The English Patient (film)
Encyclopedia
The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film
based on the novel of the same name
by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje
. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella
, won nine Academy Awards
, including Best Picture
. Ondaatje worked closely with the filmmakers.
Set before and during World War II
, The English Patient is a story of love, fate, misunderstanding and healing. Told in a series of flashbacks, the film can best be explained by unwinding it into its two chronological phases.
and depicts a critically burned man, at first known only as "the English patient," who is being looked after by Hana (Juliette Binoche
), a French-Canadian nurse in an abandoned Italian
monastery
. The patient is reluctant to disclose any personal information but through a series of flashbacks
, viewers are allowed into his past. It is slowly revealed that he is in fact a Hungarian geographer
, Count László de Almásy
(Ralph Fiennes
), who was making a map of the Sahara Desert, and whose affair with a married woman, Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas
), ultimately brought about his present situation. As the patient remembers more, David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe
), a Canadian
intelligence operative and former thief, arrives at the monastery. Caravaggio lost his thumbs while being interrogated by a German army officer, and he gradually reveals that it was the patient's actions that had brought about his torture. In addition to the patient's story, the film devotes time to Hana and her romance with Kip (Naveen Andrews
), an India
n Sikh
sapper
in the British Army. Due to various events in her past, Hana believes that anyone who comes close to her is likely to die, and Kip's position as a bomb defuser makes their romance full of tension.
In the first phase, set in the late 1930s, the minor Hungarian noble Count
Laszlo de Almásy (Fiennes) is co-leader of a Royal Geographical Society
archeological
and surveying
expedition in Egypt
and Libya
. He and his English partner Madox are at heart academics with limited sophistication in the swirling politics of Europe and North Africa. Shortly after the film begins, both the morale and finances of their expedition are bolstered by a British couple, Geoffrey and Katherine Clifton (Colin Firth
and Kristin Scott Thomas
) that joins the exploration party. The Count is taken with the gorgeous and refined Katherine. When Geoffrey is often away from the group on other matters, an affair takes wing. The final months before the war's onset bring an archeological triumph: the Count's discovery of an ancient Saharan cave decorated with "swimming figure" paintings dating from prehistoric times, the "Cave of Swimmers
". This period also sees the romance between Katherine and the Count rise to a sensuous peak and then seemingly fade. Katherine is plagued with the guilt of infidelity
, while the Count shows a streak of jealousy
along with an imbalance that will later haunt him.
The fall of 1939 and the war bring all excavation at the cave to a halt, and Madox and the Count go their separate ways. Geoffrey Clifton meanwhile has pieced together the outline of the affair, and seeks a sudden and dramatic revenge: crashing his plane, with Katherine aboard, into the Count's desert camp. The wreck kills Geoffrey instantly, seriously injures Katherine, and narrowly misses the Count. He manages to take Katherine into the relative shelter of the swimming figure cave, leaves her with water, a flashlight, and a fire, then begins his scorching three day walk back to the nearest town and help. The town is held by the British Army
, and the dazed and dehydrated Count, with his non-English name, is unable to coherently explain to officials the plane crash and Katherine's plight. Instead he loses his temper during questioning and is thrown into military jail. He is sent in chains on a train "north to Benghazi
", escapes, finds himself behind Afrika Korps
lines and quickly trades his desert maps with the Germans for a biplane. By the time he returns to the cave, Katherine is dead - and in all but a physical sense, so is the Count. He manages to bundle Katherine's body into the plane and takes off. Ironically, a German anti-aircraft battery shoots down the plane as Almásy pilots it over the desert. Horribly burned but alive, he is rescued by Bedouin tribesmen.
