From
Karen Rosenfelt, producer of blockbuster young adult movies such as the “Twilight”
saga, “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “The Devil Wears
Prada” bring another potential hit among the young and the young at heart in
the upcoming endearing movie “The Book Thief,” starring Sophie Nelisse with
acclaimed award-winning actors Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.
Based
on the beloved bestselling novel, “The Book Thief” tells the inspiring story of
a spirited and courageous young girl named Liesel, who transforms the lives of
everyone around her when she is sent to live with a foster family in World War
II Germany. For Liesel, the power of
words and of imagination becomes a means of escape – and even joy – from the
tumultuous events enveloping her and everyone she knows and loves. She is “The
Book Thief’s” heart and soul. Indeed, it is heart and soul – as well as
triumph and perseverance—that drive the film, which is rich in themes and
characters that will resonate for every generation. A moving and poignant portrait of the
resiliency of the human spirit, this life-affirming tale contrasts innocence
(as embodied by Liesel) with the pervasive tyranny that marked the times and
her homeland.
It’s
the culmination of a journey that began in a coffee shop, with producer Karen
Rosenfelt. Having shepherded the blockbusting “Twilight” and “Percy Jackson”
franchises to the big screen, her interest in “The Book Thief” was piqued by an
article she’d read in the Wall Street Journal.“It sounded immediately
interesting,” says Rosenfelt.
She
sought out the book, and charged through it in a single weekend. Within weeks,
she had brought the book to Fox and the project had been optioned. “It was then
a seven year journey to get to where we are today,” she reflects. “We wanted to
be very careful because it was such a special book. We only had one writer and
one director on board during the entire process.”
Finding
the right director to do justice to the material was crucial. Brian Percival’s
work will be familiar to any of the millions of viewers worldwide hooked on the
period television drama “Downton Abbey.” Percival says he was attracted to “The
Book Thief” because it didn’t reflect every other film about this period in
history. “We didn’t want to set out to make another Holocaust story,” he
insists. “This is about a young girl growing up and it’s about our human
experience. One of the most heartwarming things I felt while reading it was
this overwhelming sense of the human spirit and just what that can overcome.”
It
also, he suggests, provides a new perspective on death. “Because death is portrayed
in a rye, slightly humorous way, and it’s not the terrifying vision of
almost-hell that we’re sometimes given, a lot of people have approached Markus
after reading the book to say, ‘I’m no longer quite so scared of Death as I was
before.’”
With
the film focusing ever more centrally on the titular Book Thief, it was
essential that the filmmakers found the right young actress to play Liesel. In
the end, the suggestion came from the man that had created the character in the
first place, Markus Zusak. “I’d seen Sophie Nélisse in the film MONSIEUR
LAZHAR,” he remembers, “and I remember saying to my wife, ‘Hey, that’s Liesel.’
You look at Sophie and you can’t imagine anyone else playing the character.” But
with the highly experienced actors Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson on set,
playing Hans and Rosa Hubermann, Nélisse has the benefit of a master class in
performance to fall back on. They were the filmmakers’ first choices, and both
admit they were swept up in Zusak’s narrative.
Says
Rush, “Markus Zusak, who’s a Sydney boy, based it on the stories that he was
told when he was in his adolescence by his grandparents. I had never heard of
it, and I’m sort of surprised, because I subsequently learned from my
17-year-old daughter that all her friends had said, ‘Oh, is your dad going to
be in THE BOOK THIEF? That book changed my life.’ It’s one of those phenomena.”
"I’m
so thrilled to be doing this,” says Watson. “When I read the script I thought
it was one of the best I’d read in years, and I really thought this was a
character to get my teeth into. There wasn’t really much debate in my head.”
It was this moment that grabbed Watson. “You start
by perceiving the story from a child’s point of view, and Rosa is the wicked
stepmother. She’s an archetype. But then there’s a really interesting moment
where it tells the story of the war from the point of view of very, very
ordinary German people who are not buying the Nazi ideology, even though
they’re caught up in it. For Rosa, it’s not because she’s particularly radical,
she’s just getting on with her life when this moral choice lands on her
doorstep. She has a split second to make a decision about which way to go.”
Rush recognized immediately that the story of THE
BOOK THIEF is an uplifting one. “It shouldn’t be all dour and dark,” he
insists. “From Liesel’s point of view, it’s like she’s entered a Grimm’s
fairytale. She’s going into the dark forest of young adulthood and she meets a
nice woodcutter, and a rather mean stepmother. And then, the more the film goes
on, hopefully we’re rounding out those characters so that they have bigger
dimensions.”
But
for all the artists involved in putting THE BOOK THIEF together, the story
remains rested on the shoulders of one little girl, who goes for another take
on the Babelsberg back-lot. As Percival calls “cut”, Rush reflects on just how
much talent he sees in Nélisse. “She’s sparky off-camera, but on-camera she
looks almost as if she’s this cool existential philosopher, taking life as it
comes. They’re very tiny little threads she plays with, but she has so much
subtle, beautiful, engaging stuff going on in her mind. “The camera just loves her.”
“The
Book Thief” opens February 19 in theaters nationwide from 20th
Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.
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