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Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman play a husband and wife forced to revisit the trauma of his WWII past in Jonathan Teplitzky's drama based on the true story of Eric Lomax.
An old-fashioned war drama stuffed into a cumbersomely choppy time structure, The Railway Man is well-acted and handsomely produced, but its honorable intentions are not matched by sustained emotional impact or psychological suspense. The film boasts committed work from Colin Firth as a British train enthusiast profoundly damaged by his experience as a prisoner of war, along with tearful support from Nicole Kidman as his wife. But despite those deluxe elements, it never quite transcends its stodgy approach.
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky (Burning Man), the co-production from Australia and the U.K. superficially recalls Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road in its setting against the backdrop of the fall of Singapore in 1942. Screenwriters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson bring more timid reverence than inspiration to their adaptation of former British Army officer Eric Lomax’s memoir. Dropping in references to Brief Encounter and The Bridge on the River Kwai merely underlines how far short they fall of their classic models.
The most striking aspect of Lomax’s story is the unexpected friendship that developed after the late war veteran (he died at age 93 in Oct. 2012) finally found peace with his demons. That detail is related as a coda here, whereas it might have made for a more inventive starting point.
Instead the film begins as Eric (Firth), with his dying breath, recites a poem that never really acquires much significance. From there, the action shifts back roughly three decades to 1980 in a veterans club in Berwick-upon-Tweed. A lifelong railway enthusiast, Eric tells his cronies of a recent encounter on a train with a woman so sweet and unguarded that he fell instantly in love. With no further ado, that woman, Patti (Kidman), becomes his wife. But Eric’s nightmares return immediately after the wedding, ushering in the specter of Nagase (Tanroh Ishida), the young Imperial Japanese Army officer who tortured him during World War II.
All that fussy time-jumping seems an untidy way into Lomax’s remarkable saga of suffering, honor, reconciliation and forgiveness, robbing the story of dramatic urgency
Eric’s erratic behavior and inability to talk about the ordeal puts a heavy burden on his marriage to Patti. This prompts her to approach another former P.O.W., Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard), who reluctantly breaks their code of silence. Knowing little more than the basics of their capture when Japanese forces occupied Singapore, Patti learns that they were sent to the jungles of Thailand to work on what was then known as the Burma-Siam railway.
Spared from the backbreaking labor that resulted in the death of thousands of soldiers, Eric, Finlay and their engineering unit were forced to put their skills to work at the service of the Japanese. He used pilfered parts to build a secret radio receiver, spreading hope among the men with news of far-away victories by the British and American forces. But when the radio was discovered, he was subjected to inhuman treatment -- vicious beatings, interrogation and torture.
The dramatic turning point from past back to present comes when Finlay learns that Nagase somehow escaped death as a war criminal and is conducting guided tours of the Kempeitai internment camp where they were held. That discovery yields more interesting developments, with strong work from Hiroyuki Sanada as the older Nagase in the inevitable confrontations. But with all its busy back-and-forth at the expense of compelling psychological insight, the lumbering script and direction fail to give the outcome the power it deserves.
Firth holds nothing back in his painful depiction of stiff-upper-lip moral fiber at war against mental instability and festering hatred. The actor does everything that’s required of him, and yet Eric remains an emotionally remote protagonist for such a harrowing story. Still, his portrayal of PTSD will resonate with anyone touched by war and its fallout. Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) also gives it his all as the young Eric.
While she’s lovely in her early scenes, Kidman’s role becomes a thankless one, called upon largely just to react with moist-eyed, agonized concern. Given that Eric’s ultimate course of action is driven as much by love as by the need to close an awful chapter in his life, their relationship could have benefited from more establishing screen time. It's no doubt intended, but those 1980 scenes have an awfully starchy feel that belongs to an earlier period.
Cinematographer Garry Phillips adopts a muted look for the English and Scottish locations and sweltering hot light and scorched earth tones for the Thai jungle scenes. (Studio work was done in Queensland, Australia.) And Phillips makes nifty use of a Hitchcockian reverse tracking shot in one scene. Production and costume design are solid in recreating the WWII scenes, and if 1980 looks more like 1970 or earlier, that might actually have been the case in the out-of-the-way northern U.K. settings. Composer David Hirschfelder contributes a robust dramatic score that conveys more emotion than anything onscreen in this nobly inert film.
In an era of truly visceral war movies like those of Kathryn Bigelow, The Railway Man feels like an antiquated prestige miniseries.
David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter 7 September 2013
You could buy fish food at the marina and these enormous carp would just swarm and leap over one another to get at it. Kind of cool but also kind of creepy in a Hitchcockian sort of way if the movie had been Fish and not Birds.
Uh, right.
Anyway, BK's cousin's kids thought it great fun to attempt to catch the fish during their feeding frenzy.
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Having a Hitchcockian moment - can you really trust anything with a spike in the middle of its face?
I took this photo about a year ago. I liked it, but I just couldn’t think of a title and at that point I hadn’t given up and just turned to setting the species as the title. So it sat, as I looked at that kind of Hitchcockian expression, and wondered what that squirel was thinking. Not sure, but there it is.
A slightly Hitchcockian moment captured in Bakewell, Derbyshire.
Taken on Thursday 23rd October 2008.
This is me being funny. Hehehe.
