Actor Paul Mescal struck the criticisms that made comparisons between Sound’s story, a gay romance in which he plays in front of Josh O’Connor, and the Landmark Western Brokeback Mountain of Ang Lee.
Speaking at a press conference in Cannes the day after the film’s first, MESCAL – which followed a support performance in the history of the acclaimed gay ghosts of Andrew Haigh, all foreigners by playing the main role in Gladiator II of Ridley Scott – said that he thought that the cinema “moved” from alpha roles.
In the history of sound, directed by Oliver Hermanus, whose remake of Kurosawa Living marked an Oscar nomination for Bill Nighy three years ago, Mescal and O’Connor play musicologists who go to New England just after the First World War to record the folk songs of their rural country.
“It is constantly evolving,” said Mescal. “I think that perhaps in the cinema, we move away from traditional male characters, Alpha, I do not think that the film defines or tries to redefine masculinity, I think it is very subjective to the relationship between (their characters) Lionel and David.”
When asked if he was satisfied with comparisons that some criticisms had drawn with Brokeback Mountain, in which Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are breeders who fall in love in Wyoming, Mescal, Mescal rejected the idea.
“Personally, I don’t see the parallels with Brokeback Mountain at all, except that we spent a little time in a tent,” he said.
Lee’s drama, which lost controversial on an Oscar of the best image to plant in 2005, is, continuously mescal, “a beautiful film, but it is the idea of repression … I find these comparisons relatively lazy and frustrating, but for the most part, I think that the relationship I have with the film was born because it is a celebration between the love of these men and not the repression of their sexuality.”
Mescal then praised his absent co-star O’Connor, who made his name in Francis Lee’s queer drama, Drama God’s Own Country and now finishes production on the next film by Steven Spielberg, calling him “one of the easiest people” to establish a relationship with.
“Josh has an excellent gift,” he said. “The person that the general public sees is very similar to the one we know and I think it is very difficult for an actor at the age of today.
“We have known ourselves for about five years and we were definitely sympathetic, so that the Foundation of Security and the Game was there, but this relationship really deepened during the three or four weeks that we were turning.”
The actor said their link was still deepening by a shared love of hard candy ranchs.
“It seems a little shy but Josh is incredibly silly for me,” said Mescal. “We forced ourselves on this food drink during the filming process, but we would also be obsessed with eight joyful breeders per day … There is a microcosm of our relationship that I think of Josh and I think of joyful rangers.”
The story of the sound was warmly welcomed during its premiere of Cannes on Wednesday evening, although with the same delighted reception as the last film to project that evening, a sentimental value.
Friday, O’Connor will also be seen in another film in the first year at the festival, The Mastermind of Kelly Reichardt. Later this year, Mescal will feature William Shakespeare in front of Jesse Buckley in the adaptation of Chloé Zhao of the novel by Maggie O’Farrell Hamnet.
