Raw L. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia

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Production Designer: Arthur Max. Costume Designer: Janty

Yates. Director of Photography: Alexander Witt. Music:Marc

Streitenfeld. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Roger Ferris), Russell

Crowe (Ed Hoffman), Mark Strong (Hani), Golshifteh Fara-

hani (Aisha), Ali Suliman (Omar Sadiki), Alon Aboutbul (Al-

Saleem), Simon McBurney (Garland).

The production originated in 2006 when Warner Bros.

hired WILLIAM MONAHAN to adapt DAVID IGNATIUS’s

novel Penetration into a feature film. Ignatius, who covered

the CIA and the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal

before joining the Washington Post, had produced a quasi-

documentary account of life in the front line during the

“war on terror” in the Middle East. Scott evidently saw the

book while still in galley form and offered the following

observations: “It has an unusually incisive view into what

actually happens up on the front lines, and the people at the

front who make a difference.” Co-producer DONALD DE

LINE described the work in the film’s production notes as

“a well-crafted spy thriller about the kinds of people and lev-

els of deception it takes to penetrate a country, a culture and,

ultimately, the enemy. We really felt it had everything going

for it in terms of a great movie plot.” The script was eventu-

ally reworked by STEVEN ZAILLIAN, who removed many

of the original subplots of Monahan’s script and reworked

many of the characters (even though he did not take screen

credit).

LEONARDO DICAPRIO was formally cast in the lead

role of Roger Ferris; RUSSELL CROWE agreed to costar once

the script had been revised. The two of them had previously

starred in The Quick and the Dead (1995). Filming took

place in various locations—Washington, DC, Europe, and

Morocco. Part of Capitol Hill was redressed to look like Ams-

terdam, while locations in Baltimore stood in for Manches-

ter, England. Scott sought permission to film in Dubai, but

permission was denied due to the script’s potentially con-

tentious subject matter. Scenes set in Jordan were filmed in

Morocco, where Scott had previously worked on GLADIA-

TOR, BLACK HAWK DOWN, and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

DiCaprio was quoted in the production notes as saying that

he found Morocco “a challenging filming experience . . . I love

the people and the culture. The marketplace in Marrakesh is

something that everyone in the world should see at least

once, especially if they are big travelers. It’s a phenomenal

sight.” The cast and crew spent nine weeks there, and filming

wrapped up in December 2007.

Body of Lies received its premiere out of competition at

the Venice Film Festival in September 2008, and was com-

mercially released in the United States a month later. The

British premiere took place in early November. Critical reac-

tion was mixed, to say the least: Roger Ebert admired the

two central performances but considered the film “sensa-

tionally implausible ...Increasing numbers of thrillers seem

to center on heroes who are masochists surrounded by

sadists, and I’m growing weary of the horror!” The San

Francisco Chronicle reviewer felt that Scott “pushes to create

drama through sheer intensity, but it’s like stirring an empty

pot. There’s nothing there.” A. O. Scott in the New York Times

was slightly less charitable: “it [the film] seems singularly

untethered from anything like zeal, conviction or even

curiosity.” Nigel Andrews in the London Financial Times felt

much the same: “Visually the film is so undistinguished it

may be time for the maker of Blade Runner to be subjected

to that film’s Voigt-Kampff test, to determine whether the

current owner of the name ‘Ridley Scott’ is real or a repli-

cant.” Roger Clarke in Sight and Sound seemed more kindly

disposed: “Body of Lies is at least outward-looking and it’s

trying, through a veil of testosterone, to engage with real

issues.” Philip French identified the performance of MARK

STRONG as Hani, the head of the Jordanian secret service,

as the film’s redeeming feature: “A man of honour, with per-

fect manners, impeccable taste in tailoring and an under-

standing of world politics, he’s a countervailing moral and

intellectual force to the crudity of Hoffman and the senti-

mental naivety of Ferris.”