People walk by my bedroom window ALL THE TIME and I am always a little on edge because it's easy to see in my room; or at least I think it is. I went outside and it actually very difficult to see inside with my curtains closed. But sometimes I want my curtains open so all of the light can come in and I rarely do that because I don't want people to see me. And it also puts me on edge when I'm changing. Maybe I just want to lay naked on my bed with the curtains open! I never do that though.
I didn't plan on this being black and white originally, but at soon as I changed it to b&w, I couldn't change it back. I just love the Hitchcockian mood that this photo conveys.
it rained today and the sunset was incredible. Got home late so missed the sunset but got this instead. The sky was amazing right after sunset.
Strobist: AB800 into PLM camera left. PW's
See more project 365 here:
This is not a scene from a Burmese Hitchcockian horror movie; one of the local time-killers is to feed seagulls on inter village boat trips.
Inle Lake, Burma
British postcard by Real Photograph in the Art Photo Postcard series, no. 81. Photo: Gaumont-British.
British film and stage actress Nova Pilbeam (1919) is a forgotten star with an odd name. As a teenager, she played in two Alfred Hitchcock classics, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Young and Innocent (1937). In 1948 she vanished from the British cinema.
Nova Margery Pilbeam was born in Wimbledon, London in 1919. Her parents were actor and theatrical manager Arnold Pilbeam, and his wife Margery Stopher Pilbeam. Nova made her stage debut at five in a charity performance produced by her father. As soon as the law allowed, she made her professional debut. At 12, she played Marigold in Toad of Toad Hall at the Savoy theatre in 1931. This led to more stage work in her teen years and to an audition for Robert Stevenson at Gaumont British in 1934. She got a leading role in the British drama Little Friend (1934, Berthold Viertel) starring Matheson Lang. She played a young girl who becomes an unwilling witness to the divorce of her parents (Matheson Lang and Lydia Sherwood). At Wicked Lady, Carole writes: “When the film was released, Pilbeam was a sensation. Kinematograph Weekly praised the ‘brilliant performance by the newly discovered English protégée’ Gaumont-British executives were impressed and signed her to a seven year contract”. Pilbeam first got a small but important role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) featuring Peter Lorre. Pilbeam played a sophisticated teenager who is kidnapped. The Man Who Knew Too Much became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed thrillers of Hitchcock's British period. Brendon Hanley at AllMovie: ”Though Alfred Hitchcock would remake the movie himself in 1956 with a bigger budget, the original 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much is arguably a more historically significant and aesthetically interesting film. It was Hitchcock's first true international hit. Though he wouldn't have a major success in America until The Lady Vanishes, Man and the subsequent The 39 Steps helped establish the director's distinctive style and lay the groundwork for his popularity. Along with Hitchcock's trademark blend of suspense and humour and blurring of the normal and abnormal, the film also features his characteristically grand showpieces, most memorably the recreation of the true-life ‘Sidney Street Siege’ and the famous Albert Hall scene.”
Nova Pilbeam then played a lead role as the 16-years old Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1935, Robert Stevenson), a dramatization of Grey's short life, from her forced marriage to Henry VIII to her brief reign as queen of England and finally to her beheading. Carole at WickedLady: “Pilbeam looked glorious in the sumptuous Tudor costumes and was extremely touching in the role. She subsequently won the Film Weekly medal for the best performance by a performer in a British Film.” Still only seventeen, Pilbeam then had a starring role opposite Derrick de Marney in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937, Alfred Hitchcock), for which she is now best known. Hal Erickson reviews at AllMovie: “Alfred Hitchcock was beginning to repeat himself, but audiences didn't mind so long as they were thoroughly entertaining-which they were, without fail. Derrick De Marney finds himself in a 39 Steps situation when he is wrongly accused of murder. While a fugitive from the law, De Marney is helped by heroine Nova Pilbeam, who three years earlier had played the adolescent kidnap victim in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. The obligatory "fish out of water" scene, in which the principals are briefly slowed down by a banal every day event, occurs during a child's birthday party. The actual villain, whose identity is never in doubt (Hitchcock made thrillers, not mysteries) is played by George Curzon, who suffers from a twitching eye. Curzon's revelation during an elaborate nightclub sequence is a Hitchcockian tour de force, the sort of virtuoso sequence taken for granted in these days of flexible cameras and computer enhancement, but which in 1937 took a great deal of time, patience and talent to pull off.”After this, her film career may have stalled somewhat. She was considered for Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), but lost the role to Margaret Lockwood. In 1939 she appeared on the early British television drama Prison Without Bars (1939) with Jill Esmond, and in the Ealing comedy Cheer Boys Cheer (1939, Walter Forde) depicting the rivalry between two firms of brewers. In 1939 Nova Pilbeam married Penrose ‘Pen’ Tennyson, a great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. They had met at the set of Young and Innocent, where he was an assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock. Tennyson became a film director himself the year they were married.
