The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007)

Director:

Paul Auster

Writer (WGA):

Paul Auster (written by)

Release Date:

11 October 2007 (Portugal)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Fantasy

Plot Keywords:

Singing In Car | Melodrama | Tuxedo | Short Story | Fireplace

Cast

David Thewlis	...	Martin Frost
Irène Jacob	...	Claire Martin
Michael Imperioli	...	Jim Fortunato
Sophie Auster	...	Anna James
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paul Auster	...	Narrator (uncredited)

Directed by
Paul Auster

Writing credits (WGA)
Paul Auster		(written by)

Produced by
Paul Auster	....	producer
Paulo Branco	....	producer
Greg Johnson	....	executive producer
Eva Kolodner	....	executive producer
Yael Melamede	....	producer
Peter Newman	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Laurent Petitgand

Cinematography by
Christophe Beaucarne

Film Editing by
Tim Squyres

Production Design by
Zé Branco

Costume Design by
Adelle Lutz

Production Management
Diana Coelho	....	production manager
Bruno Martins	....	unit production manager

Sound Department
António Lopes	....	assistant sound editor
António Lopes	....	foley recordist
Miguel Martins	....	sound editor
Pedro Melo	....	sound

Visual Effects by
Michael Turoff	....	visual effects titles & animation

Camera and Electrical Department
Hugo Azevedo	....	assistant camera
Edmundo Díaz	....	first assistant camera
José Carlos Loureiro	....	grip

Editorial Department
Cory Monden	....	on-line editor: avid
Ryan Murphy	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Jen Dougherty	....	assistant to producer
Renata Sancho	....	script supervisor

Thanks
Jamie Beeden	....	thanks
Vanja Cernjul	....	thanks
Céline Curiol	....	thanks
Griffin Dunne	....	thanks
Hal Hartley	....	thanks
Siri Hustvedt	....	thanks
Heidi Levitt	....	thanks
Philip Stockton	....	thanks (as Phil Stockton)
David Strathairn	....	thanks
Wim Wenders	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Alfama Films
• Clap Filmes
• Peter Newman Productions
• Salty Features
• Tornasol Films

Distributors

• Alfama Films (2007) (France) (theatrical)
• Alta Films (2007) (Spain) (theatrical)
• Atalanta Filmes (2007) (Portugal) (theatrical)
• New Yorker Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
• Future Film (2008) (Finland) (DVD)
• New Yorker Video (2007) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Goldcrest Post Production London  on-line editing
• Ovasen  post-production services and facilities

Also Known As:

La vida interior de Martin Frost (Spain)
La vie intérieure de Martin Frost (France)

Runtime:

USA:94 min | Germany:94 min (European Film Market)

Country:

Spain | Portugal | France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White (flashback scenes) | Color

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Finland:K-7 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Azenhas do Mar, Sintra, Portugal

Company:

Alfama Films

hail a film that shut up Manohla Dargis

what motivated me up to the new director's festival to catch 'martin frost' tonight was the brutal review that it got yesterday from the lead critic of the new york times, brutal dismissal, to be more accurate, 'the less said about (it) the better', she said, and i figured that any movie able to teach Ms Dargis the virtue of silence for even a few column inches would be worth the trip.

and worth the trip it was. we are brought into a paradise of limpidly beautiful visual textures. the oaken rhythms of a country house ensconced in a springtime parkland of luxuriant trees and luminous skies bestow the soothing natural blessing needed by the main character, martin frost (David Thewlis), a writer rubbed raw by the mechanics of finishing a novel in new york city. (Thewlis makes palpable the casualty of intrapsychic machinery sawed into daemonic reverb against the banausic hive). then paradise morphs into purgatory, leavened comedically, in Dante's sense, by the postmodern angelic visitations of Claire (Irene Jacobs) and Anna (Sophie Auster).

unfortunately, to my taste, the verbal dimensions of the film are flaccid, the logic more fanciful than imaginative, the narrative arc crippled by some irredeemably creaky plotting, especially at the crucial initiation of the relationship between martin and Claire where the seeds of common sense are thrown to the magpies of theatricality.

but so beguiling is the willful vulnerability of auster's fantasy, and the edgy interplay that it potentiates between Thewlis and Jacobs, and the camera, and later Sophie Auster, and the broad comedy of a rural everyman (Michael Imperioli), that it is very pleasant to be carried along on the visual foam of uncertain sensual delight, eddying into a feeling that this film's oddly louche light touch is uniquely adept at tracing some grave lineaments of the human heart.

go innocently.