Cologne, Germany — It's raining gold on John Malkovich. Feather-light flecks of gold leaf swirl through the atelier where he sits, bent over a drawing board. An argument with a woman has interrupted his painstaking inlay work, and now she has left, slamming the door.
He strokes the cat curled in his lap, contemplating the canvas on the easel beside him. It's a portrait of a bare-breasted beauty with dreamy half-closed lids and a provocative hint of a smile, the figure surrounded by rich patterns of silver and gold.
Sporting a full beard and a long blue Moorish-style artist's smock, Malkovich is on the set of "Klimt," an impressionistic evocation of the scandal-plagued turn-of-the-century painter Gustav Klimt. Call it a coincidence, but the resemblance is uncanny. He's a dead ringer for the Viennese artist. "I wasn't really aware of the resemblance until a few years ago," says Malkovich during a break. A trio of European producers had picked up on the striking physical likeness and approached the actor about playing Klimt in a straightforward biopic. "The materials they sent convinced me that the story of Klimt's life could make quite an interesting film," Malkovich says, "but not with that script."
Then Franco-Chilean writer and filmmaker Raoul Ruiz was brought on board to direct, and the entire focus of the film shifted.
"I use authentic dialogues and events," says Ruiz, "but Klimt's story is meant to be like a daydream, a fresco of real and imaginary characters revolving around the painter. I approach his life as a fantasy, in the manner of Arthur Schnitzler, the Austrian writer. It's more like a merry-go-round of fragmented memories, a play with mirrors."
Malkovich had worked with Ruiz before, playing the decadent Baron de Charlus in an artsy adaptation of Proust's "Le Temps Retrouve" (Time Regained, 1999) and a genteel husband in a Provencal drama, "Les Ames Fortes" (Savage Souls, 2001), based on a novel by Jean Giono. So he reconsidered "Klimt" and accepted the lead.
Notorious work, scandalous life
It is the last day of the 11-week shoot of the $6.6-million Austrian, German, British and French Epo-film co-production. The exteriors were shot in Vienna, and these final interior scenes inside Klimt's atelier are being filmed in a deserted lot of Warner studios in the suburbs outside of Cologne. "Klimt" also stars Saffron Burrows ("Troy," "Miss Julie"), who plays the Parisian dancer Lea, the artist's elusive muse and mistress; the supporting cast includes German actress Veronica Ferres, as Emilie Floge, the painter's longtime companion; Nikolai Kinski, son of Klaus Kinski, who portrays the artist Egon Schiele; and British actor Stephen Dillane ("The Hours") as the secretary, symbol of the oppressive state bureaucracy of the ailing Austro-Hungarian Empire.