Unlike other British film stars of the 1930’s, Nova Pilbeam never made a film in Hollywood. Producer David O. Selznick wanted her for the lead as Mrs De Winter in Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock) and thought she could be an international film star. However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract and Hitchcock thought she was too immature for the role. It must have been a blow to Pilbeam that Hitchcock gave the role to Joan Fontaine and that her studio, Gaumont British, had collapsed in 1937 due to overexpansion and the inability to penetrate the American market. In 1941 her husband Pen Tennyson suddenly died in a tragic plane crash. He had been called up to film some instructional shorts for the war effort. Despite all this, Pilbeam carried on. Throughout the 1940’s, she appeared in British war and crime films along with many stage roles. In 1940 she played with Wilfrid Lawson in Pastor Hall (1940, Roy Boulting), based on the true story of Pastor Martin Neimuller, who was sent to Dachau concentration camp for criticising the Nazi party. Another wartime propaganda film was The Next of Kin (1942, Thorold Dickinson) about the danger of Nazi espionage. It became a great box office hit. On stage, Pilbeam gave vibrant performances as the title role of Peter Pan, Viola in Twelfth Night and Rosalind in As You Like It. One of her last films was The Three Weird Sisters (1948). It was a Gothic tale of a dying Welsh mining town and the three old and afflicted ladies who oversee it. The screenplay is credited to five writers, including Dylan Thomas. After the release, she retired from the screen. She was 29 at the time. In 1950, Pilbeam married BBC Radio journalist Alexander Whyte and their daughter Sarah Jane was born in 1952. The couple stayed together until his death in 1972. Nova Pilbeam lives in Dartmouth Park, North London and is at the time of writing 93.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Brendon Hanley (AllMovie), Carole (Wicked Lady), BritMovie, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia and IMDb.
Playing the most hated character on television's most-talked-about show has certainly paid off for January Jones. As the loathsome Betty Draper on AMC's Mad Men, Jones has horrified audiences with her abhorrent parenting skills, her unwarranted sense of entitlement and her anti-feminist sensibilities. Though her acclaimed performance has left her prone to typecasting as a desperate housewife, Jones has used her Hitchcockian beauty and deft comedic timing (most recently showcased during her stint hosting SNL, where she also met new beau Jason Sudeikis) to full advantage, ensuring that her life after Mad Men will be fruitful. Next year, Jones will play an ice queen of a different kind, when she suits up as Emma Frost in the highly anticipated Marvel spin-off X-Men: First Class.
Michelle Pfeiffer Biography
Born Michelle Marie Pfeiffer
April 29, 1958 (1958-04-29) (age 52)
Santa Ana, California, U.S.
Occupation Actress
Years active 1979–present
Spouse Peter Horton (1981–1988)
David E. Kelley (1993–present)
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer born April 29, 1958) is an American actress. She made her screen début in 1980, but first garnered mainstream attention with her appearance in Scarface (1983). She rose to prominence during the late 1980s and early 1990s, giving a series of critically-acclaimed performances in the films Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Married to the Mob (1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Russia House (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), Love Field (1992), and The Age of Innocence (1993), as well as appearing as Catwoman, the feline anti-heroine of Batman Returns (1992).
Pfeiffer has won various awards for her work, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama for The Fabulous Baker Boys, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Dangerous Liaisons, and the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Love Field; each of these films also resulted in a nomination for an Academy Award. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Pfeiffer appeared on the cover of People's first "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" issue in 1990, and again in 1999, having made the list a record six times during the decade.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Film career
2.1 First television and film appearances
2.2 Screen success
2.3 Critical acclaim
2.4 Mid-career
2.5 Return to films
3 Theatre
4 Personal life
4.1 Marriages
4.2 Other relationships
4.3 Children
5 Filmography
6 Television work
Early life
Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California, the second of four children of Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor, and Donna (née Taverna), a homemaker. She has one elder brother, Rick, and two younger sisters, Dedee Pfeiffer and Lori Pfeiffer, both actresses. Her father was of German, Dutch, and Irish descent, and her mother was of Swiss and Swedish ancestry. The family moved to Midway City, California, where Pfeiffer spent her childhood. She attended Fountain Valley High School and graduated within three years and worked as a check-out girl at Vons supermarket. She then attended Golden West College. After a short stint training to be a court stenographer, she decided upon an acting career, and entered the Miss Orange County Beauty Pageant in 1978 (which she won), and the Miss Los Angeles contest later that year, after which she was signed by a Hollywood agent who appeared on the judging panel. Moving to Los Angeles, she began to audition for commercials and bit parts in films.
Film career
First television and film appearances
Pfeiffer's early acting appearances included television roles in Fantasy Island, Delta House and BAD Cats, and small film roles in Falling in Love Again (1980) with Susannah York, The Hollywood Knights (1980) opposite Tony Danza, and Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), none of which met with much success. Pfeiffer took acting lessons, and appeared in three further television movies - Callie and Son (1981) with Lindsay Wagner, The Children Nobody Wanted (1981), and a remake of Splendor in the Grass (as Ginny) - before landing her first major film role as Stephanie Zinone in Grease 2 (1982), the sequel to the smash-hit musical Grease (1978). The film was a critical and commercial failure, although Pfeiffer herself received some positive attention, notably from the New York Times, which said "although she is a relative screen newcomer, Miss Pfeiffer manages to look much more insouciant and comfortable than anyone else in the cast." Despite escaping the critical mauling, Pfeiffer's agent later admitted that her association with the film meant that "she couldn't get any jobs. Nobody wanted to hire her."
Screen success
Director Brian De Palma, having seen Grease 2, refused to audition Pfeiffer for Scarface (1983), but relented upon the producer's insistence. She was cast as cocaine-addicted trophy wife Elvira Hancock. The film was considered excessively violent by most critics, but became a commercial hit and gained a large cult following in subsequent years. Pfeiffer received positive reviews for her supporting turn; Richard Corliss of Time Magazine wrote, "most of the large cast is fine: Michelle Pfeiffer is better..." while Dominick Dunne, in an article for Vanity Fair entitled "Blonde Ambition", wrote, " She is on the verge of stardom. In the parlance of the industry, she is hot."
