C4 ramirez from C1
They would have a very different opinion. They would say he was a freedom fighter, that he [went] from revolutionary theory to mili- tary action, that his motivations were right and he took part in an attempt to change the world.” Yes, but... “That’s what makes the charac- ter so fascinating,” he says, “that for some people he is a murderer, an assassin, a terrorist, and for others he was a freedom fighter, a revolutionary and an idealist.” Yes, but . . . but what’s Rami-
rez’s own opinion? “My opinion is he is a little bit of
everything,” he replies. “What we try to do with the movie is what lies between or among all those labels. Many of those labels are so extreme that something interest- ing may have existed around or between [them]. We focused on trying to explore the human side of this character. . . . What really caught my attention with this character was his complexity, how the most monstrous acts and most tender gestures can coexist in a person’s behavior.” The risk, of course, is that Ra- mirez, and the film’s director, the Frenchman Olivier Assayas, have succeeded all too well. In its evo- cation of a very bad man, “Carlos” threads the same line as “The Baader Meinhof Complex,” a 2008 German movie about the outlaw gang that traumatized West Ger- many in the 1970s. Some viewers of that film, especially older ones who remembered the faction’s crimes, said it made the gang’s thuggery look attractive and of- fered too little of the victims’ point of view.
“Carlos” also pays little atten- tion to the people Carlos hurt. It is so relentlessly focused on Rami- rez (he appears in almost every scene) that there’s no time for that. “Carlos” doesn’t always flat- ter its subject — the last third is a long elegy on his decline — but there are plenty of moments not- ing Carlos’s passion for his revolu- tion and heedless bravery. The film never quite gets around to noting Illich Ramirez Sanchez’s famous and unflattering nick- name, which contributed mighti- ly to the Carlos legend. Ramirez and Assayas both say
the film isn’t really endorsing Car- los’s sordid history. “My character believed very differently than I do, so I had to find ways not to jus- tify his actions but to understand them because [that] gets to the re- ality of this character,” Ramirez says. “You have to surrender in or- der to be inhabited by someone else’s emotions and ideas. Ulti- mately, it’s not about us. It’s about them.”
Right man for the job
He certainly did his homework, reading accounts of Carlos’s ex- ploits and talking to members of Carlos’s family. He tried to inter- view the man himself, now locked away for life in a French prison, but couldn’t make it happen by
S
KLMNO
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 Becoming ‘Carlos’: Edgar Ramirez’s tall order “
the time production began. The role required Ramirez to undergo a De Niro-like physical transfor- mation: To portray the washed-up terrorist in his later years, he packed on 35 pounds (“lots of pas- ta and ice cream”). The trans- formation is as convincing as it is startling; over the course of the movie, Ramirez goes from dash- ing and vigorous, a Che-like glam- our figure, to a bloated has-been desperate for his next paycheck. In person, Ramirez, who is 33,
exerts his own gravitational pull. He is of medium height, with a stocky upper body, limpid eyes and the slightly oversize head of many movie and TV actors (the camera somehow puts it all into proportion). With his soft fea- tures and casually tousled pile of hair, he literally turns heads as he strides through a midtown res- taurant. Assayas, speaking from Mon- treal, says he worried when he was writing the movie that he wouldn’t be able to find the right actor to carry the piece. “He need- ed to be the right age, he needed to speak at least three languages, he needed charisma and he need- ed to speak Spanish with a Ven- ezuelan accent,” he says. “I was certain I would have to compro- mise on one or more of these ele- ments, and even then I wasn’t sure I would find what I was look- ing for. How many actors from Venezuela could I consider for
ENTERTAINING MOVIES OF THE YEAR!”
“ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING AND
Ted Baehr, MOVIEGUIDE®
“A WIRE-TO-WIRE SMASH.” “DIANE LANE GIVES ANOTHER
Leonard Shapiro, WASHINGTONPOST.COM
PERFORMANCE THAT DESERVES TO PUT HER AT THE TOP
OF THE BEST ACTRESS LIST.” Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
DANIELLA SCARAMUZZA/NEW LINE PRODUCTIONS
LADY’S MAN: Ramirez starred as a bounty hunter with Keira Knightley in “Domino.”
JEAN-CLAUDE MOIREAU/FILM EN STOCK
MAN OF THE WORLD:Ramirez was chosen for the role in part because, like Carlos, he speaks multiple languages.
this part? It turned that there was basically one. Edgar was exactly the guy.”