The film's second phase shifts to Italy
and the last months of the war. The Count by now is an invalid patient, and wholly dependent by this time on morphine
and the care of his French-Canadian nurse Hana, detached from her medical unit and established in a battered but beautiful Italian monastery. That place becomes the focal point for more plot threads, some new and some unfinished from the North African phase, all themed around love, chance, and the backdrop of the war. Hana has seen a fiancé and a nursing friend die in the Italian campaign
, and is left to wonder if her involvement with a British-Indian lieutenant
will break her cycle of love and grief or simply continue it. A visitor to the villa named Caravaggio is in search for the disfigured Count that he believes played a role in his own ill-starred time in Egypt and Libya. For Caravaggio unwittingly stumbled into the wreckage of the Count-Katherine-Geoffrey love triangle, circa 1940–42. He's lost both thumbs in a grisly interrogation at the hands of the Nazis, and has since hunted down and killed those he believes responsible for his fate. He believes the Count was part of a web of desert spying and intrigue, and knows that he traded maps with the Germans. He confronts him with news of Madox's suicide, and posits that the Count killed the Cliftons. Only a full recounting at the villa of the Cliftons' crash and the Count's map dealings with the Germans to recover Katherine bring Caravaggio to understanding and forgiveness.
So too does Hana find reconciliation at the film's end. Her lieutenant survives a brush with death on the war's last day and her hope in love is rekindled. The Count dies of an overdose of morphine for which he asked, administered by Hana.
, who won two Academy Awards for the film. Murch describes the complexity of editing a film with multiple flashbacks and timeframes; he edited and reedited numerous times and notes that the final film features over 40 time transitions.
The film was shot on location in Tunisia
and Italy
.
, the Golden Globe Award
and the BAFTA Award for Best Film
. Juliette Binoche
won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
, winning out over Lauren Bacall
for The Mirror Has Two Faces
(it would have been Bacall's only Oscar win, and in her acceptance speech Binoche commented that she had expected Bacall to win). Anthony Minghella
took home the Oscar for Best Director. Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor. Overall, The English Patient was nominated for 12 awards and ultimately walked away with 9. Its presence at the Oscars was so large that upon winning Best Original Song, Andrew Lloyd Webber
joked "Thank goodness there wasn't a song in The English Patient
." It is the highest-grossing non-IMAX
film (and second highest-grossing film overall) to never reach the weekend box office top 5.
The English Patient is one of only three Best Picture winners (Amadeus
and The Hurt Locker
being the other two) to never enter the weekend box office top 5 since top 10 rankings were first recorded in 1982.
Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert
gave the movie a 4/4 rating, saying "it's the kind of movie you can see twice – first for the questions, the second time for the answers."
In a Episode 151, aired March 13, 1997 of the sitcom Seinfeld
, Elaine Benes (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus
) repeatedly expresses her hatred for the film despite everyone else she knows loving it and is ultimately broken up with by her boyfriend, ignored by her best friends and fired by her employer, J. Peterman.
The film has a rating of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes
and 87% on Metacritic
, indicating "universal acclaim".
1997 Golden Globes, USA
1997 BAFTA Awards, UK
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
based on the novel of the same name
The English Patient
The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out...
by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
, won nine Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Ondaatje worked closely with the filmmakers.
Set before and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, The English Patient is a story of love, fate, misunderstanding and healing. Told in a series of flashbacks, the film can best be explained by unwinding it into its two chronological phases.
Synopsis
The film is set during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and depicts a critically burned man, at first known only as "the English patient," who is being looked after by Hana (Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
), a French-Canadian nurse in an abandoned Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
. The patient is reluctant to disclose any personal information but through a series of flashbacks
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
, viewers are allowed into his past. It is slowly revealed that he is in fact a Hungarian geographer
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
, Count László de Almásy
László Almásy
László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert researcher, aviator, Scout-leader and soldier who also served as the basis for the protagonist in Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient and the movie based on it.-Biography:Almásy was born in...
(Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
), who was making a map of the Sahara Desert, and whose affair with a married woman, Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas
Kristin Scott Thomas
Kristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient....
), ultimately brought about his present situation. As the patient remembers more, David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
), a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
intelligence operative and former thief, arrives at the monastery. Caravaggio lost his thumbs while being interrogated by a German army officer, and he gradually reveals that it was the patient's actions that had brought about his torture. In addition to the patient's story, the film devotes time to Hana and her romance with Kip (Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
), an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
sapper
Sapper
A sapper, pioneer or combat engineer is a combatant soldier who performs a wide variety of combat engineering duties, typically including, but not limited to, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, demolitions, field defences, general construction and building, as well as road and airfield...
in the British Army. Due to various events in her past, Hana believes that anyone who comes close to her is likely to die, and Kip's position as a bomb defuser makes their romance full of tension.
