Defying the usual conventions of film, Rage is the new cinematic creation from ground-breaking writer/director Sally Potter. Using a radical narrative structure focusing entirely on individual performances, Rage builds a tragicomic portrait of people persuaded to reveal their secrets in the midst of a crisis. The film consists entirely of a dynamic series of interviews, as if shot by a schoolboy on his mobile phone. He goes behind-the-scenes at a New York fashion show during seven days in which an accident on the catwalk turns into a murder investigation.
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Fourteen actors, both celebrated stars and exciting emerging talents, play characters who each have a role in the show, from the designer (Simon Abkarian) and his models (Lily Cole and Jude Law), the fashion critic (Judi Dench) and photographer (Steve Buscemi), through the seamstress (Adriana Barraza) to the fashion house financier (Eddie Izzard) and his bodyguard (John Leguizamo). As they start to confide in Michelangelo, the unseen schoolboy with his phone camera, their personal truths begin to surface and the reality of events taking place off screen at the show start to unravel.
Writer/director Sally Potter spent two days with each actor, shooting the character’s interviews against a blue screen, with just herself behind the camera and a sound recordist. Returning to this type of pure performance and intimate style of filmmaking was a liberating and challenging experience for both the cast and director.
