In some very interesting news confirmed today by EW, Anthony Hopkins is set to play Ernest Hemingway in an Andy Garcia directed independent film titled Hemingway and Fuentes. Fuentes was not a love interest, like some may just assume from the title, but Gregorio Fuentes, the Cuban captain of a fishing-boat that Hemingway befriended during the last decade of his life (and many say, he was the inspiration for the character of Santiago in Hemingway’s Pulitzer-winning story The Old Man and the Sea).
Garcia will also step in front of the camera, taking on the role of Fuentes, and he actually very interestingly shared the writing credit with Hemingway’s niece, author Hilary Hemingway. According to Garcia’s agent, this has been a “labor of love” for Garcia and he has “been talking about it with me for 15 or 20 years.”
I’ve always been an avid reader of Hemingway, having read five of his novels and many more of his short stories, always enjoying his brilliantly simple and concise prose and his flawed yet realistic heroes. He’s easily one of my favorite writers and influences and I recommend him at every opportunity (so, here I am, recommending: go!). It will be somewhat of a shame that the film will only focus on his later years though, when he battled with some major, major demons including alcoholism and depression. He had quite an interesting life and I’d have really loved to see his years during the war as an ambulance driver in Italy and his interactions with F. Scott Fitzgerald – you looking for a Hemingway and Fitzgerald prequel, Andy? I could totally pull off a young Fitz.
Back when THR announced Hopkins was in talks, Garcia had said this will not function as a biopic, but rather a historical drama, “centering on the final, troubled chapter in Hemingway’s dramatic life” explore his psyche and “the dynamic with Fuentes and the relationship both had with fishing.”
“I’m a Hemingway nut and also an avid fisherman, and the reality of the relationship between Hemingway and his captain is compelling to me,” Garcia said. “The beauty of the movie is it straddles the fence, with one leg in the emotional reality of what people are going through and the other in the humor of the situations.”
Well, I’m on board. This sounds almost as awesome as a Robert Downey Jr.-starring Poe film or one starring me as another literary god of mine, Fitzgerald. This could mean some proper modern treatments of Hemingway’s best novels, particularly his WWI novels. Oh, how bittersweet the thought of that is.
If you want to watch it onl1ne for free,...
Comment by ralph — March 26, 2009
Comment by Kurt — March 26, 2009
“Andy Garcia has landed Anthony Hopkins and Annette Bening to star with him in “Hemingway and Fuentes,” which Garcia will direct from a script he wrote with Hilary Hemingway, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway.
The drama chronicles the two decades that Hemingway spent in Cuba fishing with his best friend, Gregorio Fuentes. There, the author fell in love with a beautiful Italian girl who inspired him to write “The Old Man and the Sea.” Garcia will play Fuentes, and Bening will play the author’s third wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway.
For Garcia, the project has been gathering momentum since the 1970s, when his passion for offshore fishing brought him in contact with some of the grizzled anglers who bent a rod alongside Ernest Hemingway in Cuba in the 1940s and ’50s, chasing giant marlin.
“I was specifically most interested in Hemingway’s connection to Cuba, where he spent the last 20 years of his life, and his relationship with his last captain, Gregorio,” Garcia said. “As an avid fisherman, I got to know older Cuban fisherman who knew Gregorio from the fishing culture of the 40s and 50s, and who would compete in tournaments outside the city of Havana, which was really the beginning of competitive fishing.”
Garcia has been hoping for months to land Hopkins, who recently committed to do the film after he completes “Thor.” Now Garcia feels he has the bait to hook the financing to make the picture next summer, mostly in the Caribbean rim, and a location to replicate Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway moved and committed suicide shortly thereafter.
“Anthony is one of the greatest actors, and I’d heard he’d been interested in playing the character in the past,” Garcia said. “I’m blessed that he responded. The marketplace is ever changing in the film world, so you’re trolling many baits, waiting to see where the strikes are. Officially, we are going out with the movie and starting conversations with all foreign distributors. I’ve done about six movies that way, and sold domestic later. When I worked with Francis Coppola on `The Godfather 3,’ he said the way you make a movie is, you begin. We’ve begun.””
I’m still hoping for the Hemingway and Fitzegarld prequel co-starring me.
Comment by Jonathan B. — November 5, 2009
Comment by Andy — November 6, 2009