The Ghost Writer (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Underlying lk (talk | contribs) at 07:17, 1 October 2011. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Ghost Writer[1]
The Ghost (United Kingdom title)
File:Ghostwriterlarge.jpg
US film poster
Directed byRoman Polanski
Screenplay byRoman Polanski
Robert Harris
Produced byRoman Polanski
Robert Benmussa
Alain Sarde
StarringEwan McGregor
Pierce Brosnan
Olivia Williams
Kim Cattrall
CinematographyPaweł Edelman
Edited byHervé de Luze
Music byAlexandre Desplat
Distributed by • Summit Entertainment (United States)[1]
 • Optimum Releasing (United Kingdom)
Release dates
 • February 19, 2010 (United States; limited)
 • April 16, 2010 (United Kingdom)
Running time
128 minutes
CountriesFrance
Germany
United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$45 million[2]
Box office$73,741,549[3]

The Ghost Writer (released as The Ghost in the United Kingdom) is a 2010 political thriller film directed by Roman Polanski. The film is an adaptation of the Robert Harris novel, The Ghost, with the screenplay written by Polanski and Harris.[4] It stars[5] Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall and Olivia Williams.[6]

Plot

When a successful British ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), his agent, Rick Ricardelli (Jon Bernthal), assures him it is the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start, not least because his predecessor on the project, Mike McAra, Lang's long-term aide, died in an apparent accident. The ghostwriter flies out to work on the project, in the middle of winter, at an oceanfront house in the fictional American village of Old Haven (an allusion to Vineyard Haven) on Martha's Vineyard. But the day he arrives, a former British foreign minister named Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh) accuses Lang of authorizing the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA, a possible war crime. Lang faces the threat of prosecution by the International Criminal Court, unless he stays in the U.S. or goes to another country that does not recognize the court's jurisdiction.

The controversy brings reporters and protesters swarming to the security perimeter of the island home where Lang is staying with his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), and his personal assistant (and mistress), Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall). As the ghostwriter works, he uncovers clues suggesting his predecessor may have stumbled on a dark secret concerning Lang. During Lang's absence, the neglected and possibly vengeful Ruth sleeps with the writer. The writer meets an old man (Eli Wallach) living nearby, who tells him that there is no possible way the current could have taken the body of the dead writer from the ferry where he disappeared to the beach location where it was discovered. The old man also reveals that a neighbor woman saw flashlights on the beach the night the body was discovered, but later fell down her stairs and went into a coma.

The next morning, the ghostwriter follows the GPS instructions in the car of the previous writer, which leads him to the estate of Professor Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson), who also appears in college photographs with Lang which had been left behind by the previous ghost-writer. The ghostwriter can tell that Emmett is hiding something. As the writer leaves Emmett's estate, he is followed by a car, but eludes it. The writer boards the ferry, but then flees the boat as it departs as he sees the car that had followed him drive aboard. He decides to spend the night on the mainland, and stays in a small motel and while there, finds information on the internet that points to Paul Emmett as a CIA agent.

The writer then dials Rycart, whose phone number had been among the effects of his predecessor, and who tells him that the previous writer had confided to him that in case anything happened to him, the truth about Lang was written in the beginning of the book. The men cannot, however, find anything in the manuscript's early pages. Then Lang calls and the writer is told by Rycart to go with Lang. The writer warns that Lang will be able to avoid Rycart no matter what he does. On the plane, the writer accuses Lang of being a CIA agent recruited by Emmett, but Lang derides his suggestion. The writer joins Lang's party on his private plane for the short return trip to the island.

Upon departing the aircraft, Lang is assassinated by an anti-war protestor who had lost a son while Lang was the British PM. The assassin is in turn shot by police. The writer is questioned and U.S. authorities take his passport so that he has to stay and provide information. Despite Lang's death, the ghostwriter is asked to complete the book for posthumous publication.

