Production Information
One of the most popular and critically acclaimed motion pictures of the late 1980s was a film that, on paper, seemed to break all the usual rules for success. In an era where high-concept seemed to be the order of the day, this film had no big stars, no high-speed chases, no explosions and only about 10 minutes of dialogue. Its leading character was neither human nor extra-terrestrial.
The film was The Bear.
Its director: JEAN-JACQUES ANNAUD.
An Academy Award® winner for his debut feature, Black and White in Color, Annaud enjoyed international success with such films as Quest for Fire and The Name of the Rose. Still, movie audiences were unprepared for the breathtaking emotional journey the filmmaker created in his depiction of the relationship between a precocious bear cub and an old grizzled Kodiak struggling to survive in the wilderness. The Bear was not a nature documentary, but rather a three-act work of dramatic
fiction-scripted, rehearsed and acted by a cast in which the principal actors were willful, non-verbal and dangerous 1,800 lb. carnivores.
Eschewing conventional voiceover narration, Annaud cinematically transported moviegoers into the raw essence of the wild, presenting, for the first time, the day-to-day y Award® winner for his debut feature, Black and White in Color, success with such films as Quest for Fire and The Name of ovie audiences were unprepared for the breathtaking emotional journey his depiction of the relationship between a precocious bear cub ling to survive in the wilderness. The Bear was not a ntary, but
rather a three-act work of dramatic fiction-scripted, rehearsed lives of these animals from their perspective. The director brought a new sensitivity to a film about nature and even dared to provide a glimpse into what these animals might dream about. Everywhere The Bear opened, from its October 1988 debut in France through its U.S. release in November 1989 and its Latin American release in early 1990, it was enthusiastically embraced by audiences and critics alike.
Newsweek reviewer David Ansen called the film "audacious.unique and enchanting" (November 13, 1989) and commented, "No small part of the film's fascination is wondering how on earth the filmmakers achieved these results."
Time Magazine's Richard Schickel described The Bear as "wondrous.artful.and very pure," (October 30, 1989) raving, "At the level of technique, The Bear is to other films about nature what Star Wars was to science-fiction movies: a redefinition of the state of the art."
Now, 16 years later, having followed The Bear with such diverse but equally challenging projects as his evocative adaptation of Marguerite Duras' prize-winning novel The Lover, the groundbreaking IMAX 3-D feature spectacle Wings of Courage, the true-life adventure Seven Years in Tibet and the World War II drama Enemy at the Gates, Jean-Jacques Annaud returns to the animal kingdom for his newest film-Two Brothers.
But rather than revisiting the intentionally thinly-plotted realism of The Bear, this time the filmmaker had a decidedly fairy-tale setting in mind for a fable about twin tiger brothers born in the wild that become separated as cubs, raised in captivity under completely different circumstances and then reunited as adults when they are pitted against each other in a fighting arena. For this story, which would be mythically set "not so long ago in a distant land," Annaud found his inspiration
in the exotic jungles of Southeast Asia around the early part of the 20th century. Here, wild tigers could mate and raise their young among the ruins of ancient temples, not far from royal palaces and colonial settlements.
An epic adventure of discovery, survival and wonder, Two Brothers stars GUY PEARCE (Memento, L.A. Confidential). The screenplay was written by Jean-Jacques Annaud and ALAIN GODARD (The Name of the Rose, Enemy at the Gates), based on an original story by Jean-Jacques Annaud. The film is produced by Jean-Jacques Annaud and JAKE EBERTS (Dances With Wolves, Driving Miss Daisy, A River Runs Through It, Open Range).
Two Brothers opened in France on April 7, 2004, to highly enthusiastic reviews, among the very best in Annaud's career. In his four-star review of April 8, Le Parisien movie critic Pierre Vavasseur proclaimed the film "magnificent." Dominique Borde, in Le Figaro, described the film as "spectacular and wonderful" and Sylvia De Abreu in TeleStar called Two Brothers "an extraordinary film." Both France Soir and Tele 7 Jours' Gerard Lenne pronounced the film "superb," Le Film Francais called
it "another filmmaking tour de force" and 20 Minutes recommended it as "spectacular family cinema." Paris Match cheered, "The most ambitious of our filmmakers opens the cage of childhood, allowing our dreams of life in the wild to spill out onto the screen." Studio Magazine reveled in Annaud's achievement, dubbing it "a beautiful piece of entertainment which children-and those who dream of still being children-will eagerly surrender to."
"Jean-Jacques Annaud is an adventurer for modern times," opined Le Nouvel Observateur. The entertainment publication Nightlife raved that Jean-Jacques Annaud has delivered "a magnificent film of remarkable beauty and poetry." Pariscope summed it up by saying that Two Brothers is "a superb and great spectacle for young and old alike. This wonderful story, with 1,001 tricks, will provoke 1,001 emotions." The box office news was equally positive. In its first two weeks, the film took in
an outstanding $12.6 million, with a phenomenal 83 percent hold from the first week to the second. Audiences, delighted to see Jean-Jacques Annaud return to the animal kingdom, had embraced Two Brothers.
SYNOPSIS
Deep in the heart of the Southeast Asian jungle in the early 20th century, two tigers are born, amidst the ruins of a forgotten temple. They grow up surrounded by moss-eaten statues, under the protective gaze of their mother, the Tigress, and their father, the Great Tiger. Uncontested heirs to the throne, the two brothers Kumal and Sangha are destined to one day rule this kingdom.
Thousands of miles away, a passion for ancient treasures has swept the western world, creating an insatiable market for the statues that adorn the temples and bringing fortune hunters to the jungle, determined to loot these artifacts. One of these men is Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce), a romantic adventurer famous for writing books about his big game hunting prowess. Having assembled a local crew to assist him, Aidan unintentionally violates the tigers' sanctuary and is forced to kill the
Great Tiger when it attacks a member of his party.
While Sangha manages to escape with his mother, Kumal is captured by Aidan, who takes an immediate liking to the cub. Their opportunity to bond is cut short when Aidan is imprisoned for looting statues, and Kumal is sold off to a circus. Motivated by his own ambitions, the regional governor Eugene Normandin (JEAN-CLAUDE DREYFUS) arranges for Aidan's release and then coerces him into leading a hunting party for the local Prince (OANH NYGUEN).
Kumal is miserable in his new circus home. Much to the chagrin of the animal tamer Zerbino (VINCENT SCARITO) and the circus performer Saladin (MOUSSA MAASKRI), he refuses to eat and begins wasting away. While Zerbino is sympathetic towards Kumal, Saladin resorts to using harsh measures to make the tiger perform. Robbed of his spirit, Kumal lifelessly goes through the motions-growling, roaring and jumping through hoops of fire.
The Prince's hunting party is full of surprises when the Tigress, believed to be shot dead by the Prince, escapes with only a shot through the ear, while Normandin's son, Raoul (FREDDIE HIGHMORE) finds Sangha hiding in a cave. When Normandin and his wife Mathilde (PHILIPINE LeROY-BEAULIEU) agree to bring the cub home, Raoul is delighted with his new playmate. But their pet dog is not happy about sharing his turf and relentlessly provokes the cub. When Sangha finally fights back, the
results are disastrous, and the family is forced to give him up to the Prince's royal menagerie. There, the prince's animal trainer resolves to break the cub's gentle nature and turn him into a fighter for sport.
One year later, to entertain the Prince and his new fiancée Paulette (STEPHANIE LAGARDE), a fight is held in the royal arena between the Prince's tiger and the star tiger from a nearby travelling circus. Now fully-grown, Kumal and Sangha face off in a battle to the death, but when the two brothers recognize each other, they are soon rolling around, playing leapfrog, turning somersaults, and rediscovering their other childhood games. Fleeing the arena, they celebrate their freedom by
engaging in a variety of pranks-wreaking havoc in the marketplace, invading homes and riding atop a bus. Offering a reward for the capture of the "outlaw" tigers, the governor persuades Aidan to lead the locals in hunting them down. Closing in on Sangha and Kumal, they start a series of brushfires to keep the tigers from escaping. As the two tigers arrive within sight of their birthplace and their beloved temple, they are trapped by a wall of fire. Kumal, now an expert at leaping through
flames, shows his brother the only way out.
