On Movies: 'Bone-chilling,' star says of 'The Eclipse'

If

The Eclipse

offers a quiet character study - and it does - the small Irish film, directed by playwright

Conor McPherson

, is also a jolt-you-out-of-your-seat horror tale. Ghosts materialize to scare the bejesus out of

Ciarán Hinds

- or, more accurately, to scare Michael Farr, the grieving widower with two children that Hinds plays.

"There's bone-chilling business here, indeed," says Hinds, who traveled to Philadelphia last month in the company of McPherson. In one scene in The Eclipse, Hinds' character seems to be pulled into the depths of the earth - from an armoire in his bedroom.

"The visitations are very intense," says Hinds, a master of understatement.

"I wanted it to be more than a gentle character study," notes McPherson, a Tony-nominated writer whose theater pieces include Shining City and The Seafarer. "I wanted it to be genuinely frightening at moments. . . . I like classic horror films like The Exorcist and The Shining - movies that are not just slasher movies, but have genuine psychological grounding to them."

The Eclipse, which Hinds and McPherson shot in the picturesque Irish port town of Cobh, also stars Iben Hjejle, Aidan Quinn, two kids, and a border collie (all exceedingly good). The film opened Friday at the Ritz at the Bourse.

Hinds, a big presence with a sonorous voice, is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Julius Caesar in HBO's mini-series Rome. His film work includes projects large and small, supporting roles and a few star turns. He was Nicole Kidman's lover in Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding, and Tom Hanks' gangland nemesis in The Road to Perdition. Hinds has worked with Steven Spielberg (Munich), Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), and Kimberly Peirce (Stop-Loss). In July, he will be seen as Aberforth Dumbledore, brother to Albus, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

And he's currently at work on John Carter of Mars - the much-anticipated adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy from Andrew Stanton (WALL-E, Finding Nemo), slated for 2012. "Yeah, I'm one of the chaps on Mars," Hinds says.

After 30 years in front of the camera - Hinds is 57 - John Carter of Mars marks his very first experience working with green screen, the visual-effects process by which monsters, aliens, and exotic creatures are digitally rendered and added seamlessly (if it's done right) into the action carried on by human performers.

"I'm sure they had green screen for Harry Potter, but not for the work that I had to do," he says. "In John Carter, we're waiting to come across the nine-foot-tall green Tharks with tusks and four arms, and there'd be people wandering around [the set] with cameras attached to their heads to get the Tharks' POVs. The complications of trying to shoot all that - computer generation and live action - it goes into a world that's far removed from me."

Aside from the technical issues, though, Hinds says John Carter is all a bit like Spartacus. "The language is very simple, clear. We are human beings playing people who rule Mars. We're not animals. It's very militaristic, is what it is. It's a bit like the Roman Empire, only on another planet."

Strange days. Fans of Jim Morrison and the Doors have Chris Noth (yes, Sex and the City's Big) and that ubiquitous NBC franchise Law & Order to thank for the presence of When You're Strange in theaters.

Tom DiCillo, the veteran indie filmmaker of Living in Oblivion and Johnny Suede fame, landed the assignment to make the Doors doc because Law & Order über-producer Dick Wolf - who had the rights to the project - was looking for a director. And DiCillo, a friend of Law & Order's original star, Noth, had worked on several episodes of the series. And, needless to say, DiCillo was a fan of the 1960s rock band.

When You're Strange chronicles the rise and demise of Morrison & Co., incorporating scenes from a film that the Doors' charismatic lead singer shot and starred in. Strange opened this weekend at the PUFF Movie House in Northern Liberties and the Showcase at the Ritz Center/NJ. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

"When I went to Sundance with the film, one of the first things that a journalist said to me - very sarcastically and condescendingly - was 'So I guess you're going TV now,' " DiCillo recalled, by phone from Los Angeles recently. "I just said, 'Well, no, I'm not. I have done some TV. But let me ask you something, pal: What do you think I'm living off of?

"If you value me as an independent filmmaker who has tried to maintain my integrity, then you'd understand that there's about five years in between my films, OK? That's not enough to live on.'

"And here is a prime example of why you can't judge or demean anything, because this film came out of that [TV experience]. You know, one of my most personal and intimate films came out of a contact with Law & Order!"

For DiCillo, the chance to tell the story of Morrison and his bandmates, and to have a wealth of archival film, TV clips, recordings, and photographs at his disposal, represented a welcome challenge. The footage, he says, "puts you in that moment, in that time, and yet it's not all gooey with nostalgia. It's so pure. It's as if you just took one step and found yourself there, 40 years ago."

The songs - "Light My Fire," "People Are Strange," "Riders on the Storm," "L.A. Woman" - aren't half-bad either. "A lot of music from that time period, to me, sounds like kindergarten music," he says. "The Doors' music, for the most part, sounds like it was written yesterday."

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