In New York, in 1974, the young James is asked by his gallery owner employer to carry out a seemingly very simple task. Said mission consists of delivering an envelope full of money to Gala Dalí, who is staying like every winter at the St. Regis Hotel with her famous husband, the painter Salvador Dalí. But as James will soon discover, once you enter orbit around this couple, nothing is simple. Directed by the too rare Mary Harron, to whom we owe the formidable I Shot Andy Warhol And American Psycho, Daliland focuses on the tumultuous relationship between Gala and Salvador Dalí against the backdrop of a changing art milieu.
“It was such a complicated marriage: fabulous in some respects, awful in others”, explains the filmmaker during an exclusive interview.
“Someone once said that no one has done as much as Gala to promote the career of Salvador Dalí, and no one has done as much as her to destroy it. She was this incredible inspiring and nurturing force, but at the same time, because of her greed and her visceral fear of running out of money, she pushed her husband to paint and overpaint. Except that she had been very poor, hence her fear… Their marriage lasted for decades. When she died, he was devastated. Their symbiotic relationship, despite the constant bickering, fascinated me. »
Presented at the closing of TIFF last year, the film is also a matter of a couple behind the camera. To clarify Mary Harron, her husband, John C. Walsh, wrote the screenplay, but they both did the research, for example for everything relating to the early years of the Dalí marriage.
“In the destitution of their existence at the time, there was only art that mattered. It was almost religious. Fame and money complicated it all. »
A poignant scene in this regard sees Gala confide in James that once in Europe it was “Gala and Salvador Dalí”, but now, since the popularity in America, it is only “Salvador Dalí”. . “People in the United States wonder why Dalí is married to an old woman,” she says, bitterly rightly.
In contrast, Salvador Dalí, who speaks of himself in the third person, makes statements like: “I don’t compare myself to God. Dalí is almost God — not quite. If Dalí were God, there would be no Dalí: it would be a tragedy. »
That says a lot.
“When you feel that you no longer have any use, it creates a void that you try to fill. In the case of Gala, it was especially with all these young men she maintained, and with this insatiable thirst for money. »
Contrasting approaches
In the roles of Gala and Salvador Dalí, Barbara Sukowa (years of lead, Rose Luxemburg) and Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Schindler’s List) are terrific, infusing the characters with the required larger-than-life side, but never lapsing into caricature.
“Ben invited me to stay with him in England — he cooked me delicious meals. We went through the script, page by page, and we talked a lot. I provided him with books and videos…”
The issue of the accent was discussed, and it was agreed not to reproduce it identically: paradoxically, it would have seemed too strong.
“From our discussions, a portrait emerged. When Ben arrived on set, his performance was perfectly formed. He was Dali. I was amazed: the atmosphere changed as soon as he entered a room. Throughout the filming, Ben succeeded in accomplishing this magic specific to certain actors, namely reaching a zone of hyperconcentration and staying there. Christian Bale was like that on American Psycho. »
With Barbara Sukowa, it was more or less the opposite, but just as stimulating.
“She told me right from the start: ‘Don’t worry about me: when I was shooting for Fassbinder, he only gave me one take!’ On set, she was much more gregarious and liked to joke between takes. But in her own way, she was just as prepared. Unlike Ben, she was prone to trying different things from take to take, even improvising. She was very funny. »
As already mentioned I Shot Andy Warhol, Daliland is camped, in the first part, in the New York art scene of the 1970s. Mary Harron knew this period well since this Ontario native, after studying in London, was then living in New York, where she frequented the punk scene .
“I remember this New York very well, very decrepit. Even in this stuffy hotel where the Dalís spent their winters, I wanted people to see a bit of this urban decay. I also wanted to echo the liberated mores of time: the very common bisexuality, experimentation, glam rock… And all this Downtown Manhattan fauna — the bohemians, the punks, the drag queens — who came to private parties of Uptown Manhattan. I wanted to reflect this diversity, this openness. »
Transition and disintegration
We mentioned it, in the background of the plot, the art world is changing. At the gallery of James’ boss, a salesman explains to a potential buyer who hesitates before the price of a silkscreen by Dalí (perhaps fake, we will learn later) that it is an investment : when the painter dies, which will not take long, he suggests, the value of the work will jump. He gives him the example of Picasso, recently deceased, and whose price of works exploded.
“During the 1970s, art became a product, a commodity. The action of the film takes place at the very moment when prices have started to skyrocket. Art has become not just something you hang on a wall, but something you store in a chest in Switzerland. With John, we wanted to identify, obliquely, that moment in history when art became an industry. »
In the film, this deleterious transition occurs in parallel with the disintegration of the Dalí couple. The film is not cynical for all that: Mary Harron does not condemn more than she extols. Daliland shows not a pair of fallen deities, but two beings steeped in contradictions and tragically codependent. Or the art of bringing the myth down to a human scale.
The wear of time and money