Apt Pupil (film)
Encyclopedia
Apt Pupil is a 1998 American psychological thriller film based on the eponymous 1982 novella
by Stephen King
. The film was directed by Bryan Singer
and stars Ian McKellen
and Brad Renfro
. In the 1980s in southern California, high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers fugitive Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander (McKellen) living in his neighborhood under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and acts of the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them.
The novella was first published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons
. Producer Richard Kobritz sought to adapt the novella into a film during the 1980s, but two actors he invited to play Dussander died. When filming began in 1987, a loss of financing led to production being shut down. Forty minutes of usable footage existed, but production was never revived. In 1995, when rights to the novella returned to King, Bryan Singer petitioned the author for an opportunity to film the novella. With King's support, Singer filmed Apt Pupil with McKellen and Renfro in Altadena, California
, in 1997. The director shortened the novella's storyline, reduced its violence, and changed the ending. Singer called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty" with Nazism only serving as a vehicle for the capacity of evil.
During the $14 million production, a lawsuit was filed by several extras who alleged that they were told to strip naked during a shower scene, but the lawsuit was determined to be meritless. The film was released in the United States and Canada in October 1998 to mixed reviews and made under $9 million. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances.
Obersturmbannführer
who is now a fugitive war criminal
. Though Bowden threatens to turn Dussander in, the teenager reveals his fascination with Nazi activities during World War II and blackmails the war criminal into sharing stories about the death camps. When he spends more time with the old man, his grades suffer, he loses interest in his girlfriend, and he conceals his bad grades from his parents. In turn, the Nazi blackmails the young boy into studying to restore his grades, threatening to expose the boy's subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents. Dussander even poses as Todd's grandfather and goes to an appointment with Bowden's school counselor Edward French (Schwimmer). Talking about the war crimes affects both the old man and the young boy, and Dussander begins killing animals
in his gas oven. Dussander also takes great pride in Bowden's unbelievable turnaround, going from near dropout to straight A's in a matter of weeks.
One night, Dussander tries to kill a hobo who sees him in the uniform. When Dussander has a heart attack, he calls Bowden, who finishes the job, cleans up, and calls an ambulance for Dussander. At the hospital, Dussander is recognized by a death camp survivor sharing his room, and he is arrested to be extradited to Israel. Bowden graduates as his school's valedictorian and gives a speech about Icarus, saying, "All great achievements arose from dissatisfaction. It is the desire to do better, to dig deeper, that propels civilization to greatness." The scene is juxtaposed in a montage with Dussander's home being searched and the hobo's corpse being found in the basement.
Bowden is briefly questioned about his relationship with Dussander, but he manages to convince the police that he knew nothing of the old man's true identity. At the hospital, Dussander hears a group of Neo-Nazis outside the hospital; realizing his identity has been hopelessly compromised, he commits suicide by giving himself an air embolism
. When French learns that the man who met him was not Bowden's grandfather but a war criminal and confronts him over it, Bowden blackmails him into silence by threatening to accuse him of making inappropriate sexual advances towards him.
's 1995 film Cold Comfort Farm, invited the actor to take the role. The character's language was written originally for "a very stoic German", but Singer felt that McKellen's "complex" personality could contribute to the character. The director said of choosing McKellen, "I felt if I could combine his complexity, his colorfulness, to the stoic German character it would create a character that, although evil, would garner more sympathy and would be more enjoyable for the audience to watch."
Renfro stars alongside McKellen as Todd Bowden, a 16-year-old who discovers Denker's criminal past. Singer auditioned a couple hundred young men and chose 14-year-old Renfro, saying of him, "Brad was the brightest, the most intense and the most real. Not only could he have the intensity when we wanted, there was a hollowness that he could convey, and by the end of the picture he had to become this empty vessel." Portraying a manipulative character temporarily influenced Renfro, who said that people around him were worried about his state of mind. Renfro said of his performance, "It's a trip I have to take. People just kind of have to leave me alone when I'm doing it. It's my job."
Schwimmer plays Edward French, Todd Bowden's high school guidance counselor. Before Schwimmer, Kevin Pollak
was attached to the role. While Schwimmer was known for his comedic role on the television show Friends
, Singer was impressed by the actor's performance in a Los Angeles stage production and decided to cast him as the counselor.
and the Holocaust
that unfolds in Apt Pupil is the result of the paternal bond between Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander and high school student Todd Bowden. Such bonds are common themes in Stephen King's works: "King's portrayal of evil most often appears to require an active, illicit bond between a male (often in the role of a father or father surrogate) and a younger, formerly innocent individual (often in the role of a biological or surrogate progeny) who is initiated into sin". In the film, the year 1984 highlights, in addition to Orwellian
overtones, the time in American history in which the Holocaust is treated as a week-long course with little time "to be tempered with self-questioning as to the motivations behind it". Bowden's obsession with the Holocaust is a key plot device "wherein the past has this unbreakable hold on the present". The film's opening sequence shows how Bowden treats this history as a simulacrum
in which the history becomes his own, as evidenced by his head's brief overlapping with the Nazis he is studying. Though history becomes alive for Bowden, he perceives it through the perpetrators (namely Dussander) and not through the victims, characterizing Bowden as "apt" in the sense of "a natural tendency to... undesirable behavior".
Language serves as "a vehicle for corruption", as Dussander tells Bowden horrific stories of his service at the fictional Death Camp of Patin. Bowden, in listening to the stories, becomes "a vampiric extension of the evil" that Dussander exhibits. The sharing of stories lead both Dussander and Bowden to have nightmares, and for Bowden, the nightmares are "a past that is becoming ever more present". One of the key motifs of the film is that "a door was opened that could not be shut", referring to Dussander's confession about following orders and being unable to hold back. The motif is also conveyed in the scene in which Bowden forces Dussander to put on a Schutzstaffel
uniform and to march to Bowden's commands. Dussander continues marching despite Bowden's insistences to stop, emulating the premise of the poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice
in which the untrained apprentice uses magic to enchant brooms and lacks the skill to stop them. The scene is "the figurative and literal turning point in the film".
