"The Private Lives of Pippa Lee."

[CHRIS B]

Hollywood returns to Griffin Hospital
KATE RAMUNNI
Article Last Updated: 05/10/2008 12:58:46 AM EDT


DERBY — The hallways of Griffin Hospital are generally quiet, but it was especially so on the first floor of the facility late Thursday afternoon.
About a dozen people huddled in the corridor outside an empty room while several others came and went, clipboards in hand.

"Quiet!" they said over and over.

But the need for silence had nothing to do with health care and everything to do with Hollywood gold. As everyone crowded around the doorway to the room, cameras rolled, filming a scene for a new movie starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder.

The hospital was chosen as the setting for several scenes for the movie, "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee," slated to open in theaters next year.

The movie is about a woman whose older husband leaves her for a younger woman. In addition to Reeves and Ryder, the movie stars Julianne Moore and Alan Arkin, is produced by Brad Pitt and directed by Connecticut resident Rebecca Miller.

Thursday's filming included scenes with Ryder, while Reeves was to be on site Friday.

It's not the first time the hospital has been featured in a major motion picture, according to hospital spokesman Ken Roberts. It also played a part in the production of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Part II," he said.

"The film community is a very small community and they talk to each other," he said. "Word gets around that we are film-friendly, and they know what we have to offer and what kind of facility we have." Both the inside and outside

of the hospital is being filmed for the movie, he said.
"Our prime concern is that there is no disruption to patient care," Roberts said.

That was evident Thursday when filming stopped in the middle of a scene when nurses needed room in the hallway being used to wheel a patient back to his room.

"It is hectic and busy, but we are able to cordon off areas to keep the disruption to a minimum," Roberts said.

When staff and patients are told what's going on, they're supportive and many are excited, he said.

"It's not something that happens every day," he said.

But it's something that happens more and more in Connecticut since the state passed legislation that allows for tax credits for producers who spend more than $50,000 on film production here.

That has led to a rash of big-budget movie shoots in the state and has brought stars such as Robin Williams

http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_9213382

[CHRIS B]

Film Company Aims To Be The "Salt" of The Earth

Tagging itself as "the filmmaker's essential ingredient," the Salt Company has sewn the seeds of its re-birth from its former identity as Lumina Films. The U.K. based international film sales and production company changed its name to Salt in April to "better reflect the full range of services that the company are able to offer the international filmmaking community."

"I got involved with Lumina when it was focused on Latin American film," said Salt's managing director Samantha Horley, who heads the team. "The idea was to grow [the company] to include English-language films, so it seemed the Lumina label was not capturing what it was we were doing." Salt's Latin American lineage, inherited from Lumina with a library that includes "Favela Rising" by Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist (Brazil), "Espectro" by Juan Felipe Orozco (Colombia) and Pablo Trapero's "Familia Rodante" (Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, U.K.) will continue under the company's re-branded moniker, but on a more limited basis.

English-language fare including "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" by Rebecca Miller, which Horley describes as "very smart, but also entertaining" in the vein of "'American Beauty' with dark subject matter." Also on tap is John Maringouin's feature doc "Big River Man" about an overweight, hard-drinking 50-plus year-old Slovenian activist who decides to swim the Amazon River to highlight pollution in the world's rivers.

"These are two extremes of films we're doing right now," explained Horley. But they're also films we really want to see. We love working with new filmmakers, [and] are happy to look at material that doesn't have all the elements together." Explaining further Salt's range of services, Horley emphasized the company's ability to attach a producer to a project they're committed to in addition to representing the finished product for sale. "We can package [a project] together so that it's interesting for the international market. Pre-sales are so important now, so we do like to be involved early."

http://www.indiewire.com/...05/cannes_08_biz_d_1.html

[CHRIS B]

Here's a conversation that went down on IMDB about Winona's character. So, I thought I'd share by posting it here:

reality_bites70   1 day ago (Mon May 12 2008 17:21:35) 
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Is Winona's role in the novel a large one, or will this be yet another five to ten minute appearance?

by nicolefair-1   1 day ago (Mon May 12 2008 17:25:23)
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Well, she's not a lead character by any means. But her character is the catalyst for some pretty serious stuff. I don't know if she will be portrayed the exact same way in the movie, but the character Moira is significant enough.

