Director James Gray, on the surface anyhow, has two careers. The before and after. One half, the New York crime stories generally centered on family and then a newer half, more lush and operatic period films that generally take him away from the modern New York landscape (“The Immigrant” and “The Lost City Of Z“). But Gray is one of those filmmakers arguably making the same film over and over again and yet never repeating himself. Issues of family and class generally follow him wherever he goes. And for his next act, he’s taking a father and son story into outer space with “Ad Astra” starring Brad Pitt.
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“Ad Astra” looks as if it’s trying to merge two of Gray’s influences—Francis Ford Coppola and Stanley Kubrick—and merge them with something more epic and even action-adventure-y along the lines of Christopher Nolan‘s “Interstellar.” But Gray is a thinking man’s director, so be rest assured there is a hearts of darkness journey to the dark side of the soul aspect to this film.
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Heres’s the Venice synopsis:
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Astronaut Roy McBride travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. His journey will uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos.
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Here’s director James Gray’s statement from Venice:
I’d read this quote from Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey: “Either we’re not alone in the universe, or we are, and both are equally terrifying.” And I thought, well, I’ve never seen a movie about us being alone. The idea of space travel is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. I’m hugely in favor of space exploration, but sometimes exploration is also just a means of escape. This led me to a personal place, a father/son story. I hope people understand that at some point it is incumbent on us both to cherish exploration and to cherish the Earth. The Earth and the human connection are worth preserving at all costs.
“Ad Astra” also stars Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland. The film makes its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week and opens wide in North America on September 20. Here’s a new first-look clip/extended fetival trailer thingy from Empire with new footage.
