16 St 7 Feb 2022 Jahr - VARIETY Johnny Depp and Andrew Levitas Discuss Timeliness of Minamata and Hope for Mankind

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The video of the Variety interview was published to YouTube on 27 January 2022 and this is the follow up article by Jenelle Riley.

FROM VARIETY:

Johnny Depp and Andrew Levitas Discuss Timeliness of ‘Minamata’ and Capturing the “Inner Light and Hope for Mankind”

By Jenelle Riley

Even if you don’t know the story of heralded photographer W. Eugene Smith or the Japanese fishing village of Minamata, you are likely familiar with the photograph Tomoko and Mother in the Bath. The 1971 black-and-white photo captures Ryoko Kamimura cradling her severely deformed daughter Tomoko, a victim of Minamata disease, in a Japanese bath. The photograph was one of many featured in a 1972 issue of Life magazine depicting the horrors of the disease, a form of Mercury poisoning that was caused by industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation’s chemical factory. Smith and his wife, Aileen Mioko Smith, lived in the town from 1971 to 1973 to document the effects of Minamata disease.

Now the story of the Smiths and Minamata has been brought to the big screen by filmmaker Andrew Levitas, starring Johnny Depp as Smith, Minami as Aileen and Bill Nighy as Smith’s editor Robert Hayes. Smith is portrayed as a challenging artist, initially reluctant to journey to Minamata, but eventually drawn into activism as he learns about the people and their stories. The film goes into a limited release on Feb. 11 in select theaters across the U.S.

At a Q&A for the film, Levitas and Depp (who is also a producer on the film) spoke about what compelled them to bring this story to the big screen. To make the film, Levitas and his crew reconstructed Minamata in painstaking detail, with Levitas’ goal to put the actors in what he calls “a 360-degree space where they could just live.” The result, says Depp, “Was almost like living in a documentary.”

I’d love to start at the beginning with Johnny, because I think you’ve been familiar with Eugene Smith’s work for some time. At what point did you know you wanted to tell not just his story, but specifically about his time in Minamata?

[Long Article continued via the links below]

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