The Handmaid's Tale (film)
Encyclopedia
The Handmaid's Tale is a 1990 film adaptation of the Margaret Atwood
novel
of the same name
. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
the film stars Natasha Richardson
(Kate/Offred), Faye Dunaway
(Serena Joy), Robert Duvall
(The Commander, Fred), Aidan Quinn
(Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern
(Moira). The screenplay was written by Harold Pinter
. The original music score was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto
. MGM Home Entertainment released an Avant-Garde Cinema DVD of the film in 2001. The film was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival
.
has rendered 99% of the female population sterile. Kate (Offred in the novel), is captured after seeing her husband killed and daughter kidnapped while the family tried to escape into Canada
. Kate is trained to become a Handmaid, a concubine for one of the privileged but barren couples who rule the country's religious fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the bizarre cult
of the Handmaids, mixing the Old Testament orthodoxy
and misogyny with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate is soon assigned to the home of the Commander and his cold, inflexible wife, Serena Joy.
She is forced to lie between Serena Joy's legs and be sexually penetrated by the Commander, in hopes that she will bear them a child. But Kate continually longs for her earlier life. She soon learns that many of the nation's leaders are as sterile as their wives. She decides to risk the punishment for fornication — death by hanging — in order to be fertilized by another man who will make her pregnant, and subsequently, spare her life. The other man turns out to be Nick, the Commander's sympathetic driver. Kate grows attached to him and eventually becomes pregnant with his child.
Gale observes further that "while the film was being shot, director Volker Schlondorff
", who had replaced the original director Karel Reisz
, "called Pinter and asked for some changes in the script"; however, "Pinter recall[ed] being very tired at the time, and he suggested that Schlondorff contact Atwood about the rewrites. He essentially gave the director and author carte blanche to accept whatever changes that she wanted to institute, for, as he reasoned, 'I didn't think an author would want to fuck up her own work.' … As it turned out, not only did Atwood make changes, but so did many others who were involved in the shoot" (318). Gale points out that Pinter told his biographer Michael Billington
that
In an essay on Pinter's screenplay for The French Lieutenant's Woman
, in The Films of Harold Pinter, Gale discusses Pinter's "dissatisfaction with" the "kind of alteration" that occurs "once the script is tinkered with by others" and "it becomes collaborative to the point that it is not his product any more or that such tinkering for practical purposes removes some of the artistic element" (73); he adds: "Most notably The Handmaid's Tale, which he considered so much altered that he has refused to allow the script to be published, and The Remains of the Day
, which he refused to allow his name to be attached to for the same reason …" (84n3).
Christopher C. Hudgins discusses further details about why "Pinter elected not to publish three of his completed filmscripts, The Handmaid's Tale, The Remains of the Day
, and Lolita
," all of which Hudgins considers "masterful filmscripts" of "demonstrable superiority to the shooting scripts that were eventually used to make the films"; fortunately ("We can thank our various lucky stars"), he says, "these Pinter filmscripts are now available not only in private collections but also in the Pinter Archive at the British Library
"; in this essay, which he first presented as a paper at the 10th Europe Theatre Prize symposium, Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, held in Turin, Italy, in March 2006, Hudgins "examin[es] all three unpublished filmscripts in conjunction with one another" and "provides several interesting insights about Pinter's adaptation process" (132).
, Jamie Portman cites Richardson's view of the difficulties involved with making Atwood's novel into a film script:
Portman concludes that "In the end director Volker Schlondorff sided with Richardson"; Portman does not acknowledge Pinter's already-quoted account that he gave both Schlondorff and Atwood "carte blanche" to make whatever changes they wanted to his script because he was too "exhausted" from the experience to work further on it; in 1990, when she reportedly made her comments quoted by Portman, Richardson herself may not have known that.
in Durham
, North Carolina
.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
of the same name
The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction, written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985...
. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff is a Berlin-based German filmmaker who has worked in Germany, France and the United States...
the film stars Natasha Richardson
Natasha Richardson
Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
(Kate/Offred), Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
(Serena Joy), Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
(The Commander, Fred), Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn
-Early life:Quinn was born in Chicago, Illinois to Irish parents. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and raised in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a homemaker, and his father, Michael Quinn, was a professor of...
(Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern
Elizabeth McGovern
-Early life:McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Katharine Wolcott , a high school teacher, and William Montgomery McGovern, Jr., a university professor. Her paternal grandfather was adventurer William Montgomery McGovern and her maternal great-grandfather was U.S. diplomat...
(Moira). The screenplay was written by Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. The original music score was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
. MGM Home Entertainment released an Avant-Garde Cinema DVD of the film in 2001. The film was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival
40th Berlin International Film Festival
The 40th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 9 to 20, 1990.-Jury:* Michael Ballhaus * Margaret Ménégoz * Vadim Abdrashitov* Suzana Amaral* Steven Bach* Roberto Benigni* Lívia Gyarmathy...
.
Plot summary
In the near future war rages across the fictional Republic of Gilead and pollutionPollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
has rendered 99% of the female population sterile. Kate (Offred in the novel), is captured after seeing her husband killed and daughter kidnapped while the family tried to escape into Canada
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...
