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The Jacket in our magazines

THE MOVIE: The Jacket

THE STARS:
Adrien Brody • Keira Knightley
• Jennifer Jason Leigh • Kris Kristofferson
DIRECTOR: John Maybury

THE CONCEPT:
Amnesiac and Gulf War veteran Jack Starks returns to the States where he is accused of murdering a police officer. Found ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’, Starks is committed and undergoes controversial treatment, confined in a straight-jacket and locked in a body drawer for hours at a time. There, his mind is propelled into the Future, and he discovers that he is destined to die in three days.

U.S. RELEASE: March 4 2005, Nationwide • Rated: R

THE COMMENTS:

JOHN MAYBURY:
“What interested me about this film is that it is kind of genre-less. I hope no one comes up with a label for it because for me, the fact that it slips between the cracks of various genres makes it interesting as an experience.”

ADRIEN BRODY on getting used to being in the straightjacket and in the drawer:
“I found a sensory deprivation chamber when we were shooting in Glasgow. It’s a tank where you lay in this dense saline solution. It was a really interesting experience. I would do quadruple sessions, and they were pretty amazed that I could do it. You become very aware of how your mind works, and how cyclical thoughts are, and how you can guide them. It’s an interesting way to meditate, but also to separate yourself from your physical being.”

JENNIFER JASON LEIGH:
“Adrien is a very good actor, and I think for someone that is so extroverted as a person, he has this incredible ability on screen to project the kind of introverted presence of someone who is living in the mind, and not able to communicate verbally; he can convey so much depth and soul.”

MAYBURY:
“I come from the experimental avant-garde in England, so I have an awareness of a whole area of cinema that doesn’t usually impact on mainstream cinema. And that’s something I’ve tried to bring into play. I’d like to think that we’ve been able to employ various languages of cinema in this film, and hopefully seamlessly enough that they’re not so self-consciously heavy-handed that the audience will even be aware of that.”

LEIGH:
“John is so brilliant and he’s also got this bitter, funny, biting humor which I personally respond to. He’s very clever. He’s very intuitive, maybe because he’s an artist, and so he approaches everyone slightly differently, but he’s so subtle that he will be directing you and you won’t even realize that where you started and where you’ve gotten to is a completely different place.”

BRODY:
“The Jacket can’t easily be defined. There are fascinating elements – a love story, drama, and moments of horror. It’s not a happy story; it’s tormented with surreal moments, but in the end it is an amazing love story.”

:

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official The Jacket site
Images above © Warner Independent Pictures
Feature © 2005 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

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