Giuseppe Tornatore, director of “Cinema Paradiso, “Malena,”,”The Unknown Woman” and “Baaria” just finished shooting his new English language film and this one’s called The Best Offer (La Migliore Offerta). Is this a bandwagon we are witnessing? Will more and more Italian directors abandon Italian actors and choose English language scripts?
I’m still wondering when America’s going to get the chance to see Sorrentino’s This Must Be The Place.
“The Best Offer is not a film about the world of art auctions, but the story has that in the background, with the main protagonist who is a an art auctioneer”, said Tornatore. It was filmed in and around a big list of locations: Vienna, Trieste, Bolzano, Parma, Prague, Rome, Milan and Merano.
“I’ve always been attracted to the words, “the best offer”; in the art world it’s the highest and in the world of contracts it’s the lowest. It has an allegorical element; it’s a love story and in love you never know which is “the best offer”.
The love story is woven into one that’s a mystery, a crime story, a thriller, and all without assassins, investigators, or killing. The film has a central European setting (“It wouldn’t have worked in Italy”, says Tornatore.) and stars Geoffrey Rush, who plays the art auctioneer, Donald Sutherland, who plays his friend, and Sylvia Hoeks, his love interest.
Rush plays a man who begins the film with one personality and ends with one completely different. “Thanks to love?”
“Could be”, said the Oscar-winning director.
I Love Italian Everything 