. Kate is trained to become a Handmaid, a concubine for one of the privileged but barren couples who rule the country's religious fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the bizarre cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
of the Handmaids, mixing the Old Testament orthodoxy
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...
and misogyny with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate is soon assigned to the home of the Commander and his cold, inflexible wife, Serena Joy.
She is forced to lie between Serena Joy's legs and be sexually penetrated by the Commander, in hopes that she will bear them a child. But Kate continually longs for her earlier life. She soon learns that many of the nation's leaders are as sterile as their wives. She decides to risk the punishment for fornication — death by hanging — in order to be fertilized by another man who will make her pregnant, and subsequently, spare her life. The other man turns out to be Nick, the Commander's sympathetic driver. Kate grows attached to him and eventually becomes pregnant with his child.
Cast
- Natasha RichardsonNatasha RichardsonNatasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
as Kate / Offred - Robert DuvallRobert DuvallRobert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
as Commander - Faye DunawayFaye DunawayFaye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
as Serena Joy - Elizabeth McGovernElizabeth McGovern-Early life:McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Katharine Wolcott , a high school teacher, and William Montgomery McGovern, Jr., a university professor. Her paternal grandfather was adventurer William Montgomery McGovern and her maternal great-grandfather was U.S. diplomat...
as Moira - Aidan QuinnAidan Quinn-Early life:Quinn was born in Chicago, Illinois to Irish parents. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and raised in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a homemaker, and his father, Michael Quinn, was a professor of...
as Nick - Victoria TennantVictoria TennantVictoria Tennant is an English film and television actress.-Early life:Tennant was born in London, England. Her mother, Irina Baronova, was a Russian prima ballerina who appeared with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and her father, Cecil Tennant, was an English producer and talent agent who ran...
as Aunt Lydia - Blanche BakerBlanche Baker-Personal life:Born Blanche Garfein in New York City, she is the daughter of actress Carroll Baker and director Jack Garfein. She attended Wellesley College from 1974 until 1976.-Career:...
as Ofglen - Traci LindTraci LindTraci Lind is an American film actress who is known for playing Alex Young in Fright Night II and Missy McCloud in My Boyfriend's Back. She also starred in The Road to Wellville and The End of Violence. She was billed in Fright Night II as Traci Lin...
as Janine / Ofwarren - Reiner SchöneReiner SchöneReiner Schöne is a German actor, known for such roles as Dukhat in the Babylon 5 series, Shinnok in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Esoqq in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Allegiance". He was born in Fritzlar....
as Luke - Robert D. RaifordRobert D. RaifordRobert D. Raiford offers liberal political and conservative social commentaries during the John Boy and Billy big show. He is from Concord, North Carolina and majored in communication at the University of South Carolina. Raiford got his start in broadcasting in 1944 by calling play by play at...
as Dick - Muse WatsonMuse WatsonMuse Watson is an American stage and screen actor. He most recently appeared as the recurring character Mike Franks in the television drama NCIS.-Biography:Watson was born on July 20, 1948 in Alexandria, Louisiana...
as Guardian - Bill OwenBill Owen (writer and announcer)Bill Owen, widely known as the "King of Trivia", is a writer and radio/television announcer whose career spans six decades. He served as host and announcer for the children's program "Discovery" in the 1960's.-Family:...
as TV Announcer #2 - David DukesDavid DukesDavid Coleman Dukes was an American character actor.-Life:Dukes was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a highway patrolman...
as Doctor
Pinter's unpublished filmscript
According to Steven H. Gale, in his book Sharp Cut, "the final cut of The Handmaid's Tale is less a result of Pinter's script than any of his other films. He contributed only part of the screenplay: reportedly he 'abandoned writing the screenplay from exhaustion.' … Although he tried to have his name removed from the credits because he was so displeased with the movie (in 1994 he told me that this was due to the great divergences from his script that occur in the movie), … his name remains as screenwriter" (318).Gale observes further that "while the film was being shot, director Volker Schlondorff
Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff is a Berlin-based German filmmaker who has worked in Germany, France and the United States...
", who had replaced the original director Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
, "called Pinter and asked for some changes in the script"; however, "Pinter recall[ed] being very tired at the time, and he suggested that Schlondorff contact Atwood about the rewrites. He essentially gave the director and author carte blanche to accept whatever changes that she wanted to institute, for, as he reasoned, 'I didn't think an author would want to fuck up her own work.' … As it turned out, not only did Atwood make changes, but so did many others who were involved in the shoot" (318). Gale points out that Pinter told his biographer Michael Billington
Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
that
It became … a hotchpotch. The whole thing fell between several shoots. I worked with Karel Reisz on it for about a year. There are big public scenes in the story and Karel wanted to do them with thousands of people. The film company wouldn't sanction that so he withdrew. At which point Volker Schlondorff came into it as director. He wanted to work with me on the script, but I said I was absolutely exhausted. I more or less said, 'Do what you like. There's the script. Why not go back to the original author if you want to fiddle about?' He did go to the original author. And then the actors came into it. I left my name on the film because there was enough there to warrant it—just about. But it's not mine' ([Pinter, as qtd. in Harold Pinter] 304). (Gale, Sharp Cut 318–19)
In an essay on Pinter's screenplay for The French Lieutenant's Woman
The French Lieutenant's Woman (film)
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
, in The Films of Harold Pinter, Gale discusses Pinter's "dissatisfaction with" the "kind of alteration" that occurs "once the script is tinkered with by others" and "it becomes collaborative to the point that it is not his product any more or that such tinkering for practical purposes removes some of the artistic element" (73); he adds: "Most notably The Handmaid's Tale, which he considered so much altered that he has refused to allow the script to be published, and The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day (film)
The Remains of the Day is a 1993 Merchant Ivory film adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols and John Calley. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton with James Fox,...
