Friday 10 July 2009

Durham County - Confusion and Pain

Michelle Forbes in a recent interview about Durham County:
"This is a woman who is not only living in intense fear all the time but she is constantly recycling her failures like a mantra in her head," said Forbes, describing Pen as a "dream" role that's affected her deeply.

"When she goes into her manic episodes and into her delusional episodes, it was challenging in a beautiful way, because that's what you're looking for as an actor - to go as deep as possible and to plumb the depths of the thing that a lot of times we want to avoid as human beings."

Season two focuses on women and "how rage and confusion and pain and trauma manifests in us, which is usually through self-harm, initially."

On the creative team Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik, Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell:

"I've never seen a full-on female creative team like this," Forbes said. "It's still a very male-driven industry and that was really wonderful working with these women - these very interesting, thoughtful, passionate, dark, eccentric women on 'Durham County.' "


I've seen the first episode. Breathtaking. You witness an intense inner turmoil, the gradual disintegration of a human soul. It's got a quality that I've only seen on the best British Crime dramas, like Prime Suspect, Messiah or Touching Evil.

Durham County is the very antithesis of True Blood in how the portrayal of violence is handled. Sinister, gritty, disturbing, truthful and appallingly real. Here, violence is not fun and doesn't entertain, and it certainly doesn't 'hurt so good'. Adrienne Mitchell in an interview about the first season of DC:
“Wir konzipierten ‘Durham County – Im Rausch der Gewalt’ bewusst als Gegenentwurf zu Formaten, in denen Gewalt als Selbstzweck vorkommt, in denen sie unsensibel eingesetzt wird, als wäre sie etwas ganz Alltägliches. Unsere Serie erlaubt es den Zuschauern nicht, die dargestellte Gewalt als harmlos abzutun oder sie als Unterhaltung wahrzunehmen. Dazu sind die Protagonisten zu komplex und dienen als Identifikationsfiguren, mit denen man mitfiebern kann, deren Lebensalltag nachvollziehbar ist.”

(DC was an intentional counter-draft to formats where violence is presented as an end in itself , insensitively and as if it was an average everyday occurrence. DC doesn't allow the viewer to perceive violence as harmless or entertaining.)
The six-part second season of Durham County debuts Monday, July 13 on The Movie Network and Movie Central.