Novermber 2000 News for the OBSSEsed

by Diane & La..

September 23-24, 2000

House of Mirth would be shown at the New York Film Festival! A gang of us decided to brave the possibility of not getting tickets at all and planned on coming from all parts of the country and globe to meet each other and hopefully see this film *as* a film and not just as a Showtime movie of the week. We joined the NY Film Society for $60 a pop to hopefully ensure better ticket buying opportunities, bought our plane tickets, some of us made non-refundable hotel reservations, only to discover Sony Classics had picked up the movie for theatrical distribution the next day. Oopsie!

Being hardy Scullyists we pressed on with our plans, soon being cheered by the news that Gillian would most likely be attending the Saturday night screening. Suddenly a push was on not just to get a ticket, but to get *Saturday* tickets. Emails flew back and forth, a ticket broker was employed and eventually some resorted to holding signs in front of the box office, but ultimately everyone who wanted a ticket got one!

We were housed in New York in private homes and hotels splattered throughout the city, but we arranged several meetings in restaurants in order to get to know everyone. Saturday evening we had group reservations for 30 across the street from the Lincoln Center at The Saloon restaurant. As a way of identifying each other in the crowd and showing our support, I had planned to have everyone wear HoM buttons. At this dinner Liz and Kristin from Chicago were to bring the buttons they had so tirelessly made so they could be given out for a small donation to NF, but they were nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the gals arrived and there was a mad dash to select just the perfect button from more than a hundred that were made.

After dinner we stood in the rain and the mud and the rain... and waited for Gillian to arrive. I felt like a drug dealer, still passing out buttons and collecting bills under the shelter of black umbrellas. Fortunately this sort of behavior seems to go unnoticed in NYC.

We dutifully lined up behind crowd control barriers and Eric Stolz, Laura Linney, Anthony LaPaglia and director Terence Davies arrived to enthusiastic applause. Then a limo pulled up and Gillian stepped onto the red carpet wearing an apricot dress, Jimmy Choo boots, a black pleather jacket and a matching apricot scarf draped Amelia Earhart style. The screams began!

"Gillian, thank you for coming!" "We love you, Gillian!" The high pitched voices escorted Gillian down the red carpet, escalating at those moments when she stopped to collect gifts from the crowd: a red gift bag, a collection of letters that had just been written for her at the dinner. She saw a huge banner proclaiming hello and love from all her fans in Brazil and flashed a huge grin in acknowledgement. I was holding out my hand with a button to give her, and she saw me, waved, said hello and walked over to the sidelines.

"What is it?", she asked. "It's a button we made especially for you," I smiled. She looked at the one of a kind button that said "Gillian Anderson takes New York, NY FF 2000" that had a picture of the Statue of Liberty with a huge black bra draped on it. Her mouth flew open, she laughed, caught my eye and said thank you. I promptly turned around, fell into the arms of Liz who I knew was standing behind me and said, "Liz, she's got your button!" Liz and I THUDDED together while doing a strange version of a happy rain dance. Gillian took off her pleather jacket, posed for press photos, then we all raced inside to get our seats for the show.

Oh goody, I get to talk about the film now. I'm sure by this time most of you have read the reviews and heard what an incredible achievement it is for all who were involved. Let me just add that it's the type of film that is layer upon layer upon layer, and almost impossible to absorb in one viewing. Visually it's stunning and the script is very faithful to the style of Edith Wharton, but all of that is merely the framework for the performances. Rather than filling a scene with "artful" camera angles, edits, and a soundtrack, Davies and the actors instead create density with silence, gestures and subtext, and the effect is quite possibly the closest I've ever seen a film come to making you feel like you're watching live theatre. It's that intimate. And Gillian's performance is simply.. exquisite.

After the film, Terence Davies and the cast did a Q&A session with the audience, the full transcript of which can be found at GAWS. The audience seemed a little overwhelmed at the number of people up on the stage and I think we were all still reeling from the film so the questions, overall, weren't as in depth as they probably could have been but we did get a funny story about the B&B the cast stayed in while filming, and it became apparent that Gillian pretty much memorized the book, House of Mirth, and worked very hard to bring the character of Lily Bart to life, the way Edith Wharton envisioned her.

We had been told by Gillian that she would come out afterwards, so some of us went outside after the Q&A session, where we found Mish from Chicago who had come to the theatre straight from her workday. When Gillian didn't show up outside we went back inside and found her still onstage, bending over to get to the fans who were gathered below. As someone put it, she looked like a mother hen with chicks. She was extremely giving, signing pictures, teeshirts and jackets while they were being worn, HoM books, the latest copy of Entertainment Weekly with her and Robert Patrick on the cover, and even a Scully dollar bill! She posed for shots with fans and even gave Mish a big hug. Mish asked if she could also take a picture and Gillian said "sure.. get closer now, cheek to cheek".

Afterwards, we were able to talk to Terence Davies a bit, and I spoke with four strangers on the sidewalk who turned out to be Granada Films people. They were excited about the buttons because one of them had designed the poster on which Gillian wears the red dress, so I found one of those buttons on someone and sold her that one. Suddenly I felt a tap on my back and turned around to see Terence Davies again, holding out his wallet and wanting a button! I told him he didn't have to pay for one but he insisted, saying, "But I want to contribute to Gillian's charity!"

We had trouble coming down that night so some of us stayed together to watch tapes and share what had just happened. Most of us were back to see the film the next day, took lots of pictures, and have stayed in touch since. It was an unbelievably wonderful experience to not only see Gillian in a breakthrough performance, but to see her on her knees being so loving to her fans. It was overwhelming and a sight I'll never forget.

**Thank you to Lois Raeke for allowing us to use her pics for this article