Tagline: How long would you wait for love?
Stone Village Pictures presents one of the greatest love stories ever told, based on the timeless masterpiece by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez… Love in the Time of Cholera.
Spanning a half-century in the complex, magical and sensual city of Cartageña, Colombia, the sweeping romantic epic tells the story of a man who waits over fifty years for his one true love.
Academy Award nominee Javier Bardem stars as Florentino Ariza, a poet and telegraph clerk who discovers his life’s passion when he sees Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) through the window of her father’s villa. Through a series of passionate letters, Florentino gradually awakens the young beauty’s heart, but her father (John Leguizamo) is furious when he learns of the affair, and vows to keep them apart forever.
As the years go by, Fermina marries the sophisticated aristocrat Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), who has brought order and medicine to Cartageña, stemming the waves of cholera that mysteriously besiege the city. He sweeps her away to Paris for years, and when they start their lives together back in Cartageña, she has all but forgotten her first love. But Florentino has not forgotten her. Now a wealthy ship-owner, Florentino engages in a series of affairs but still yearns for Fermina. His heart is patient, and he will wait a lifetime for the chance to be with her again.
The First-Ever Adaptation of a Timeless Epic
Director Mike Newell describes Love in the Time of Cholera, literary giant Gabriel García Márquez’s 1985 masterpiece spanning half a century of love, war and generations, as “a great big ocean liner of a story that tells truths about people from youth to old age. I can see my parents in it, myself when I was young, myself and my friends now.”
“The story is so unique and so original,” says producer Scott Steindorff. “It’s one of the greatest love stories ever told. The way García Márquez writes, and the time periods of the book, I felt it was an incredible epic love story that had to be brought to the screen.”
Considered to be one of the great novels of the 20th century, Love in the Time of Cholera was originally published in 1985 in Colombia by Editorial Oveja Negra Ltda. and sent shockwaves throughout the literary world when it was published around the world three years later. García Márquez’s singular novel soon gained a worldwide following and picked up numerous awards (the author won the coveted Nobel Prize in 1982 for his body of work, including his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude). Not a traditional love story, the novel explores the experience of a collection of complicated characters whose lives intertwine in an unnamed city over a half-century of intense change – the period between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Producer Steindorff’s journey with the project began several years ago when executive producer Dylan Russell gave him the novel. “He demanded that I read the book, even though the rights were not available,” Steindorff recalls. “So, I read it, and I couldn’t put it down.”
From that moment, he steadfastly pursued the rights through his company, Stone Village Productions, which he founded in 2000. “We persisted,” Steindorff explains. “Like the character Florentino, I just wouldn’t take no for an answer. We spent about a year getting rejected with no hope of getting the movie rights, and then one day, we got the word: `Maybe.’ It took us about another year to convince the author that we would be true to the book, and we would make a great film without compromising any of the elements of the book.”
Though García Márquez was initially reluctant to give over his novel to an English-language movie adaptation, the producer convinced him with his sheer passion and will, eventually winning the author’s blessing. Steindorff then enlisted Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) to adapt the epoch-sprawling, richly detailed novel. “The story is not just a love story; it’s about life,” says Steindorff. “Ronald Harwood really had a deep understanding of the subtext of this book about life and love, and the meaning of love. He wrote a brilliant adaptation of this great novel.”
“You have this very famous literary work and author, you have to have someone comparable to do the adaptation,” says executive producer Dylan Russell. “From Ron’s work, we knew he was someone who understood the sense of time in an epic story, and would also be able to tell it in a nonlinear way. He is an amazing playwright and Oscar winner, and while he was excited about the adaptation, he knew it would be a challenge.”
“When I first read the book, I was not sure it could be made into a film,” says Harwood. “So much of the characters’ journeys are internal, and it takes place over so many years and in such unconventional ways, but we were all excited about the prospect of doing it.”
As the adaptation began to take shape, Harwood and Steindorff consulted with the author to ensure the film would reflect the spirit that lives in the book. “Of the first draft of the script, García Márquez said, `The problem is that you and the writer have done too true of an adaptation – you need to depart from the book,’” Steindorff remembers. “He has a great sense of humor, so we laughed and laughed.”
