Robert Pattinson 'Cosmopolis' : The World Behind The Tinted Window

“Cosmopolis,” due Aug. 17 from eOne, follows the suave Eric Packer (played by the “Twilight” heartthrob Robert Pattinson) on what proves to be a day of reckoning. Inching through Manhattan traffic for a haircut on the other side of town, he receives a succession of experts and analysts in his leather-upholstered sanctum, which doubles as a boardroom, a bedroom and even a doctor’s office. External distractions — a presidential motorcade, anti-capitalist demonstrations — appear through tinted windows and on touch screens. Everything happens and is experienced at a dreamlike remove. Eric’s bet against the Chinese yuan has turned disastrous, but he responds with eerie detachment, numbly contemplating the prospect of his economic and actual extinction.=== Amid a revolving door of mostly female visitors played by the likes of Juliette Binoche and Samantha Morton, the impassive constant is Mr. Pattinson. “I don’t think Rob’s face has ever been examined in such excruciating detail, from so many angles,” Mr. Cronenberg said. “That was part of the casting. You want a face that can take that.”=== Mr. Pattinson acknowledged that the part was challenging. “The dialogue seemed to flow really easily,” he said. (He was speaking shortly after his appearance at Comic-Con International last month, before the recent tabloid furor over the dalliances of his girlfriend and “Twilight” co-star Kristen Stewart.) “But when you approach the character in a conventional way and try to figure out who he is, that becomes terrifying.” He added: “I kept trying to hold on to that element of not really understanding him. I think David liked the takes when I had literally no idea what I was doing.” Even now the movie remains elusive for Mr. Pattinson, who said he had seen it four times: twice he was baffled (“It was impossible to crack”) and twice he connected with the dry absurdist comedy. “David just presents it as deadpan, and people don’t know whether to laugh or not,” he said. Often considered a progenitor of body horror, Mr. Cronenberg has an underappreciated sense of humor. “Cosmopolis,” much like “Crash” and “Naked Lunch,” highlights the mordant comedy of the source material. “People keep saying to me, ‘Do you ever think of doing a comedy?’ And I say, ‘Well, I’ve made tons of them,’ ” Mr. Cronenberg said. “You have much more freedom to be subtle and dark in a comedy that’s not being presented as a comedy.”== In some ways “Cosmopolis” continues many themes from his previous movie, the Freud and Jung drama of ideas “A Dangerous Method.” Eric’s journey could be thought of in Freudian terms: a death drive. Both these dialogue-heavy films also share a view of language as an instrument of power. “In ‘A Dangerous Method’ language is being reshaped and terms being invented for phenomena that had not yet been recognized,” Mr. Cronenberg said. “There’s some of that also in ‘Cosmopolis,’ where the terminology is a question of power.”== If “Cosmopolis” was greeted in some quarters as a post-Sept. 11 novel, it now appears to have anticipated the recent financial crisis. “The world seems to have caught up with that book,” Mr. Cronenberg said, adding that the Occupy Wall Street movement was heating up as they were shooting the protest scenes. But he cautioned against making too much of the connections: “It’s certainly not mine or Don’s aspiration to be a prophet.”== Mr. Cronenberg’s apocalyptic film is perhaps best appreciated not for its topical links to the real world but for giving form to the nightmares of our age. “I wanted to play ‘Cosmopolis’ as absolutely real as you could,” Mr. Cronenberg said. “It’s a realism that’s disturbing because it’s so close to reality, and yet you know it’s not. I suppose at that point you’re talking about dream reality.” He added: “I’ve always thought that movies work in terms of dream logic. Even movies that present themselves as 100 percent real, it’s still a dream.” Source: NY TIMES