, and homophobia
are highlighted in Bryan Singer's retelling of Stephen King's novella. The face of evil is represented in the film as Nazism, oft labeled as "quintessentially innate [and] supernaturally crafty", but also "in a more subterranean way, dangerously blurring... the boundaries between homoeroticism and homosexuality". The Nazi monstrosity in Apt Pupil is structured through sexual "abnormality", where a series of binary dichotomies are introduced: "normal versus monstrous, heterosexual versus homosexual, and healthy versus sick". An additional dichotomy, victimizer (masculinized) versus victim (feminized), reflects the film's "hidden tensions" in which Bowden and Dussander's roles of powers are reversible. While the "set of perversions" that unfold in the novella are misogynistic, the film unfolds the set as "ambivalently homoerotic and homophobic". The film removes the novella's misogyny and leaves intact the underlying homoeroticism of the central characters. The film also expounds the connection between homophobia and how male Holocaust victims are portrayed.
The central characters Todd Bowden and Kurt Dussander are onscreen most of the time, and they are frequently framed in close proximity, "[intensifying] a homoerotic intimacy [which is] punctuated by dread of contact with the monstrous". Homoeroticism in Apt Pupil is further demonstrated by the focus on Todd's body. In the opening scene in which Bowden is in his bedroom during a stormy night, "the ever-encroaching camera and the lighting fetishize Todd's youthful body", similar to the fetishism of the female body in films like Psycho
(1960). This depiction creates a dualism in which "he is now simultaneously dangerous and endangered" in his homophobic and homoerotic ties to Nazism.
When Bowden gives Dussander a SS uniform to wear and in which to march under Bowden's orders, the student's demands are more heightened in the film as "more dominant and voyeuristic". Bowden tells Dussander, "I tried to do this the nice way, but you don't want it. So fine, we'll do this the hard way. You will put this on, because I want to see you in it. Now move!" The editing style of the Nazi march scene juxtaposes Dussander marching in the uniform and Bowden reacting to the march. Shots of Bowden's reaction are from a low angle, which reflects "the sexual difference between the characters"; Bowden is masculinized as "the bearer of the [sexual] gaze", and Dussander is feminized as "the object of the gaze". The cutting between Bowden and Dussander "corroborates a homoerotic arrangement of images" which visualizes the latent homoeroticism of the scene from the novella. When Dussander speeds up his march and Bowden tells him to stop, the sped-up shot reverse shot
"radically [ruptures] the structure of power", where Bowden loses "control of his sadistic power over Dussander".
was published as part of his collection Different Seasons
in 1982, producer Richard Kobritz optioned feature film rights to the novella. Kobritz met with actor James Mason
to play the novella's war criminal Kurt Dussander, but Mason died in July 1984 before production as a result of a heart attack. The producer also approached Richard Burton
for the role, but Burton also died. By 1987, Nicol Williamson
was cast as Dussander, and 17-year-old Rick Schroder
was cast as Todd Bowden. In that year, Alan Bridges began direction of the film with a script co-written by Ken Wheat
and his brother Jim Wheat. Ten weeks into filming, production suffered from a lack of funds from its production company Granat Releasing, and the film had to be placed on hold. Kubritz sought to revive production, but when the opportunity came a year later, Schroder had aged too considerably for the film to work. Forty minutes of usable footage was abandoned.
first read Apt Pupil when he was 19-years-old, and when he became a director, he wanted to adapt the novella into a film. In 1995, Singer asked his friend and screenwriter Brandon Boyce to write a spec script
adapting the novella. Boyce recalled the writing process, "I thought it was a great stageplay, actually... two people, pretty much in a house talking. My script was completely on spec, so, if it didn't work out, at least I'd have a writing sample." When the original option to the novella expired in 1995, Stephen King sued to get the rights back. Singer and Boyce then provided to King a first draft of their script and a copy of Singer's film The Usual Suspects
(1995), which had yet to be publicly released. Impressed with Singer, King optioned the rights to the director for $1, arranging to be compensated when the film was released. Singer said of King's ultimate response to the film, despite some changes made to the source material, "Stephen loved it. He seemed to think I captured the mood of the piece." The director appreciated being able to make a Stephen King horror film but with less supernatural terror and more character-driven terror. Singer spoke of his goal: "There have been a lot of fun horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street
and Scream
, and I Know What You Did Last Summer
. But I miss movies like The Shining
, The Exorcist
, and The Innocents by Jack Clayton
, so this is a movie sort of in the spirit of the real horror movie."
Singer described the Apt Pupils premise as a "study in cruelty". He prepared for the film by reading books like the 1996 history book Hitler's Willing Executioners
, which affirmed his beliefs that Nazi war criminals felt "feeling guiltless and matter-of-fact about what they did". He referred to how young Todd Bowden's interactions with Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander start to affect him, "I liked the idea of the infectious nature of evil... The notion that anybody has the capacity within them to be cruel if motivated properly is, I think, a scary concept." The director also perceived the film as not about the Holocaust, believing that the Nazi war criminal could have been replaced by one of Pol Pot
's executioners or a mass murderer from Russia. "It wasn't about fascism or National Socialism. It was about cruelty and the ability to do awful deeds, to live with them and be empowered by them," Singer said. To this end, the director sought to avoid overt use of swastikas and other Nazi symbols. He was also attracted to the film as "[an] idea that the collective awfulness of this terrible thing that happened decades ago in Europe had somehow crept up across the ocean and through time, like a golem, into this beautiful Southern California suburban neighborhood".