The book is full of flashbacks and whatnot. So, I dunno. Its a good role. More than five minutes I'm sure.

by zitch10022   21 hours ago (Tue May 13 2008 15:20:41) 
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If I had to describe the character of Sandra I would agree with nicolefair. She will be in the film for more than 10 minutes. She is friends with Pippa so you see her more than as just a casual character.

http://www.imdb.com/title...5900646&p=2#105900646

[lainy]

Alps said Reeves, Ryder and Penn signed autographs and handed out photographs.
Scenes for the movie are scheduled to be shot in the next couple of weeks in and around a condominium in the vicinity of Grove Pond Lane off Krueger Circle in Heritage Village. The film is partially set in a retirement community much like the village, and tells the story of a woman who carves out a new identity after her husband leaves her.

http://www.rep-am.com/art...008/05/09/news/338599.txt
[/quote]

Autographs?! Winona?! That's good to hear :)

[CHRIS B]

The film's main page at Salt-co.com has been updated! It says the film is expected to come out next Spring!

the private lives of pippa lee
as a young woman, pippa lee steals a husband, destroys another woman's life, and lives happily ever after, until, at fifty, the same thing happens to her.

synopsis
at fifty, pippa lee (robin wright penn) positively glows with feminine serenity, the devoted wife of a brilliant publisher thirty years her senior, the proud mother of successful twins, and a lovely and adored friend and neighbour. but when her husband spontaneously decides they leave new york for marigold village retirement home as a "pre-emptive strike against decrepitude," and then proceeds to have an affair with someone even younger than she is, pippa finds her carefully constructed persona unravelling in alarming ways. the truth is, the gracious woman of the present day has seen more than her fair share of the wild side: an array of erotic adventures, a diet-pill-addicted mother, a short-lived career in lesbian soft-porn, the glorious suicide of a love rival, until finding love and security in a family of her own. and now that cosy world, too, is in danger. in pippa lee we have an unconventional heroine and a fresh and funny portrait of the many lives behind a single name.

overview
comedy drama the private lives of pippa lee is rebecca miller's fourth film, produced by longtime collaborator lemore syvan and plan b's dede gardner.

miller has enlisted michael shaw, production designer on boys don't cry and you can count on me; declan quinn, dp on monsoon wedding and vanity fair; and sabine hoffman, the editor of her own two previous features.

as with her previous works, miller uniquely writes the book and the screenplay concurrently. the book of the same name has been published in the uk april 2008 through canongate and thereafter is released in the us by farrar, strauss & giroux, germany by s fischer verlag, france by editions du seuil, netherlands by de harmonie, italy by fandang, spain by anagrama, portugal by asa, norway by pax, finland by karisto, romania by trei, brazil by record with the rest of europe and the world to follow.

the film is shooting in Connecticut, for delivery spring 2009.

[CHRIS B]

Spoiler alert!!!

This is an excerpt from the book. Though, I switched Winona's character name of Moira(Book name) with Sandra(Film name). It just gives you an idea of what Winona's character will be like in the film.

Again this is a Spoiler alert. If you want to wait for the film do not read this!!!
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"Killing yourself with a disposable razor. I don't think anyone's ever done that before," said Pippa as she knelt on the bathroom floor, bandaging Sandra's scraped up wrists. Sandra, her face slippery with tears and snot, was sitting on the lid of the toilet, staring vacantly at the wall. Herb stood awkwardly in the doorway.

"She was in despair," he said. Pippa looked up at him sharply. He looked pale and clammy. "She loves you, you know."

"You should take a nap," said Pippa dryly. She still couldn't feel anything. It occurred to her that maybe she had actually stopped loving Herb without realizing it. No. That wasn't it. She remembered adoring him only this morning. Then why was she such a blank? Pippa had bought the first aid supplies only a week earlier, on impulse, to stock Herb's office bathroom. As she taped them around Sandra's wrists, something loosened from her mind and fell away, like a clump of earth from a crumbling dam. And all of a sudden, she was flooded with relief. It was her guilt that had fallen away, she realized, and landed right on Sandra, smashed her to smithereens. Poor Sandra. This is what guilt did to a person. Pippa felt time spinning back, back, back, until the bullet reversed out of Gigi's brain, and she was innocent of murder, innocent of betrayal.

[CHRIS B]

[CHRIS B]

Promo poster for the film!! I'm so happy there is a Winona one!