In the first phase, set in the late 1930s, the minor Hungarian noble Count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
Laszlo de Almásy (Fiennes) is co-leader of a Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
archeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and surveying
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
expedition in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. He and his English partner Madox are at heart academics with limited sophistication in the swirling politics of Europe and North Africa. Shortly after the film begins, both the morale and finances of their expedition are bolstered by a British couple, Geoffrey and Katherine Clifton (Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
and Kristin Scott Thomas
Kristin Scott Thomas
Kristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient....
) that joins the exploration party. The Count is taken with the gorgeous and refined Katherine. When Geoffrey is often away from the group on other matters, an affair takes wing. The final months before the war's onset bring an archeological triumph: the Count's discovery of an ancient Saharan cave decorated with "swimming figure" paintings dating from prehistoric times, the "Cave of Swimmers
Cave of Swimmers
The Cave of Swimmers is a cave with ancient rock art in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau of the Libyan Desert section of the Sahara. It is located in the New Valley Governorate of southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya.-History:...
". This period also sees the romance between Katherine and the Count rise to a sensuous peak and then seemingly fade. Katherine is plagued with the guilt of infidelity
Infidelity
In many intimate relationships in many cultures there is usually an express or implied expectation of exclusivity, especially in sexual matters. Infidelity most commonly refers to a breach of the expectation of sexual exclusivity.Infidelity can occur in relation to physical intimacy and/or...
, while the Count shows a streak of jealousy
Jealousy
Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
along with an imbalance that will later haunt him.
The fall of 1939 and the war bring all excavation at the cave to a halt, and Madox and the Count go their separate ways. Geoffrey Clifton meanwhile has pieced together the outline of the affair, and seeks a sudden and dramatic revenge: crashing his plane, with Katherine aboard, into the Count's desert camp. The wreck kills Geoffrey instantly, seriously injures Katherine, and narrowly misses the Count. He manages to take Katherine into the relative shelter of the swimming figure cave, leaves her with water, a flashlight, and a fire, then begins his scorching three day walk back to the nearest town and help. The town is held by the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, and the dazed and dehydrated Count, with his non-English name, is unable to coherently explain to officials the plane crash and Katherine's plight. Instead he loses his temper during questioning and is thrown into military jail. He is sent in chains on a train "north to Benghazi
Benghazi
Benghazi is the second largest city in Libya, the main city of the Cyrenaica region , and the former provisional capital of the National Transitional Council. The wider metropolitan area is also a district of Libya...
", escapes, finds himself behind Afrika Korps
Afrika Korps
The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
lines and quickly trades his desert maps with the Germans for a biplane. By the time he returns to the cave, Katherine is dead - and in all but a physical sense, so is the Count. He manages to bundle Katherine's body into the plane and takes off. Ironically, a German anti-aircraft battery shoots down the plane as Almásy pilots it over the desert. Horribly burned but alive, he is rescued by Bedouin tribesmen.
The film's second phase shifts to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and the last months of the war. The Count by now is an invalid patient, and wholly dependent by this time on morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
and the care of his French-Canadian nurse Hana, detached from her medical unit and established in a battered but beautiful Italian monastery. That place becomes the focal point for more plot threads, some new and some unfinished from the North African phase, all themed around love, chance, and the backdrop of the war. Hana has seen a fiancé and a nursing friend die in the Italian campaign
Italian Campaign (World War II)
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. Joint Allied Forces Headquarters AFHQ was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre, and it planned and commanded the...
, and is left to wonder if her involvement with a British-Indian lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
will break her cycle of love and grief or simply continue it. A visitor to the villa named Caravaggio is in search for the disfigured Count that he believes played a role in his own ill-starred time in Egypt and Libya. For Caravaggio unwittingly stumbled into the wreckage of the Count-Katherine-Geoffrey love triangle, circa 1940–42. He's lost both thumbs in a grisly interrogation at the hands of the Nazis, and has since hunted down and killed those he believes responsible for his fate. He believes the Count was part of a web of desert spying and intrigue, and knows that he traded maps with the Germans. He confronts him with news of Madox's suicide, and posits that the Count killed the Cliftons. Only a full recounting at the villa of the Cliftons' crash and the Count's map dealings with the Germans to recover Katherine bring Caravaggio to understanding and forgiveness.