Steindorff found an ideal filmmaking partner in director Mike Newell, fresh off his journey into the world of Hogwarts with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Newell’s films, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, traversed unconventional romantic journeys. Like the producer, Newell held a deep affinity for the book and expressed a passionate vision for the film. “Mike Newell understood these characters,” says Steindorff. “He understood the nuances of these people’s lives, from the broad arc of the world García Márquez created to the intimate, personal journeys of the characters.”
“I wanted to make a film that expressed the richness of the book, which is an exploration of love in all its complications, nuances and power,” says Newell. “The love triangle at the core of the story anchors a vast and deep exploration of love in all its forms – not only through the eyes of the central characters, but in the hearts of mothers, fathers and friends.”
Florentino Ariza’s 50-year quest to be close to the love of his life is a South American story, but one that also expresses the universal human experience of the vagaries of love, all told through García Márquez’s unique voice and spirit. “You always look back at old boyfriends, old girlfriends, and you wonder what life would’ve been like if you had gone that way,” says Newell. “And this is somebody who’s taken those wonderings and actually made a plot out of them, which is extraordinary. So you find yourself sucked in by your own life.”
“The curious fidelity of Florentino to Fermina, that 50-year fidelity, is kind of an ideal,” says screenwriter Harwood. “Regret is not part of his vocabulary because he lives in hope. And it is a hope ultimately fulfilled.”
Bringing the Characters to Life
The film opens in the late 19th century in the lush, booming post-Colonial port city of Cartageña, Colombia, a time and place with very distinct borders between the ruling and underclasses. In this period of intense strife and possibility, Florentino Ariza first crosses paths with Fermina Daza when he delivers a telegraph to her father. This momentary glance fuels an emotionally charged journey for the three central characters that come of age during the time of the industrial revolution, fleeting but destructive wars and waves of cholera epidemics that – like love itself, are survived by some while consuming others.
Though the character of Florentino is Colombian, the filmmakers found the perfect actor to embody him in Spain: Oscar nominee Javier Bardem (though Florentino is played as a teenager by Colombian actor Unax Ugalde). “There is a huge responsibility when you do a movie based on this beautiful novel – so complex, so magical, and also so full of tiny details that make the difference between a good novel and a masterpiece,” says Bardem, who has delivered universally lauded performances in such films as Before Night Falls and The Sea Inside. “It’s one of those rare books that stays with you your whole life because it is a masterpiece. It is read all over the world in different countries and languages, so everybody has their own Florentino and their own Juvenal and Fermina, and their own novel in their heads.”
Bardem, who first read the novel as a teenager, leapt at the opportunity to be a part of the film. “When I knew there was a script based on the novel making the rounds, I was very interested,” Bardem recalls. “And, thankfully, Mike Newell contacted me. It was one of those experiences of love at first sight when you feel that you want to work with a person because it’s going to be a great experience.”
When he learned he got the role, Bardem celebrated in Barcelona, but soon began the daunting task of finding his way into the character of Florentino Ariza. “The responsibility and challenge is huge because you have to play from 24 until 74 years old. And a movie like this is so complex and so full of detail; you really have to give everything. You cannot hold anything back for yourself.”
Raised without a father by his mother, Transito Ariza, played by Brazilian stage star Fernanda Montenegro, Florentino has no real prospects or ambition, but he is driven by an intensely passionate poet’s heart. Unfocussed and dreamy, he attempts to make contact with Fermina Daza through a series of passionate letters. By the time she becomes caught up in the romance, Florentino has already committed his heart’s purest fidelity to her.
A lengthy search for an actor to embody the layered, fiery and often circumspect character of Fermina Daza from adolescence to old age led the filmmakers to young Italian star Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who has garnered acclaim and numerous acting awards for her performances in European films such as Don’t Tell and Facing Windows.
“Her beauty is breathtaking, but beneath the youthful skin is a wise and committed actress,” says Newell. “This role would be a huge challenge for anyone, but Giovanna handled the pressure with grace and tremendous focus and creativity. It was extraordinary to watch her grow with Fermina.”
