This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place is a drama film directed by Paolo Sorrentino, written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello. The film was an Italian majority production with co-producers in France and Ireland. Principal photography began in August 2010. Filming took place in Ireland and Italy, as well as the states of Michigan, New Mexico and New York. The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot
Cheyenne is a former rock star. At 50, he still dresses 'Goth' and lives in Dublin off his royalties. The death of his father, with whom he wasn't on speaking terms, brings him back to New York. He discovers his father had an obsession: to seek revenge for a humiliation he had suffered during WWII. Cheyenne decides to pick up where his father left off, and starts a journey, at his own pace, across America.

Cast
Sean Penn as Cheyenne Frances McDorman as Jane Judd Hirsch as Mordecai Midler Eve Hewson as Mary Kerry Condon as Rachel Harry Dean Stanton as Robert Plath Joyce Van Patten as Dorothy Shore David Byrne as himself

Production
Paolo Sorrentino said Sean Penn told him he wanted to work with him after seeing Sorrentino's film Il Divo at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, where Penn headed the jury. With Penn in mind, Sorrentino wrote the screenplay for This Must Be the Place with Umberto Contarello. Sorrentino had for a long time been fascinated by Nazi war criminals who had managed to keep their former crimes secret, and went on to live ordinary lives. To add an element of irony to a story about such a person, Sorrentino came up with Penn's character: "a slow, lazy, rock star who was bored enough and closed in his self-referential world to the point of being, seemingly, the last person who would embark on a crazy search for a Nazi criminal, probably dead by now, across the United States." Sorrentino was attracted to this juxtaposition as it would add a great risk of failure, which he considers vital for the prospect of a story to be good. In selecting the name of the rock star and his band Sorrentino thought of one of the most inspired names in rock star history, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and changed it somewhat to come up with "Cheyenne and the Fellows". The look of the character was inspired by Robert Smith of The Cure. Sorrentino had seen The Cure perform several times in his youth, and when he went to see them again in 2008, he was fascinated by the fact that Smith, even off the stage, still wore the same kind of attire as in the past: "Here was a fifty-year-old who still completely identified with a look which, by definition, is that of an adolescent. But there was nothing pathetic about it. There was just this one thing that, in the movies and in life, creates an incredible feeling of wonder: the extraordinary, a unique and thrilling exception." As soon as the screenplay was finished, Sorrentino sent it to Penn, who accepted to star.

This Must Be the Place was Sorrentino's first film to be shot in English. The film had a production budget of US$28 million. Production was led by the three Italian companies Indigo Film, Lucky Red and Medusa Film. Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo invested €2.5 million ($3 million) in the film,] while Eurimages provided €600,000 ($750,000) in funding. The film also received funding from France and Ireland.

Principal photography began on 16 August 2010 in Dublin, Ireland. In September, production moved to Michigan where filming took place in Bad Axe, Ubly, Kinde and Sterling Heights. Filming in New Mexico began in October and took place in Bingham, Alamogordo, Carrizozo, Eagle Nest, Red River and Questa. In late October, filming took place in New York City. Post-production took place in Rome.

Original music for the film was written by David Byrne of Talking Heads. The title of the film is a tribute to the Talking Heads song "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)". The original songs for the film are co-written with indie singer-songwriter Will Oldham. New York-based singer Michael Brunnock sings these songs. The songs were not sung by Penn but by another person in the film.

Related Links
Official website IMDB