Singer turned down directing opportunities with films like The Truman Show
and The Devil's Own
after the success of The Usual Suspects. He instead pursued Apt Pupil: "It was a very dark subject matter, and it was something that came from passion." He acknowledged in retrospect that Apt Pupil "wasn't really supposed to be a big success". Singer was financially supported by producer Scott Rudin
and the production company Spelling Films. Ian McKellen
was cast as Dussander, and Brad Renfro
was cast as Bowden. With $1 million paid toward pre-production, filming was scheduled to begin in June 1996. Due to financial disagreements between Singer and Rudin, the start date was pushed back and subsequently canceled. Singer and his production team stayed together while producer Don Murphy
and his partner Jane Hamsher
sought refinancing. Mike Medavoy
, a former chairman of TriStar Pictures
, rescued the production with the financial backing of his production company Phoenix Pictures. The company provided filmmakers with $14 million to produce Apt Pupil. Filming took place on location in Altadena, California
. Singer related to how Todd Bowden rebelled against his suburban environment. The director used the name of his high school football team, the Pirates, and the green-and-gold team colors in the film, saying, "I just projected my own childhood right out to Southern California."
served as both film editor and music composer for Apt Pupil. When he edited the film, he found it a challenge to create the proper musical score. Ottman recalled, "Normally, an editor will score scenes with temporary music from CDs, and so forth, and nothing I could find worked for this film." The composer sought a mix between the scores of the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968) and the military-based comedy 1941
(1978) to create an "otherworldly pastiche". Ottman said of his approach:
Another scene in which Ottman meshed his editing and composing duties was when Dussander wakes up in the hospital with the television show The Jeffersons
playing in the background. Ottman explained his intent for the scene, "I used The Jeffersons as this innocuous thing—going between him and the television—so that when he does open his eyes, it scares the hell out of you... I added this deafening Bartok pizz, which is when all the violins pluck their strings really loud and they create this gnarly, unsettling sound." Ottman recorded the film's score with the Seattle Symphony
.
, negligence
, and invasion of privacy
. Allegations were made that the boys were filmed for sexual gratification. The local news shows and national tabloid programs stirred the controversy. A sexual crimes task force that included local, state, and federal personnel investigated the incident. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office determined that there was no cause to file criminal charges, stating, "The suspects were intent on completing a professional film as quickly and efficiently as possible. There is no indication of lewd or abnormal sexual intent." The civil case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The scene was filmed again with adult actors so the film could finish on time.
The lawsuit reflected "a recent cultural concern" about nudity in showers being connected to "sexual or erotic forms of gazing". The journal Body & Society wrote, "The ways in which the accusation that the director and other crew members identified as gay is seen to collapse gay identity into gay sexual behaviour, but the wholesale collapse of nudity into sexuality." The incident reflected the cultural trend that being gazed upon while naked would cause different forms of distress, threatening the "stability of the self as subject". This undermines the subject's ability to perform and as a result of the discomfort, brings more into question what the displayed nakedness is for.
, and it ends with him graduating from high school
. In Bryan Singer's film, the story takes place fully in 1984, when Todd Bowden is in his last year in high school. In the novella, for three years leading to the end of the story, Todd Bowden and discovered Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander independently murder a large number of hobos and transients, whereas in the film, the murders are condensed to Dussander's attempt to kill the hobo Archie. Singer sought to reduce the novella's violence, not wanting it to appear "exploitative or repetitive". Unlike in the novella, animosity toward Jews was not displayed in the film. The novella's dream sequence in which Bowden rapes a sixteen-year-old Jewish virgin as a laboratory experiment under Dussander's guidance was replaced by the film's dream sequence in which Bowden sees three shower-gas chamber scenes unfold. Reduced in the film was Todd's encounter with the schoolgirl Betty (named Becky in the film). In the novella, he dreams of Betty as a concentration camp inmate who he can rape and torture. In the film, he has a brief encounter with Becky where he finds himself unable to perform sexually.
In the novella, Bowden's high school counselor Edward French confronts the student with suspicions that Dussander is not really Bowden's grandfather, and Bowden murders French in cold blood. Bowden then embarks on a shooting spree from a tree overlooking a freeway, which results in his death five hours later. Singer felt unable to accomplish King's ending: "I told [King] the ending reads so beautifully. I could never measure up to it; I would have killed it." In the film, Bowden intimidates French, who suspects Dussander's false relationship to the student, by threatening to destroy him with "rumor and innuendo". Stanley Wiater, author of The Complete Stephen King Universe, wrote, "As depicted on screen, Todd is much more consciously evil, in his way, than in the book. This switch, while making the ending less brutal, perhaps, achieves the impossible: it also makes the ending even darker."
's L.A. Holocaust Center to assess feedback from rabbis and others about referencing the Holocaust. With a positive response, the director proceeded with the film's release. Apt Pupil was originally scheduled to be released in February 1998, but the film's distributor moved the release date to autumn, feeling that it belonged "alongside other more serious-minded films". It premiered at the Venice Film Festival
in September 1998. It was then commercially released on October 23, 1998 in 1,448 theaters in the United States and Canada, grossing $3,583,151 on its opening weekend and placing ninth at the weekend box office. The film went on to gross $8,863,193 in the United States and Canada. Apt Pupil was considered a critical and commercial disappointment. The film was less successful than Singer's previous film The Usual Suspects, with critics describing it as "a somewhat disturbing movie that works as a suspenseful thriller, yet isn't completely satisfying".
Roger Ebert
, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times
, wrote that the film was well-made by Bryan Singer and well-acted, especially by Ian McKellen, but that "the film reveals itself as unworthy of its subject matter". The critic felt that the offensive material lacked a "social message" or an "overarching purpose" and found the film's later scenes to be "exploitative". Janet Maslin
of The New York Times
applauded the production value of Bryan Singer's direction, liking Newton Thomas Sigel's "handsomely shot" cinematography and John Ottman's "stunningly edited" work. Maslin wrote of McKellen and Renfro's performances, "Both actors play their roles so trickily that tensions escalate until the horror grows unimaginatively gothic." The critic felt that as the film approached the end, "the story's cleverness is noticeably on the wane".
