In 'Sisters,' Bello visits Chekhov country

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

When actress Maria Bello arrives in Boulder for Thursday's opening of the second Boulder International Film Festival, it's likely she'll be beaming. She's excited about having worked in The Sisters, the festival's opening-night film, and she's not nearly as upset as most critics about being overlooked for a best-actress Oscar nomination for her work in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence.

"Weirdly, I wasn't upset about the nomination," Bello said in a recent phone conversation. "I have a great belief in timing and the rightness of things. I just felt like, oh, it's not my time."

On the day Bello spoke with the News, she'd just finished work on Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, the real-life story of the two Port Authority cops who became the last survivors rescued from the rubble of the Twin Towers.

"Last night was my last night, and I gave a little speech to everyone," said Bello. "I said I was so honored to tell this story. I'm a small part of telling that story and of showing what that moment meant for so many people. I got home last night and e-mailed all the people who've been so important to me - from my mom to the directors I've worked with - and told them how lucky I am to be doing what I'm doing.

"It's a story of survival and hope. I feel like one of the main things to come out of that day was a sense of humanity and connectedness that I hadn't felt before. I met the families we're portraying. I got to be friends with the woman I'm playing. I found Oliver to be one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. He was perfect for telling that story."

By the sound of things, The Sisters couldn't be further from an Oliver Stone movie. Director Arthur Allan Seidelman and writer Richard Alfieri, who will attend the opening along with producer and University of Colorado grad Judd Payne, have made a movie inspired by Chekhov's classic play Three Sisters.

Chekhov's story has been updated and transferred to the campus of a Manhattan college, where the three Prior sisters attempt to cope with the death of their father.

"I've always loved Three Sisters," said Bello. "When I was doing theater in New York, I auditioned for the part of Masha a couple of times and never got the role. When I read Sisters, I immediately said, 'I have to do this.'

"I talked to Arthur and told him I wanted to read for him. I wanted to read the script out loud, even if I didn't get the part. I was completely taken by the language and emotion of it all."

Bello's aware that most contemporary filmmakers aren't all that concerned with verbal eloquence.

"I love the old Cassavetes films because they're cinematic, but the language is also rich," she said. "The old Katharine Hepburn movies had this kind of electric language we don't hear anymore. When you get a hold of a script with language that jumps off the page, you jump to do it."To make The Sisters, Seidelman had to keep a narrowly focused movie from feeling stage-bound.

"They made a point of finding a cinematic way of telling a story that mostly takes place in one room," said Bello. "The movie was choreographed like a dance. Each part of the room was used as its own intimate section for a couple of people at a time. . . . It's a different type of film. The language sparks the camera movement."

Bello has never visited Boulder, although she spent time in Denver a couple of years ago when John Sayles was filming Silver City. After Boulder, she's off to Japan to help promote A History of Violence. She's then scheduled to film a thriller called Butterfly on a Wheel.

"As far as thrillers go, it's one of the best-written I've ever read," she said. "I always like shifting into a new character."

Bello, who says she prefers reading to attending movies, does watch her own work.

"I don't find it difficult to watch myself, but I don't like to see a movie more than two or three times. If I do, I tend to start judging myself.

"I saw Sisters about six months ago (at a festival). I went with a friend. We were holding hands through the movie and we were crying. I wasn't thinking it was me up there on the screen. I was just following the story. If it's a good story, I'm very moved by the heart of the characters."