Following Scarface, she accepted the roles of Isabeau d'Anjou in Ladyhawke (1985) opposite Rutger Hauer, Diana in John Landis' comedy Into the Night (1985) opposite Jeff Goldblum, Faith Healy in Alan Alda's Sweet Liberty (1986) opposite Michael Caine, and Brenda Landers in a segment of the 1950s sci-fi parody Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), all of which, despite achieving only modest commercial success, helped to establish her as an actress. She finally scored a major box-office hit as Sukie Ridgemont in the supernatural comedy The Witches of Eastwick (1987), alongside Jack Nicholson, Cher and Susan Sarandon.
Critical acclaim
Pfeiffer was cast against type, as a murdered gangster's widowed moll on the run, in Jonathan Demme's mafia comedy Married to the Mob (1988), opposite Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell and Mercedes Ruehl. For the role of Angela de Marco, she donned a curly brunette wig and a Brooklyn accent, and received her first of six consecutive Golden Globe Best Actress Award nominations. Pfeiffer then appeared as chic restauranteuse Jo Ann Vallenari in Tequila Sunrise (1988) opposite Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell, but experienced creative and personal differences with director Robert Towne, who later described her as the "most difficult" actress he's ever worked with.
At Demme's personal recommendation, Pfeiffer joined the cast of Stephen Frears's Dangerous Liaisons (1988) alongside Glenn Close and John Malkovich, playing the virtuous victim of seduction, Madame Marie de Tourvel. Her performance won her widespread acclaim; Hal Hinson of the Washington Post saw Pfeiffer's role as "the least obvious and the most difficult. Nothing is harder to play than virtue, and Pfeiffer is smart enough not to try. Instead, she embodies it. Her porcelain-skinned beauty, in this regard, is a great asset, and the way it's used makes it seem an aspect of her spirituality." She won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Pfeiffer at the Academy Awards, 1990Pfeiffer then accepted the role of Susie Diamond, a hard-edged former call girl turned lounge singer, in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), which co-starred Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges as the eponymous Baker Boys. She underwent intensive voice training for the role, and performed all of her character's vocals. The film was a modest success, but Pfeiffer's portrayal of Susie drew raves from critics. Pauline Kael wrote of the performance as possessing "the grinning infectiousness of Carole Lombard, the radiance of the very young Lauren Bacall," while Roger Ebert compared her to Rita Hayworth in Gilda and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, and described the film as "one of the movies they will use as a document, years from now, when they begin to trace the steps by which Pfeiffer became a great star." Variety singled out her performance of 'Makin' Whoopee', writing that Pfeiffer "hits the spot in the film's certain-to-be-remembered highlight... crawling all over a piano in a blazing red dress. She's dynamite." During the 1989–1990 awards season, Pfeiffer dominated the Best Actress category at every major awards ceremony, winning awards at the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Chicago Film Critics Association. At the Academy Awards, she was favored to win the Best Actress Oscar, but the award went to Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy in what was considered a surprise upset. The only other major acting award for which she was nominated that she did not take home for The Fabulous Baker Boys was the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which also went to Tandy.
Mid-career
Pfeiffer continued to build on her A-list status in Hollywood, accepting (and also turning down) many varied, high-profile roles. She took the part of Katya Orlova in the film adaptation of John le Carré's The Russia House (1990) opposite Sean Connery, a role that required her to adopt a Russian accent. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a third Golden Globe nomination. Pfeiffer then landed the role of damaged waitress Frankie in Garry Marshall's Frankie and Johnny (1991), a film adaptation of Terrence McNally's Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, which reunited her with her Scarface co-star, Al Pacino. The casting was seen as controversial by many, as Pfeiffer was considered far too beautiful to play an "ordinary" waitress; Kathy Bates, the original Frankie on Broadway, also expressed disappointment over the producers' choice. Pfeiffer herself stated that she took the role because it "wasn't what people would expect of her ." Pfeiffer was once again nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.
Pfeiffer earned her third Academy Award nomination and fifth Golden Globe nomination for her performance as Lurene Hallett in the nostalgic independent drama Love Field (1992), a film that had been temporarily shelved by the financially-troubled Orion Pictures. It was finally released in late 1992, in time for Oscar consideration. The New York Times review wrote of Pfeiffer as "again demonstrating that she is as subtle and surprising as she is beautiful." For her portrayal of the eccentric Dallas housewife, she won the Silver Bear Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.
Pfeiffer took the role of Catwoman (Selina Kyle) in Tim Burton's Batman Returns (1992) opposite Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito. For the role of Catwoman, she trained in martial arts and kickboxing; one co-star stated that "Michelle had four stunt doubles - but she did all her own whippin'." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised her for giving the "feminist avenger a tough core of intelligence and wit" and called her a "classic dazzler." Premiere retrospectively lauded her performance: "Arguably the outstanding villain of the Tim Burton era, Michelle Pfeiffer's deadly kitten with a whip brought sex to the normally neutered franchise. Her stitched-together, black patent leather costume, based on a sketch of Burton's, remains the character's most iconic look. And Michelle Pfeiffer overcomes Batman Returns' heavy-handed feminist dialogue to deliver a growling, fierce performance."