Kathleen Murphy of Film Comment
called McKellen and Renfro's performances "skin-crawling" but felt that it did not complete the film. Murphy wrote, "[The acting] makes you wish Apt Pupil had the art and the courage actually to look into evil's awful abyss." The critic perceived that Apt Pupil came off as a conventional horror film, that it had Stephen King's "characteristically unsavory" touches, and that Singer's "inept" direction "trivialize the characters and the subject matter". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
saw Apt Pupil as not a "hunted-Nazi thriller" nor a "full-tilt Stephen King thriller", but as a "student-teacher parable" that comes off as "disturbing". Schwarzbaum felt that Singer told "a story with serious moral resonance", though patience was needed to get past Singer's "more baroque cinematic touches" of "visual furbelows... and aural gimmicks" in the film, citing as examples Dussander watching Mr. Magoo
on television or the musical piece Liebestod being blared during a bloody scene.
Jay Carr of the Boston Globe called Apt Pupil "most compelling for its moral dimension", enjoying the "duet between Renfro's smooth-cheeked latter-day Faust
and McKellen's reawakened Mephistopheles
". While Carr found the film's framework to be realistic, he noted the change of pace, "Perhaps sensing a narrative slackening and a smothering claustrophobia... 'Apt Pupil' veers into melodramatic devices that yank the film out of its disquieting amorality and turn it into something much more ordinary and mundane." The critic concluded, "It maintains a bleak integrity by not pretending to arrive at remorse. Never is there any discussion." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
described Apt Pupil as "a good shocker that misses the ultimate horror", finding the film's weakness to be the "contrived" bond between Dussander and Bowden. Wilmington called the plot "overly slick", asking, "How can Todd not only conveniently find a Nazi war criminal in his hometown but also instantly coerce and control him?"
for his performance in Apt Pupil. Ian McKellen won a Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor
and a Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
for his performance in both Apt Pupil and Gods and Monsters
. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor to McKellen for his performance and awarded the film a Saturn Award
for Best Horror Film of 1998.
Nazi Next Door films
Apt Pupil
Apt Pupil is a novella by Stephen King, originally published in the 1982 novella collection Different Seasons, subtitled "Summer of Corruption".-Format of the story:Apt Pupil consists of 29 chapters, many of which are headed by a month...
by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. The film was directed by Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
and stars Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
and Brad Renfro
Brad Renfro
Brad Barron Renfro was an American actor. He made his film debut in 1994 at age 12 in the lead role of Joel Schumacher's The Client, going on to star in 21 feature films, several short films, and two television episodes during his career. Much of his later career was marred by a pattern of...
. In the 1980s in southern California, high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers fugitive Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander (McKellen) living in his neighborhood under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and acts of the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them.
The novella was first published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons
Different Seasons
Different Seasons is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more serious bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous:-Afterword:At the ending of the book, there is also a brief afterword, which King wrote on January 4, 1982...
. Producer Richard Kobritz sought to adapt the novella into a film during the 1980s, but two actors he invited to play Dussander died. When filming began in 1987, a loss of financing led to production being shut down. Forty minutes of usable footage existed, but production was never revived. In 1995, when rights to the novella returned to King, Bryan Singer petitioned the author for an opportunity to film the novella. With King's support, Singer filmed Apt Pupil with McKellen and Renfro in Altadena, California
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...
, in 1997. The director shortened the novella's storyline, reduced its violence, and changed the ending. Singer called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty" with Nazism only serving as a vehicle for the capacity of evil.
During the $14 million production, a lawsuit was filed by several extras who alleged that they were told to strip naked during a shower scene, but the lawsuit was determined to be meritless. The film was released in the United States and Canada in October 1998 to mixed reviews and made under $9 million. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances.
Plot
In southern California in 1984, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker (McKellen), is really Kurt Dussander — a former NaziNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time...
who is now a fugitive war criminal
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
. Though Bowden threatens to turn Dussander in, the teenager reveals his fascination with Nazi activities during World War II and blackmails the war criminal into sharing stories about the death camps. When he spends more time with the old man, his grades suffer, he loses interest in his girlfriend, and he conceals his bad grades from his parents. In turn, the Nazi blackmails the young boy into studying to restore his grades, threatening to expose the boy's subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents. Dussander even poses as Todd's grandfather and goes to an appointment with Bowden's school counselor Edward French (Schwimmer). Talking about the war crimes affects both the old man and the young boy, and Dussander begins killing animals
Cruelty to animals
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse or animal neglect, is the infliction of suffering or harm upon non-human animals, for purposes other than self-defense. More narrowly, it can be harm for specific gain, such as killing animals for food or for their fur, although opinions differ with...
in his gas oven. Dussander also takes great pride in Bowden's unbelievable turnaround, going from near dropout to straight A's in a matter of weeks.
One night, Dussander tries to kill a hobo who sees him in the uniform. When Dussander has a heart attack, he calls Bowden, who finishes the job, cleans up, and calls an ambulance for Dussander. At the hospital, Dussander is recognized by a death camp survivor sharing his room, and he is arrested to be extradited to Israel. Bowden graduates as his school's valedictorian and gives a speech about Icarus, saying, "All great achievements arose from dissatisfaction. It is the desire to do better, to dig deeper, that propels civilization to greatness." The scene is juxtaposed in a montage with Dussander's home being searched and the hobo's corpse being found in the basement.
Bowden is briefly questioned about his relationship with Dussander, but he manages to convince the police that he knew nothing of the old man's true identity. At the hospital, Dussander hears a group of Neo-Nazis outside the hospital; realizing his identity has been hopelessly compromised, he commits suicide by giving himself an air embolism
Air embolism
An air embolism, or more generally gas embolism, is a pathological condition caused by gas bubbles in a vascular system. The most common context is a human body, in which case it refers to gas bubbles in the bloodstream...
. When French learns that the man who met him was not Bowden's grandfather but a war criminal and confronts him over it, Bowden blackmails him into silence by threatening to accuse him of making inappropriate sexual advances towards him.
