James Franco says the character Lester Ballard in his new film Child of God has a trace of Charlie Chaplin in him, though the tale is mostly as dark as can be.
Based on Cormac McCarthy's novella of the same name, the movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday and portrays a Tennessee backwoodsman who has never recovered from his father's suicide and sinks into ever deeper levels of anti-social and psychopathic behavior.
Franco said he sought permission from the No Country for Old Men writer to film the seemingly unfilmable story because it provided a way "for me to examine something that's pushed out of civilized society".
But he also found elements of a fumbling, awkward comedy that reminded him on Chaplin, though of a much darker nature than anything the silent film star ever put on screen.
"He's kind of, in some ways he's kind of clumsy, he's, you know, almost comedic," Franco told Reuters in an interview.
"Not laugh-out funny but he's a little ridiculous in some ways and I felt like that's something I've never seen before on the screen, a killer like this that's a little foolish or almost like Charlie Chaplinesque."
Franco said the film is not as violent as the subject matter suggests, nor does it portray violence as graphically as some recent films, though there are scenes that will make jaws drop.
"There were scenes that needed to kind of be explicit ... in order to kind of make a mark but it's not a thriller, it's not a horror movie," he said.
Reuters
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Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