The following year, she played Countess Ellen Olenska in Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1993) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, receiving the Elvira Notari Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and a sixth nomination for a Golden Globe award.
Pfeiffer's subsequent career choices have met with varying degrees of success. After The Age of Innocence, she played the role of Laura Alden opposite Jack Nicholson in Wolf (1994), a horror film that garnered a mixed critical reception. Her next role was that of high school teacher and former US Marine LouAnne Johnson in the surprise box office hit Dangerous Minds (1995). She appeared as her character in the music video for the soundtrack's lead single, 'Gangsta's Paradise' by Coolio (featuring L.V.). The song won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance, and the video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rap Video. She then took the role of Sally Atwater in the romantic drama Up Close & Personal (1996) opposite Robert Redford; the film's screenplay, co-written by husband and wife team John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, was intended to be a biographical account of the career of news anchor Jessica Savitch, but the final version had almost nothing to do with Savitch's life, leading Dunne to write an exposé of his eight-year battle with the Hollywood producers, Monster: Living Off the Big Screen.
Subsequent performances included the title (but technically supporting) role of Gillian Lewis in To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday (1996) opposite Peter Gallagher and Claire Danes, Melanie Parker in One Fine Day (1996) opposite George Clooney, Rose Cook Lewis in the film adaptation of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres (1997) with Jessica Lange and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Beth Cappadora in The Deep End of the Ocean (1998) opposite Treat Williams, Titania the Queen of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) with Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett and Stanley Tucci, and Katie Jordan in The Story of Us (1999) opposite Bruce Willis.
Her next film, the Hitchcockian thriller What Lies Beneath (2000) with Harrison Ford, was a commercial success, opening number one at the box office in July 2000. She then accepted the role of highly-strung lawyer Rita Harrison in I Am Sam (2001) opposite Sean Penn. For her performance as murderous artist Ingrid Magnussen in White Oleander (2002), alongside Alison Lohman in her film début, Renée Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn, Pfeiffer garnered a substantial amount of critical praise. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote that "Ms. Pfeiffer, giving the most complex screen performance of her career, makes her Olympian seductress at once irresistible and diabolical." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described her as "incandescent," bringing "power and unshakable will to her role as mother-master manipulator" in a "riveting, impeccable performance." She earned Best Supporting Actress Awards from the San Diego Film Critics Society and the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
Pfeiffer also did voice work in two animated films during this period, voicing Tzipporah in The Prince of Egypt (1998), in which she introduced the Academy Award–winning song, 'When You Believe', and Eris in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003).
Return to films
After a four-year hiatus, during which she remained largely out of the public eye and devoted time to her husband and children, Pfeiffer returned to the screen in 2007 with villainous roles in two major summer blockbusters, as Velma Von Tussle in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Hairspray (2007) with John Travolta and Christopher Walken, and as ancient witch Lamia in fantasy adventure Stardust (2007) opposite Claire Danes and Robert De Niro.
Pfeiffer then accepted the roles of Rosie in Amy Heckerling's I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007) with Paul Rudd and Saoirse Ronan, and Linda in Personal Effects (2009) opposite Ashton Kutcher. Her next film, an adaptation of Colette's Chéri (2009), reunited her with the director (Stephen Frears) and screenwriter (Christopher Hampton) of Dangerous Liaisons (1988), a film for which all three were nominees for (and, in Hampton's case, recipient of) an Academy Award. Pfeiffer played the role of Léa de Lonval opposite Rupert Friend in the title role, with Kathy Bates as his mother. Chéri premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2009, and received a nomination for the Golden Bear award. The Times of London reviewed the film favorably, describing Hampton's screenplay as a "steady flow of dry quips and acerbic one-liners" and Pfeiffer's performance as "magnetic and subtle, her worldly nonchalance a mask for vulnerability and heartache." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that it was "fascinating to observe how Pfeiffer controls her face and voice during times of painful hurt." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times praised the "wordless scenes that catch Léa unawares, with the camera alone seeing the despair and regret that she hides from the world. It's the kind of refined, delicate acting Pfeiffer does so well, and it's a further reminder of how much we've missed her since she's been away."
Theatre
In 1989, Pfeiffer made her stage début in the role of Olivia in Twelfth Night, a New York Shakespeare Festival production staged in Central Park. Other film actors appearing in the play included Jeff Goldblum as Malvolio and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Viola. Frank Rich's review in the New York Times was extremely critical of the production, stating "Ms. Pfeiffer offers an object lesson in how gifted stars with young careers can be misused by those more interested in exploiting their celebrity status than in furthering their artistic development." Rich praised Pfeiffer's performance in what was then her most recent film, the screwball comedy Married to the Mob, but stating it was "unfortunate that the actress has been asked to make both her stage and Shakespearean comic début in a role chained to melancholy and mourning."
Personal life
Marriages
At the start of her career, Pfeiffer met Peter Horton at an acting class taught by Milton Katselas in Los Angeles. They married in Santa Monica when Pfeiffer was 22, and it was on their honeymoon that she discovered she had won the lead role in Grease 2. Horton directed Pfeiffer in a 1985 ABC TV special, One Too Many, in which she played the high school girlfriend of an alcoholic student (Val Kilmer); and in 1987, the real-life couple then played an on-screen couple in the 'Hospital' segment of John Landis's comedy skit compilation, Amazon Women on the Moon. However, they decided to separate in 1988, and were divorced two years later; Horton later blamed the split on their devotion to their work rather than their marriage.