Just a week after the film’s London opening, The

Guardian reported with ill-disguised glee that Body of Lies

had performed badly at the UK box office, taking only £1.5

million. This reflected a trend set at the American box office

a month earlier, where the film had taken only $13.1 million

on its opening weekend, with receipts far behind those of

Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Quarantine. This led the

Guardian writer to conclude that “Warners will now be

reflecting that there may have been a mismatch between the

material and what is believed to be a $90 million production

budget, including two whopping ‘full freight’ salaries for

stars DiCaprio and Crowe.” By the time of the film’s DVD

release in February 2009, however, Jeff Giles pointed out in

DVD Review that it had made a profit, chiefly due to over-

seas grosses.

In spite of Russell Crowe’s disingenuous suggestion in

an interview with the London Daily Telegraph that Scott is

not “pushing any political agenda” but telling a story of

“deception, seduction and abandonment,” Body of Lies con-

cerns itself specifically with the “war on terror.” The open-

ing sequence shows a terraced house in Manchester being

blown up by suicide bombers threatened with capture by the

SAS with considerable loss of life. Another attack on a

crowded tourist area of Amsterdam leads to over seventy

deaths. Scott is particularly concerned with reactions to the

war on terror from the American and the Middle Eastern

perspectives. For the CIA chief Ed Hoffman (Crowe) it rep-

resents nothing less than an attack on democracy: “These

people [the terrorists] do not want to negotiate, not at all . . .

They want every infidel converted or dead . . . We are an easy

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BODY OF LIES

target.” In his view every Middle Eastern male is potentially

dangerous, so he has no time for “patience, Sidi, patience,

and eat[ing] couscous with his family.” This kind of casual

racism causes frequent diplomatic headaches for agent

Roger Ferris (DiCaprio), prompting him to observe at one

point in Monahan’s original script that Hoffman knows

everything about how to win the “war on terror,” but no idea

how to put it into practice. With his fluency in Arabic, and

his ability to pass as a native of that country in his long robes

and wispy beard, Ferris appears the ideal mediator who can

forge an alliance between the Arabs and the Americans.

However, this proves nothing more than an illusion: Ferris

tries and fails to set up a fake terrorist organization in order

to capture the radical Islamic leader Al-Saleem (ALON

ABOUTBUL), and by doing so double-crosses Hani, the

head of the Jordanian Secret Service (MARK STRONG). Fer-

ris underestimates the significance of Hani’s words—“this is

a part of the world where friendship matters. It can save your

life”—and thereby fails to create an effective strategy to cur-

tail the “war on terror.” At the end of the film Al-Saleem sug-

gests that the war is a just one, as he takes revenge on all those

“non-believers”—especially the Americans—who have

caused so much suffering in the world, particularly in deten-

tion centers like Guantanamo Bay. If Kingdom of Heaven

explores the origins of the conflict between Christians and

Muslims during the Crusades, Body of Lies shows that such

conflicts remain unresolved nearly nine hundred years later.

Scott shows how the Americans’ reliance on technology

places them at a disadvantage in the “war on terror.’ Like

Black Hawk Down we see frequent sequences involving hel-

icopters observing Ferris’s activities on the ground or taking

him to and from different locations. All the activities in the

Middle East are beamed back to the CIA headquarters in

Langley, Virginia, via screens of uplinked video, satellite tel-

evision, and commercial news pictures, making it possible

for Hoffman to direct Ferris via a Bluetooth link. However,

all this equipment proves ineffective in the end: Al-Saleem’s

men use their vehicles to create a dust-cloud in the desert

and thereby escape CIA surveillance as they bundle Ferris

into a van and take him over the Jordanian border into

Syria. Scott cuts back to CIA headquarters, where an

employee asks Hoffman what he should do next. Hoffman

does not reply, realizing (perhaps for the first time) that he

is involved in a new form of conflict in which the enemy is

frequently elusive. The only way of winning, as Hani

observes later on, is through collaboration with other secu-

rity services in on-the-ground operations.

