THE ENGLISH PATIENT
Review: It is at the end of WWII. A nurse from Canada cares for a badly-burned plane crash victim. He has no identification and cannot remember his name. The people that care for him and that are around him simply name him “The English Patient”.
Director: Anthony Minghella
Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth and Kevin Whately
Year: 1996
Genre: Drama, Romance and War
Conclusion: 4/5
Based on the award-winning adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s novel. All of the performances are outstanding. Anthony Minghella has done a great job directing this as it couldn’t have been an easy project for him to work on. If you think that this is a long film (well over 2 hours) Anthony Minghella’s first cut of the film was 4 hours and 10 minutes long. When the director sat down to write the screenplay he wrote 20 drafts. At a charity auction in New York in 2001, the shirt that was worn by Ralph Fiennes in the film fetched over $1900. The themes that occur in this are love, loyalty and betrayal. At the Academy Awards in1997 this won 9 Oscars. They were Best Picture, Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Juliette Binoche), Best Director (Anthony Minghella), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score. At the Golden Globe Awards in 1997 it won 2 two awards and they were for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Original Score – Motion Picture. At the Bafta Awards in 1997 Gabriel Yared won a the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music. At the Bafta’s it also went on to win 5 more awards. They were for Best Film, Best Screenplay – Adapted, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Juliette Binoche), Best Cinematography and for Best Editing.