In order to tackle such a consuming role, the actress felt the need to start from scratch and re-learn everything she knew about acting. “Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt and I, along with Mike Newell, our director, became very close throughout this journey,” explains Mezzogiorno. “We helped each other and supported each other. They are so fantastic at what they do and were so kind to me. If I did the role justice it’s because they were here. I hope to be in harmony with what they did, which was amazing.”
Fermina’s father brings her to Cartageña with the express ambition of marrying her into one of the grand families of the region – not letting her be swept off her feet by a penniless clerk. Colombian-born actor John Leguizamo plays Lorenzo Daza, a mule trader with connections into Colombia’s underworld.
“He is a father from poor beginnings, a mule trader, and he makes himself crazy over his desire for his daughter to marry well,” says Leguizamo. “He’s taking care of the jewel of his life, which is his daughter. She’s the only thing he’s got left, so there is a protectiveness and jealousy. And when he sees that she is flirting with the wrong guy – the poet who is going to be broke – that’s just not a part of his plan. He wants his daughter to marry the richest, most famous and upstanding socialite in town, and that’s the kind of guy he is.”
To ensure Fermina stays far away from Florentino, Lorenzo takes her on an arduous mule ride to live with relatives deep in the Colombian countryside – but Fermina and Florentino find a way to continue their affair through secret telegraphs. But the promise of a life together dies when Fermina returns to Cartageña fully a woman, and discovers that the dream of their love is very different from the reality.
But Florentino will never let go. “Florentino Ariza waits almost his whole life to get close to the woman he’s in love with,” says Bardem. “He represents the ultimate love, the ultimate need of sharing love with somebody in a very peculiar, deep and pure way. Through the journey of a whole life trying to find this person, he has a lot of different experiences. Some are fun, some are sad, some are difficult, some are easy, but at the end, he can never forget this person. His struggle is with his own faith that some day, maybe, he will have a chance to get close to her.”
“The characters of Gabriel García Márquez are very intense, very interesting and epic,” comments Mezzogiorno. “They do things in life that a lot of people would not do in ten lives, so the intensity of those characters is a big challenge for an actor.”
Instead of the heartsick poet, Fermina agrees to marry one of the city’s most prominent figures, a European-educated doctor who has poured his experience and refinement into the betterment of the city – Dr. Juvenal Urbino. “Consciously or not, Fermina has denied her own heart while fulfilling everything her father wanted of her,” says Newell. “Her heart is one of the most inscrutable in the story. She is fiercely independent, denying everything anyone attempts to thrust upon her, but somehow her own decisiveness and strong will subvert her desire for happiness.”
Benjamin Bratt stars as Juvenal, who becomes the third point in the story’s central love triangle. “I think there is a very universal human tendency to equate love with happiness,” says Bratt. “But what you find in the film, as in life, is that they are seldom synonymous. And yet we still pursue it because we think it’s going to give us a sense of peace. Love can be frustration. It can be joy. It can be comfort. It can be unrequited, in Florentino’s case. It can be agony and despair. But always in pursuit of it there is a sense of optimism, a hope that it will come to you, and almost every character in the film is in pursuit of it in one form or another.”
Brazilian stage star Fernanda Montenegro plays Florentino’s mother, Transito Ariza, who longs for her son’s happiness and uses every resource at her disposal to help him forget his lost love. “She is a wonderful mother, a Latin mother with a kind of love so great and wonderful, and a vision that a son is like a god,” says Montenegro. “When I read this book many years ago, I never thought one day I would be in Cartageña and a part of this great production directed by this wonderful director. Sometimes life is a miracle.”
Also helping him to forget is Lotario Thurgot, Florentino’s German employer, played by acclaimed actor Liev Schreiber. Thurgot introduces him to the city’s more hedonistic quarters. “He runs the telegraph office where Florentino works and he really enjoys women,” says Schreiber. “Lotario really shows him that there are other ways to find happiness than love.”
Over the course of his life, as he rises in society, Florentino bides his time with physical affairs while maintaining his heart’s fidelity for Fermina. He works to build up his position, first as a clerk and later taking over for his Uncle Leo’s (Hector Elizondo) powerful Caribbean River Company business, which holds sway over the entire Magdalena River. Every move he makes is dedicated to the undying hope that they will eventually be together, though his love remains unrequited for 51 years, 9 months and 4 days – but burns no less furiously than on that far-flung afternoon when they were little more than children.
