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Director's Statement
THE FATHER first existed as a play. I wrote it for Robert Hirsch in 2012. He incarnated it on stage for over three years in a masterful manner. I was by his side during that entire time, and I am now able to say that I know this story from the inside, and that I ignore nothing of the paths it takes nor the emotions that it conjures up. From then on, it was performed in over 35 different countries, and I have been lucky enough to follow most of these productions. What really hit me, no matter in which country, was the audience’s formidable response to the play. The story addresses a distressing subject, yet one that concerns us all. We have all detected in a grandparent, a parent, or someone equally as dear to us, the first worrisome signs of loss of reason. And who doesn’t then question him or herself, heavy-hearted, on the passing of time and what it will personally yield?
But I also think that the audience’s response was so strong because the play used an original narrative strategy: the audience found itself in the protagonist’s mind, but it only discovered that gradually.
And so, in the movie, the audience is invited to witness, first-hand the experience of dementia. And I would like the movie to preserve this immediacy for the audience. Additionally, since it is dear to me that both movie and the script are expansive, I asked Christopher Hampton to adapt it for the screen.