventure. You construct the performance, go and do your job, and then a year to a year and a half later you see the effect of that, the series of emotional points that you may have planned and whether you’ve taken the audience with you or not. Rock and roll is right there and right then. It’s completely immediate and that’s what is exciting about it.’ His film, which he directed with the help of editor Padraic McKinley, is a celluloid scrapbook of his musical life, culminating in his current role as lead singer with group, Indoor Garden Party. For the last fifteen years he’s been collecting footage, photos, interviews and concert footage which amounted to 18 million feet of film to edit down with the help of McKinley. The band will go on tour next summer throughout Europe but Crowe says that in general – both in music and acting – he does not have a grand design or master plan. ‘The implication that any of this has been a choice is kinda funny. Because I’ve just rolled with opportunities as they’ve come along. I didn’t have a plan, and I still don’t have a plan. I just do what becomes apparent to me, pursue the things that I feel connected to. I wouldn’t want to change anything about the career that I had. Even in its darkest moments, it was incredibly educational.’
Though he didn’t dig into what his darkest artistic moments were, he admitted to an adversarial relationship with Hollywood thanks in part to Antipodean bluntness, self deprecation and sarcasm. ‘I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’ve mismanaged my relationship with Hollywood,’ he laughed. ‘But always to my benefit. I’m not driven by the same things that people who come necessarily from that culture are driven by. And my sense of humour has got me into trouble so many times because we like to call things as we see them where I come from – and that’s not always appreciated.’ Now 62, the actor/director says what motivates him to perform onscreen is feeling a project ‘on his skin’, describing how if the screenplay gets to him he feels ‘compelled’ to serve the work. ‘At the age of 62, to be in demand and working as much as I want to be, it’s incredible. Part of the reason that I am still working is that I do it from a very pure perspective. When I have to get up at 4.30am to go to a film set, I absolutely know why I’m getting up at 4.30am and that motivates me and drives me. I feel very sorry for actors who make decisions to go on films sets where they’re not believing in the subject matter that they’re working on, the character they’re working on, because I don’t know how the hell could you motivate yourself at that time of day if you didn’t have a fundamental love for it.’
Crowe has felt happy about getting up at dawn for a raft of incoming projects which he name-checked, including playing Ramírez in Highlander, returning to Roman times with historical actioner The Last Druid, Ted Kaczynski exploration, Unabomber and Cold War thriller, Billion Dollar Spy. He also considers getting his documentary which he says is ‘about storytelling, performance, artistic integrity, determination and joy’ to the Venice Film Festival something of a wish fulfilled. Despite having invitations from other festivals, Crowe values Venice as the ‘most fun film festival with a depth in the appreciation of the audience’. ‘You ask, do I have a dream in my drawer?’ he smiled. ‘There’s so much for me to accomplish yet – I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface creatively on things I want to do…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
What Love Builds premiered at the 83rd Venice Film Festival
