John C. Reilly: Tribute + “The Sisters Brothers”

Description

John C. Reilly has established himself as one of the most versatile character actors working today, a performer capable of mining the depths of tragedy and cutting it up in the wildest comedy. That he was destined for a major career was apparent from his first film, Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War (1989) when he was promoted from extra to a major supporting part. Roles as diverse as a pornographic actor in Boogie Nights (1997), a crooked 19th-century cop in Gangs of New York (2002), and a cuckolded husband in Chicago (2002), for which he received an Oscar nomination, further established Reilly’s dramatic talent. Then in 2006, he played a dimwitted racecar driver in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), and moviegoers discovered a comic genius. Most recently, Reilly delicately balanced pathos and comedy to play his childhood idol Oliver Hardy in Stan & Ollie (2018), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, and wore the black hat of an Old West assassin in Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers (2018).

This tribute to John C. Reilly and his brilliant career includes a conversation with the actor and a screening of The Sisters Brothers.

The Sisters Brothers
Marvelously adapted from Patrick deWitt’s novel, this picaresque Western tells the story of Eli (John C. Reilly, combining the silly and the heartfelt as only he can) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) Sisters, hired by the mysterious Commodore to kill Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), a prospector with a scientific approach to finding gold. Surprising and funny, violent and tender, Audiard’s visually sumptuous film takes a provocative tack for the genre that idealism and camaraderie offer more substantial rewards than whoring and killing. Winner of four César Awards, including Best Director.

Director Jacques Audiard

A second-generation filmmaker, the son of director and screenwriter Michel Audiard, Jacques Audiard began his career as an editor and a screenwriter and made his directing debut with See How They Fall (1994), winning a Best First Work César Award. Among his other films are A Self-Made Hero (1996), for which he garnered the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Screenplay prize; Read My Lips (2002), winner of the César Award for Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted, and a nominee for Best Director and Best Film; The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), winner of eight César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay; A Prophet (2009), a Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee and winner of nine César Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay; Rust and Bone (2013), for which Audiard won a Best Adapted Screenplay César Award; and Dheepan (2015), winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or.

Film Details