The White Countess

Last updated

The White Countess
White countess.jpg
Original poster
Directed by James Ivory
Written by Kazuo Ishiguro
Produced by Ismail Merchant
Starring
Cinematography Christopher Doyle
Edited byJohn David Allen
Music by Richard Robbins
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release date
  • 21 December 2005 (2005-12-21)
Running time
135 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
United States
China
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30 million (£17 million) [1]
Box office$4,092,682 [2]

The White Countess is a 2005 drama film directed by James Ivory and starring Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Hiroyuki Sanada, Lynn Redgrave, Allan Corduner, and Madeleine Potter. The screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro focuses on a disparate group of displaced persons attempting to survive in Shanghai in the late 1930s.

Contents

Plot

Having escaped the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Countess Sofia Belinskaya is working as a taxi dancer and prostitute, in a seedy Shanghai bar in 1936. Sofia is the sole support of her family of aristocratic White Russian émigrés, including her daughter Katya, her mother-in-law Olga, her sister-in-law Grushenka, and an aunt and uncle by marriage, Princess Vera and Prince Peter. Despite living off of it, Sofia's relatives scorn her for her work by treating her like an unclean woman, with the exception of Katya, who defends her mother.

Sofia meets Todd Jackson, a former official of the US State Department who years before lost first his wife and child, then later a daughter in separate terrorist bombings. The bombing that killed his daughter also blinded him. On his first visit to the bar, Todd overhears someone refer to Sofia as a “countess.” Sofia approaches Todd and urges him to dance. Sofia warns him that he should not wear such expensive clothes there and that he has come to the attention of gangsters who intend to victimize him. She convinces him to leave with her and pretend to be a client, as the gangsters do not interfere with the prostitutes' clientele. Outside of the club, Todd thanks Sofia, impressed by her character.

With his job at risk and dreaming of running a nightclub, Todd gambles his savings on a bet at the racetrack. Winning, he opens an elegant nightclub catering to rich cosmopolites and invites Sofia to be his principal hostess, as she is the very commodity for whom he has been searching—an aristocrat who can serve as a novelty hostess for his establishment. He intends to call the club "The White Countess.” Todd assures Sofia that her duties are only to serve as a hostess and dance with clients. Sofia accepts.

As the nightclub thrives, Todd and Sofia draw closer to each other, but strive to keep work separate from their personal lives. Meanwhile, Sofia's family considers her neighbor and friend, Mr. Feinstein, beneath them because he is Jewish.

Then, the Second Sino-Japanese War starts. Fearing the impending Japanese invasion of Shanghai, Sofia's relatives enlist the help of émigré contacts at the French embassy to help them get papers and tickets to leave and appeal to Sofia for $300 to cover costs. Sofia borrows the money from Todd, who is sorry to see her go but encourages her to leave if she fears for her own safety. Sofia tries to convince Todd to leave Shanghai as well, to no avail.

Sofia's relatives purchase everything required to leave Shanghai, taking Katya with them, but are short of funds to buy papers for Sofia to accompany them to Hong Kong. Sofia is shocked that they have not consulted her with their arrangements to leave. In response, they say that her presence among the émigré community would keep them out of society since her actions in Shanghai are known. Sofia agrees to pretend that she will be joining them later so Katya will go with her aunts without alarm. Mr. Feinstein later finds Sofia, realizes she has been abandoned by her family, and encourages her to get Katya back and join him and his wife in their flight to Macau that evening.

Todd is encouraged to leave Shanghai by Mr. Matsuda, a sympathetic Japanese business associate who has connections with the impending invaders. Todd is reluctant to leave his nightclub and is angry at Matsuda. Matsuda suggests Todd should begin a new life with "the real White Countess.” Todd sets out to find her and Katya. Amid the chaos of departing Europeans, Todd’s chauffeur abandons him on the streets of Shanghai. Todd is eventually spotted by Mr. Feinstein, who is looking for Katya with Sofia. The three eventually find Sofia's family boarding the ship to Hong Kong, and Sofia retrieves Katya despite Grushenka’s resistance. Sofia then urges Todd to leave with them for Macau. Todd accepts.