So too does Hana find reconciliation at the film's end. Her lieutenant survives a brush with death on the war's last day and her hope in love is rekindled. The Count dies of an overdose of morphine for which he asked, administered by Hana.
Cast
- Ralph FiennesRalph FiennesRalph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
as Count László AlmásyLászló AlmásyLászló Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert researcher, aviator, Scout-leader and soldier who also served as the basis for the protagonist in Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient and the movie based on it.-Biography:Almásy was born in... - Juliette BinocheJuliette BinocheJuliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
as Hana - Willem DafoeWillem DafoeWillem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
as David Caravaggio - Kristin Scott ThomasKristin Scott ThomasKristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient....
as Katharine Clifton - Naveen AndrewsNaveen AndrewsNaveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
as Kip - Colin FirthColin FirthSirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
as Geoffrey Clifton - Julian WadhamJulian Wadham-Career:He has appeared on television as both Charles II and George V...
as Madox - Jürgen ProchnowJürgen ProchnowJürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...
as Major Muller - Kevin WhatelyKevin WhatelyKevin Whately is an English actor.Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and...
as Sgt. Hardy - Clive MerrisonClive MerrisonClive Merrison is a Welsh actor of film, television, stage and radio. He trained at Rose Bruford College.- Television :...
as Fenelon-Barnes - Nino CastelnuovoNino CastelnuovoFrancesco "Nino" Castelnuovo is an Italian actor. His perhaps most prominent role was starring as Guy Foucher in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg...
as D'Agostino - Hichem RostomHichem RostomHichem Rostom is a Tunisian actor. He has appeared in 28 films and television shows since 1987. He starred in Golden Horseshoes, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 festival.-Selected filmography:...
as Fouad - Peter Rühring as Bermann
- Geordie Johnson as Oliver
- Torri HigginsonTorri HigginsonSarah Victoria "Torri" Higginson is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles in the TekWar movies and series, The English Patient, Bliss, and Stargate Atlantis...
as Mary - Liisa Repo-Martell as Jan
- Raymond CoulthardRaymond CoulthardRaymond Coulthard is an English actor, best known for his roles as Alasdair Sinclair in the popular ITV soap opera Emmerdale and restaurant manager James Schofield in Hotel Babylon....
as Rupert Douglas - Philip WhitchurchPhilip WhitchurchPhilip Whitchurch is a British stage, film, and television actor. He is best known for playing Chief Inspector Philip Cato in The Bill from 1993 to 1995...
as Corporal Dade - Lee RossLee RossLee D. Ross is the Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, and an influential social psychologist who has studied attribution theory, attributional biases, decision making and conflict resolution, often with longtime collaborator Mark Lepper...
as Spalding - Anthony SmeeAnthony SmeeAnthony Smee is an English theater producer, writer, and actor who has worked in radio, theatre, television, and film since 1972.-Partial filmography:*You're the Stranger Here *Hilary and Jackie *Parting Shots...
as Beach Interrogation Officer - Matthew FergusonMatthew FergusonMatthew Ferguson is an actor born on 3 April 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He graduated from the Claude Watson School for the Performing Arts.-Performances:...
as Young Canadian Soldier - Jason DoneJason DoneJason Done is a British actor.-Background:Jason Done was born and raised in Walkden, City of Salford, United Kingdom. His love for acting began at an early age after watching the Ken Loach film, Kes...
as Kiss Me Soldier - Roger Morlidge as Sergeant – Desert Train
Production
In his book The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (2002) Michael Ondaatje records his conversations with the film's editor and sound designer Walter MurchWalter Murch
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor and sound designer.-Early life:Murch was born in New York City, New York, the son of Katharine and Canadian-born Walter Tandy Murch , a painter. He went to The Collegiate School, a private preparatory school in Manhattan, from 1949 to 1961...
, who won two Academy Awards for the film. Murch describes the complexity of editing a film with multiple flashbacks and timeframes; he edited and reedited numerous times and notes that the final film features over 40 time transitions.