Cast
McKellen stars as Kurt Dussander, a Nazi war criminal who hides in America under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Screenwriter Brandon Boyce described Dussander as being "a composite of these ghosts of World War II" but not based on any real-life individual. McKellen was attracted to the role because he was impressed with Singer's The Usual Suspects and saw the role of Dussander as "a nice, meaty part and difficult". Singer, who enjoyed McKellen in John SchlesingerJohn Schlesinger
John Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...
's 1995 film Cold Comfort Farm, invited the actor to take the role. The character's language was written originally for "a very stoic German", but Singer felt that McKellen's "complex" personality could contribute to the character. The director said of choosing McKellen, "I felt if I could combine his complexity, his colorfulness, to the stoic German character it would create a character that, although evil, would garner more sympathy and would be more enjoyable for the audience to watch."
Renfro stars alongside McKellen as Todd Bowden, a 16-year-old who discovers Denker's criminal past. Singer auditioned a couple hundred young men and chose 14-year-old Renfro, saying of him, "Brad was the brightest, the most intense and the most real. Not only could he have the intensity when we wanted, there was a hollowness that he could convey, and by the end of the picture he had to become this empty vessel." Portraying a manipulative character temporarily influenced Renfro, who said that people around him were worried about his state of mind. Renfro said of his performance, "It's a trip I have to take. People just kind of have to leave me alone when I'm doing it. It's my job."
Schwimmer plays Edward French, Todd Bowden's high school guidance counselor. Before Schwimmer, Kevin Pollak
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Elliot Pollak is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20...
was attached to the role. While Schwimmer was known for his comedic role on the television show Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Singer was impressed by the actor's performance in a Los Angeles stage production and decided to cast him as the counselor.
Obsession with Nazism and the Holocaust
The obsession with NazismNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
that unfolds in Apt Pupil is the result of the paternal bond between Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander and high school student Todd Bowden. Such bonds are common themes in Stephen King's works: "King's portrayal of evil most often appears to require an active, illicit bond between a male (often in the role of a father or father surrogate) and a younger, formerly innocent individual (often in the role of a biological or surrogate progeny) who is initiated into sin". In the film, the year 1984 highlights, in addition to Orwellian
Orwellian
"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...
overtones, the time in American history in which the Holocaust is treated as a week-long course with little time "to be tempered with self-questioning as to the motivations behind it". Bowden's obsession with the Holocaust is a key plot device "wherein the past has this unbreakable hold on the present". The film's opening sequence shows how Bowden treats this history as a simulacrum
Simulacrum
Simulacrum , from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity", was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god...
in which the history becomes his own, as evidenced by his head's brief overlapping with the Nazis he is studying. Though history becomes alive for Bowden, he perceives it through the perpetrators (namely Dussander) and not through the victims, characterizing Bowden as "apt" in the sense of "a natural tendency to... undesirable behavior".
Language serves as "a vehicle for corruption", as Dussander tells Bowden horrific stories of his service at the fictional Death Camp of Patin. Bowden, in listening to the stories, becomes "a vampiric extension of the evil" that Dussander exhibits. The sharing of stories lead both Dussander and Bowden to have nightmares, and for Bowden, the nightmares are "a past that is becoming ever more present". One of the key motifs of the film is that "a door was opened that could not be shut", referring to Dussander's confession about following orders and being unable to hold back. The motif is also conveyed in the scene in which Bowden forces Dussander to put on a Schutzstaffel
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
uniform and to march to Bowden's commands. Dussander continues marching despite Bowden's insistences to stop, emulating the premise of the poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
in which the untrained apprentice uses magic to enchant brooms and lacks the skill to stop them. The scene is "the figurative and literal turning point in the film".
Sadomasochism, homoeroticism, and homophobia
Sadomasochism, homoeroticismHomoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
, and homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
are highlighted in Bryan Singer's retelling of Stephen King's novella. The face of evil is represented in the film as Nazism, oft labeled as "quintessentially innate [and] supernaturally crafty", but also "in a more subterranean way, dangerously blurring... the boundaries between homoeroticism and homosexuality". The Nazi monstrosity in Apt Pupil is structured through sexual "abnormality", where a series of binary dichotomies are introduced: "normal versus monstrous, heterosexual versus homosexual, and healthy versus sick". An additional dichotomy, victimizer (masculinized) versus victim (feminized), reflects the film's "hidden tensions" in which Bowden and Dussander's roles of powers are reversible. While the "set of perversions" that unfold in the novella are misogynistic, the film unfolds the set as "ambivalently homoerotic and homophobic". The film removes the novella's misogyny and leaves intact the underlying homoeroticism of the central characters. The film also expounds the connection between homophobia and how male Holocaust victims are portrayed.
The central characters Todd Bowden and Kurt Dussander are onscreen most of the time, and they are frequently framed in close proximity, "[intensifying] a homoerotic intimacy [which is] punctuated by dread of contact with the monstrous". Homoeroticism in Apt Pupil is further demonstrated by the focus on Todd's body. In the opening scene in which Bowden is in his bedroom during a stormy night, "the ever-encroaching camera and the lighting fetishize Todd's youthful body", similar to the fetishism of the female body in films like Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
(1960). This depiction creates a dualism in which "he is now simultaneously dangerous and endangered" in his homophobic and homoerotic ties to Nazism.
When Bowden gives Dussander a SS uniform to wear and in which to march under Bowden's orders, the student's demands are more heightened in the film as "more dominant and voyeuristic". Bowden tells Dussander, "I tried to do this the nice way, but you don't want it. So fine, we'll do this the hard way. You will put this on, because I want to see you in it. Now move!" The editing style of the Nazi march scene juxtaposes Dussander marching in the uniform and Bowden reacting to the march. Shots of Bowden's reaction are from a low angle, which reflects "the sexual difference between the characters"; Bowden is masculinized as "the bearer of the [sexual] gaze", and Dussander is feminized as "the object of the gaze". The cutting between Bowden and Dussander "corroborates a homoerotic arrangement of images" which visualizes the latent homoeroticism of the scene from the novella. When Dussander speeds up his march and Bowden tells him to stop, the sped-up shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character , and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character...
