Jake - 'Hi to everyone on the internet!' The Empire Awards and Naomi's speech

It's been a while since we've watched a video of Jake talking about his films and I was definitely ready to see this, not least because it begins with Jake giving us all a wave and saying 'Hi to everyone on the internet!' For those of you who love to hear Jake speak in foreign tongues, he also says a few French words. For this is a French video, le Fin de l'Inocence, and its subject is Jarhead.



As always, Jake is fascinating to listen to, especially, for me, in these two sections: 'If you has asked me before I made this film, I probably would have said that I'm a pacifist, I guess. But after I think I recognised a lot of aggresion in myself that I didn't know. And the thrill of holding a weapon in my hands and just sort of thinking of killing or being killed, just all those ideas that run through your mind when you're playing a part like this. After that I think I walked the line - I walked the line! But, ultimately, I don't think that war is really the appropriate answer for anything.'


'I hope it's never the end of innocence, you know. I mean, I think that's the thing that keeps me wanting to do like... to keep acting. But I do think that I grew up a lot while I was making the movie and I think that Sam's process - Sam Mendes' process in directing, you know, I think he empowers you and he makes you feel that nothing you can do is wrong. And I think when somebody says that to you, when they say nothing you can do is wrong, you can take risks, you can make choices. That really forces you to grow up. I don't think that it ends your innocence but that definitely forces you to progress and change.'


After watching the UK MTV Making of Zodiac special and listening to the Zodiac commentary with Jake and Robert Downey Jr - not to mention the Making of documentary that is included in the Director's Cut of Zodiac - it makes one realise how very different Jake's experience was making these two contrasting movies. One was perhaps more difficult than the other, with the physical determination and agression necessary for Jarhead perhaps easier to endure than the mental straitjacket demanded by the procedural and verbal Zodiac. And yet Jake responded to both, giving us and his directors two great performances.


The Sony Ericsson Empire Awards - Zodiac's nominations

The Oscars, and the BAFTAs for that matter, may have decided not to acknowledge Zodiac in any shape or form, but Empire magazine (arguably Britain's premier film publication) announced the shortlist for the Sony Ericsson Empire Awards today. This shortlist, which is voted upon by readers of the magazine and its website, moviegoers one and all, lists Zodiac three times.


Zodiac is nominated for Best Thriller and Best Film and David Fincher is nominated for Best Director. Unfortunately no mention is made of Jake Gyllenhaal, or the rest of Zodiac's cast, nor of Rendition. The awards are presented at a ceremony in London on 9 March. You can read the full shortlist here. Good luck Zodiac and David Fincher.


A short while ago, I posted a link to a MTV half-hour special on Zodiac (mentioned above), which was only avaible to watch in the UK. Stephanie at I Heart Jake has now kindly and expertly merged these video files into one and uploaded them so that everyone can enjoy them. You can find it here. Thanks to Twisted Logic for putting the video up on YouTube.


Naomi's speech on the relationship between author and reader

Last Saturday, the Scripter Award was presented at a gala dinner held, rather appropriately and yet incongruously, in a library - the Doheny Memorial Library in Los Angeles. This award 'celebrates the art of adaptation, acknowledging both the authors of the original novel or novella and the screenwriters.' This year's event was linked to the Gyllenhaals doublefold - James Vanderbilt's adaptation of Robert Graysmith's Zodiac was a contender and the head of the selection committee is Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. Unfortunately, Vanderbilt didn't win, with the award going to No Country for Old Men, which was adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen.


Here is an account of the event, which 'managed to tie the different atmospheres together into a celebratory environment, yet one that was intellectually sober, where one was constantly reminded of the frequent inseparability of the triumphs and challenges of writing and adapting for the screen. In her introduction of the honorees, the head of the selection committee Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, mother of actors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, spoke of the delicate art of "keeping the spirit of the story line intact, while turning it into something entirely different."'


'"Getting inside the intimate relationship an author makes with his reader to create a concrete picture of character and place without disturbing the author's original underlying intent [is difficult to do]," Gyllenhaal said at the event. "No wonder it so often fails. But sometimes it rises to the heights of perfection and provides insight and possibility that the reader alone would never come to."'

Includes pictures from IHJ.