Cast

Production

Ismail Merchant had previously worked with British author Kazuo Ishiguro, whose Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day had been adapted into one of Merchant Ivory's most successful films. Ivory initially asked Ishiguro to adapt the Junichiro Tanizaki novel The Diary of a Mad Old Man, but he wrote an original screenplay based on his obsession with Shanghai. [1] Merchant said: "To have a writer of this calibre working with you is wonderful...I don’t know of any other writer who would be so keenly able to reflect the details of life at that time." [3] Andre Morgan joined the project as executive producer and the film used his studio in Shanghai for production and post-production. [4]

In The Making of The White Countess, a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, production designer Andrew Sanders discusses the difficulties he had recreating 1930s Shanghai in a city where most pre-war remnants are surrounded by modern skyscrapers and neon lights. Many of the sets had to be constructed on soundstages. Also impeding him were restrictions on imports levied by the Chinese government, forcing him to make do with whatever materials he could find within the country. The film was the last for producer Ismail Merchant, who died shortly after principal photography was completed. [5] [6]

Cinematographer Chris Doyle said of his work on the film that "What I'm trying to do is make the camerawork lyrical rather than fragmentary. It's a dance between the camera and the actors." [1]

In 2003, Variety noted the production budget was $16 million, [3] while a 2006 The Guardian article reported the budget at $30 million (£17 million). [1]

Release

The film premiered at the Savannah Film Festival in Savannah, Georgia, and was shown at the Two River Film Festival in Monmouth County, New Jersey, before going into limited release in the US It opened on ten screens, and earned $46,348 on its opening weekend, ranking No. 34 among all films in release. It eventually grossed $1,669,971 in the U.S and $2,422,711 in other markets, for a total worldwide box office of $4,092,682. [2]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 49% based on 89 reviews, with average rating of 5.92/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "High production values and fine performances get bogged down by a lifeless story that fails to engage the viewer." [7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [8]

Stephen Holden of the New York Times said, "You couldn't ask for a tonier cast than the one that gamely tries to pump oxygen into the thin, filtered air of The White Countess ... But with its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, [the film] never develops any narrative stamina ... [It] has the familiar Merchant-Ivory trademarks: cultivated dialogue, a keen eye for the nuances of upscale society and a sophisticated, internationalist view of class and ethnicity. What is missing from a film that wants to be an Asian Casablanca crossed with The English Patient is a racing, dramatic pulse. Its sedate tone is simply too refined for the story it has to tell. Mr. Ishiguro's prim, anemic screenplay is so lacking in drive and emotional gravitas that the actors are left with only scraps of lean dramatic meat to tear into." [6]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated, "Fiennes and Richardson make this film work with the quiet strangeness of their performances" and then observed, "I saw my first Merchant and Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah , in 1965 ... Sometimes they have made great films, sometimes flawed ones, even bad ones, but never shabby or unworthy ones. Here is one that is good to better, poignant, patient, moving." [9]

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said of the film, "Measured and meticulous, with small patches of narrative awkwardness that are more than compensated for by rich performances, it's an appropriate finish to the 40-year partnership: a typical, above-average Merchant-Ivory film ... The movie has a slow start, but Ivory is laying in foundations for later ... Long before the climax, which is magnificent, the movie has us completely believing in the characters and their histories and marveling at their extraordinary circumstances. This is Merchant-Ivory's kind of showmanship, the unflashy adult variety of movie magic that they made their hallmark." [10]

Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times stated, "The Chekovian sight of so many Richardson-Redgraves lamenting their circumstances in heavily Russian-accented English and pining for Hong Kong, where their former social glory will be restored, makes you wonder if they'd have been better off in a stage production of Three and a Half Sisters: The Twilight Years ... The White Countess takes place in a fascinating time and place, rife with conflict and turmoil. But to watch Fiennes float (and Richardson trudge) through it all, absorbed in themselves and their own private misery, is to wish they'd started falling earlier, if only to knock some sense into them." [11]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rated the film three out of four stars and commented, "The convoluted screenplay ... makes it hard for director James Ivory to maintain an emotional through-line. But Richardson ... finds the story's grieving heart. Fiennes is her match in soulful artistry. As the last film from the legendary team of Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant ... The White Countess is a stirring tribute to Merchant, a true builder of dreams in an industry now sorely bereft of his unique spirit." [12]

Justin Chang of Variety stated, "The threads come together ever so slowly in The White Countess ... This final production from the team of James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant is itself adrift in more ways than one, with a literate but meandering script ... that withholds emotional payoffs to an almost perverse degree. Name cast and typically tasteful presentation should spark biz among sophisticated older viewers, though likely a fraction of what the Merchant Ivory pedigree used to command theatrically." [13]

Accolades

At the 10th Satellite Awards, the film was nominated for Best Costume Design (John Bright) and Best Sound (Mixing & Editing) (Michael Barry, Martin Czembor, Ludovic Hénault, Robert Hein). [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Redgrave</span> British actress (born 1937)

Dame Vanessa Redgrave is an English actress. In her career spanning over six decades, she has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Olivier Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

<i>Howards End</i> (film) 1992 film

Howards End is a 1992 historical romantic drama film directed by James Ivory, from a screenplay written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on the 1910 novel by E. M. Forster. Marking Merchant Ivory Productions' third adaptation of a Forster novel, it was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics. The film's narrative explores class relations in turn-of-the-20th-century Britain, through events in the lives of the Schlegel sisters. The film starred Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Vanessa Redgrave, with James Wilby, Samuel West, Jemma Redgrave and Prunella Scales in supporting roles.

<i>The Remains of the Day</i> Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Remains of the Day is a 1989 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro. The protagonist, Stevens, is a butler with a long record of service at Darlington Hall, a fictitious stately home near Oxford, England. In 1956, he takes a road trip to visit a former colleague, and reminisces about events at Darlington Hall in the 1920s and 1930s.

Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) and director James Ivory. Merchant and Ivory were life and business partners from 1961 until Merchant's death in 2005. During their time together, they made 44 films. The films were for the most part produced by Merchant and directed by Ivory, and 23 of them were scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927–2013) in some capacity. The films were often based upon novels or short stories, particularly the work of Henry James, E. M. Forster, and Jhabvala herself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Prawer Jhabvala</span> British-American writer (1927–2013)

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natasha Richardson</span> British actress (1963–2009)

Natasha Jane Richardson was a British and American actress. A member of the Redgrave family, Richardson was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Richardson met future husband, Liam Neeson, in 1991 while filming Shining Through.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ismail Merchant</span> Indian film producer (1936–2005)

Ismail Merchant was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Together they made acclaimed film adaptations from the novels of E.M. Forster and Henry James. Merchant received the BAFTA Award for Best Film for A Room with a View (1985), and Howards End (1992). He received Academy Award nominations for Best Live Action Short Film for The Creation of a Woman (1959) and for Best Picture for A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Ivory</span> American film director (born 1928)

James Francis Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was a principal in Merchant Ivory Productions along with Indian film producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The trio is known for making film adaptations of stories by authors such as E.M. Forster and Henry James. Their body of work is celebrated for its elegance, sophistication, literary fidelity, strong performances, complex themes, and rich characters.

<i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> (1958 film) 1958 film by Richard Brooks

The Brothers Karamazov is a 1958 American period drama film directed by Richard Brooks from a screenplay co-written with Julius and Philip Epstein, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1880 novel. It stars Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, Claire Bloom, Lee J. Cobb, Albert Salmi, Richard Basehart, and William Shatner in his film debut.

<i>The Remains of the Day</i> (film) 1993 drama film directed by James Ivory

The Remains of the Day is a 1993 drama film adapted from the Booker Prize–winning 1989 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film was directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols, and John Calley and adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It stars Anthony Hopkins as James Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton, with James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Hugh Grant, Ben Chaplin, and Lena Headey in supporting roles.