Pfeiffer and husband David E. Kelley at the 47th Emmy Awards, 1994In 1993, Pfeiffer was set up on a blind date with television writer and producer David E. Kelley (creator of Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, The Practice and Boston Legal), but it became a group event and they barely spoke to each other. The following week, Kelley took her to the movies to see Bram Stoker's Dracula, and they began dating seriously. They married on November 13, 1993. Since then, she has made an uncredited cameo appearance in one episode of Kelley's television series Picket Fences and played the title character in To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday, for which Kelley wrote the screenplay.
Other relationships
In between her marriages to Horton and Kelley, Pfeiffer had a three-year relationship with actor/producer Fisher Stevens (Early Edition, Hackers and Short Circuit). They met when Pfeiffer was starring in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night, in which Stevens had the part of Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Children
Pfeiffer and Kelley have two children, one adopted daughter and one biological son. Pfeiffer, who was by her own admission desperate to start a family, had entered into private adoption proceedings before she even met Kelley. The biracial baby girl she adopted had been born in March 1993, to a young nurse in New York who could not afford to support all of her children. She was christened Claudia Rose in November 1993, the same day that Pfeiffer and Kelley were married. Pfeiffer soon became pregnant and in August 1994, gave birth to a son, John Henry.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1980 The Hollywood Knights Suzie Q
Falling In Love Again Sue Wellington
1981 Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen Cordelia Farenington
1982 Grease 2 Stephanie Zinone Nominated - Young Artist Award for Best Young Motion Picture Actress
1983 Scarface Elvira Hancock
1985 Into the Night Diana
Ladyhawke Isabeau d'Anjou Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Actress
1986 Sweet Liberty Faith Healy
1987 The Witches of Eastwick Sukie Ridgemont
Amazon Women on the Moon Brenda Landers
1988 Married to the Mob Angela de Marco Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Tequila Sunrise Jo Ann Vallenari
Dangerous Liaisons Madame Marie de Tourvel BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1989 The Fabulous Baker Boys Susie Diamond Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1990 The Russia House Katya Orlova Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1991 Frankie and Johnny Frankie Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1992 Batman Returns Catwoman/Selina Kyle Nominated - MTV Movie Awards - Most Desirable Female and Best Kiss (with Michael Keaton)
Love Field Lurene Hallett Berlin Film Festival - Silver Bear for Best Actress
Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1993 The Age of Innocence Countess Ellen Olenska Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1994 Wolf Laura Alden Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Actress
1995 Dangerous Minds LouAnne Johnson Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress (Drama)
Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance and Most Desirable Female
1996 Up Close & Personal Sally/Tally Atwater
To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday Gillian Lewis
One Fine Day Melanie Parker Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress (Comedy/Romance)
Executive producer
1997 A Thousand Acres Rose Cook Lewis Producer (uncredited)
1998 The Prince of Egypt Tzipporah Voice
1999 The Deep End of the Ocean Beth Cappadora
A Midsummer Night's Dream Titania
The Story of Us Katie Jordan
2000 What Lies Beneath Claire Spencer Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress (Suspense)
Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Actress
2001 I Am Sam Rita Harrison Williams
2002 White Oleander Ingrid Magnussen Kansas City Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actress
San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress
2003 Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas Eris Voice
2007 Stardust Lamia Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
Hairspray Velma Von Tussle Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture
I Could Never Be Your Woman Rosie
2009 Personal Effects Linda
Cheri Lea de Lonval
Television work
Year Title Role Notes
1978 Fantasy Island Athena Episode - "The Island of Lost Women/The Flight of Great Yellow Bird"
1979 Delta House The Bombshell 2 episodes ("Hoover and the Bomb", "The Legacy")
The Solitary Man Tricia
CHiPs Jobina Episode - "The Watch Commander"
1980 Enos Joy 1 episode
B.A.D. Cats Samantha "Sunshine" Jensen
1981 Fantasy Island Deborah Dare Episode - "Elizabeth's Baby/The Artist and the Lady"
Callie & Son Sue Lynn Bordeaux credited as Michele Pfeiffer
Splendor in the Grass Ginny Stamper
The Children Nobody Wanted Jennifer Williams
1985 One Too Many Annie ABC Afterschool Special
1987 Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson Natica Jackson
1993 The Simpsons Mindy Simmons Episode "The Last Temptation of Homer"
Picket Fences Client Episode "Freezer Burn"
1996 Muppets Tonight Herself (1 episode)
A FLOOD of adjectives bursts onto the screen at the start of Anthony Minghella's glittering new thriller, considering ways to describe Tom Ripley before settling on ''talented'' as le mot juste. This is only a minuscule show of ingenuity, but it's also a promise that the film will keep. ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' offers diabolically smart surprises wherever you care to look.
Its opening credit sequence alone is a model of exquisitely economical suggestion, showing how the loan of a jacket with a Princeton insignia leads Tom from the life of a New York City men's room attendant to a thrillingly new world of opportunity. In a rush of gorgeous, agile exposition, Tom winds up in Europe, learning to say ''This is my face'' in Italian as he trains his binoculars on Dickie Greenleaf. Dickie is the spectacularly charismatic dilettante whose life Tom will eventually steal.