Raoul and Aidan bid goodbye to Kumal and Sangha. The two brothers return to their kingdom, reunited with the Tigress, to be free forever among the splendor of the jungle and the forgotten temple.
Universal Pictures and Pathé Present
The Tigers
KUMAL and SANGHA
In
TWO BROTHERS
A Film By Jean-Jacques Annaud
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
"This movie is a combination of three of my greatest passions: the animal world; a love of monasteries and temples; and my fascination with the European colonial period. It was a world that irritated and fascinated, but its buffoonery and quirky characters also amused me," explains filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud.
"I've done a lot of research on early 20th century Southeast Asia. I found marvellous photographs, watercolors, models and paintings that inspired my story. In particular, there was a very early engraving that I loved. It shows a number of beautiful, romantic temples all tangled in vegetation, and there in the left-hand corner is a baby tiger. This image stayed in my mind and that's possibly what generated the idea for the film."
He recalls, "Several years ago, I spent the Christmas holidays with my family in Socotra, a very isolated Yemenite island off the horn of Africa. There was absolutely nothing to do, so I started writing down whatever popped into mind. I was in the mood for a tale. I decided to write about two young tigers who would be born in the part of the world which had thrilled me most - the ruins of Angkor.
"Sitting outside my tent with an oil lamp, facing the Indian Ocean, I spent each evening filling two or three pages in a notebook before I went to sleep. "Three years later, after finishing Enemy at the Gates, I opened that little notebook again. I jumped into researching it and found, to my delight, that Indochina and the temple region were indeed inhabited by tigers at the time, during the pillaging of the ancient archaeological sites, which interested me."
Tigers have always held a fascination for Annaud. "Even before I made The Bear," he says, "I had trouble deciding whether to make a film featuring bears or tigers. Although the bears were wonderful, I always regretted that I didn't use the splendid majesty of the tigers."
In exploring story ideas, the filmmaker was particularly intrigued by the notion of long-term memory in these animals. "I am surprised that most humans feel so superior that they rule out any intelligence, memory and emotions in other species. People who live closely with dogs or cats cannot fail to acknowledge these abilities. I don't believe that it is being anthropomorphic, but in fact, having a greater understanding of the depths of animal intelligence."
Interestingly enough, just a few months after Two Brothers wrapped, National Geographic Today reported that recent experiments have led scientists-who have long maintained the absence in animals of so-called episodic memory, the kind that allows humans to recall past events-to rethink the nature of memory in animals.
In Bijal B. Trevidi's story (dated August 22, 2003), the author cites several experts on animal behavior who are challenging old-fashioned notions regarding animal memory, including Georgia State University anthropologist Charles Menzel; John Pearce, a professor of psychology at Cardiff University in Wales; and Nichola Clayton, a professor of comparative cognition at University of Cambridge in England. Says Pearce, "We have traditionally regarded animals like machines, or automata, believing
that they just have reflexes and habits. Clayton's work is revolutionary because it challenges these ideas and suggests that animals have richer memories than previously thought." Menzel agrees: "Animal memory systems have always been underestimated-the upper limits are not really known."
Prior to beginning work on the script with longtime collaborator Alain Godard, the filmmaker spent several months doing research and, in particular, observing tigers in the wild. Jérôme Seydoux, the head of Pathé, France's premier motion picture company, introduced Annaud to a friend of his named Valmik Thapar, one of the world's foremost authorities on tigers. "Thapar took us to the Ranthambore wildlife reserve in Rajasthan, where we met several top specialists on Asian tigers. For
two weeks, during the morning and evening, together we were able to observe about 30 tigers, small and large, coexisting in a natural environment."
Completing his research, Annaud turned to his writing partner, Godard, with whom he had collaborated since Hothead and The Name of the Rose, to begin working on the script.
From the beginning, it was their intention to create human characters in order to season the plot and move along the action where needed, but to keep the two tigers first and foremost in everyone's minds. Whereas most films emphasize the complex and multi-layered personalities of the human characters with animals merely functioning as appendages to the humans, in this film the people are only important to the extent of how they affect the tigers. Annaud and Godard deliberately created
two-dimensional, caricature-like human characters to serve as counterpoint to the much more substantive and compelling personalities of the tigers.
"I wanted the story to be reminiscent of the fables I loved so much as a child. It is constructed upon the wondrous imaginative references of children," Annaud continues. "The jungle, the mysterious ruins, the golden palace, the world of animals, the secluded areas, the circus. The characters have one foot in the real world and one foot in fairy tales, the rich child, the prince, his fiancée, the hunter, the beautiful native girl, the animal tamer, the dignitary and his ambitious wife.
"And as in every fable," he continues, "there is a moral to the story with relevance to contemporary issues: what happens when we take these animals out of the wild and keep them in captivity?" He explains, "There are more tigers living in captivity in the state of Texas than there are in the wild in any one area in the rest of the world. There are many people who keep tigers in their back yards. If you found an abandoned tiger cub, you, too, would be enamored with it and would want
to keep it. You would want to take it home. However, what do you do when it becomes full grown? The tiger is a predator. No matter how much you love the animal, it is very dangerous. That's its nature."
Annaud says, "It is my hope that this film will be a wonderful piece of entertainment, but it will also raise the consciousness of the audience to this issue." Producer Jake Eberts first collaborated with Jean-Jacques Annaud in 1985 when he co-financed and executive-produced The Name of the Rose.
"It was the beginning of a great friendship," says Eberts. "We stayed in touch over the years and in 1998, Jean-Jacques outlined his idea to make a film about tigers set in the temples of Southeast Asia. I loved everything about it. It is exactly my kind of movie. It has history, animal conservation, preservation of culture and the environment, and on top of that, a great story. I was hooked from the beginning. From there it snowballed into one of the most challenging projects I have
ever worked on."
Two Brothers reunited Annaud with several longtime members of his creative family, including line producer XAVIER CASTANO; editor NOELLE BOISSON, who has collaborated with Annaud on three previous pictures; animal trainer THIERRY Le PORTIER, who worked with him on The Bear; production designer PIERRE QUEFFELEAN, who was his art director on Seven Years in Tibet; and Alain Godard, his co-writer on Enemy at the Gates.
Annaud and Godard began writing the screenplay for Two Brothers in 1999, and pre-production began in 2001 when Annaud and line producer Castano began extensive location scouting. Although they visited other locations, including Australia and Thailand, the incredible temples of Angkor near the Cambodian city of Siem Reap ideally suited the style of the film.
After spending many weeks in Cambodia, it soon became apparent that they could do virtually everything within a two-hour radius of Siem Reap.
"My wife and I first visited Cambodia in 1989," says Annaud. "The temples were full of landmines so we had to get special permission to go there. To this day, that visit remains the artistic shock of my life. I just could not believe the combination of religious devotion and sheer artistic beauty. The romanticism of it all was fascinating-the forest's revenge on man, the trees strangling the stones-I was so excited. "Cambodia had everything I was looking for," he continues, "including
the splendor of the temples together with the serenity and beauty of the landscape. It also invoked the nostalgia of the colonial period, the mystery of the forests and above all, the soul of the people."
"Jean-Jacques personally chose all the locations," explains producer Jake Eberts. "Who would not be fascinated by Angkor and the many other remarkable temples of Cambodia, not to mention one of my favorite sites in the world, Kbal Spean, the ornate sculpted river which springs out of a mountain top about 20 miles east of Siem Reap? This is truly one of the most spiritual places on the planet and it's featured at the beginning and the end of the film. To see that location alone is worth
the journey to Cambodia."