During the launch party for the book, while talking to Amelia, she tells him by accident that the manuscript was ordered to be accessed by only a few people, as the "beginnings" contained evidence that threatened national security and Amelia also tells him that Paul Emmett was Ruth's tutor when she was a Fulbright scholar. He realizes that the clues were hidden in the original manuscript at the beginning of each chapter. He underlines the words at the beginning of each chapter and reveals the message, "Lang's wife Ruth was recruited as a CIA agent by Professor Paul Emmett of Harvard University." Ruth Lang has shaped Lang's every political decision to benefit the United States, as directed by the CIA. The writer passes a note to Ruth of his discovery and as Ruth unfolds the note, she is devastated to read the text. She sees the ghostwriter raising his glass, as if making a toast to her and leaving the party with the original manuscript in hand and as she starts following she is stopped by Emmet. As the ghostwriter crosses the street off-camera, a car accelerates in his direction, and sound effects and flying papers indicate that he has been hit.

Allusion to Tony Blair

As in the novel, the character of Adam Lang is a veiled portrait of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The BBC notes that the character "was inspired by Tony Blair," and that "the ghost of Tony Blair ... haunts the fictional Mr Lang, with references to Iraq, the 'war on terror', and a much too cosy relationship with the United States." [7]

The actors who play Foreign Secretary Richard Rycart and the US Secretary of State physically resemble their real-life counterparts, Robin Cook and Condoleezza Rice, respectively. Like Rycart, Cook had differences with the direction of the British Prime Minister in some foreign policy matters. The character of the old man living on Martha's Vineyard is an allusion to Robert McNamara.[8]

Cast

Production

Polanski had originally teamed with Robert Harris for a film of Harris's novel Pompeii. The film, to be produced by Summit Entertainment, was announced at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 as potentially the most expensive European film ever made, but was cancelled as a result of the looming actors' strike that autumn.[9]

Polanski and Harris then turned to Harris' current bestseller, The Ghost. They co-wrote a script and Polanski announced filming for early 2008, with Nicolas Cage, Pierce Brosnan, Tilda Swinton, and Kim Cattrall starring. The film was then postponed by a year, with Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams replacing Cage and Swinton, respectively.

The film began production in February 2009 in Germany, at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. Germany stood in for London and Martha's Vineyard due to Polanski's inability to legally travel to those places. The majority of exteriors, set on Martha's Vineyard, were shot on the island of Sylt in the North Sea, and on the ferry MS SyltExpress. The exterior set of the house where much of the film takes place, however, was built on the island of Usedom, in the Baltic Sea. Exteriors and interiors set at a publishing house in London were shot in downtown Berlin, while Strausberg Airport near Berlin stood in for the Vineyard airport.[10] A few brief exterior shots for driving scenes were shot by a second unit in Massachusetts, without Polanski or the actors.

On his way to the Zurich Film Festival, Polanski was arrested by Swiss police in September 2009. Due to Polanski's arrest, post-production was briefly put on hold, but he resumed and completed work from house arrest at his Swiss villa. He was unable to participate in the film's world premiere at the Berlinale festival on February 12, 2010.[11]

Release

The film premiered at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival on February 12, 2010.[12] Summit Entertainment released the home video version on August 3, 2010, on a special "single-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo."[13]

Critical reception

The film has received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 84% of critics gave positive reviews based on a sample of 163 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10.[14] Rotten Tomatoes' Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, gave the film an overall approval rating of seventy-five percent based on twenty-four reviews.[15] Its consensus notes that, "While it may lack the revelatory punch of Polanski's finest films, Ghost Writer benefits from stylish direction, a tense screenplay, and a strong central performance from Ewan McGregor."[14] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from 0 to 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average rating of seventy-eight percent based on twenty-eight reviews.[16] For Andrew Sarris the film "constitutes a miracle of artistic and psychological resilience."[17] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and declared: "This movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller."[18]

Journalist/blogger William Bradley has dubbed it "one of the best films I've seen in recent years" in a review for The Huffington Post that dealt with the film's artistic and political dimensions.[19]

Writing for LAS Magazine, Theon Weber gave the film a 6.8/10 rating and called it "a thriller with topical ambitions; it takes place in a jittery, bomb-fearing Britain and America, often in airports or official buildings, where the weary rituals of security screenings refuse to let the characters or the audience relax."[20]