"radically [ruptures] the structure of power", where Bowden loses "control of his sadistic power over Dussander".
Previous production attempt
When Stephen King's novella Apt PupilApt Pupil
Apt Pupil is a novella by Stephen King, originally published in the 1982 novella collection Different Seasons, subtitled "Summer of Corruption".-Format of the story:Apt Pupil consists of 29 chapters, many of which are headed by a month...
was published as part of his collection Different Seasons
Different Seasons
Different Seasons is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more serious bent than the horror fiction for which King is famous:-Afterword:At the ending of the book, there is also a brief afterword, which King wrote on January 4, 1982...
in 1982, producer Richard Kobritz optioned feature film rights to the novella. Kobritz met with actor James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
to play the novella's war criminal Kurt Dussander, but Mason died in July 1984 before production as a result of a heart attack. The producer also approached Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
for the role, but Burton also died. By 1987, Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson is a Scottish-born English actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando".-Early life:...
was cast as Dussander, and 17-year-old Rick Schroder
Rick Schroder
Richard Bartlett "Rick" Schroder, Jr. is an American actor and film director.He debuted in the 1979 hit film The Champ, going on to become a child star on the sitcom Silver Spoons...
was cast as Todd Bowden. In that year, Alan Bridges began direction of the film with a script co-written by Ken Wheat
Ken Wheat
Ken Wheat is an American screenwriter, producer and director. He is the writer of Pitch Black and the brother of screenwriter Jim Wheat, with whom he has collaborated on a number of projects.- Filmography :...
and his brother Jim Wheat. Ten weeks into filming, production suffered from a lack of funds from its production company Granat Releasing, and the film had to be placed on hold. Kubritz sought to revive production, but when the opportunity came a year later, Schroder had aged too considerably for the film to work. Forty minutes of usable footage was abandoned.
Direction under Bryan Singer
Bryan SingerBryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
first read Apt Pupil when he was 19-years-old, and when he became a director, he wanted to adapt the novella into a film. In 1995, Singer asked his friend and screenwriter Brandon Boyce to write a spec script
Spec script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio....
adapting the novella. Boyce recalled the writing process, "I thought it was a great stageplay, actually... two people, pretty much in a house talking. My script was completely on spec, so, if it didn't work out, at least I'd have a writing sample." When the original option to the novella expired in 1995, Stephen King sued to get the rights back. Singer and Boyce then provided to King a first draft of their script and a copy of Singer's film The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey and Pete Postlethwaite....
(1995), which had yet to be publicly released. Impressed with Singer, King optioned the rights to the director for $1, arranging to be compensated when the film was released. Singer said of King's ultimate response to the film, despite some changes made to the source material, "Stephen loved it. He seemed to think I captured the mood of the piece." The director appreciated being able to make a Stephen King horror film but with less supernatural terror and more character-driven terror. Singer spoke of his goal: "There have been a lot of fun horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film...
and Scream
Scream (film)
Scream is a 1996 American slasher film written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven. The film stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Drew Barrymore, and David Arquette...
, and I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American horror film. The film stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. The screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream, and very loosely based on Lois Duncan's popular novel of the same title...
. But I miss movies like The Shining
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
, The Exorcist
The Exorcist (film)
The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
, and The Innocents by Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
, so this is a movie sort of in the spirit of the real horror movie."
Singer described the Apt Pupils premise as a "study in cruelty". He prepared for the film by reading books like the 1996 history book Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen that argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were as the title indicates "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism"...
, which affirmed his beliefs that Nazi war criminals felt "feeling guiltless and matter-of-fact about what they did". He referred to how young Todd Bowden's interactions with Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander start to affect him, "I liked the idea of the infectious nature of evil... The notion that anybody has the capacity within them to be cruel if motivated properly is, I think, a scary concept." The director also perceived the film as not about the Holocaust, believing that the Nazi war criminal could have been replaced by one of Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
's executioners or a mass murderer from Russia. "It wasn't about fascism or National Socialism. It was about cruelty and the ability to do awful deeds, to live with them and be empowered by them," Singer said. To this end, the director sought to avoid overt use of swastikas and other Nazi symbols. He was also attracted to the film as "[an] idea that the collective awfulness of this terrible thing that happened decades ago in Europe had somehow crept up across the ocean and through time, like a golem, into this beautiful Southern California suburban neighborhood".
Singer turned down directing opportunities with films like The Truman Show
The Truman Show
The Truman Show is a 1998 American satirical comedy-drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol. The cast includes Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, as well as Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Ed Harris and Natascha McElhone...
and The Devil's Own
The Devil's Own
The Devil's Own is a 1997 action thriller movie starring Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Rubén Blades, Natascha McElhone, Julia Stiles and Treat Williams. It was the final film directed by Alan J...
after the success of The Usual Suspects. He instead pursued Apt Pupil: "It was a very dark subject matter, and it was something that came from passion." He acknowledged in retrospect that Apt Pupil "wasn't really supposed to be a big success". Singer was financially supported by producer Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin
Scott Rudin is an American film producer and a theatrical producer.-Early life and work:Scott Rudin was born in New York City, NY, on July 14, 1958, and raised in the town of Baldwin on Long Island. At the age of sixteen, he started working as an assistant to theatre producer Kermit Bloomgarden...
and the production company Spelling Films. Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
was cast as Dussander, and Brad Renfro
Brad Renfro
Brad Barron Renfro was an American actor. He made his film debut in 1994 at age 12 in the lead role of Joel Schumacher's The Client, going on to star in 21 feature films, several short films, and two television episodes during his career. Much of his later career was marred by a pattern of...
was cast as Bowden. With $1 million paid toward pre-production, filming was scheduled to begin in June 1996. Due to financial disagreements between Singer and Rudin, the start date was pushed back and subsequently canceled. Singer and his production team stayed together while producer Don Murphy
Don Murphy
Don Murphy is an American film producer who produced Natural Born Killers and many other films, including Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.-Personal background:...
and his partner Jane Hamsher
Jane Hamsher
Jane Hamsher is a US film producer, author, and blogger best known as the author of Killer Instinct, a memoir about co-producing the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers with Don Murphy and others, and as the founder and publisher of the politically progressive blog FireDogLake...
sought refinancing. Mike Medavoy
Mike Medavoy
Morris Mike Medavoy is an American film producer and executive, co-founder of Orion Pictures , former chairman of TriStar Pictures, former head of production for United Artists and current chairman and CEO of Phoenix Pictures.-Early life and career:Medavoy was born in Shanghai, China in 1941 to...