Once the shooting locations were determined, Annaud set out to assemble an eclectic mix of actors for Two Brothers. "What I really enjoy is putting people from different backgrounds together on the same set. A famous film star, beginners, children, tigers, circus performers, theatre actors who have never acted in front of a camera before-they all help each other; they all try to learn from each other, impress each other. It's unpredictable because the ingredients are fresh and new. If
you cook with the same ingredients all the time, the dish will have a flavor you know. If you go with a little more invention, it's more risky for the cook, but it tastes better."
Casting the pivotal role of Aidan, a hunter and novelist-turned-smuggler, was particularly important. "Aidan is the key human character," explains Annaud. "He is possibly the only character who finally fully understands the point of view of the animal. The first time I saw Guy I knew he was the right person. The way he talked about the script, the way he talked about animals-he has an immense sensitivity to living creatures."
Pearce recalls, "I was immensely affected by Jean-Jacques Annaud's film The Bear. I thought that a story in that style centered around big cats would be extraordinary and heartbreaking. I liked the fact it was about the effect that people have on animals and have had throughout history. The story is told from the tiger's point of view and they represent 'the big picture' that many of us have lost sight of."
How to Get Tigers to "Act"
The real casting challenge was that of the tigers that would portray Sangha and Kumal at various stages in the story, as well as those portraying their parents. Fortunately, Annaud knew exactly who to turn to for his lead characters and who would be able to make them perform as needed in front of the cameras: head trainer Thierry Le Portier, a fellow Frenchman who worked with the director 16 years earlier on The Bear and had more recently worked on the Academy Award®-winning Gladiator,
with U.S.- based trainer Randy Miller.
v "Once I decided to make the movie, I had the first draft of the script sent to Thierry Le Portier, who had worked out the puma scene in The Bear. He's a true professional and I have nothing but admiration for him. A highly respected specialist in wild animals, he's probably the world's greatest animal trainer. I remember his first phone call. 'It's fabulous and completely undoable, so we are going to do it!' he said."
Recalls Le Portier, "We talked a lot about many aspects of working with tigers.
He was very interested in the different methods of training and how to get tigers to 'act'."
Although believed to be predominantly of Bengalese origin (as the descendants of those born and raised in captivity for hundreds of generations), the tigers chosen for the film are likely a mix of Bengal, Sumatran and Siberian breeds.
"We used 30 tigers in all," says Le Portier. "Our biggest problem was to always have tiger cubs, seven- to twelve-weeks-old, at the ready. We followed all the births, all over the world. Zoos were notified of our search and kept us up to date. We found most of our cubs in France, and a few more in Thailand. Some were reared on a baby bottle.
We picked up a lot of newborns that had been shunned by their mothers, a rather frequent phenomenon among tigresses."
Le Portier uses a combination of voice, sounds and hand signals to direct the tigers. His training methods rely on his ability to anticipate the tiger's moves and choose the correct tiger for the shot, as well as being able to manipulate the tiger's natural behavior to fit the action.
"Each tiger has his own personality," marvels Annaud. "I never imagined they could be so different. Each was chosen for its character - a very maternal tigress for the part of the mother, two more virile animals for the two brothers as adults, and a feeble male for the tired old tiger."
Le Portier says, "I know the character of each of my tigers and I know how they will react in different situations and to other tigers. For example, I have a big female tiger that is generally not afraid of anything. She is the one I would choose for difficult stunts. She is also very good with other tigers and particularly with the cubs."
Getting unrelated tigers to interact as a family was tremendously challenging, particularly when it came to portraying the unique relationship between the mother and her cubs. Generally, tiger social units are comprised of the mother and her young. Male tigers are by nature more solitary. However, during his visit to the Ranthambhor Wildlife Reserve in Rajasthan, Annaud did encounter real, lasting family groups. "The males visit the females," he relates, "hunt with them, play with the
young, share their prey or protect the family from possible dangers." This little known aspect of tiger social life inspired several scenes in Two Brothers.
For the scenes involving the tigress and the cubs, Le Portier used one of his favorite tigers, Indra.
"It was amazing, the baby tiger, which was not hers, played with her for 37 minutes," he explains. "He played with her tail, batted at her and eventually she even licked him. I was about five meters from her during the entire shoot, and when she started to get annoyed with the cub, I calmed her down. To get that scene was the result of the relationship I have with Indra and the natural instincts of the cub towards an adult female, even though she was not his mother."
"We used 'method acting' with the cubs," says director Annaud. "Method acting is simply creating an emotion in an actor that is similar to the emotion that the character is feeling in the story. I have a whole collection of things in my pocket that I use to attract the cubs' attention. For instance, if they sniff chocolate powder, they sneeze immediately. Yawning was more difficult. We have several scenes where the little one gets tired and falls asleep. We had to plan for that. We knew
that half an hour after they have had their bottle of milk they really want to sleep, so you give them two bottles of milk.which makes them happy and they fall asleep, so you get the shot.
"You film tiger cubs in the same way you film a human baby," continues Annaud. "You can't have them rehearse. The only method is to place them in a favorable situation - a propitious setting, with the right prop or partner - and wait. Luckily, tiger cubs are incredibly playful, comical and inventive. When you put two little tigers on a riverbank, you don't have to wait long before they start dipping their paws in the water. They find it fun and they start splashing around like crazy.
"Put a coconut in front of them, they'll do what any cat would do with a ball of wool or a rubber ball. The particular aptitudes and personality of each tiger is what makes the difference. In any litter there is a dominant and a submissive cub. In the scene where the two little tigers meet up with an angry civet, we started with the skittish brother, who had no qualms about climbing to safety in a nearby tree, which had been strategically planted there. For the rest of the scene, where
the fearless brother scares the rodent off, we used the dominant little brother. He wasn't intimidated. The civet hightailed it back to her hole."
Guy Pearce had several scenes with the cubs and relished every minute of it. He admits, "I couldn't put them down. I used to help feed them and after awhile they started following me around. And even though the cubs are small, they're very heavy, very strong, with such deep voices. It was astounding."
"With the bigger tigers, it's not so easy," Annaud points out. "You can attract their attention by having someone run away, say, on horseback, but you had better get it on the first take, because once the tiger has seen the horse outrun him, he isn't interested anymore. Day after day, Thierry came up with ideas to motivate the tigers to act in a way that works for the scene. I was very lucky-Thierry is a remarkable trainer. He knows his animals, their instincts, their character and how
they are going to react to each situation."
"I have an enormous respect for these animals," says Le Portier. "The relationship between a trainer and his animal is incredibly strong. You depend on him and he depends on you. He spends his whole life with you; you are not only a friend, you are a colleague. Every shot is something that we do together. When we achieve a difficult shot, I can pet him a little and speak nicely to him and he understands that he did it right. You cannot change their personalities, you can only add training.
You create a language common to you and the animal." Annaud says, "I never could have made this film without Thierry, without his razor-sharp judgment, his enthusiasm and his reliability. He has an incredible, almost divinatory sense of what his animals are going to do, and for knowing what he has to do to get what he wants from them."
One thing Le Portier is very aware of is that no matter how well trained his tigers are, they are still wild animals. "As soon as you step away, he is back to being a normal tiger with all of the tiger's ferocity. Captive tigers are dangerous, in some ways they are even more dangerous than wild tigers, because they are around people every day and they are not frightened of them."
"One must never forget that, no matter how fetching and affectionate tigers may be, they remain formidable predators," says Annaud.
Preparation for taking the tigers to Cambodia had to begin months in advance. In addition to finding tiger cubs and pregnant tigresses, the best method of transporting the tigers had to be found. Furthermore, a great deal of research had to be done as to how the tigers would react to the climate in Cambodia and what vaccinations and other medical protection would be required to keep them healthy.
Despite the impression that tigers like hot weather, they prefer temperatures between 60 and 75°F (15 and 25°C). The production arranged for the tigers to be transported from France to Cambodia about a month in advance so they could acclimatize to the Cambodian weather before going to work.
