Renaissance man David Byrne (Talking Heads, an illustrious varied solo career) has been tapped to score “This Must Be the Place,” the English-language debut of Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino who made a splash at Cannes 2008 with the Italian politico drama, “Il Divo.” The film presumably takes its name after the Heads’ song, “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody),” which is odd considering we’d never think of that track in the context of what this film is about.
As previously reported Penn is going to be taking the lead as a middle-aged wealthy rock star bored in his retirement, who takes on the quest of finding his father’s executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the U.S.
Aside from “Fair Game,” which was shot a long time ago, this is one of the first projects Penn has taken since he announced a hiatus last year (he flirted with the nemesis role in “Water For Elephants,” but eventually dropped out). The film also stars Frances McDormand (as Penn’s wife), and Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo, who starred “Il Divo” (which won the Prix du Jury at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival) and “The Consequences of Love,” is on board as well, presumably as the Nazi Penn’s out to kill.
According to Variety, the film has a $28 million dollar budget (high for a European production, and Italian bank Intesa San Paolo are taking an equity stake picture its so anticipated in Italy.
Byrne has done all kinds of score work in his career (most recently a lot of work on HBO’s “Big Love,” the 2003 David Mackenzie film, “Young Adam” is particularly good), but our favorite is perhaps not a score at all, but Oliver Stone’s use of his 1981 Brian Eno-collaborative album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, prominently featured in “Wall Street” (an inspired off-the-beat choice for sure).
Sorrento described the film, “On the one hand, it’s about a father-and-son relationship. On the other, it delves into the theme of the Holocaust, which is a lot riskier, but also something I’ve been thinking about a lot.”
The film is set to shoot in Dublin, Ireland and the U.S. for 10 weeks starting in August.