''I can tell you, the Greenleaf name opens a lot of doors,'' remarks the chauffeur who drives Tom away from a bleak Manhattan neighborhood and hands him his first-class ticket for an ocean passage. In light of the mind games that the movie has in store, both the remark and the carnal high-low contrast (meat hangs on hooks near the limousine) are as splendidly barbed as they can be.
As a playwright and television writer who came to filmmaking with two comparatively modest, whimsical efforts (''Truly, Madly, Deeply'' and ''Mr. Wonderful'') before the exponential leap of ''The English Patient,'' Mr. Minghella now establishes that his Oscar-winning triumph was no fluke. His hypnotic, sensually charged adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's fascinatingly reptilian murder story has the same kind of complex allure that made ''The English Patient'' so mesmerizing.
This is a more conventional opportunity, being essentially the story of a homoerotic Faustian bargain played for keeps. But Mr. Minghella, who wrote and directed ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' with acute attention to every nuance, significantly broadens what Ms. Highsmith had in mind. Adding a couple of important new characters and bringing the secrets of Tom's sexual longings to the surface, he risks losing the profound chill that made Ripley so disturbing in the first place. The character is several shades less loathsome and more conscience-stricken than he was to begin with, and his homosexuality is more openly expressed. But as played by Matt Damon with a fine, tricky mix of obsequiousness and ruthlessness, the nicer new Ripley is in no danger of losing his sting.
In a scenic, voluptuously beautiful film (kudos to the cinematographer, John Seale) that has a traffic-stopping cast, Mr. Minghella carefully plants the seeds of mayhem. When Tom is hired by Dickie's father (James Rebhorn) to bring the ne'er-do-well Greenleaf scion home from Italy, he contrives to bump into Dickie on the beach and to echo Dickie's infatuation with American jazz. The year is 1958, and it seems an impossibly glamorous time as depicted among pampered American expatriates in some of Italy's most breathtaking settings.
Tom's tricks, from wearing an embarrassingly skimpy chartreuse bathing suit to casually flashing some of Dickie's favorite record albums, neatly accomplish their purpose. Soon he has made himself Dickie's latest diversion, and managed this without even alienating Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), Dickie's girlfriend. Marge was a thick, lumpen target for Tom's misogyny in Ms. Highsmith's version. Here, though still hopelessly oblivious to sexual currents between the men, she becomes a reminder that Ms. Paltrow makes as savvy a character actress as she does a swanlike leading lady.
A word about the film's Dickie Greenleaf: this is a star-making role for the preternaturally talented English actor Jude Law. Beyond being devastatingly good-looking, Mr. Law gives Dickie the manic, teasing powers of manipulation that make him ardently courted by every man or woman he knows. During the first half of the film, Dickie is pure eros and adrenaline, a combination not many actors could handle with this much aplomb.
During one especially sharp-edged scene here, as the tensions surrounding Dickie approach the unbearable, the handsome heir indulges in what he dismissively calls ''Marge maintenance'' on his sailboat. Leaving Tom and another rich crony, Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman, scene-stealingly wonderful here), to wait uneasily during this sexual interlude, Dickie avidly plays off each passenger on the boat against the others. Something has to give.
When it does, in the deadly encounter that sends Tom Ripley into his new life, the film changes greatly in tone. Once its touristy idyll is over, ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' becomes an elaborate round of gamesmanship about Tom's sleight of hand and how it can be sustained. The ruse, which Mr. Damon handles coyly and credibly, if not with the nascent Norman Bates streak that the situation warrants, is given an added complication by the presence of Meredith Logue. Meredith is a needy post-debutante played irresistibly by Cate Blanchett. Once Meredith latches onto Tom, who she thinks is Dickie, whom she regards as a bored and wealthy kindred spirit, the story has developed all the dizzying cross-currents it deserves.
The last part of the film, which opens tomorrow, runs into problems. Eventually tangled up, like Tom, in the particulars of a trail of crime, it tries to use yet another of Tom's attractions (to another new character, played by Peter Smith-Kingsley) to settle his fate. And despite the occasional flash of Hitchcockian magic -- like a scene involving a razor blade in the pocket of a white bathrobe -- there are late scenes that flounder or lag. These concluding events are far less meaningful than the ones that sent Tom on his odyssey of self-invention in the first place. As with any great impostor, there's more to say about where he came from than where he has to go.
''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes brief and implied sexual situations, strong sexual undercurrents, profanity and murder.
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY
Written and directed by Anthony Minghella; based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith; director of photography, John Seale; edited by Walter Murch; music by Gabriel Yared; production designer, Roy Walker; produced by William Horberg and Tom Sternberg; released by Miramax Films/Paramount Pictures. Running time: 135 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Matt Damon (Tom Ripley), Gwyneth Paltrow (Marge Sherwood), Jude Law (Dickie Greenleaf), Cate Blanchett (Meredith Logue), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Freddie Miles), Jack Davenport (Peter Smith-Kingsley), James Rebhorn (Herbert Greenleaf) and Sergio Rubini (Inspector Roverini).
