Tornatore gives actors movie offers they can’t refuse

Director Giuseppe Tornatore and actors Geoffrey Rush and Jim Sturgess talk about their new Hitchcockian-syle mystery The Best Offer.

Geoffrey Rush, left, and Jim Sturgess in The Best Offer. Courtesy Warner Bros

Until eight years ago, Giuseppe Tornatore had never been to an auction. But then the Italian director, best known for the 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso, mysteriously received a catalogue at his Rome office. “A catalogue I’d never asked for,” he exclaims. “And the language was so strong, so beautiful, so nice. Even if they were describing a normal table, it was like it was the most important table in the history of humanity.”

Immediately, Tornatore was drawn to this unique and rarefied world. “I was attracted by the allegoric power of the character of the auctioneer,” he says. “He’s the man who decides the value of the thing, of the table, of the painting, of the house. And sometimes, he decides the destination of the thing. They can influence the evolution of the auction.”

It became the starting point for his new film The Best Offer, an elegantly carved Hitchcockian-style mystery starring Geoffrey Rush as Virgil Oldman, a wealthy auctioneer who becomes obsessed with a reclusive female collector named Claire (Sylvia Hoeks). Hiring Virgil to assess the value of her late parents’ estate, the twist comes as she literally refuses to be seen, talking to Virgil through the cavernous walls of her home – much to his fascination and annoyance.

For Rush, the Australian who won an Oscar for 1996’s Shine, it offered a rare opportunity. “More often than not, you’re the best friend or the sidekick or the eccentric guy up the back, so to have a guy like this who’s the main protagonist, I found really exciting. I think I was in nearly every scene. There’s one scene where they’re talking before the auction and that was the only time they weren’t saying: ‘Mr Rush to the set please.’”

To play Virgil, Rush studied real-life auctioneers closely – several of whom were filmed by Tornatore, who took his video camera into New York auction houses. “They were all quite different personalities,” says Rush. “But it’s no-nonsense – their aim is to make a sale every minute. So it’s a real operatic performance.”

While Rush studied those gavel-wielding salesman, his co-star Jim Sturgess had his own research to do. The British actor, best known for Across the Universe and One Day, plays Robert, an engineer-friend to Virgil, who helps him get closer to Claire. “Every morning, Giuseppe would throw me a new challenge. I’d just about learnt the lines and he was like: ‘Now you’re going to fix a typewriter in this scene!’ Everything I had to do had to look authentic.”

It’s this that remains the main theme of the film. “This is the story of a man who is able to distinguish the fake and authentic in his profession, but not in his life,” says Tornatore, who clearly knows the real deal when it comes to music. Once again, he works with Ennio Morricone, the composer behind scores for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso. “I never asked which musician is right for my movie,” he says. “It’s Ennio, always Ennio.” Sold, as Virgil might say.

The Best Offer is out tomorrow in UAE cinemas