Meet John Madden and his Mincemeat

Spying through the keyhole. Definition that comes to mind when seeing Weapon of Deception – Operation Minced MeatTalk to an expert director John Madden. His most famous movie is definitely still Shakespeare in lovewith his astonishing 13 Oscar nominations and his latest ‘Epic’. Marigold Hotel. This time he ventured into one spy storya big screen story of a crucial stage of disinformation during World War II.

Hoping to change the course of World War II in 1943 and save tens of thousands of lives, two intelligence officers Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) And the Charles Cholmondele (Matthew McFadden) are studying a plan to persuade the Germans to land in Greece, and not in Sicily as already planned. They all use most likely secret agents: a dead man.

“We never imagined that he would come out in this period of war in Ukraine,” he immediately put his hands up maddenMeeting of the Italian press on the occasion of the screening of the film in Bari Film Festival. “With Colin Firth, we are literally friends and neighbors. After several attempts to get back together after a long time, Shakespeare in love. This story was true. He is a brilliant character, the King’s advisor who is actually an intelligence agent, determined to leave the courtrooms behind to engage directly in the war, and not being able to go to the front. Complex and interesting story And Colin is an actor who always puts himself at the service of the material, if he trusts the director. It was a very interesting movieWith Matthew Macfayden They worked in harmony to build the relationship between two characters together.”

deception weapon Filmed during the pandemic, including in Spain, and edited remotely, due to restrictions. “I love telling stories that you don’t know where they are taking, and they surprise you because they are full of surprises. It’s a great tool, surprises, if used well, and unlike life, it’s a lot of fun to live in the cinema. But it was done two years ago, in a completely different context than the current one. The last thing I wanted to do was promote it in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, which paralyzes us all and makes it difficult to talk about a movie during another war.. It was extraordinary to be able to tell the dynamics of what I define as hidden warfare, when they smoked in the dark rooms of London and decided underground plots, fearing that they would be deceived by enemies, trying to deceive them. Great responsibility for the personalities involved, as well as for Churchill, given that The fate of the soldiers and the millions of people who lived through the Nazi-fascist occupation will depend on the resistance to the landing in Europe.. They are not at the fore for various reasons and by writing a novel that gets lost, it is very human.”

inside twenty commissionsResponsible for intelligence, diversion, and counterintelligence operations, he was full of book. One of them, as it appears in the movie, was Ian Flemingwho was inspired by his experience to later create the literary character of James Bond. A very masculine world, but in it, as Madden is keen to point out, two women play a central role in his film. Jane Leslieplayed before Kelly MacDonaldAnd the Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton). “I am at the center of the universe, in my world. Everything revolves around them in the movie, even if it isn’t. A very important place among the people who did not feel themselves heroes, the latter are those who participate in the foreground. Fleming (actor in the movie) Johnny FlynnIt was a way to sit in the middle of the story. He hadn’t started writing yet. There was created a disinformation strategy that became crucial in the world of espionage. There are different overtones in the film, such as comedy, drama, thriller and of course the spy story.”