In order to provide the shortest, safest and most comfortable travel conditions for the tigers, Le Portier arranged for a cargo plane with a special pressurized, temperaturecontrolled cabin, and monitored the loading of the animals himself. Then he, along with fellow trainer Monique Angeon and unit manager Olivier Helie, accompanied the tigers on the journey, departing from a small airport in Vatry, France on a direct flight to Siem Reap (with only one short stopover for refueling).
In Siem Reap, it was necessary to construct a compound to house the tigers, and one was built to the highest standards and kept scrupulously clean. The area of each set, often covering several acres, had to be completely enclosed with special tiger-proof security nets, which were created by a local expert. Yves Herson was the unit manager in charge of controlling the animal shooting areas. Before filming began each day, he and his team patrolled the netting to ensure that there were
no breaks. The tigers were allowed to roam freely within the perimeter of the nets, working with the trainers, while the filmmakers remained in cages.
The cameras were set up outside the bars and were controlled electronically, allowing for a great number of shots in very close proximity to the tigers, sometimes only inches from their jaws. The need for safety was a great constraint. In each cage, there was an assistant in charge of checking the bolts and informing the coordinator that everybody was safely inside. Only after this procedure were the tigers released.
For security reasons, every scene including animals and people was shot in double pass-first the tigers, then the actors, in the same set. The shots are then composited during post-production. In order for the camera movements to be rigorously identical, the technology of motion control was used. The camera and crane are operated by a computer program, allowing the reproduction of the same movements repeatedly. Lateral movement, vertical and horizontal pans, zoom, focus and diaphragm,
all these parameters are recorded during the first take, which can then be reproduced exactly.
Because Guy Pearce kept pressuring Annaud and Le Portier for the chance to "act" opposite a live tiger, after several months, the filmmakers agreed to one shot after devising a plan in which his safety would not be jeopardized in any way.
"Because of the frame, it wasn't a problem," says Le Portier. "I crouched behind Guy and I had my assistants on either side. As the tiger walked towards us, I watched his eyes. As long as he showed no interest in Guy I let him come closer. If he had even looked in the actor's direction, I would have stood up behind Guy taking the tiger's attention and Guy would have had to leave." The shot was staged right beside one of the safety cages so that if there was a problem, Guy could step
back into it. Pearce recalls, "I kept hearing Thierry's voice in my head saying 'you can train them but you can't tame them'."
Annaud recalls, "We spent our days in cages, behind bars and nets with the animals working around us. We set several cameras for each shot because we could never be exactly sure which way the tiger would go."
Because of the unpredictable nature of filming with animals, Annaud used a combination of High Definition digital (HD) and 35mm cameras. "Right from the preparation stage of Two Brothers, I thought it would be great to escape the drawbacks of 35mm that I had suffered on The Bear," he explains. "With animals, it's vital to let the camera roll for long periods in order to capture the magic moments. They only do the scenes well once-if the cameras aren't rolling, you lose the light and
the emotion forever. A year before we started production, I did a test comparing the best HD camera on the market with a 35mm camera. We spent two days shooting in different situations: landscapes, close-ups, back light, low light. I started out convinced that I had to do the whole movie on 35mm. Then when I screened the footage of the two formats with my team, none of us could tell the difference.
"It made a huge difference shooting with the tigers on HD. When I shot The Bear on 35mm, we had to change the film magazine every 12 minutes. The moment the bears started to do something interesting was always the moment when we had to stop to reload. It was so frustrating. With HD, we can run for 50 minutes without stopping and you can reload in less than five seconds, soundlessly, sometimes during a shot. While we were shooting in the arena we had to stage a fight between the two brother
tigers. We rolled for 25 minutes before anything happened, when suddenly they approached each other and started to fight. We got some fantastic images and then Thierry stepped in and stopped the fight before they could hurt each other. The odds are we would have missed it if we were shooting on 35mm.
"Another fundamental point in favor of digital is the ability to view rushes immediately, to verify what you've shot while you're still there and start again if need be," explains Annaud. "In this context, far from civilization, without any movie theatres around, 35mm would have forced me to do what I did on The Lover - see the rushes three weeks later. Too late to do anything about it!
"Finally, digital requires much less light. To shoot in the temples at night we lit several acres with six helium-filled balloons lit from the inside. This method is infinitely more subtle. It allows you to have natural light spread over vast expanses, removing the nightmare of hundreds of projectors to be calibrated and masked.
"Nevertheless," continues Annaud, "we did shoot a few scenes in 35mm. Our prototype digital cameras did not have slow-motion. In order to capture the look in the eyes, it is often necessary to work in 120 images per second. Another characteristic of the 35mm cameras is that they are equipped with a viewfinder which is bigger, square, and leaves margins above and below the elongated rectangle of the scope image. I had learned during The Bear that it's a good idea to have those margins
when the animal suddenly rises and the camera operator doesn't have the time to follow him. By using what is in the margin, the image can be re-centered into the frame. For the same reason, I also filmed fixed camera shots where I wanted to pan or zoom later, according to the unforeseen and improvised movements of the tigers."
While the overwhelming majority of the shots were live-action, the filmmakers used animatronic tigers for any shots in which the safety and comfort of real tigers would be compromised. "We used animatronic shots several times for shots where shooting live-action with a real tiger would be impossible," says Annaud. "For instance, we used a complicated combination of animatronic and visual effects shots for the scene where the tigers are trapped by fire in the jungle. The fire was never
close to the tigers. The flames were placed near the cameras for one part of the shots, and these were enhanced by visual effects in post-production. The tigers jumped from one rock to another rock, and never through the flames."
Heading up the animatronics team was Pascal Molina. "The key to making any animatronic effect look believable is time," explains Molina. "You need time to make the original sculptures, to make the eyes, the teeth, to refine the mechanics, but what really takes time is the hair. We work with natural hair, implanting clump by clump, almost hair by hair."
Molina's team created five full size adult tigers, three mechanical heads and several partial cubs. They also made paws and tails for close-ups to give the real tigers a rest. In addition, they made three human dummies and about 60 ducks. In order to operate the animatronic tiger heads, Molina needed four people-one to carry the steady- cam rig on which the tiger head was mounted, one to control the head and two to operate the remote control for the eyes, the nose and the lips.
Molina was extremely impressed by the work of trainer Thierry Le Portier.
"When the audience sees the film, they will think that a lot of the scenes used animatronics, which is nice for me. However, the reality is that 99% of the shots used real animals. We were merely there to avoid unnecessary stress to the tigers.
Animatronics were also used in the scenes where the tigress carries the cubs in her mouth. Since the tigress was not the real mother of the cub, we had to use a fake head carrying a real cub and a real tiger carry a fake cub," says Molina. This scene gave rise to an amusing incident. In order to train Indra to carry a fake cub, Le Portier gave it to her as a toy to which she became attached. After the scene was completed, Indra took the fake cub back into her den and refused to part
with it. It took several attempts by Le Portier and trainer Monique Angeon to extract it from her jaws, and even then, not without damage.
Other than the composite shots, visual effects were minimal. It was necessary to digitally create the flight of the bats from the temple because the local species was protected. One amusing shot that benefited from VSFX was the partial recreation of the goldfish-because he rarely showed up in the bowl at the right time.
During the location scouting, Annaud photographed hundreds of sites using a large-format camera: Cambodian architecture, landscapes, colonial buildings, etc. Using digital technology, these images were utilized to enrich certain aspects of the film-a mountain added behind a plain, a village in perspective, and palm trees in a landscape. The style took its inspiration from the Düsseldorf School painters who made sketches from nature before uniting elements of various landscapes on a single
canvas.
Without animatronics and VSFX, about 40 shots vital to the picture-taken together, amounting to no more than a minute of edited film-could never have been completed. Take Every Precaution Beyond the difficulties involved in working with the tigers were the complicated logistical challenges involved with filming in remote locations. Shooting in the temples took an enormous amount of preparation.
