James Marsh’s ‘Dance First,’ Starring Gabriel Byrne as Samuel Beckett, to Close San Sebastian Film Festival
variety.comJohn Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Dance First,” a portrait of Irish writer Samuel Beckett starring Gabriel Byrne and directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, will close this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, playing out of competition.
Byrne, a memorable lead in “The Usual Suspects” and “Miller’s Crossing” who also won a Golden Globe for his performance in “In Treatment,” plays Samuel Beckett, driving into his deep contradictions and inner torment of a writer who was a Parisian bon vivant, a WWII Resistance fighter and then Nobel Prize-winning playwright who, however, became a recluse, living the last years of his life in a single room in a nursing home, ashamed of past actions and convinced that for much of his life he had been a failure.
U.K. director Marsh won an Academy award for best documentary feature in 2009 with “Man on Wire.” He also directed the Stephen Hawking biopic “The Theory of Everything,” which earned five nominations at the 2015 Oscars, including best picture, and a best actor statue for Eddie Redmayne.
Sandrine Bonnaire, winner of two Césars in addition to a Volpi Cup from the 1995 Venice Festival for Claude Chabrol ’s “The Ceremony,” plays Beckett’s wife, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil. “Dance First” also stars Aidan Gillen, Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in “Game of Thrones,” as James Joyce.
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