JANET MASLIN New York Times 24 December 1999
This is my lunch time buddy .... I share my shawarma, it likes the chicken and pita bread .... and in exchange, he / she agrees to model for me. A reciprocal arrangement that works for both of us. ;-D
we lit this bad boy after walking back from the dent festival. we stayed in a bunkbarn which was one of the fanciest i'd been in, loads better than the usual group accommodation places. it was right out in the countryside, i could tell this by the fact that the sheep came walking up to the door and looking through the windows. i half expected to wake up to a hitchcockian scene of a hundred sheep surrounding the house. they would probably have had cause to if we had stuck the lamb kebabs on the barbeque... luckily we were full up after the burgers and sausages.
here's the original
Great Plains Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes magnicamporum), Hitchcockian version. I'll post more conventional photos later. This is one of Minnesota's latest-flowering native orchids. McCleod County, south-central Minnesota. September 7, 2013.
This squirrel has been trying to get in my window all evening. It's cute but also getting to be creepily Hitchcockian. Starting to feel a bit like Tippy Hedren.
P.S.- OK, this is officially creepy. It's twelve hours later and this creature just scampered in my (briefly) open kitchen door. After I finished shrieking I had to chase it outside!
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Altered minds, altered states and bags of style – this sci-fi thriller is a
superb follow-up for Duncan Jones
Source Code is a
terrifically exciting and hugely enjoyable sci-fi
thriller,
written by Ben Ripley. For pure entertainment, there's nothing around to
touch it.
1. Source Code
2. *Production year:* 2011
3. *Country:* Rest of the world
4. *Cert (UK):* 12A
5. *Runtime:* 93 mins
6. *Directors:* Duncan Jones
7. *Cast:* Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Wright, Michelle Monaghan, Vera
Farmiga
Source Code is about conspiracies, altered minds and altered states,
far-fetched in the most elegant and Hitchcockian way, and the sheer
outrageousness of it all is muscular and streamlined. The film is about
modified reality and inner space, and there are points of comparison with
Christopher Nolan's Inception. But the world of Source Code seems to me more
interesting, and more able to incubate real drama, real suspense and even
some real humour.
At its centre is Colter Stevens, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a US army
helicopter pilot who has crashed in Afghanistan. When he comes to, he finds
himself in civilian clothes aboard a crowded commuter train arriving
slightly late into Chicago on a glorious summer morning. He appears to be in
someone else's body: that of a suburban teacher. Opposite him sits Christina
(Michelle Monaghan) who behaves as if a brief nap has merely interrupted
their highly flirtatious conversation, but she is then increasingly alarmed
as Colter, wild-eyed and panicky, demands to know what is happening and what
is going on.
After eight minutes, a catastrophic event then hurls Colter back into a
situation that is in some ways even more perplexing. He is in uniform,
injured and immobilised in what appears to be part of a wrecked military
aircraft. Is this real? Or is it the train that's real? Through a video
monitor, he must communicate with a woman who is evidently now his
commanding officer. Goodwin, played by Vera Farmiga, treats him with the
same unreadable solicitousness as Kevin Spacey's robot-voice did with
Sam Rockwell in Moon.
Without consenting, Colter has evidently been dragooned into a new mission
using futurist technology known as "source code"; he has been brought back
from Afghanistan – or has he? – and ordered to relive the past eight minutes
on a Chicago commuter train over and over again until he discovers vital
information. Ripley and Jones show how each metaphysical go-around discloses
more clues; each makes Colter fall for Christina a little more, and each
makes the thought of losing her seem more unbearable.
With its train setting and Chris Bacon's score imitating the jagged clamour
of Bernard Herrmann, the movie is clearly indebted to the Hitchcock of North
By Northwest and Strangers on a Train. But it's also a particularly tense
and fraught kind of Groundhog Day, and just as in that film, repetition
endows banal, forgettable events with an eerie familiarity and
inevitability.
Yet in the Bill Murray movie, our hapless hero had all the time in the
world, an infinity of time, as many Groundhog Days as he needed, to learn
the piano until he was at the level at which he could casually appear to be
a brilliant pianist to impress a woman. Making an impression on a woman is
not wholly absent from Colter's mind either, but he can't just repeat his
eight minutes ad infinitum, because the security situation is pressing and
time is running out. Each time he starts again, his own physical condition
in the mysterious cockpit deteriorates, and Goodwin and her shadowy boss
Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) are keeping secrets from him.
Source Code is glitzy and hi-tech in a 21st-century way, but also has
something from an earlier age: it is a story from the Twilight Zone, with
hints of Philip K Dick, and traces of the television world of The Prisoner
and The Fugitive. With its weird deployment of playing cards in one scene,
Jones has channelled The Manchurian Candidate – perhaps specifically through
Jonathan Demme's Iraq-themed remake – and the overall effect is smart and to
the point.
In its own way, Source Code also aspires slightly to the status of
comedy, and Colter's increasingly wan and desperate conversations with
Goodwin from his mysterious pod reminded me a little of David Niven's radio
conversations with Kim Hunter's June in A Matter of Life and Death – as he
plummets to his certain death, Niven's character exploits his prerogative as
a dying man to flirt with this radio operator.
This isn't exactly what is happening here, and Colter's affections are
engaged with Christina, not Goodwin – but equipoised with the action and
thrills, there is a serio-comic sense of fantasy and romance that have been
endangered by this terrifying situation in one sense, but in another sense
made possible by it. Source Code is absurd, but carries off its absurdity
lightly and stylishly. It is a luxuriously enjoyable film. Jones has put
himself into the front-rank of Hollywood directors, the kind who can deliver
a big studio picture with brains. With twists and turns, and at breathtaking
speed, this film runs on rails.
Thank you
-JC