Captive (1986 film)

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Captive
Directed by Paul Mayersberg
Written byPaul Mayersberg
Produced by Don Boyd
Starring Oliver Reed
Irina Brook
Music by Michael Berkeley, The Edge and Michael Brook
Production
company
Release date
  • 1986 (1986)
CountryUnited Kingdom/France
LanguageEnglish
Budgetless than £2 million [1]

Captive is a 1986 Anglo-French cinema film loosely based on the experiences of Patty Hearst. [1]

Contents

Plot

Gregory Le Vay is a wealthy business man whose daughter Rowena is kidnapped by a terrorist group. Through psychological manipulation she is subordinated by them and led from the cultural and emotional imprisonment of her former life to the so-called liberation of theirs.

Cast

Production

Paul Mayersberg was a writer whose credits included several films with Nic Roeg. He said "I deliberately chose a familiar subject so you thought you knew what would happen next. That allowed more freedom from narrative concerns... The script is only a transcript of a dream." [2]

Filming took place in late 1985 under the title Heroine with finance coming from several sources, including Virgin Films, and French companies. Filming took six weeks. Post production took place in Paris. [1]

The film was Mike Southern's first as cinematographer. He recalled Mayersberg "was intense, intellectual and gave me a lot of aesthetic space to work in despite me being a newcomer to movies." [3]

Mayersberg said the film was "only English in the sense it's being made in England's green and pleasant land. It reflects English values, such as a quality of reserve, to the extent that I possess them myself." [1]

Four of the main actors were novices - two being French and one Japanese. "I chose them because I liked the idea of a weird family whose only shared language was emotional," Mayersberg declared. [2]

He added, "I wanted people to feel about Captive how I used to feel about films I liked - haunted. Films are best when they're 90 minute dreams." [2] Southern wrote that "It's a film about change, about discovery of self and the rejection of received values. But it is also a fairy-tale, a nightmare, an operatic fantasy in which unreality holds sway. Oliver Reed came to us with a fearsome “reputation” but was a delight to work with." [3]

Soundtrack

Music was contributed by Michael Berkeley, with a soundtrack album being provided by the Edge and Michael Brook, featuring Sinéad O'Connor singing on one track. The Edge had wanted to write soundtracks; he contacted David Puttnam who introduced The Edge to producer Don Boyd, who was making Captive. [4]

Release

The Observer called it "hollow, pretentious". [5] LA Weekly felt it was an "impressive directorial debut". [6] Sight and Sound felt it was " a more than promising first feature" but criticised the acting except for Reed. [7]

The Sunday Telegraph called it "glossy, pretentious rubbish." [8] The Evening Standard called it "immured and lifeless". [9] "The film at least has style and imagination," wrote The Guardian. [10]

The film led to Julie Corman offering Mayerfield the chance to make Nightfall (1988). [11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Pulleine, Tim (12 December 1985). "A splash of the English reserve". The Guardian. p. 13.
  2. 1 2 3 Pulleine, Tim (11 September 1986). "Caught in a dream". The Guardian. p. 13.
  3. 1 2 "Captive directed by Paul Mayersberg". Mike Southern.
  4. ↑ Graham, Bill (October 1986). "Out on His Own". Hot Press.
  5. ↑ "Cinema". The Observer. 21 September 1986. p. 29.
  6. ↑ "Film". LA Weekly. 7 May 1987. p. 107.
  7. ↑ "Captive". Sight and Sound. Summer 1986. p. 207.
  8. ↑ "Cinema". Sunday Telegraph. 21 September 1986. p. 15.
  9. ↑ "Dummies on display". Evening Standard. 18 September 1986. p. 30.
  10. ↑ "Movie guardian". The Guardian. 18 September 1986. p. 11.
  11. ↑ Counts, Kyle (September 1988). "Watching the Nightfall". Starlog (134 ed.). p. 60.
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