The film was shot on location in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Reception
The film garnered widespread critical acclaim and was a major award winner as well as a box office success; its awards included the Academy Award for Best PictureAcademy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, the Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
and the BAFTA Award for Best Film
BAFTA Award for Best Film
This page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...
. Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
, winning out over Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
for The Mirror Has Two Faces
The Mirror Has Two Faces
The Mirror Has Two Faces is a 1996 American romance film produced and directed by Barbra Streisand, who also stars. The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese is based on the 1958 French film Le Miroir à deux faces written by André Cayatte and Gérard Oury, which focused on a homely woman who becomes a...
(it would have been Bacall's only Oscar win, and in her acceptance speech Binoche commented that she had expected Bacall to win). Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
took home the Oscar for Best Director. Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actress and Best Actor. Overall, The English Patient was nominated for 12 awards and ultimately walked away with 9. Its presence at the Oscars was so large that upon winning Best Original Song, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
joked "Thank goodness there wasn't a song in The English Patient
The English Patient
The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out...
." It is the highest-grossing non-IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
film (and second highest-grossing film overall) to never reach the weekend box office top 5.
The English Patient is one of only three Best Picture winners (Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
and The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker is a 2009 American war film about a three-man United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb...
being the other two) to never enter the weekend box office top 5 since top 10 rankings were first recorded in 1982.
Chicago Sun Times critic 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...
gave the movie a 4/4 rating, saying "it's the kind of movie you can see twice – first for the questions, the second time for the answers."
In a Episode 151, aired March 13, 1997 of the sitcom Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
, Elaine Benes (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress and comedienne, widely known for her sitcom roles in Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine....
) repeatedly expresses her hatred for the film despite everyone else she knows loving it and is ultimately broken up with by her boyfriend, ignored by her best friends and fired by her employer, J. Peterman.
The film has a rating of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and 87% on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, indicating "universal acclaim".
Awards and honors
1996 Academy Awards- Won, Best Picture
- Won, Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Juliette Binoche
- Won, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan)
- Won, Best Cinematography (John Seale)
- Won, Best Costume Design (Ann Roth)
- Won, Best Director (Anthony Minghella)
- Won, Best Film Editing (Walter Murch)
- Won, Best Original Score (Gabriel Yared)
- Won, Best Sound (Walter MurchWalter MurchWalter Scott Murch is an American film editor and sound designer.-Early life:Murch was born in New York City, New York, the son of Katharine and Canadian-born Walter Tandy Murch , a painter. He went to The Collegiate School, a private preparatory school in Manhattan, from 1949 to 1961...
, Mark BergerMark Berger (sound engineer)Mark Berger is an American sound engineer. He has won four Academy Awards for Best Sound. He has worked on over 160 films since 1973.-Selected filmography:* Apocalypse Now * The Right Stuff * Amadeus...
, David ParkerDavid Parker (sound engineer)David Parker is an American sound engineer. He won two Academy Awards for Best Sound and was nominated for another four in the same category...
, and Christopher Newman) - Nominated, Best Actor in a Leading Role: Ralph Fiennes
- Nominated, Best Actress in a Leading Role: Kristin Scott Thomas
- Nominated, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Anthony Minghella)
1997 Golden Globes, USA
- Won, Best Motion Picture – Drama
- Won, Best Original Score – Motion Picture (Gabriel Yared)
- Nominated, Best Director – Motion Picture (Anthony Minghella)
- Nominated, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama: Ralph Fiennes
- Nominated, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama: Kristin Scott Thomas
- Nominated, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture: Juliette Binoche
- Nominated, Best Screenplay – Motion Picture (Anthony Minghella)
1997 BAFTA Awards, UK
- Won, Best FilmBAFTA Award for Best FilmThis page lists the winners and nominees for the BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film for each year, in addition to the retired earlier versions of those awards...
- Won, Best Cinematography (John Seale)
- Won, Best Editing (Walter Murch)
- Won, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Juliette Binoche)
- Won, Best Screenplay – Adapted (Anthony Minghella)
- Won, Best Music (Gabriel Yared)