Javier Bardem relished giving life to his character’s grand romantic spirit, anchored by a spiritual and emotional purity that allows him to remain pure in anticipation of reuniting with Fermina – despite over 600 purely sexual encounters. The strangeness and beauty of the character as the author envisioned is what Bardem hopes most informs his performance. “At the end of the day, it’s him – García Márquez – who knows more than anybody else what my character, Florentino, really is,” muses Bardem. “If, in some moments, I capture the essence of the character as he envisioned him, I will be grateful.”
Rounding out the international cast are Colombian-born Catalina Sandino Moreno (an Academy Award® nominee for her role in Maria Full of Grace) as Hildebranda Sanchez, Fermina Daza’s cousin, and Laura Harring (Mulholland Dr.) as Sara Noriega, who embarks on a brief but memorable affair with Florentino.
Embodying characters from the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th, the actors would need more preparation than simply rehearsals. The filmmakers enlisted dialogue coach Julie Adams to refine the various accents at play into English in the style of Costeño, the Caribbean-inflected Spanish spoken along Colombia’s northern region. “Everybody brought a different flavor,” says John Leguizamo. “Everybody’s from different parts of the world, so we tried to find some unity in accents and behavior, things that would make you believe that the characters all belong in this time.”
They also brought in movement coaches to help the actors become accustomed to the comportment of the times. The actors participated in a three-week conservatory concurrent with rehearsals to complete their training. “For me, working with Mike, Javier, Ben, the movement and dialogue coaches, was a real journey,” comments Giovanna Mezzogiorno. “The conservatory helped tremendously in building her character.”
Director Mike Newell became a constant resource for the actors throughout the preparation period and production. Bringing the whole of his experience in film, Newell helped guide them toward a unity of vision between the book and film, and bring a sense of beauty and realism to romantic epic. “Mike is very demanding in the sense of trying to get the best quality that an actor can have and can give,” says Bardem. “It’s a pleasure in terms of knowing that you are observed by someone with important and interesting ideas. But at the same time, you have to put your ego away and surrender to the fact that if you want to play these characters, you have to go deeply into yourself, and sometimes they are not easy to play. But Mike really takes care of the actors in a way that makes you feel you can jump into the pool and it’s never going to be empty. There will always be some warm water there waiting for you – which is the deep care he takes for a good performance. It’s a beautiful place to stay as an actor because you have to grow in every take.”
“I wanted to be a part of this film because everyone involved wanted to achieve real poetry on film in terms of storytelling and acting,” adds Leguizamo. “It’s not your typical period piece where everybody speaks rather politely and everything is precious. This story is so rich, has so much vitality and life. We tried to make it sloppier and crazier – how life really is.”
“Mike shot the movie in a very raw, very realistic and intense way,” says Mezzogiorno. “It’s pure beauty and romanticism. It was so unexpected and unconventional. I think it’s very near the spirit of García Márquez.”
Production Begins in Cartageña
Though the “hero city” is not named in García Márquez’s novel, everything about the lush post-Colonial city of Cartageña called out to the filmmakers, and a call from Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos opened the door to the idea of shooting at some of the actual locations García Márquez describes in the book. “It’s a magical city,” says executive producer Dylan Russell. “We thought about shooting in other cities, but ultimately realized that Cartageña was the only place that suits the story because everything described in the novel originated here.”
Though he now lives in Mexico, the author spent his youth in the region, writing his first short stories while working as a newspaper columnist and reporter in Cartageña and the neighboring port town of Barranquilla. Love in the Time of Cholera clearly draws inspiration from the city’s languorous plazas, massive, ornate churches and grand, crumbling estates. Producer Scott Steindorff comments, “Mike Newell and I felt it was important to film where the story takes place. And the country of Colombia and city of Cartageña opened their doors to us and gave us the keys to the city. It was fantastic to shoot there.”
“There is a certain creative integrity that could not be overlooked to shooting this movie in the place where García Márquez set the book,” says executive producer Scott LaStaiti. “The cathedral he wrote about for the wedding, funeral and masses really existed.”