[vulcannonibird]

And what a cute one....

hope we get a bigger version soon.....

[kashyy]

Promo poster for the film!! I'm so happy there is a Winona one!

OMG what a cute! Thanks, Chris!

[vulcannonibird]

The poster reminds me of Reality Bites....

[DrJoseph]

The poster reminds me of Reality Bites....

It absolutely is Lelaina...and she is gorgeous...

Nice to see the larger version...

(-:

[winonalover]

When I read that Alan Arkin is playing the Pippa's husband, I wondered if it's a little weird for Winona to play the lover coz he basically played her Dad in Edward Scissorhands. lol.

[CHRIS B]

And in June she wrapped The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, written and directed by Rebecca Miller. Lively plays young Pippa—a drug user–turned–stay-at-home mom—while Robin Wright Penn tackles the middle-aged version opposite Alan Arkin, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder. The movie will be showing on the festival circuit starting early next year

http://blakelivelyweb.com/?p=710

[CHRIS B]

Just found this article on the film. I don't know if there anything new here, but I decided to post it anyway.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
By Rebecca Miller

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is the latest effort of Rebecca Miller. Daughter of Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, Miller is an accomplished artist - among other successes, she is the director of the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner and New York Times acclaimed film Personal Velocity, which is based on her short-story collection of the same name.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is based on a simple premise. At 50-something, Pippa finds herself transplanted, at the behest of her 80-year-old husband, to a retirement community nicknamed Wrinkle Village. For Pippa, the couple's shift in location brings about a shift in self. The book is intended to not only paint a picture of her metamorphosis, it is also intended to give us an in-depth portrait of a woman who is - on the surface, at least - perfect.

These two story lines are potentially powerful. Further, the back-story of Pippa's difficult childhood and adolescence - the circumstances that made her yearn for and create a stable home life - could lend gravity to the present-day story of Pippa's reckoning with her elderly husband's age as well as her own and the life review that typically comes along with it.

But the multitude of characters, although an inherently interesting and engaging cast, renders the narrative a bit diffuse.

What The Private Lives of Pippa Lee does continually move toward, and shy away from, is the issue of mothers and daughters. We get a close-up shot of Grace, Pippa's daughter, and we learn about their troubled relationship. At the end of the novel, the narrator asserts about Grace, "Poor girl, she didn't know what sickness had been passed to her through the women in her family. Mother to daughter in a line as long as Pippa had lived, and maybe further, maybe past Grandma Sally, to Sally's mother, and her mother before her; the chain of misunderstandings and adjustments, each daughter trying to make up for her mother's lacks and getting it wrong the opposite way."

 
While we understand that this is at the heart of Pippa's story, this compelling theme is only partially illuminated and explored. The reader is left intrigued and wanting more.

Miller's writing is at its best when she brushes up against the mother-daughter material, particularly Pippa's relationship with her mother. The prose suddenly becomes lean and tight, the story suddenly feels real, and Pippa's emotional truth comes into focus.

When Miller manages to address the mother-daughter theme in an indirect manner, the novel has glimmerings of genius and the writing is beautiful, "I was going to find that pregnant girl with the flaxen hair... and I was going to save her life. I would track her down in her filthy squat and swoop in like a commando, excise her from her perverted existence, buy her a square meal, take her home to Olla and Jim. We would all live together, the five of us, a family. Her child would be fair, with violet eyes and a saintly disposition."

At these times, Pippa's breathless flights of fancy have weight and resonance. We understand what Pippa wants on a deep emotional level, at the very core of herself. Conversely, whenever the narrator drifts away from this material - and she does spend a lot of time drifting - the reader's interest floats as well.

The reader ends up with scattered snapshots rather than a full portrait. We get glimpses of Pippa's mother, Pippa's father, Pippa's children - and all seem to be arranged to help the reader look beyond the picture-perfect surface of present-day Pippa Lee, all are intended to help us understand Pippa, to plumb the depths of her psychology. What the reader walks away with, though, is a feeling of having become acquainted with a sequence of events in a woman's life rather than the woman herself.

It will be interesting to see how this novel translates into film. Currently in post-production, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee has an all-star cast including Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robin Wright Penn and Julianne Moore. Perhaps seeing a flesh-and-blood ensemble will help us see Pippa more fully.

http://www.jpost.com/serv...st%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull