The Innocent | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Schlesinger |
Written by | Ian McEwan |
Based on | The Innocent by Ian McEwan |
Produced by | Norma Heyman Wieland Schulz-Keil Chris Sievernich |
Starring | Anthony Hopkins Isabella Rossellini Campbell Scott |
Cinematography | Dietrich Lohmann |
Edited by | Richard Marden |
Music by | Gerald Gouriet |
Distributed by | Entertainment Film Distributors (United Kingdom) Miramax (United States) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 107 minutes [1] |
Countries | Germany United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Box office | $553,000 (USA) [2] |
The Innocent is a 1993 drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay was written by Ian McEwan and based on his 1990 novel of the same name. The film stars Anthony Hopkins, Isabella Rossellini, and Campbell Scott. It was released in the US in 1995.
This article needs an improved plot summary.(December 2023) |
The film takes place in 1950s Berlin at the height of the Cold War and centres around the joint CIA/MI6 real-life [1] Operation Gold: building a tunnel under the Russian sector of Berlin.
The film had a double world premiere in Berlin in English and German on 16 September 1993. [1] It opened on 4 screens in the United Kingdom on 24 June 1994 and grossed £15,436 for the weekend. [3]
The movie spent 12 months in studio quarantine, and was released in the United States in September 1995 without advance screenings for critics. [4] In The New York Times , film critic Caryn James wrote, "It's not a good omen for 'The Innocent' that the prototypical Yank turns out to be Anthony Hopkins, the shy Englishman Leonard is played by the American Campbell Scott and the German woman who intrigues them is Isabella Rossellini... But The Innocent, which has been on the shelf for at least a year and was dumped in theaters yesterday without advance screenings, eventually overcomes its obstacles and almost lives up to its promising pedigree. You can trust Ian McEwan, who wrote the screenplay from his 1990 novel, to turn this fraught political situation into a dark, paranoid love story. And you can count on the director John Schlesinger (whose most famous film is Midnight Cowboy and most recent is the efficient thriller Pacific Heights ) to bring it to life with a commanding sense of its increasingly complex elements. What begins as a low-key tale of espionage, with allies spying on each other and everybody's motives in doubt, becomes a tense and suspenseful love story with Hitchcockian overtones." [4]
Rita Kempley in The Washington Post , on the other hand, [5] called the movie "baffling." She continued, "The acting proves as inconsistent as Schlesinger's ability to build and release suspense. In full swagger, Hopkins seems to be doing Teddy Roosevelt in preparation for the title role in Nixon . Rossellini recalls her mother, Ingrid Bergman, in an airport farewell scene that echoes Casablanca . It doesn't detract from the actress's work, but it does invite negative comparisons. Talk about amounting to a hill of beans."
Upon its September 1995 US release, [4] [6] Stephen Hunter wrote: "What an odd, chilly cup of tea is John Schlesinger's The Innocent. It slipped into the Greenspring with a great cast–Anthony Hopkins, Campbell Scott and Isabella Rossellini–but without benefit of a screening, a commercial decision that seemed foolish at the time but now seems the quintessence of marketing wisdom. The movie turns out to be a spy thriller set in the Berlin of the '50s. But just about every note is brightly, noisily false. In fact, the movie is so wrong from start to finish it's some kind of monument to human folly... It becomes a lame, bad parody of Casablanca , complete with airport, twin-engine prop plane, raincoats and Ingrid Bergman, or at least a facsimile thereof in the shape of her daughter, Rossellini. Why Rossellini would agree to such a tasteless twist on her mother in such an otherwise undistinguished film is one of the great astonishments of our time; why the great director of Sunday, Bloody Sunday and Darling would consider it himself is another."
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins is a Welsh actor. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2008. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama in 1993.
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoundly personal meditations into the myriad struggles facing the psyche and the soul". Among his most acclaimed works are The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957), Persona (1966) and Fanny and Alexander (1982), which were included in the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time. He was also ranked No. 8 on the magazine's 2002 "Greatest Directors of All Time" list. Other notable works include Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), A Lesson in Love (1954), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light and The Silence, Shame (1968), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Autumn Sonata (1978).
Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such as Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany, Year Zero (1948). He is also known for his films starring Ingrid Bergman, Stromboli (1950), Europe '51 (1952), Journey to Italy (1954), Fear (1954) and Joan of Arc at the Stake (1954).
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress. With a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award, and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian and American actress. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American and European cinema. She has received nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Spellbound is a 1945 American psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, and Michael Chekhov. It follows a psychoanalyst who falls in love with the new head of the Vermont hospital in which she works, only to find that he is an imposter suffering dissociative amnesia, and potentially, a murderer. The film is based on the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.
Anna Maria Magnani was an Academy Award-winner Italian actress. She was known for her explosive acting and earthy, realistic portrayals of characters.
Big Night is a 1996 American comedy-drama film co-directed by Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci. Set in the 1950s on the Jersey Shore, the film follows two Italian immigrant brothers, played by Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, as they host an evening of free food at their restaurant in an effort to allow it to gain greater exposure. The film's supporting cast includes Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini, and Allison Janney.
Anatoly Mikhailovich LitvakOBE ; 10 May 1902 – 15 December 1974), better known as Anatole Litvak, was a of Ashkenazi Jewish origin American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in various countries and languages. He began his theatrical training at age 13 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire.
Under Capricorn is a 1949 British historical drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock about a couple in Australia who started out as lady and stable boy in Ireland, and who are now bound together by a horrible secret. The film is based on the play by John Colton and Margaret Linden, which in turn is based on the novel Under Capricorn (1937) by Helen Simpson. The screenplay was written by James Bridie from an adaptation by Hume Cronyn. This was Hitchcock's second film in Technicolor, and like his preceding color film Rope (1948), it features 9- and 10-minute long takes.
Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 American comedy film written by and starring Woody Allen, based on his 1969 Broadway play of the same title. The film was directed by Herbert Ross, instead of Allen, who usually directs his own written work.
Europe '51, also known as The Greatest Love, is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Ingrid Bergman and Alexander Knox. The film follows an industrialist's wife who, after the death of her young son, turns towards a rigorous humanitarianism. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."
The Impostors is a 1998 American farce film, directed, written, and produced by Stanley Tucci, starring Oliver Platt, Tucci, Alfred Molina, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi, Hope Davis, Elizabeth Bracco, Lili Taylor, Michael Emerson, Allison Janney, Allan Corduner, Isabella Rossellini, and Billy Connolly.
Stromboli, also known as Stromboli, Land of God, is a 1950 Italian-American film directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Ingrid Bergman. The drama is considered a classic example of Italian neorealism.
A Matter of Time is a 1976 musical fantasy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Liza Minnelli, Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. It features songs by the duo of Kander and Ebb, George Gershwin, and B.G. DeSylva. The screenplay, written by John Gay, is based on the novel The Film of Memory by Maurice Druon.
A Woman Called Golda is a 1982 American made-for-television film biopic of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir directed by Alan Gibson and starring Ingrid Bergman in what would become the final production she would star in before her death. It also features Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover, Judy Davis, Anne Jackson, Robert Loggia, Leonard Nimoy, and Jack Thompson.
Journey to Italy, also known as Voyage to Italy, is a 1954 drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage is on the point of collapse until they are miraculously reconciled. The film was written by Rossellini and Vitaliano Brancati, but is loosely based on the 1934 novel Duo by Colette. Although the film was an Italian production, its dialogue was in English. The first theatrical release was in Italy under the title Viaggio in Italia; the dialogue had been dubbed into Italian.
Innocent means a lack of guilt with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing.
Pic double world-preemed Sept. 16 in Berlin, with English and German-dubbed versions unspooling in separate locations.