, which he refused to allow his name to be attached to for the same reason …" (84n3).
Christopher C. Hudgins discusses further details about why "Pinter elected not to publish three of his completed filmscripts, The Handmaid's Tale, The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day (film)
The Remains of the Day is a 1993 Merchant Ivory film adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols and John Calley. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton with James Fox,...
, and Lolita
Lolita (1997 film)
Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze,...
," all of which Hudgins considers "masterful filmscripts" of "demonstrable superiority to the shooting scripts that were eventually used to make the films"; fortunately ("We can thank our various lucky stars"), he says, "these Pinter filmscripts are now available not only in private collections but also in the Pinter Archive at the British Library
The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library
The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library is the literary archive of Harold Pinter, which Pinter had first placed "on permanent loan" in the British Library in September 1993 and which became a permanent acquisition in December 2007.-Acquisition:...
"; in this essay, which he first presented as a paper at the 10th Europe Theatre Prize symposium, Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, held in Turin, Italy, in March 2006, Hudgins "examin[es] all three unpublished filmscripts in conjunction with one another" and "provides several interesting insights about Pinter's adaptation process" (132).
Richardson's perspective on the script
In a retrospective account written after Natasha Richardson's death, for CanWest News ServiceCanWest News Service
Postmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
, Jamie Portman cites Richardson's view of the difficulties involved with making Atwood's novel into a film script:
Richardson recognized early on the difficulties in making a film out of a book which was "so much a one-woman interior monologue" and with the challenge of playing a woman unable to convey her feelings to the world about her, but who must make them evident to the audience watching the movie. … She thought the passages of voice-overVoice-overVoice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
narration in the original screenplay would solve the problem, but then Pinter changed his mind and Richardson felt she had been cast adrift. … "Harold Pinter has something specific against voice-overs," she said angrily 19 years ago. "Speaking as a member of an audience, I've seen voice-over and narration work very well in films a number of times, and I think it would have been helpful had it been there for The Handmaid's Tale. After all it's HER story."
Portman concludes that "In the end director Volker Schlondorff sided with Richardson"; Portman does not acknowledge Pinter's already-quoted account that he gave both Schlondorff and Atwood "carte blanche" to make whatever changes they wanted to his script because he was too "exhausted" from the experience to work further on it; in 1990, when she reportedly made her comments quoted by Portman, Richardson herself may not have known that.
Filming locations
The scene where the hanging occurred was filmed in front of Duke Chapel on the campus of Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
in Durham
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
.
Works cited
- Billington, MichaelMichael Billington (critic)Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
. Harold Pinter. London: Faber and Faber, 2007. ISBN 9780571234769 (13). Updated 2nd ed. of The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. 1996. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. ISBN 0571171036 (10). Print.
- Gale, Steven H. Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process. Lexington, KY: The UP of Kentucky, 2003. ISBN 0813122449 (10). ISBN 9780813122441 (13). Print.
- –––, ed. The Films of Harold Pinter. Albany: SUNY P, 2001. ISBN 0791449327. ISBN 9780791449325. Print. [A collection of essays; does not include an essay on The Handmaid's Tale; mentions it on 1, 2, 84n3, 125.]
- Hudgins, Christopher C. "Three Unpublished Harold Pinter Filmscripts: The Handmaid's Tale, The Remains of the Day, Lolita." The Pinter Review: Nobel Prize / Europe Theatre Prize Volume: 2005–2008. Ed. Francis Gillen with Steven H. Gale. Tampa: U of Tampa P, 2008. 132–39. ISBN 9781879852198 (hardcover). ISBN 9781879852204 (softcover). ISSN 08959706. Print.
- Johnson, Brian D. "Uphill Battle: Handmaid's Hard Times." Maclean'sMaclean'sMaclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
26 Feb. 1990. Print.
- Portman, Jamie (CanWest News Service). "Not the Tale of a Handmaid: Natasha Richardson Has Led an Outspoken Career". Canada.com. CanWest News ServiceCanWest News ServicePostmedia News is a national news agency with correspondents in Canada, Europe, and the United States and is part of the Canadian newspaper chain owned by Postmedia Network Inc.-History:...
, 18 Mar. 2009. WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. 24 Mar. 2009.
External links
- The Handmaid's Tale (novel) – "Context" at Spark Notes.