Sophie's Choice (film)

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Sophie's Choice

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Produced by Alan J. Pakula
Keith Barish
William C.Gerrity
Martin Starger
Written by Alan J. Pakula
Based on Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Narrated by Peter MacNicol
Starring Meryl Streep
Kevin Kline
Peter MacNicol
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Cinematography Nestor Almendros
Editing by Evan Lottman
Studio ITC Entertainment
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) December 8, 1982 (1982-12-08)
Running time 150 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Polish
German
Budget $12 million
Box office $30,036,000

Sophie's Choice is a 1982 American romantic drama film that tells the story of a Polish immigrant, Sophie, and her tempestuous lover who share a boarding house with a young writer in Brooklyn. The film stars Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNicol. Alan J. Pakula directed the movie and wrote the script from a novel by William Styron, also called Sophie's Choice.

This is widely regarded as one of Meryl Streep's finest performances, and it won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film was nominated for Best Cinematography (Néstor Almendros), Costume Design (Albert Wolsky), Best Music (Marvin Hamlisch), and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Alan J. Pakula).

Contents

[edit] Plot

In 1947, the movie's narrator, Stingo (Peter MacNicol), relocates to Brooklyn in order to write a novel and is befriended by Sophie Zawistowski (Meryl Streep), a Polish immigrant, and her lover, Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline).

One evening, Stingo learns from Sophie that she was married but her husband and her father were killed in a German work camp and that she was interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Nathan is constantly jealous, and when he is in one of his violent mood swings he convinces himself that Sophie is unfaithful to him and abuses and harasses her. There is a flashback showing Nathan rescuing Sophie from near death from anemia shortly after her immigration to the U.S.

Sophie (a Polish Catholic) eventually reveals that her father was a Nazi sympathizer. Sophie had a lover, Józef (Neddim Prohic), who lived with his half-sister, Wanda (Katharina Thalbach), a leader in the Resistance. Wanda tried to convince Sophie to translate some stolen Gestapo documents, but fearing she might endanger her children, she declined. Two weeks later Józef was murdered by the Gestapo, and Sophie was arrested and sent to Auschwitz with her children.

Nathan tells Sophie and Stingo that the research that he is doing at the pharmaceutical company is so groundbreaking that he will win the Nobel Prize.

At a meeting with Nathan's physician brother, Stingo learns that Nathan is mentally ill (paranoid schizophrenic) and that all of the "research facilities" that Nathan has worked at have been "expensive funny farms." (He has a job in the library of a pharmaceutical firm, which his brother got for him, and occasionally helps researchers with their research, but otherwise, is not one at all.)

After Nathan discharges a firearm over the telephone in a violent rage, Sophie and Stingo flee to a hotel. She reveals to him the tragic episode of the choice between her children in Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Sophie was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose Jan (Adrian Kaltika), her son, to be sent to the children's camp, and her daughter, Eva (Jennifer Lawn), to be sent to her death in Crematorium Two.

Sophie and Stingo make love, but while Stingo is sleeping, Sophie, tormented by her memory, returns to Nathan, where both Sophie and Nathan commit suicide by taking cyanide.

Stingo moves away from Brooklyn and into a small farm his father recently inherited in southern Virginia to finish writing his novel.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Casting notes

William Styron wrote the novel with Ursula Andress in mind for the part of Sophie, but Meryl Streep was very determined to get the role. After she obtained a bootlegged copy of the script, she went after Alan J. Pakula and threw herself on the ground begging him to give her the part.[1] Pakula’s first choice was Liv Ullmann for her ability to project the foreignness that would add to her appeal in the eyes of an impressionable, romantic Southerner. Streep filmed the "choice" scene in one take. Being a mother herself, she found shooting the scene extremely painful and emotionally draining and refused to do it again.[citation needed] Streep's characterization was voted the third greatest movie performance of all time by Premiere Magazine.[2]

[edit] Reception

Sophie's Choice won the Academy Award for Best Actress (Meryl Streep) and was nominated for Best Cinematography (Néstor Almendros), Costume Design (Albert Wolsky), Best Music (Marvin Hamlisch), and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Alan J. Pakula). The film was also ranked #1 in the Roger Ebert's Top Ten List for 1982 and was listed on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).

[edit] Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

  • Best Actress - Streep (nominated)
  • Most Outstanding Newcomer to Film - Kevin Kline (nominated)

Golden Globe Awards

  • Best Actress: Drama - Streep (won)
  • Best Film: Drama (nominated)
  • New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture: Male - Kline (nominated)

Writers Guild of America

  • Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium - Pakula (nominated)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Skow, John (1981-09-07). "What Makes Meryl Magic". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924815-8,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-28. 
  2. ^ The 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. Snapshot of page as retrieved on 2011-01-24.

[edit] External links

Films directed by Alan J. Pakula
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
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