"The quality of the vegetation and the light is so fantastic, we needed to start a month before the end of the rainy season," explains line producer Xavier Castano.
"The temples of Angkor are some of the most popular tourist attractions in the world," Castano continues. "This meant that all the tour operators had to be informed months in advance that certain temples would be closed and precisely when. We worked very closely with APSARA, the authorities for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap, who are in charge of research, protection and conservation of cultural heritage, as well as urban and tourist development.
We enjoyed a really wonderful relationship with them."
Annaud says, "We were shooting in one of the Seven Wonders of the World, so we had to take every precaution to make sure that there was no damage to the location."
Castano explains, "Architects and archaeologists established an agenda which involved laying in miles of sandbag trails to buffer the vibrations, bundling and protecting all the areas where the crew was to pass with foam-covered boards shielding the bas-reliefs. It was such a big job that we had to define each camera position months in advance."
Although the temples near Angkor were easily accessible from Siem Riep, the other locations were not as simple to get to. For example, Kbal Spean, a beautiful river full of carved 11th century Linga and Yoni (symbols of worship for the god Siva and goddess Sakti), is situated 60 km from Siem Reap and can only be reached after a 30 minute hike up a mountain. Most of the equipment, as well as the tigers, had to be airlifted in by helicopter. Other supplies were carried by porters or taken
in on horseback.
Another difficult location was the mountainous area of Phnom Koulen, which was the final stronghold of the Khmer Rouge leaders, who were there until 1998. In 1992, an average of 600 Cambodians a month were killed or maimed by landmines and unexploded ordinances. The Cambodian government and the UN established CMAC (Cambodian Mine Action Center) to free the people from that threat. Despite their efforts, experts estimate that there are still between four and six million mines left in
Cambodia.
Explains Castano, "Because the area was still full of mines, we had to employ a complete CMAC de-mining unit a month before we were scheduled to shoot there. It was very complicated because normally they clear all the vegetation before beginning to de-mine, but we needed virgin vegetation for our film. Finally, we managed to work out a way to de-mine the area thoroughly without cutting the vegetation. After we began shooting, we kept the CMAC unit with us as a precaution." The crew was
constantly warned not to stray from the marked de-mined areas.
The production also had to construct new roads to be able to access Phnom Koulen, which took two months and 10 bridges to complete. Despite the improved roads, Phnom Koulen was still over 90 minutes by car from Siem Riep. One of the scenes in Phnom Koulen was of Aidan leading a tiger hunt for the Prince, with McRory and his party riding on the backs of elephants. The elephants themselves came from Angkor, where they normally carry tourists to the top of the Bakheng temple to watch the
sunset. To deliver the pachyderms to the set, their keepers rode the elephants from Siem Riep all the way to Phnom Koulen, camping out in the jungle at night.
Assembling a local crew in Cambodia, where few feature films have been shot, proved to be an additional challenge. Castano recalls, "We advertised on the radio and in the newspapers, resulting in 500 applicants a day. We allocated the crew among the various departments and then started teaching them what to do. Obviously, translation was very important, so we hired a lot of local people who could speak some French or English."
"It worked fantastically well," says Annaud. "The Cambodian unit was absolutely superb. They learned incredibly fast and they are now as competent as any international unit I've ever worked with."
Castano adds, "We employed over 400 local people, many of them in the art department helping to build the sets and re-create the statues, using a small local company that makes sculptures for hotels and tourists. They created a school a few years ago and we employed some of their students. Many of the statues they made have been donated to the National Museum in Phnom Penh. I took about 14 people from France to head up the art department and each one took on 10 local people and taught
them how to create the sets."
Heading up the art department was production designer Pierre Queffelean. "We had three weeks of location scouting with Jean-Jacques," explains Queffelean. "He took a lot of pictures, which helped us to develop our designs. Then we made detailed drawings to get the right Cambodian atmosphere.
"The first location we shot in was the temple of Ta Prohm," says Queffelean. "Although Annaud did not want to set the film in any specific time period, he imagined the story taking place at the early part of the 20th century, when the temples had just been discovered by European archeologists. There was no tourism in those days and the temples were overgrown with very thick lianas, roots and trees. Today, many of the temples have been cleared, and the stones are exposed, so we had to
re-create the overgrown environment of the beginning of the century-it took over 150 gardeners and landscapers to complete the task."
Production utilized one of the most beautiful temples in Angkor-Ta Prohm, which was built in 1186 by Jayavarman VII, who dedicated it to his mother. Invaded and choked by the huge roots of the giant Banyan trees, the temple fights a slow battle with nature. "The integration of architecture and vegetation provided an incredible backdrop for the scenes with the tigers," observes Queffelean.
The jungle conditions were enormously challenging for the cast, crew and tigers. Temperatures ranged from 85-95°F (30-35°C) with 100% humidity. Great care had to be taken to avoid the poisonous snakes and insects. One crew member was stung by a scorpion; another had a very close encounter with a tarantula. A six foot python even visited the set one day.
Once filming in the Siem Reap area was complete, the production traveled to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to shoot a huge market scene in the center of the city. "Shooting in Phnom Penh was very complicated," explains Castano. "The square we chose for the location housed the main post office and a bank. We had to transform the bank into a jail. Getting permission wasn't a simple process. Because Cambodia doesn't have an official film commission, I had to develop a number of close
personal relationships with members of the Cambodian government. The help and encouragement they gave us was outstanding."
Other locations around Phnom Penh included Pook, where the scene of the tigress chasing the truck was shot, and Kompong Cham, where another scene was shot using a spectacular, half mile long bamboo bridge.
A six hour riverboat journey then took the crew to the next location, Kratie, for the river raft scene. From there, the crew drove on dirt roads through the jungle for eight hours to Putang, a village in the remote mountain province of Mondol Kiri.
Inhabited by an ethnic minority tribe known as the Phnong, Mondol Kiri is full of wildlife and 1,400 square kilometers (approximately 345,947 acres) of the region was recently declared a protected biodiversity conservation area by the Ministry of Agriculture. The only area in Cambodia still home to a small population of wild tigers (the monitoring Wildlife Conservation Society has several photographs of the indigenous tigers), Mondol Kiri is under the conservation efforts of the Society.
The art department arrived in Putang several weeks ahead of the rest of the crew. Explains production designer Pierre Queffelean, "The Phnong do not speak Khmer, the dominant Cambodian language, and they have a totally different culture and way of life. We tried to re-create that in the sets that we built."
He continues, "We showed the Phnong drawings, and they constructed the buildings themselves. We gave them everything they needed-the equipment, the wood, the straw, which they braided for the roofs-and they built the houses beautifully. They also brought their own style to the design by adding features we would never come up with. The materials for traditional construction are normally bamboo and straw, which we could find locally, but we also used resin and polystyrene, which we imported
from France and Thailand."
Built as permanent structures, the houses were donated to the villagers, with the Village Chief responsible for deciding their allocation.
The several night shoots in the village attracted a large crowd, but not necessarily to watch the filming. Lit up with large lighting balloons, people came from miles around to take advantage of the light for a social evening, since there is ordinarily no electricity at night.
There are no hotels in Mondol Kiri, so the production constructed a village of 120 tents to accommodate the crew. Working with a hotel designer, they arranged a system to provide hot and cold water, which required a filtration system to purify the water taken from a nearby lake. The waste water was disposed of by using a design co-opted from refugee camps, whereby the water is naturally filtered through rocks and sand and returned into the ground.
In Mondol Kiri, the temperatures rose as high as 115°F (45°C), with the discomfort level amplified by clouds of fine red dust that got into the camera, the recording equipment, eyes, noses, throats-everything.
After Mondol Kiri, the company moved to Bangkok, where the majority of the sets were constructed in an air-conditioned football stadium outside the city. Several scenes required very complicated work with the tigers, and Annaud wanted all the comforts of a studio for the tigers so they would be alert and could concentrate on their acting.