Newell, Steindorff and the cast and crew of Love in the Time of Cholera relocated to the Caribbean port for a few months of intense heat and monsoon weather to recreate the region made world famous in the novel. Production designer Wolf Kroeger oversaw the transformation of the city’s numerous plazas and structures, aging them in reverse to what they must have looked like in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The filmmakers received an immeasurable boost by enlisting veteran casting director Felipe Aljure, who had worked with the film’s casting director Susie Figgis on The Mission. Aljure was able to cast 84 out of the film’s 96 actors locally in Colombia. Aljure’s production experience and familiarity with the locale also gave the filmmakers the confidence to make him second unit director of the film.
“Felipe is probably one of the most well connected people in film in Colombia,” says LaStaiti. “He did a fantastic job with casting and directed our B units. He went over and above in so many circumstances, getting us help where we needed it via his political connections and filmmaking resources. He was a real life saver.”
Filming took place in 83 locations in and around the city, from houses and castles to rivers and mountains. Some came to them perfectly situated and dressed while others needed to be aged or polished. A commercial tugboat was transformed into a 19th century paddle steamer. Telephone poles were dressed to become palm trees.
“This was like hacking civilization out of a forest,” says Newell. “You work harder. There are no cushions. You do everything yourself. But the rewards are much greater when you put this much heart and soul into a project, and everyone in this production has given nothing less.”
For the director, shooting in the actual locations described in the book was exhilarating. “There’s something about shooting here in Cartageña, in this environment,” says Newell. “It’s a place of sensuality. The air is lush and fragrant, and the atmosphere very earthy. It’s warm. It’s very human. There is a sense of life, love and passion here that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world. Love in the Time of Cholera is a very universal story, but it’s also a Columbian story.”
Though no films had been shot in Colombia since The Mission in 1986, the country has a rich history of production led by such directors as Werner Herzog, Francesco Rosi and Roland Joffe. Production got creative to meet the requirements of a major motion picture cast and crew – using shipping containers for trailers, processing of dailies at Miami post production facilities, utilizing editing facilities in London, and employing over 650 Cartageñians in various production roles.
“We really had to reinvent the wheel with a lot of things, right down to the way we did our catering and makeup trailers, which we made out of sea containers,” says executive producer LaStaiti. “But the way Colombia and Cartageña responded to us was breathtaking. We put tremendous pressure and challenges on them. We closed down their streets, blocked traffic, made noise, yet the people continued to be warm and receptive to us.”
Like the cast, the production team was drawn from all corners of the world – including a director and design team from Great Britain, a camera team from Brazil under cinematographer Alfonso Beato, and key players from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In fact, over fifty percent of the crew was Colombian. “We got quite a few trained technicians out of Bogota who were very skilled and experienced, but on top of that we had a lot of local people who really had no film experience but stepped up to the challenge and did a great job for us,” says LaStaiti.
“The local crew worked hard for their love of the story and desire to be part of it,” says Newell. “The look and feel of this film are a testament to their love and hard work. They have expressed that they hope the film will be emblematic of their city and country.”
“Costume, makeup, lights, everybody did an amazing job,” comments Giovanna Mezzogiorno. “It was a really interesting experience because the Colombian, Brazilian and Mexican crews were amazing. They worked day after day without complaining, being always very respectful of our work. We could work so hard and concentrated because we had such an amazing crew.”
“We were very blessed with a fantastic crew of Colombians and people from Central and South America,” says producer Scott Steindorff. “We had people from the UK and people from America. We had an international cast, an international crew, and the lush, evocative locations of Cartageña. I want to thank the people of Colombia and Cartageña for opening their doors to us.”
Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the most famous Colombian novels and is infused with the spirit of the land. “If we have captured that, I’m hoping that the world will get an inside look at this incredible place and this warm culture which we all fell in love with,” concludes Mike Newell.
Production notes provided by New Line Cinema.
Love in the Time of Cholera
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Laura Harring, Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Angie Cepeda, Ana Claudia Talancon, Rubria Negrao
Directed by: Mike Newell
Screenplay by: Ronald Harwood
Release Date: November 16, 2007
MPAA Rating: R for sex content / nudity and brief language.
Studio: New Line Cinema
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $4,607,608 (14.8%)
Foreign: $26,459,810 (85.2%)
Total: $31,067,418 (Worldwide)