<i>A Room with a View</i> (1985 film) 1985 British romance film by James Ivory

A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted E. M. Forster's 1908 novel A Room with a View. Set in England and Italy, it is about a young woman named Lucy Honeychurch in the final throes of the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England and her developing love for a free-spirited young man, George Emerson. Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow feature in supporting roles. The film closely follows the novel by the use of chapter titles to distinguish thematic segments.

<i>The Householder</i> 1963 Indian film

The Householder is a 1963 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with direction by James Ivory and a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the same name by Jhabvala.

<i>Jane Austen in Manhattan</i> 1980 film by James Ivory

Jane Austen in Manhattan is a 1980 American romantic drama film produced by Merchant Ivory Productions for LWT, but released for theatrical exhibition in UK and USA. It was the last film appearance of Anne Baxter and the debut film of Sean Young.

Richard Stephen Robbins was an American-born composer, best known for his motion picture scores for the Merchant Ivory films.

<i>Merci Docteur Rey</i> 2002 French film

Merci Docteur Rey is a 2002 comedy film directed and written by Andrew Litvack. The film stars Dianne Wiest, Jane Birkin, Simon Callow, Jerry Hall, Vanessa Redgrave, Bulle Ogier, and Stanislas Merhar. It is produced by Ismail Merchant and his company Merchant Ivory Productions.

<i>The Europeans</i> (1979 film) 1979 film based on the Henry James novel directed by James Ivory

The Europeans is a 1979 British Merchant Ivory film, directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, and with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on Henry James's novel The Europeans (1878). It stars Lee Remick, Robin Ellis, Tim Woodward and Lisa Eichhorn. It was the first of Merchant Ivory's triptych of Henry James adaptations. It was followed by The Bostonians in 1984 and The Golden Bowl in 2001.

<i>Heat and Dust</i> (film) 1983 British film

Heat and Dust is a 1983 British historical romantic drama film, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on her novel, Heat and Dust (1975). It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It stars Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor and Julie Christie.

<i>The Ballad of the Sad Café</i> (film) 1991 film

The Ballad of the Sad Café is a 1991 Southern Gothic drama film directed by Simon Callow in his directorial debut, and starring Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, and Rod Steiger. Its plot follows Amelia, a moonshiner in rural 1930s Georgia whose lonely life is interrupted by the arrival of two men: First, her long-lost cousin, and later, her former husband recently released from prison.

Andre Morgan is an American film producer and financial consultant.

The Aspern Papers is a 2018 period drama, co-written, co-produced and directed by Julien Landais, based on Jean Pavans' scenic adaptation of Henry James' eponymous 1888 novel. The film stars Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave; Academy Award-winner James Ivory acting as executive producer.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Shanghai surprise". the Guardian . 30 March 2006.
  2. 1 2 "The White Countess (2005)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 Rooney, David (18 December 2003). "Sony counts on 'Countess'". Variety.
  4. ↑ Cathy Dunkley (14 September 2004). "Morgan joins 'Countess' in exec ranks". Variety. Archived from the original on 7 January 2006 – via web.archive.org.
  5. ↑ "About Ismail Merchant". Merchant Ivory Productions. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  6. 1 2 Holden, Stephen (21 December 2005). "Big Trouble in Prewar China" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on 29 May 2015.
  7. ↑ "The White Countess (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  8. ↑ "The White Countess Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive . Retrieved 13 March 2018.
  9. ↑ Ebert, Roger (20 December 2005). "The White Countess Movie Review (2005)". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  10. ↑ LaSalle, Mick (13 January 2006). "Merchant-Ivory's final film a refined delight. Naturally". SFGate . Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  11. ↑ Chocano, Carina (21 December 2005). "The blind leading the blind". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  12. ↑ Travers, Peter (21 December 2005). "The White Countess". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  13. ↑ Chang, Justin (27 November 2005). "Review: 'The White Countess'". Variety . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  14. ↑ "2005 Nominees & Winners". International Press Academy. Archived from the original on 3 December 2007. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.