, a former chairman of TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
, rescued the production with the financial backing of his production company Phoenix Pictures. The company provided filmmakers with $14 million to produce Apt Pupil. Filming took place on location in Altadena, California
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...
. Singer related to how Todd Bowden rebelled against his suburban environment. The director used the name of his high school football team, the Pirates, and the green-and-gold team colors in the film, saying, "I just projected my own childhood right out to Southern California."
Editing and composing
John OttmanJohn Ottman
John Ottman is an American film editor, composer and director.He is best known for his collaborations with film director Bryan Singer, acting as film editor and composing the scores for The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns and most recently...
served as both film editor and music composer for Apt Pupil. When he edited the film, he found it a challenge to create the proper musical score. Ottman recalled, "Normally, an editor will score scenes with temporary music from CDs, and so forth, and nothing I could find worked for this film." The composer sought a mix between the scores of the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(1968) and the military-based comedy 1941
1941 (film)
1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including John Belushi, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee and Dan Aykroyd...
(1978) to create an "otherworldly pastiche". Ottman said of his approach:
When you throw a cat in the oven, it's easy to have someone in the orchestra slam a hammer down on an anvil, scaring the hell out of everyone. The hard part is manipulating the story and accenting the characters. In the beginning, when Todd is laying down the rules, there's a certain repetitive thematic idea you hear. You hear the same music when Dussander is turning the tables on Todd, which makes you remember the first scene... You hope people are subliminally making the connection that the tables are turning back and forth.
Another scene in which Ottman meshed his editing and composing duties was when Dussander wakes up in the hospital with the television show The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons is an American sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, through June 25, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes. The show was produced by the T.A.T. Communications Company from 1975–1982 and by Embassy Television from 1982-1985...
playing in the background. Ottman explained his intent for the scene, "I used The Jeffersons as this innocuous thing—going between him and the television—so that when he does open his eyes, it scares the hell out of you... I added this deafening Bartok pizz, which is when all the violins pluck their strings really loud and they create this gnarly, unsettling sound." Ottman recorded the film's score with the Seattle Symphony
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra's season runs from September through July, and serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera in addition to its own concerts...
.
Lawsuit
For Apt Pupil, Bryan Singer filmed a shower scene in which Todd Bowden, saturated with horrific stories from Kurt Dussander, imagines his fellow showering students as Jewish prisoners in gas chambers. The scene was filmed at Eliot Middle School in Altadena, California on April 2, 1997, and two weeks later, a 14-year-old extra filed a lawsuit alleging that Singer forced him and other extras to strip naked for the scene. Two boys, 16 and 17-years-old each, later supported the 14-year-old's claim. The boys claimed trauma from the experience, seeking charges against the filmmakers including infliction of emotional distressEmotional distress
Mental distress or anxiety suffered as a response to a sudden, severe, and saddening experience.Emotional distress may refer to:* Law of torts:** Intentional infliction of emotional distress** Negligent infliction of emotional distress* Medicine:...
, negligence
Negligence
Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.According to Jay M...
, and invasion of privacy
Privacy law
Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....
. Allegations were made that the boys were filmed for sexual gratification. The local news shows and national tabloid programs stirred the controversy. A sexual crimes task force that included local, state, and federal personnel investigated the incident. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office determined that there was no cause to file criminal charges, stating, "The suspects were intent on completing a professional film as quickly and efficiently as possible. There is no indication of lewd or abnormal sexual intent." The civil case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The scene was filmed again with adult actors so the film could finish on time.
The lawsuit reflected "a recent cultural concern" about nudity in showers being connected to "sexual or erotic forms of gazing". The journal Body & Society wrote, "The ways in which the accusation that the director and other crew members identified as gay is seen to collapse gay identity into gay sexual behaviour, but the wholesale collapse of nudity into sexuality." The incident reflected the cultural trend that being gazed upon while naked would cause different forms of distress, threatening the "stability of the self as subject". This undermines the subject's ability to perform and as a result of the discomfort, brings more into question what the displayed nakedness is for.
Differences between novella and film
Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil begins in 1974, when Todd Bowden is in junior highMiddle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
, and it ends with him graduating from high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
. In Bryan Singer's film, the story takes place fully in 1984, when Todd Bowden is in his last year in high school. In the novella, for three years leading to the end of the story, Todd Bowden and discovered Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander independently murder a large number of hobos and transients, whereas in the film, the murders are condensed to Dussander's attempt to kill the hobo Archie. Singer sought to reduce the novella's violence, not wanting it to appear "exploitative or repetitive". Unlike in the novella, animosity toward Jews was not displayed in the film. The novella's dream sequence in which Bowden rapes a sixteen-year-old Jewish virgin as a laboratory experiment under Dussander's guidance was replaced by the film's dream sequence in which Bowden sees three shower-gas chamber scenes unfold. Reduced in the film was Todd's encounter with the schoolgirl Betty (named Becky in the film). In the novella, he dreams of Betty as a concentration camp inmate who he can rape and torture. In the film, he has a brief encounter with Becky where he finds himself unable to perform sexually.