Ramirez was born in Venezuela but moved early and often be- cause of his father’s work as a military attache. He has lived in Canada, Peru, Mexico, Austria and France, and spent summers in Italy, which explains his com- mand of English, French, German and Italian, in addition to his na- tive tongue. He studied to be a journalist in Caracas, but considered diplo-
MUSIC REVIEW
At Lisner, Mavis Staples’s sermon of gospel and soul
by Chris Klimek
Mavis Staples showed up early for church this weekend — about 12 hours early. The youngest of the Staples Singers, now a spry septuagenarian, whose husky voice has only grown in authority in the 38 years since “I’ll Take You There” was a No. 1 hit, brought a trunkload of soul songs and marches to Lisner Auditorium on Saturday night for a stirring 85- minute revue that conjured the presence of the Lord. She came to
play, and to proselytize — for Jesus and for “You Are Not Alone,” her new album, produced and curated by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, which she more than once suggested makes a fine Christmas gift. Well, it ain’t like she’s wrong!
Like that album, the show was a mix of reinvigorated gospel sta- ples and Staples classics, plus Randy Newman and Creedence Clearwater Revival covers and a handful of well-mannered new stuff. The chugging, Tweedy- penned “Only the Lord Knows”
“Hysterically Funny!” Joel Amos, SHEKNOWS Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES “” DIANE LANE JOHN MALKOVICH
macy as a career as well (an early job was with a non-governmental organization that encourages young people in Latin America to vote). After a friend cast him in an experimental video that won some attention, Ramirez decided, at 23, to become an actor full time. His father, he said, was “skepti- cal.” Yet Ramirez caught on almost immediately. He starred for sever- al years on a Venezuelan soap op- era, “Cosita Rica,” before roles in various Latin American films
started coming his way. His big Hollywood break should have been “Domino,” a 2005 biopic di- rected by Tony Scott, in which he was co-billed with Keira Knight- ley and Mickey Rourke. But the movie flopped. Next came smaller roles in “The Bourne Ultimatum” (he played one of the CIA contract assassins) and “Vantage Point,” the 2008 political thriller with Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker and William Hurt.
‘No political agenda’
“Carlos” is the product of some big ambition and a relatively small budget. Shot over six months on three continents, and in eight different languages, the film cost its French producer, the studio Canal Plus, about $19 mil- lion to make. In addition to its air-
fit seamlessly alongside the Band’s “The Weight” and the Sta- ples’ civil rights anthem “Freedom Highway.” “Pops wrote that one for the march from Selma to Montgomery,” Sta- ples recalled while catching her breath af- ter a version of the lat- ter that shook butts out of their seats. Often she became so exercised during her perform- ances that she’d contin- ue chanting the chorus, call-and-response style, after her band had finished a song. Staples had able, supple sup-
port from four backing singers, but it was her three-piece blues- rock trio led by guitarist Rick Holmstrum that busted Little
What really caught my attention with this character was his
complexity.” — Edgar Ramirez on Carlos the Jackal
HELAYNE SEIDMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
ing on American television, it will also have a limited theatrical re- lease in Los Angeles and New York in two versions — a trimmed-down 160 minutes and the full 319 minutes. Ramirez says the movie has “no political agenda, or moral agen- da.” Rather, he says, “it was impor- tant for us to show the struggle between idealism and individu- alism. The struggle between the will to change the world and the dreams of revolution on one side, and the narcissistic obsession for a place in history on the other side. This is a movie where poli- tics is part of the story, but it’s not a political movie.” Okay. But what message or les- son might viewers take away from this luxuriant characterization of the roots of our own age of terror- ism?
Ramirez smiles. “I am very hap- py I don’t have an answer to that, “ he says. “I think it is probably in- teresting for everyone to raise their own questions. I think that would be the purpose of any artis- tic endeavor, to raise questions — to think, to feel, to be shocked, and to be moved.”
farhip@washpost.com (three parts, 51
Carlos ⁄2
hours) airs Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Sundance Channel.
TIMELESS: Staples sang old and new hits.
Milton’s “We’re Gonna Make It” and Allen Toussaint’s “Last Train” free of the occasionally too-polite arrange- ments that Tweedy gave them on record. The trio held the audi- ence rapt with a sear- ing 10-minute instru- mental interlude while Staples left the stage. When she returned, Holmstrum’s nervy rhythm guitar helped her reclaim “I’ll Take You There” from its car-
advertisement ubiquity. “We’ve been takin’ y’all there for 60 years!” Staples declared. “And we ain’t tired yet!”
style@washpost.com Klimek is a freelance writer. “AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH” From the Director of
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