Koltai told the Hungarian News Agency (MTI) that Focus Features approached him to make the film, showing him the screenplay by Michael Cunningham ? who wrote ?The Hours? ? based on Susan Minot?s 1998 novel ?Evening?. Koltai was the third director Focus Features asked to take on the project.
The film?s main character, Ann, is played by Vanessa Redgrave, and Claire Danes plays Ann as a young woman. Ann?s daughters are played by Natasha Richardson, who is Redgrave?s daughter in real life, and Toni Collette. Redgrave and Richardson are not the only real-life mother-daughter duo in the film: Glenn Close and her daughter Mamie Gummer play Ann?s friend Lila in middle age and as a young woman, respectively.
After the roles were cast, Koltai travelled to the US to film on location in Rhode Island. Koltai picked Gyula Pados for the film?s cinematographer.
The film?s story is pure and simple: a dying mother reflects on her life and focuses her thoughts on the memory of her one great love, whose accident prevented them from living together. Instead, she suffered two bad marriages, but each produced a daughter.
?We fight for security in the world, and we try to belong to someone in the meantime. In the struggle, we have to make decisions which are not always unconditionally good. The film?s last and perhaps most beautiful scene shows how limited our decisions are. That?s the beauty of the film, that this could happen to anyone,? Koltai said.
Koltai gave the task of writing the score for the soundtrack to ?Evening? to Jan Kacmarek, a composer of Polish decent who has a ?European soul?, according to the director. ?There was talk of Ennio Morricone too, but I didn?t have the energy to make the trips to Rome,? Koltai said.
Kacmarek was awarded an Oscar for his score to ?Finding Neverland? in 2005.
A Hungarian translation of ?Evening? will be published in the autumn of 2007 to coincide with the release of the film.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
