Anne Frank: The Whole Story
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| Annie Frank: The Whole Story | |
|---|---|
| Approx. run time | 190 minutes |
| Distributed by | American Broadcasting Company |
| Editing by | Christopher Rouse |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
| Cinematography | Elemér Ragályi |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English / German / French / Spanish / Italian / Dutch |
| Release date | May 20, 2001 |
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (also known as Anne Frank) is a mini-series based on the book Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller. The mini-series was shown on ABC on May 20, 2001.
Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the series asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has never been established. A disagreement between the producers of the mini-series and the Anne Frank Foundation about validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank appearing within the production. Hannah Taylor-Gordon received both Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for her performance as Anne Frank, while Ben Kingsley won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his performance as Otto Frank, Anne's father.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Ben Kingsley ... Otto Frank
- Brenda Blethyn ... Auguste van Pels
- Lili Taylor ... Miep Gies
- Hannah Taylor-Gordon ... Anne Frank
- Tatjana Blacher ... Edith Frank
- Jessica Manley ... Margot Frank
- Joachim Król ... Hermann van Pels
- Nicholas Audsley ... Peter van Pels
- Jan Niklas ... Fritz Pfeffer
- Rob Das ... Jan Gies
- Johannes Silberschneider ... Johannes Kleiman
- Peter Bolhuis ... Victor Kugler
- Ela Lehotska ... Bep Voskuijl
- Jade Williams ... Hannah "Hanneli" Goslar
- Victoria Anne Brown ... Jacqueline van Maarsen
[edit] Plot
The year is 1939 the year she realizes her world is beginning to change around her. Eventually the Nazis invade the Netherlands. Anne gets increasingly distressed as her rights are taken away, as well as her family ominously being forced to register as Jews with the government and to wear yellow stars. She is then forced to leave her school and attend a Jewish Lyceum, where she meets her new best friend, Jacqueline van Maarsen, who is only half-Jewish. She also meets Hello Silberberg, on whom she develops a crush (it is implied Hello likes her too). On her 13th birthday, she receives the famous checkered-patterned diary and she immediately goes to her room to write her first entry.
A few weeks later, on a normal Sunday in July 1942, Margot, Anne's sister, receives a call-up from the Germans to be deported to a "labor camp" in the East. Otto Frank moves his family into the now-renowned "Secret Annex", followed soon by the van Pels and their son Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer, the Frank family's dentist. During their stay in the annex, the Van Pels family are noted for their constant bickering, Fritz becomes Anne's antagonist, and Anne has her first serious relationship with Peter, and receives her first kiss from him. All the while she wishes for an end to the war. Anne also gets her first period while in the annex - an occasion she'd been waiting anxiously for. One night a thief breaks into the building below the annex, leaving the eight refugees in terror.
Eventually, on August 4, 1944, the Franks are betrayed by the cleaning lady, Lena Hartog, of the business in which the annex resides. The eight people in hiding are arrested and Anne's diary is dumped onto the floor while the Germans search for money. Two of the helpers (of those in the Secret Annex) are also arrested. Otto reveals his history as a German veteran of World War I.
Afterwards, the Franks are sent on a train to Westerbork, a transit camp, where Anne and her family and friends are held in the criminal "S Barracks". There, Anne meets a woman named Janny Brandes and her sister Lientje, who are later seen with Anne in Bergen-Belsen. Anne and her family are soon transported to Auschwitz, where the women are stripped of their clothing and their hair is shorn. She is separated from her father and the other men. During a selection for women in the camp to go to a safer place to work in a munitions factory, Anne's mother and sister are chosen, but Anne is not. Therefore, Edith and Margot choose to remain behind. Anne and Margot are sent to a scabies barracks and later deported to Bergen-Belsen, which is no more than many large tents on a muddy ground surrounded by an electric fence. Mrs. van Pels eventually arrives at the camp to find Anne very thin and Margot sick with typhus. One night Anne sees her old friend, Hannah, through the fence. Hannah is a privileged prisoner and tells Anne that her father is dying but her sister is alive. She throws a package with bread and socks over to Anne.
In the last scene with Anne, Margot and Anne talk about past times, but Margot then falls out of bed and dies of shock. Anne, whose will to live is finally gone, looks up into the sky, defeated.
After the war in 1945, it is revealed that Otto is, in fact, alive. He looks for information about his daughters, but has no luck in doing so until he is directed to find Janny Brandes who survived the camp. Otto is told that Anne died a few days after Margot. Miep, who helped the Franks to hide, gives Anne's preserved diary to Otto. Otto reads it all. He then goes up to the now empty annex and collapses in a crying heap in front of "Anne's wall", still plastered with movie star photos. The film ends as it tells what happened to everyone mentioned in the story.
[edit] Historical inaccuracies
- Otto tells Miep and Edith that his sister begged him to send the children to live in London with her. It was actually his cousin Milly who asked for Margot and Anne to be sent to London, not his sister, Leni, who lived in Switzerland.
- When the Gestapo enter Miep's office, she is standing up and is searched and later is seen peering from the office window when the families from the Secret Annexe board the truck after being discovered. In reality, she was sitting in her chair and was told to stay seated, and that was why she never saw Anne and her family leave the building.
- Both Janny and Lientje have the same last name of Brandes which was Janny's married last name, while Lientje's married last name was Rebling. If the film had them using the same last name, they should have been called by their maiden name of Brilleslijper.
- Anne's concentration camp number in the film is A-25063. Actually, her number is unknown, since the camp records including Anne's number have been either lost or destroyed. The other women in the transport from Westerbork with Anne were tattooed with numbers between A-25060 and A-25271, so it is possible that the number given in the film could have been Anne Frank's real number.
- When Anne and her parents walk to the Secret Annexe from their house it isn't raining when it is clearly mentioned by Anne in her diary that it was. The rain was a source of relief for the three as it meant that there would be fewer German soldiers out in the street at the time.
- Otto Frank seemed to read Anne's diary all at once. In actuality he refused to read it at first and when he did he read it over a span of several days.
- The movie depicts the Frank family packing their suitecases to move to the hiding place. In the Diary of Anne Frank she said they did not pack suitecases to avoid arousing suspicion. Instead they wore multi-layers of clothing when they moved.
[edit] Home video release
Anne Frank: The Whole Story was released on VHS and DVD on August 28, 2001 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. There is not much difference from the DVD and VHS version of this movie since the only special feature on the DVD is a trailer of South Pacific.
[edit] Reviews
Anne Frank: The Whole Story earned critical acclaim from critics and viewers. The New York Post called the mini-series "Undeniably powerful" whereas others claimed it "a stunning tribute." This adaption has been named as "the best Anne Frank movie or mini-series yet.
[edit] MPAA rating
The production was rated TV-14 for concentration camp depictions including brief nudity. The brief nudity takes place where Anne, Margot, Edith, and Mrs. van Pels get their heads shaven at Auschwitz. There is also some disturbing images including dead bodies.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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