At the stadium, production designer Pierre Queffelean created a replica of the interior of the Ta Prohm temple, constructed by art director Steve Spence, designed to enable Jean-Jacques Annaud to do a traveling shot all the way along the corridor.
Although the set was mostly made of polystyrene, it was necessary to reinforce the base with plaster and concrete. "It's not just to be strong enough to hold the tigers," explains Spence. "Thierry Le Portier told me that it is important that it feels real under the tigers'
feet or they get nervous."
The major difference between the stadium set and Ta Prohm is that the set required a greater concentration of detail; features from all parts of the temple were reduced to a much smaller area. Although most of the statues for the set were created in Cambodia and made out of concrete, the Buddha was carved out of polystyrene. Spence explains, "Jean-Jacques wanted to give the impression that over the years the water running over the statue had created a rivulet, which looked like the Buddha
had a tear falling from his eye."
The crew also constructed a wall relief depicting the story of a tiger hunt. Queffelean created drawings using details from Ta Prohm and other temples, and the resulting design was then carved into the polystyrene. The wall was constructed in three sections using three sculptors, with each section taking about two weeks to complete.
The final design was then painted, with as many as 20 layers of paint applied. The unit also filmed at Muang Boran, a theme park outside Bangkok, filled with full-sized replicas of some of the most beautiful temples in Thailand and models of Thai houses, as well as lakes and streams full of water lilies. Annaud had chosen it as the setting for the climactic scene in which the two tiger brothers are reunited, but as opponents in the arena. The art department created a full sized arena
for the scene, which required 400 extras all dressed in period costume.
From Bangkok, the production moved to Paris to finish principal photography at Arpajon Studios. After wrapping, post-production chores were split between the editing room in Paris and the dubbing stages and scoring facilities in London.
With lead characters that don't speak and extended sequences without any dialogue, music would play an especially important role in Two Brothers. To compose the score, the filmmakers chose Stephen Warbeck, who won an Oscar® for his work on Shakespeare in Love.
Annaud says, "I have always been fascinated by musical sounds from other countries, starting from my time in Cameroon, where musicians in churches would play classics like Bach or Pergolesi, but with xylophone and tom-toms and singing in highpitched voices. It was just extraordinary.
"But it's always difficult to make fusion music successfully, and I feel Stephen is particularly talented at it. This music will have a unique personality. We are using melodies that have a strong Asian perfume. Some of the unusual instruments featured are the sheng, a kind of harmonica that sounds like a cross between an accordion and panpipes; also, the pipa, which resembles a lute or mandolin; various Asian flutes, such as the cheng; and percussion instruments, including gongs, gamelan,
and a kind of Asian xylopohone. I would ask Stephen about the instruments, and he would immediately suggest using one of them because he is interested in their color. If you add these solo instruments on top of the orchestra, it gives you the exoticism of the place. He has an amazing collection of Asian instruments."
"The music doesn't have to be a strict replication of Cambodian music," says Warbeck. "The perspective of the film, in a way, isn't Cambodian, and it would be dishonest of me to think I can write Cambodian music. We obviously listened to Cambodian music, which influenced and added colors to the score."
"I think his method is extremely interesting," comments Annaud. "Some composers are so locked into what they have done that they don't see how they could change it. It's too much for them. Stephen is extremely well prepared. From the first rehearsal, he's got the score, and you can go with it. But then the pleasure is to refine it, to move a trumpet, to kill the flute, to add a few more percussion instruments. That was the way we worked together."
A Film By Jean-Jacques Annaud Universal Pictures and Pathé Present A Pathé Renn Production / Two Brothers Productions with TF1 Films Production: Guy Pearce, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Freddie Highmore, Oanh Nhuyen, Philippine Leroy Beaulieu in Two Brothers. The music is by Stephen Warbeck. The costume designer is Pierre-Yves Gayraud. The supervising sound editor is Eddy Joseph. Visual effects are by Frederic Moreau. The tigers are trained and directed by Thierry Le Portier. The editing is
by Noelle Boisson; the production designer is Pierre Queffelean; director of photography, Jean-Marie Dreujou, A.F.C.; the line producer, Xavier Castano. Two Brothers is written by Alain Godard & Jean-Jacques Annaud. The producer is Jake Eberts. The film is produced and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. ©2004 Universal Studios. www.twobrothersmovie.net
A century ago, there were over 100,000 tigers like Kumal and Sangha living in the wild.
Today, fewer than 5,000 remain.
It is up to us, the tiger's deadliest enemy, to ensure the survival of the greatest of the great cats, the last lord of the jungle.
ABOUT WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (WWF)
Known worldwide by its panda logo, WWF (www.panda.org) is the largest international conservation organization protecting endangered species like tigers and their habitats. Now in its fifth decade, WWF works in more than 100 countries around the globe.
Recognized throughout the world for its ferocity and unmistakable beauty, the tiger faces an uncertain future. In the past century, the tiger's habitat and numbers have been reduced by 95 percent. We entered the 21st century with tigers already extinct in a number of their historic range countries and the remaining tigers on the verge of meeting the same fate.
It is estimated that only about 5,000 to 7,000 tigers still roam the wild today, down from an estimated 100,000 tigers across Asia a century ago. India has the largest number of tigers at 3,000, and Indochina is home to an estimated 1,200 tigers in the wild. The remaining remnant populations occur in Far East Russia, southern China and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. These tigers are threatened by many factors, including growing human populations, loss of habitat, illegal hunting of
tigers and the species they hunt, and a thriving illegal trade in tiger parts, used for traditional Asian medicines.
Since its founding in 1961, WWF has worked with its conservation partners to rally significant support for tiger conservation. Tigers are the top predators in some of the world's most diverse remaining forests, and successful tiger conservation can serve as an umbrella, protecting not just tigers but the last remaining wild habitats in the world and the other species that live there. WWF funds and equips anti-poaching patrols in key tiger forests, educates law enforcement about the importance
of prosecuting poachers, conducts scientific research and monitoring of tiger populations and engages in public education campaigns aimed at reducing demand by traditional medicine users.
Although tigers face formidable odds, there is hope for this adaptable, vigorous species. Together, we can ensure that we leave our children a planet where tigers still roam wild.
ABOUT WORLD MONUMENTS FUND (WMF)
Every day, in every corner of the world, works of great beauty and importance are being lost forever.
The misconception that monuments will always be with us, since they have endured for centuries, has had-and continues to have-tragic and irreversible consequences. The great Sphinx of Egypt may soon be, quite literally, gone with the wind; the ancient city of Angkor could be swallowed by the jungle. More recently, we have seen that the destruction of cultural icons can be a potent political weapon. Whether it be through the slow but inexorable work of erosion and the elements, the dramatic
destruction wrought by an earthquake, a bulldozer or a stick of dynamite, every day, in every corner of the world, works of great beauty and importance are being lost forever.
Since its founding in 1965, the New York-based World Monuments Fund (WMF, www.wmf.org) has worked to stem this loss, playing a leadership role in the rescue and preservation of imperiled works of art and architecture. WMF is the only private, nonprofit organization devoted to onsite conservation of monuments and sites worldwide. They have achieved an unmatched record of successful intervention, advancing 400 projects in eight countries.
Cutting across geographical, cultural and national boundaries, WMF projects have ranged from the renowned stone carvings of Easter Island to the dome of the Invalides in Paris; from a historic synagogue in Krakow, Poland, to Cambodia's jungle temples; from the adobe churches of New Mexico to the frescoed ceiling of a Venetian church.
As a result of WMF's efforts, the future is brighter not only for these, but also for many other important and irreplaceable monuments of world culture. However, much remains to be done. Destruction in the name of progress, or due to war, natural disasters, neglect, uncontrolled tourism and other threats continues to take its toll on works whose loss or destruction would immeasurably impoverish humankind.