Funding and political controversy

A sour note came from The Independent's John Rentoul, who describes himself as an "ultra Blairite with a slavish admiration for Tony," and the conservative website Pajamas Media's John Rosenthal, who both pointed out that the winner of Berlin's Silver Bear received a large amount of financial support from the German federal government. Rentoul describes the film as "propaganda" and a "Blair hating movie" and launched a scathing attack on Polanski.[21] They failed to point out, however, that most major films produced in Germany receive a grant from the German Federal Film Fund, which does not need to be repaid (DFFF).[22] The Elfte Babelsberg Film GmbH, for example, received a grant of 3.5 million euros for producing the film.[23] Given that other films may receive German government funding, more clarification about this practice can be found as elaborated by John Rosenthal.[24]

Awards

Main article: List of accolades received by The Ghost Writer

See also

References

  1. ^ a b [dead link] "Summit Entertainment To Distribute Oscar-Winning Filmmaker Roman Polanski's Next Thriller – The Ghost Writer in North America". Summit Entertainment. December 11, 2009. Retrieved December 12, 2009.
  2. ^ "The Ghost Writer (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h [dead link] Kilday, Gregg (January 21, 2009). "Roman Polanski's 'Ghost' Adds Two". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 28, 2009.
  5. ^ imdb.com
  6. ^ Staff writer (February 24, 2010). "The Ghost Writer – English Movie Review". cinefundas.com. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  7. ^ Plett, Barbara (March 19, 2010). "How Realistic Is New Polanski Film The Ghost?". BBC News. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  8. ^ French, Philip (April 18, 2010). "The Ghost—Roman Polanski's Immaculately Crafted Adaptation of Robert Harris's Bestseller Is a Chilling and Sinister Study of Power". The Observer. Retrieved March 5, 2011. Oddly, as co-adaptors, Polanski and Harris have played down a character carefully signalled in the book. In the film, the 94-year-old Eli Wallach plays an elderly Vineyard resident who gives the ghost writer some vital information concerning the cove where the previous writer's corpse washed up. In the novel, he is clearly identified as the former secretary of state Robert McNamara by his rimless glasses and hairstyle, his statement about war crimes ("We could all have been charged with those. Maybe we should have been.") and a reference to a real event in 1972: "Hell, a guy tried to throw me off that damn ferry when I was still at the World Bank." This explains Harris's curious, ludic choice of the name McAra for the original ghost in the novel.
  9. ^ Mr. Beaks (March 5, 2010). "Mr. Beaks Interrogates The Ghost Writer Novelist-Screenwriter Robert Harris!". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  10. ^ Database (undated). "Filming Locations for The Ghost Writer (2010)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  11. ^ Verschuur, Paul; Pettersson, Edvard (September 28, 2009). "Polanski Arrested in Switzerland on 1978 U.S. Warrant (Correct)". Bloomberg. Retrieved March 5, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Berlin Film Festival Program
  13. ^ Calonge, Juan (June 9, 2010). "Polanski's Ghost Writer on Blu-ray/DVD Flipper". blu-ray.com. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  14. ^ a b "Ghost Writer Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  15. ^ "Ghost Writer (Cream of the Crop)". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  16. ^ "Ghost Writer, The (2010): Reviews". Metacritic. CNET Networks. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  17. ^ Filmlinc.com
  18. ^ Ebert, Roger (February 24, 2010). "The Ghost Writer". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  19. ^ Bradley, William (March 22, 2010). "The Ghost(s): Of Tony Blair, Roman Polanski, and A War on Terror". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  20. ^ Weber, Theon (March 9, 2010). "The Ghost Writer". LAS Magazine. Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  21. ^ Rentoul, John (May 26, 2010). "I Was Wrong About The Ghost". Independent Minds (blog via LiveJournal). Retrieved March 5, 2011.
  22. ^ German Federal Film Fund
  23. ^ List of grant approvals from the German Federal Film Fund, 2009
  24. ^ [dead link] John Rosenthal. Pajamas Media.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ghost_Writer_(film)&oldid=453329905"