The English Patient

The English Patient (released November 15, 1996)
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas
Produced by: Paul Zaentz
Written by: Anthony Minghella, based on the novel my Michael Ondaatje
Music by: Gabriel Yared
Cinematography by: John Seale
Distributed by: Miramax Films

“Never Judge a Book by Its Movie"

I could say that being a librarian, I read voraciously, but that isn’t an inherently true statement. I read voraciously long before being a librarian ever crossed my mind, and (believe it or not) I know a couple of librarians who don’t read at all. For those of you who don’t read everything you can get your hands on, or don’t work with books every day, there are a lot of books that get turned into movies. And time and again, I am terribly disappointed each time I see a movie that has been adapted from a book I have read that I have loved, or even liked. There are reasons for this. Hollywood tries to cram a great (and lengthy) complex book into 120 minutes of film. Movies are visual, while books tend to explore the inner landscapes of the human brain. And then, the Hollywood movie machine needs to blow things up and put in new characters that were never in the book, while leaving important parts out. My husband has a huge problem with the movie Troy. No gods or goddesses, who were instrumental to the story, and they kill Agamemnon, who in the Homeric cycle has to live to go home and be murdered by his wife. Nothing is sacred anymore.

The English Patient was originally a book by Michael Ondaatje, and by some miracle, I actually have not read it. It was a relief, in some ways, because I didn’t want to sit there, and watch Hollywood butcher another lovely book for me, like they did with A Prayer for Owen Meany (anyone see the stinker Simon Birch?), The Princess Diaries, or all but the first Harry Potter movie. Set in Italy and North Africa and told in a series of flashbacks, Count László de Almásy (played by the yummy Ralph Fiennes) relates how he went from smoking hot geologist making maps in the desert, to crispy burned geologist barely able to move in Italy. Hana (played by Juliette Binoche) is a Canadian nurse who takes care of him in a ruined villa, who has her own ghosts. We learn of his ruinous and obsessive affair with the married Katherine Clifton (played by Kristin Scott Thomas), and of the disastrous consequences that followed. We also learn of Hana’s bad luck, and how she believes she is cursed, because everyone she loves is killed violently. These two wounded people are careful with each other and give each other kindness, but not quite empathy.

Now having said that I haven’t read the book, I can still say that this was a remarkable story, even if a remarkably unlucky and unhappy one. I feel that too often movies are too neat and tidy in their telling, and feelings and plots are all nicely resolved at the end. Even though we know what happens to László, we don’t know what ultimately happens between Hana and her love interest, Kip. Kip (played by Naveen Andrews, who most of you know as Sayid from Lost, and another yum), was an Indian soldier who was diffusing bombs in Italy. So who better to fall for him than someone who curses everyone she loves with a violent death? She doesn’t even have to work at this one. Actually, he doesn’t die, and it is the one ray of hope that I was left with. We know he and Hana have plans to meet in the future, and all we can do is hope that they make that connection.

The movie was full of raw emotion. I can’t find the words outside of hackneyed phrases to describe them: heartbreaking sadness, naked jealousy, wrenching grief, and above all, rotten luck. Boy, were these unlucky people! And yet, in spite of my trite descriptions, there was real human experience underneath, and it was palpable… breathing and writhing on its own. I am almost afraid to read the book now. I don’t know what will happen – will the movie end up disappointing me, as usual, or will the book??? For instance, there is a scene shortly after Hana sets up László in the villa, and she cuts off all her hair. Nothing is said about why she does this, and one assumes she does it for practical reasons. I imagine there is a lengthy section in the book that goes into the cutting of her hair and her thoughts and reasons for it. But we can’t get inside her head in a film, unless there is voice over, and that would have been ridiculous. We are not all Alan Ball.

Visually, the picture was like a piece of amber thrown on the green grass. That’s how it felt anyway, with the golden tones of the African desert juxtaposed against the beautiful green Italian spring. In the end credits, we see that the prosthetics were done by the Jim Henson Company. I guess they were the ones that made Ralph Fiennes look like Scooter. Actually, the makeup was very well done. He didn’t look like Scooter. Much. Actually, he looked a lot like he does in his role as Voldemort in the Harry Potter films.

The English Patient not only won Best Picture, it also won 8 other Academy Awards, and was nominated for 12. Juliette Binoche beat out Lauren Bacall for Best Supporting Actress, and it also won for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Musical Score, and Best Costume Design among others. I find Juliette Binoche to be absolutely delightful as an actress. I loved her in Chocolat too.

I was very impressed with this film. I didn’t see all the films that were up for the Best Picture Award that year, but it certainly beat Jerry Maguire in my opinion. You complete me…meh. And as a side note, my darling husband may go on forever about how I wept over this film. Rest assured I did not. A tear or two may have escaped my eyes, but I did not weep. I’m saving that for West Side Story and Gone with the Wind.

~Anna

Sand, Villas & Forbidden Love

No one would presume to argue the point that the 1997 Best Picture winner, The English Patient was not gorgeously photographed. It was. Not since Lawrence of Arabia or The Road Warrior have I seen a more lusciously photographed wasteland. Oddly enough, the corresponding scenes at the crumbling Italian villa do not for me hold the same visual power. John Seale, the cinematographer had a wealth of color-saturated landscapes in Tunisia from which to paint his cinematic canvas and I found myself drawn to the desert and its “pure” appearance, bringing to mind the response by T. E. Lawrence when asked what lured him to the desert: “It’s clean.” was his answer.

The story unfolds with no concession to the clock, slowly revealing its central mystery like the shedding of skins off an onion. It is this languid sense consummation that marks the film and its director (the late Anthony Minghella) as a craftsman at the height of his story-telling powers. While some (Elaine Benis for one!) have chided him for perhaps dragging the story on, I felt the pacing right. I also found it somewhat amazing that the subplot of an event as grand and overpowering as The Second World War was properly cast in a secondary role throughout the film. To be sure, it was never relegated too far in the background, but Minghella as screenwriter and director cleverly kept it in its place as we learned the relationships of the central characters to one another.

He doesn’t make many, but whenever Saul Zaentz is involved in a film project, the little golden man is usually hovering about the vicinity.

--kak

Up next: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)