From its headquarters in New York and working with affiliates and offices in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as with partners around the world, WMF brings together public and private resources to carry out a comprehensive conservation program of fieldwork, advocacy, grant-making and education and training.
In addition to intervening at individual endangered sites, WMF also addresses the threatened loss of monuments on regional and global bases.
The biennial World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites, first published by WMF in 1996, focuses international attention on cultural significance of and threats to 100 endangered sites worldwide and helps to raise funds needed for their rescue. In many cases, inclusion on this list is the only hope for threatened culturalheritage monuments. Both Angkor and Banteay Chhmar have been on the Watch List.
Governments from around the world, as well as an international array of local and community-based preservation groups and professionals, nominate sites for inclusion on the List. A panel of international experts convened by WMF reviews the nominations and selects 100 of them for the Watch List, featuring the places most urgently in need for support and for which a viable conservation plan exists. To date only one site nominated for a WMF Watch List has been lost (due to flooding). Many,
many others-including such legendary cultural landmarks as the Taj Mahal and Hagia Sophia-are now off the endangered list.
One of their most successful ongoing projects is the historic city of Angkor, a vast Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in north-central Cambodia. Founded more than a millennium ago, this ancient city was at one time the seat of the mighty Khmer Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, restoration work began, but it was halted by the outbreak of war in the 1970s.
In 1989, at the invitation of the Cambodian government, WMF embarked on an ambitious, multidisciplinary conservation effort at Angkor. WMF discovered that while the monuments themselves had been spared, few conservation specialists had survived the war years. Since 1991, WMF has concentrated its efforts on such important Angkor monuments as Preah Khan, Angkor Wat and Ta Som, with the local expertise and assistance of APSARA, the authorities for the Protection and Management of Angkor.
ABOUT THE TWO BROTHERS
Of the two brothers, KUMAL is the more assertive and courageous-at least at the start of the movie. Says Jean-Jacques Annaud, "He is the dominant one of the pair."
After being captured by McRory, though, he winds up in the Circus Zerbino as the heir apparent to an old performing tiger that's on his last legs. Kumal shows too much spirit to suit the bad trainer Saladin, who finally beats him into submission. He performs his tricks listlessly "with no desire for life and no guts," says Annaud. That is, until he is reunited with brother Sangha and they escape together.
SANGHA, the more timid of the brothers, also goes through a character evolution, but in a much different way than Kumal. "This brother started in life as the dominated one," says Annaud, "but becomes a very aggressive, fighting tiger." Sangha is left orphaned when his mother is apparently killed in a tiger hunt, and is taken home by the Normandin family after their son Raoul finds him hiding in a burrow.
The Normandins ship Sangha off to a private menagerie owned by the local Prince whose father kept animals to fight in public spectacles. The zookeeper recognizes that Sangha is a good candidate, because his fear can easily be turned into aggression. The Prince decides to stage a fight to show how tough they both are, if he can find another tiger to do battle. That sets the stage for the film's climax and the brothers' reunion.
ABOUT THE CAST
GUY PEARCE (Aidan McRory) received critical acclaim for his compelling performance as a man hunting his wife's killer in the intriguing suspense thriller Memento. He had previously garnered widespread praise for his role as the detective Ed Exley in Curtis Hanson's award-winning film noir drama L.A. Confidential. His work in the latter brought Pearce a SAG Award nomination, shared with his fellow cast members, including Kim Basinger, Kevin
Spacey and Russell Crowe.
Guy Pearce most recently starred in the Australian film The Hard Word. Prior to that he was seen as time traveler Alexander Hartdegen in the re-telling of H.G. Wells' classic The Time Machine and in Kevin Reynolds' swashbuckling drama The Count of Monte Cristo. Pearce first gained international attention when he starred as a young drag performer in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
His other recent film credits include Till Human Voices Wake Us with Helena Bonham Carter; William Friedkin's military drama Rules of Engagement with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson; the independent feature A Slipping Down Life, opposite Lili Taylor; and the offbeat horror comedy Ravenous.
JEAN-CLAUDE DREYFUS (Eugène Normandin) was born in Paris. When Dreyfus was eight-years-old, he gave his first performance in La jolie meunière de Maître Jacques. In his teens, he worked as a magician, but then decided to go into theatre. He studied with the acclaimed acting teacher Tania Balachova until her death in 1973.
Since then he has performed for the theatre, cinema and television. He has also directed many of his own projects. Dreyfus is renowned for his ability to interpret difficult characters and for making apparently simple characters more complex. In 1992 he received a Cesar nomination for best supporting actor for his performance in Jeunet and Caro's Delicatessen.
His feature credits include Lovely Rita, Rien voila l'ordre, L'Anglaise et le Duc, Tiré à part, The City of Lost Children, Cache-Cash and Bonsoir.
On television, he was most recently seen in Maigret à l'école.
His prodigious theatre career includes nominations for two best actor Molieres, first in 1991 for La Nonna and again in 1998 for Hygiène de l'assassin.
British actor FREDDIE HIGHMORE (Raoul) will be seen in the upcoming feature Neverland, which stars Johnny Depp. Highmore appeared in the mini-series I Saw You, Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, The Mists of Avalon and Happy Birthday Shakespeare. He made his feature debut in Women Talking Dirty.
OANH NGUYEN (Prince) was born in Saigon. His family was evacuated to the United States two days before the fall of South Vietnam. Raised in California, Oanh studied theatre and in 1997 founded The Chance Theatre, where he serves as Executive Director. He made his feature debut in the film Clockstoppers.
His theatre credits include De Donde, Blood Wedding, Love Letters, The Skin of our Teeth, Hot L Baltimor, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, where he met his wife, actress Erika Ceporious. His television credits include roles in Saved By the Bell, Hang Time, Kenan and Kel, Party of Five, The Beast and Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
He is also a published playwright with works that he also directed including Undeclared, Is Pepperoni a Vegetable? and Other Mysteries of Love and But I Don't Feel Grown-Up.
Although PHILIPPINE LeROY BEAULIEU (Madame Mathilde Normandin) was born in France, she spent the first 11 years of her life in Italy, with her father, the actor Philippe LeRoy. Returning to France to complete high school, she went on to study literature at the Sorbonne. She became interested in theatre and enrolled at the Conservatoire. Before the end of her first year, she was chosen to play Tawny for the television serial L'amour en héritage,
an ABC and France 2 co-production.
Her film credits include Coline Serreau's Trois Hommes et Un Couffin and its sequel 18 ans apres, TGV, La Voie est Libre, Hercule et Sherlock, La Belle Verte, Un Héros Bourgeois, L'Année Juliette, Le Nez au Vent, Andrzej Wajda's Les Possédés, Mehdi Charef's Camomille, Philippe Leguay's Les deux Fragonard, Philippe de Broca's Les clés du Paradis, Patrick Braoudé's Neuf Mois and A Soul Split in Two. She also appeared in James Ivory's Jefferson in Paris and Roland Joffé's Vatel. After making
her theater debut in Musset's Les caprices de Marianne and Fantasio, she recently appeared in Pirandello's On ne sait comment.
Her French television credits also include Sandra et les siens, a TV series; Jeanne et le Loup; Mes Enfants Etrangers; Le Feu sous la glace; and La Vérité et un villain defaut.
STEPHANIE LAGARDE (Paulette) was born in Limoges, France before moving to Paris in 1984. She began attending dance classes but decided to move to La Rochelle where she studied under Colette Milner and discovered she had a talent for comedy. In 1986, she returned to Paris to attend drama school.
In 1991, she traveled to Osaka, Japan, where she performed in a cabaret for seven months, returning to Paris to concentrate on her acting career.
Lagarde's feature credits include Sexes très opposés, Blind Date, Vive la mariée et la liberation du Kurdistan and Forever Mozart. Her television credits include Taxi Blanc, Jalousie, Une femme piegee, L'impasse du cachalot, La Crèche and A Midsummer Night's Fire. Some of her theatre credits include Panique au Plaza and Le Bérêt de la Tortue.
