Manifesto (2015)

Cate Blanchett in 13 different roles

Directed by: Julian Rosefeldt
Selected Cast: N/A
Written by: Julian Rosefeldt
Release Year: 2015
Genre: Experimental
MPAA Rating: N/A

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Thirteen distinct characters including an anchorwoman, a school teacher, a punk, a homeless man and others, deliver twelve political and artistic manifestos from throughout history.

Related Images

Due to Julian Rosefeldt request all the archived photos from this project has been removed.

Related Videos

The third video is a playlist of featurette, clips and TV Spots, just click on the playlist icon on the upper right to see the other videos in it.

Quotes from Cate Blanchett

“It was thrilling, really thrilling. It is a really interesting idea, the idea of language being reduced to sound. These manifestos, which are full of dogmatic sets of belief systems and shades of meaning: in a way, when you shout them in the one tone, they become one thing.” (Sydney Morning Herald, November 2015)
“I found the process of doing this utterly freeing. It was like doing stand-up or something. The experience I had of saying the words is that you cease to make sense of them. You get hit on a much more sort of [visceral] level, it’s more the energy of the manifesto.” (Los Angeles Times, October 2018)
On which character was most fun to play: “The punk one was fun. The guy who gave me those fake tattoos was amazing. I think what I liked most was the rapid shift between each character, the feeling of walking onto set and thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ Every scene was was like a rehearsal, I found that really exciting—just not knowing what was going to happen. One of the most nerve-racking ones was working with a classroom full of children when I played the school teacher. Children don’t just buy s–t. If they don’t actually believe I’m a teacher than I’m in trouble, kids won’t pretend.” (W Magazine, May 2017)

Quotes from Others

Julian Rosefeldt:
— On the film: “The main idea for Manifesto was not to illustrate the particular manifesto texts, but rather to allow Cate to embody the manifestos. Until the last third of the twentieth century there were only a few manifestos written by women artists. Most were written by men and they are just bursting with testosterone. So I thought it was thrilling to let them be spoken today by a woman.”
— On Cate Blanchett: “I think she is very good at diving in to an identity and merging with what she does. So I thought it would be great on the one hand to have her performing many different characters and on the other hand it had to have something to do with art, because her idea of working with me came from her interest in art. Then I thought it would make it easier for both of us if we focused on language as a subject.”
— On how Cate Blanchett came to be in the project: “I’m Not There actually plays a really important role in the genesis of this project. Cate and I first met three years ago at an exhibition of mine… …I’m being complimented by Cate Blanchett! So I brought up that scene at the end of I’m Not There, when Cate as Bob Dylan looks right into the camera. I was talking to [I’m Not There cinematographer] Ed Lachman last night and he said that it was you who decided to do that, not Todd Haynes.”
— On the feature film version: “There wasn’t a decision; there was an obligation to do this, in a way, because I needed to finance the installation. There was a TV channel that was willing to support the installation generously, but they of course needed something linear. I had to cope with that idea that it would have to take this shape. I also found this very exciting, because it’s a different audience. The museum can be a very self-selective audience.”

Trivia & Facts

Filmed in Germany.
The film was shot over the course of 12 days in December 2014.
The video installation was first exhibited at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image on 8 December 2015.
Each manifesto film runs is 10:30 minutes long.
The feature film version which has runtime of 94 minutes premiered at 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
Cate Blanchett’s husband, Andrew Upton and their three sons appeared on the Pop Art Manifesto scene.
Morag Ross, who is Cate Blanchett’s friend and make-up artist, appeared on Conceptual Art/Minimalism Manifesto scene..
During a conversation at the BFI London Film Festival in 2017, Cate Blanchett said there were other scenarios which they did not film like with a her as a basketball coach, and one in post-coital scenario.