CANNES — Sex often sells in the cinema. But, now, Oscar-winner Helen Mirren and her husband Taylor Hackford are hoping that a movie about selling sex in brothels will grab some attention and save their Love Ranch from bankruptcy limbo.
"I do think sexuality is intriguing," Mirren said in a one-on-one interview at the Cannes Film Festival, where Love Ranch made its overdue debut in the Cannes marketplace on Tuesday. Based loosely on a true story from the 1970s, the movie tells a love story set inside Nevada's first legal house of prostitution. For research, Mirren, who plays the madam, and Hackford, who directed his wife in their first on-screen collaboration in 26 years, went to the modern-day Mustang Ranch.
"I mean, I have my own hangups and embarrassments," Mirren said with a knowing smile, "and I didn't want to go in a brothel at all. But once I was in there, it kind of appealed to me because it's a very female world, a very female-centric world, not a male-centric world. You think the men are the kings — but not at all. The men are all shy and awkward and drunk. And the women are all-powerful."
Love Ranch, which is expected to debut in theatres later in 2010, has an interesting story to tell behind the scenes, as well. It was caught up in the litigious collapse of producer David Bergstein's entertainment empire, which included Capitol Films and ThinkFilm. Despite being reviled by many in the Hollywood scene, Bergstein reportedly was and may still be in Cannes to drum up new business, working from a friend's private yacht. He was only recently — early in May — cleared by a Los Angeles judge to travel, after showing up in court to address questions about Las Vegas gambling debuts, worth up to $1 million.
Love Ranch was one of the film titles on the Capitol roster and, without Bergstein's monumental mess, should have been out in 2009. Toronto-based E1 Entertainment swooped in to rescue a number of properties, including Love Ranch. Darren Throop, E1's CEO, is at Cannes. He introduced me to Mirren and Hackford, set up the interview, then took the famous couple to dinner as the man responsible for giving Love Ranch its new life.
"The story that we tell within that environment is a love story," Mirren says. "It is a weird and expected love story. In the middle of the selling of love, there is (usually) no real love and it is the finding of real love within this environment that is interesting.
"And the present-day madam of the present-day Mustang Ranch actually found that kind of love herself. She was a working girl and one of her clients fell in love with her."
Human sexuality, Mirren said, is something that intrigues and repels people while it creates obsessions. "It's fascinating to spend some time with people whose business it is. They don't have any of those problems. They don't have any of those conflicts. They accept it. They accept it absolutely for what it is: It is a need, it is a desire, it is a passion and it is a ritual.
"And they look at that face-on with open eyes. In the realms of the brothel, there is no day, there is no night, there is no time, there is no month nor year, there is no era. You're in a time capsule of a kind. And they talk about the outside world as the straight world. Only in the brothel is the sexuality — and the need for it — talked about and understood. The perversions of it — if you want to use the word perversion — are accepted and understood."
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