VINCENT SCARITO (The Great Zerbino) was born in Belgium to Italian parents, and studied drama in Brussels and Mons, Belgium. Scarito's feature credits include Le Roi Danse, Lumumba, Retour au Congo, Une Chance sur deux and Les Jolies Choses. His television credits include The Count of Monte Cristo.
MAÏ ANH LÊ (Naï-Rea) was born in Paris to Vietnamese parents. She studied economics and management, while supporting herself by working as a model. She began her acting career in 2001 with the role of Akemi in Giodano Gederlini's feature film Samourais. The same year, she performed with Sandrine Bonnaire in La Maison des Enfants.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
JEAN-JACQUES ANNAUD (Producer/Director/Co-Writer) most recently directed Enemy at the Gates, starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz.
Annaud's debut feature, Black and White in Color/La Victoire En Chantant won the Academy Award® in 1977 for Best Foreign Film.
His next feature was Coup de tête, a great success in Europe, followed by Quest for Fire, a stunning portrait of primitive man, which earned him a Cesar Award as Best Director. Next, he directed The Name of the Rose, a medieval murder mystery starring Sean Connery, which received a Cesar Award for Best Foreign Film. Annaud also co-wrote the screenplays for the latter two films with Alain Godard.
In 1989, Annaud received international acclaim and another Cesar Award for The Bear, the story of the relationship between an orphaned bear cub and an old Kodiak who struggle to survive in the wilderness.
Annaud's other films include The Lover, Wings of Courage (the first feature film made in IMAX-3D) and Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt.
JAKE EBERTS (Producer) is one of the most active independent film producers in the industry.
Goldcrest Films, which he founded in 1977, was responsible for financing the development and/or production of Watership Down, The Howling, Escape from New York, Chariots of Fire, Local Hero, Gandhi, The Killing Fields and The Dresser. Together these films received 30 Oscar® nominations, winning 15, including two for Best Picture (Chariots of Fire and Gandhi).
In 1985 he founded Allied Filmmakers, based in London and Paris. Since then, he has served as the executive producer or producer of The Name of the Rose, Hope and Glory, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances with Wolves, Black Robe, A River Runs Through It, James and the Giant Peach, The Wind in the Willows, The Education of Little Tree, Grey Owl, Chicken Run, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Snow in August, Prisoner of Paradise, Open Range and Sacred Planet. Six
of these films received 34 Oscar® nominations, winning 12, including two for Best Picture (Driving Miss Daisy and Dances with Wolves). Jake Eberts serves on the board of the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Channel.
ALAIN GODARD (Co-Writer) most recently collaborated with Jean-Jacques Annaud on the screenplay for Enemy at the Gates.
He began his career as a writer in advertising, where he met Annaud. Together they made many commercials before turning to feature films, beginning with Quest for Fire, followed by The Name of the Rose and Wings of Courage. Godard's other writing credits include La Femme du Cosmonaute, Palace, Signes exterieurs de richesse and It's Not Me, It's Him.
Beginning in 1977 with Alain Corneau's The Threat and continuing until Strange Place for an Encounter in 1987 directed by François Dupeyron, XAVIER CASTANO's (Line Producer) career was that of an assistant director.
In the intervening years, he worked with Claude Berri on Tchao Pantin, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, as well as Francis Veber's Les Fugitifs and Jean- Jacques Annaud's The Bear, where he served as second unit director.
Other projects as second unit director followed - The Horseman on the Roof, Hercule and Sherlock, The Jaguar, Marquise, The Dinner Game and Le Fils du Français. Xavier Castano was also production manager on Milos Forman's Valmont and, in 1991, directed the film Welcome to Veraz, starring Kirk Douglas. He was executive producer on Souleymane Cissé's Waati and Gabriel Aghion's Beautiful Mother (Belle Maman) before teaming up a second time with Jean-Jacques Annaud as line producer on Two
Brothers.
JEAN-MARIE DREUJOU, A.F.C. (Director of Photography) served as cinematographer on such feature films as L'Homme Du Train, Strange Gardens, The Unpredictable Nature of a River, Balzac et la petite Tailleuse Chinoise (The Little Chinese Seamstress), Felix and Lola, The Libertine, The Girl on the Bridge, The Children of the Marshland and American Cuisine.
PIERRE QUEFFELEAN (Production Designer) served as the supervising art director in Argentina on Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet. He makes his debut as a production designer on Two Brothers.
NOELLE BOISSON (Editor) was nominated for an Academy Award® for her work on Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Bear. She also collaborated with Annaud on Enemy at the Gates, Seven Years in Tibet, The Lover and Coup de tête. Boisson's other credits include Cyrano de Bergerac (starring Gerard Depardieu), Vatel, The Bridge, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, Jean de Florette, Shadow Play, The Horseman on the Roof, The Machine and Navodneniye (The Flood).
THIERRY LE PORTIER (Tigers Trained and Directed By) first collaborated with Jean-Jacques Annaud on The Bear. Other feature credits include Gladiator, Ghost in the Darkness, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Double Team, Arabian Nights, Fort Boyard, Le Maître des Eléphants, Heart's Cry, Roselyn and the Lions and The Evil Within. He has also worked on numerous commercials.
FREDERIC MOREAU (Visual Effects) has enjoyed a prodigious career in the visual effects area, working on over 50 motion pictures in the last ten years. His most recent feature credits include The Pianist, Stupeur et tremblements (Fear and Tremling), Le Pacte du silence, Le Pharmacien de garde (The Pharmacist), The Transporter, Aime ton pere (Honor Your Father), Sur le bout des doigts (At My Finger Tips), Le Frere du guerrier (The Warrior's
Brother), J'ai faim!, My Wife Is an Actress and Loin (Far Away).
EDDY JOSEPH (Sound Editor) first collaborated with Jean-Jacques Annaud on Enemy at the Gates. His feature credits also include King Arthur, Cold Mountain, The Life of David Gale, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Jesus Christ Superstar, Angela's Ashes, The Butcher Boy, Evita, Michael Collins, Copycat, Nell and Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.
PIERRE-YVES GAYRAUD (Costume Designer), who worked with Jean- Jacques Annaud for the first time on Two Brothers, has designed for over 30 feature films. His credits include The Bourne Identity, La Guerre a Paris, Man to Man, Tenue correcte exigée, Imago, Belphegor - Le fantôme du Louvre, Est - Ouest, Total Eclipse and Indochine.
STEPHEN WARBECK (Music By) won an Academy Award® for his score for Shakespeare in Love. His other feature credits include Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Billy Elliot, Mrs. Brown, Mystery Men, Quills and Birthday Girl.
In addition to scoring motion pictures, Warbeck has written music for more than 40 television series, including the highly successful Prime Suspect. Warbeck holds the position of Head of Music and Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His notable stage productions include the National Theatre's An Inspector Calls, John Madden's production of Proof, Sam Mendes' production of To the Green Fields Beyond, The Triumph of Love and the Royal Shakespeare Company's The White Devil.
Warbeck has also written music for numerous radio plays, and is a founding member of the anarchic pub band 'The Kippers.'
RANDY MILLER (Animal Trainer) was responsible for the formidable tiger stunt work in Gladiator, for which he won a Stuntman of the Year award. Other feature credits include The Last Samurai, Back to the Future, The Postman, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Jungle Book II, Escape to Grizzly Mountain II and Escape Club. Miller has also worked extensively on television and for commercials.
ULI NEFZER (Special Effects Supervisor) first collaborated with Jean-Jacques Annaud on Enemy at the Gates. His long list of credits includes Extreme Ops, Half Past Dead, Equilibrium, All the Queen's Men, The Little Vampire, Schlaraffenland, A Dog of Flanders, Long Hello and Short Goodbye, Prince Valiant and Sara. +two brothers+
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