In the novella, Bowden's high school counselor Edward French confronts the student with suspicions that Dussander is not really Bowden's grandfather, and Bowden murders French in cold blood. Bowden then embarks on a shooting spree from a tree overlooking a freeway, which results in his death five hours later. Singer felt unable to accomplish King's ending: "I told [King] the ending reads so beautifully. I could never measure up to it; I would have killed it." In the film, Bowden intimidates French, who suspects Dussander's false relationship to the student, by threatening to destroy him with "rumor and innuendo". Stanley Wiater, author of The Complete Stephen King Universe, wrote, "As depicted on screen, Todd is much more consciously evil, in his way, than in the book. This switch, while making the ending less brutal, perhaps, achieves the impossible: it also makes the ending even darker."
Reception
Bryan Singer previewed Apt Pupil at the Museum of ToleranceMuseum of Tolerance
The Museum of Tolerance , a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, USA, with an associated museum and professional development multi-media training facility in New York City, is designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of...
's L.A. Holocaust Center to assess feedback from rabbis and others about referencing the Holocaust. With a positive response, the director proceeded with the film's release. Apt Pupil was originally scheduled to be released in February 1998, but the film's distributor moved the release date to autumn, feeling that it belonged "alongside other more serious-minded films". It premiered at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in September 1998. It was then commercially released on October 23, 1998 in 1,448 theaters in the United States and Canada, grossing $3,583,151 on its opening weekend and placing ninth at the weekend box office. The film went on to gross $8,863,193 in the United States and Canada. Apt Pupil was considered a critical and commercial disappointment. The film was less successful than Singer's previous film The Usual Suspects, with critics describing it as "a somewhat disturbing movie that works as a suspenseful thriller, yet isn't completely satisfying".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, reviewing for the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, wrote that the film was well-made by Bryan Singer and well-acted, especially by Ian McKellen, but that "the film reveals itself as unworthy of its subject matter". The critic felt that the offensive material lacked a "social message" or an "overarching purpose" and found the film's later scenes to be "exploitative". Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
applauded the production value of Bryan Singer's direction, liking Newton Thomas Sigel's "handsomely shot" cinematography and John Ottman's "stunningly edited" work. Maslin wrote of McKellen and Renfro's performances, "Both actors play their roles so trickily that tensions escalate until the horror grows unimaginatively gothic." The critic felt that as the film approached the end, "the story's cleverness is noticeably on the wane".
Kathleen Murphy of Film Comment
Film Comment
Film Comment is an arts and culture magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, of which it is the official publication. Film Comment features critical reviews and in-depth analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world...
called McKellen and Renfro's performances "skin-crawling" but felt that it did not complete the film. Murphy wrote, "[The acting] makes you wish Apt Pupil had the art and the courage actually to look into evil's awful abyss." The critic perceived that Apt Pupil came off as a conventional horror film, that it had Stephen King's "characteristically unsavory" touches, and that Singer's "inept" direction "trivialize the characters and the subject matter". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
saw Apt Pupil as not a "hunted-Nazi thriller" nor a "full-tilt Stephen King thriller", but as a "student-teacher parable" that comes off as "disturbing". Schwarzbaum felt that Singer told "a story with serious moral resonance", though patience was needed to get past Singer's "more baroque cinematic touches" of "visual furbelows... and aural gimmicks" in the film, citing as examples Dussander watching Mr. Magoo
Mr. Magoo
Quincy Magoo is a cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Quincy Magoo is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of sticky situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem...
on television or the musical piece Liebestod being blared during a bloody scene.
Jay Carr of the Boston Globe called Apt Pupil "most compelling for its moral dimension", enjoying the "duet between Renfro's smooth-cheeked latter-day Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
and McKellen's reawakened Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
". While Carr found the film's framework to be realistic, he noted the change of pace, "Perhaps sensing a narrative slackening and a smothering claustrophobia... 'Apt Pupil' veers into melodramatic devices that yank the film out of its disquieting amorality and turn it into something much more ordinary and mundane." The critic concluded, "It maintains a bleak integrity by not pretending to arrive at remorse. Never is there any discussion." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
described Apt Pupil as "a good shocker that misses the ultimate horror", finding the film's weakness to be the "contrived" bond between Dussander and Bowden. Wilmington called the plot "overly slick", asking, "How can Todd not only conveniently find a Nazi war criminal in his hometown but also instantly coerce and control him?"
Accolades
Renfro won the Best Actor award at the Tokyo International Film FestivalTokyo International Film Festival
Tokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
for his performance in Apt Pupil. Ian McKellen won a Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
The Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.-List of winners and nominees:*1995: Kevin Bacon - Murder in the First as Henri Young...
and a Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
The Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor is an award given by the Florida Film Critics Circle to honor the finest male acting achievements in filmmaking.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
for his performance in both Apt Pupil and Gods and Monsters
Gods and Monsters
Gods and Monsters is a 1998 drama film that recounts the last days of the life of troubled film director James Whale, whose homosexuality is a central theme. It stars Ian McKellen as Whale, along with Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, Lolita Davidovich, and David Dukes...
. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor to McKellen for his performance and awarded the film a Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for Best Horror Film of 1998.
See also
Nazi Next Door films
- Marathon ManMarathon Man (film)Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....
(1976) - The Boys from BrazilThe Boys from Brazil (film)The Boys from Brazil is a 1978 British/American science fiction/thriller film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. It stars Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, with James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen and Steve Guttenberg in supporting roles...
(1978) - Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus BarbieHôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus BarbieHôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie is a 1988 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophüls about the life of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie...
(1987) - Music BoxMusic Box (film)Music Box is a 1989 film that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter, an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth....
(1989)
Further reading
s misogyny, homoeroticism and homophobia: Sadomasochism and the Holocaust film | journal=Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media | issue=45 | pages=pp. 1–23 | ref=harv }}External links
- Naked Shakedown from New Times LANew Times LANew Times LA is a now-defunct alternative weekly newspaper that was published in Los Angeles, California by the New Times Media corporation from 1996 until 2002. The editor-in-chief for its entire run was Rick Barrs...
, investigative article about the lawsuit