- Post a comment
- Skip to the latest comment
- Back to the blog
Not too long ago Mark Peranson (of the Vancouver Film Festival and Cinemascope magazine) got a cheery text from his friend, film producer Montse Triola: “Albert would like U to perform Saint Joseph. What do U think? Fancy?”
Peranson's not an actor, he's a film journalist and programmer, but who could turn down the opportunity to make his acting debut playing the patriarch of Christianity's first family? So he got on the next plane to Barcelona, where he slept on the floor of director Albert Serra's apartment before embarking on a weird filmic adventure.
To say “weird” doesn't really sum up El Cant Dels Ocells (as it's called in Catalan; in English it's Birdsong). Birdsong is the story of the three kings who went in search of Jesus, but filmed in Iceland and the Canary Islands, using only natural light, with a cast of nonprofessionals speaking an improvised script.
Each of the “actors” playing the kings – a tennis instructor, a construction worker and the construction worker's father - is called Lluis. In the film, the kings speak Catalan and Peranson speaks Hebrew.
Triola, the producer, also plays Mary.
There's actually one line of English: “At one point, Mary was holding this lamb and I looked over and said, ‘The lamb just pooed on you,'” Peranson said. “I think that made the final cut.”
As for reviews of his first on-screen performance, Peranson says someone who saw an early cut of the film asked, “Were you deliberately acting stoned?”
-
Derek Holtom from swan river (only cowards attack others using fake names), Canada writes: enjoy the "work"
- Posted 19/05/08 at 2:20 PM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
Join the Conversation, Leave a Comment
This conversation is semi-moderated What is moderation? | How do I report a comment?
You must be logged-in to submit a comment — login now!
Not registered with globeandmail.com? Register now. It is quick and free.
Alert us about this comment
Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.
Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.