While Body of Lies offers a vivid portrait of life in the

war zone, its moral stance is still affected by COLONIAL-

ISM. Many sequences take place in the suburbs of the Jor-

danian capital Amman—a world of squalid streets,

overcrowded housing and primitive transport that contrasts

starkly with the shimmering concrete skyscrapers of down-

town Amman or Abu Dhabi. Such representations imply

that the Islamic world needs to develop further before it can

match western standards of civilization. Scott substantiates

this argument by showing how many Arabs still rely on

primitive methods of punishment: the scenes where Al-

Saleem breaks Ferris’s fingers with a hammer are particu-

larly brutal, recalling Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978),

in which another young American suffers at the hands of his

captors. Even so-called “educated” Arabs like Hani believe

that physical punishment is the best way of reinforcing one’s

authority. This is chillingly suggested in one sequence where

Ferris is forced to witness what happens inside a prison cell.

We do not see inside, but we can hear the unfortunate vic-

tim’s screams.

On the other hand, Scott returns to the issue of the CIA

and its perceived value in contemporary America—some-

thing also explored in THE COMPANY. Senior operatives

like Hoffman are portrayed as careerists with little under-

standing of their responsibilities either to their staff or their

country. For most of the time Hoffman directs Ferris on a

Bluetooth link while taking his children to school, taking his

son to the bathroom, or watching his daughter playing soc-

cer. Compared to the smooth, immaculately dressed Hani,

Hoffman lacks any diplomatic skill whatsoever—turning up

for a meeting in a rumpled suit and trying to lay the law

down for the Jordanian (“I would hate to have the president

call His Majesty [the king of Jordan] and complain about

this. We are all allies.”) Hani brushes aside such threats by

telling Hoffman that for the purposes of this meeting he is

the king’s representative, and casting doubts on Hoffman’s

competence as an agent (“You Americans, you are incapable

of secrecy because you are a democracy.”)

Hoffman is equally heavy-handed in his treatment of

Ferris. While conceiving himself as one half of a double-act

in a BUDDY MOVIE (he addresses Ferris throughout as

“buddy”), Hoffman becomes more and more frustrated as

the action unfolds. When Ferris turns down the chance to

work alongside him in Langley, Hoffman accuses him of sac-

rificing his responsibility to the nation and consequently

“giving up on America.” Ferris responds coolly,“You be care-

ful calling yourself an American. Have a safe flight home. Say

hi to the wife and kids.” Hoffman’s concept of national iden-

tity is defined solely by his job: a cocooned environment

communicating with the outside world via cell phones and

satellite links and discouraging person-to-person commu-

nication. The film ends with Hoffman symbolically casting

Ferris out of the organization by turning off the surveillance

camera and murmuring “buddy’s done” at the same time.

As with many of Scott’s films—THELMA & LOUISE,

AMERICAN GANGSTER—Body of Lies incorporates several

shots of iconic CARS. They include the Mercedes and the

BODY OF LIES

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SUVs belonging to Hani and the American Embassy which

speed through the streets of Amman or race along the Jor-

danian desert with a cloudless sky and bare mountain ranges

in the background. However, they prove almost useless in a

war zone. While they might look stylish, they are also an

obvious target for potential attackers; by contrast, the used

cars and dilapidated vans favored by the extremists provide

an effective way of moving people around without attract-

ing attention.

While Body of Lies ends happily with Ferris leaving the

CIA and rejoining his Arab girlfriend Aisha (GOLSHIFTEH

FARAHANI), it is perhaps the most pessimistic of Scott’s

FILMS AFTER 9/11. It suggests that the “war on terror” will

never be won so long as a “body of lies” persists, preventing

people of different cultures from collaborating with one

another. Hani tells Ferris in no uncertain terms that he has

“only one rule if we are to cooperate, my dear. Never lie to

me.” However, Ferris deliberately ignores that dictum as he

tries and fails to create a fake terrorist network. Hani

returns the favor by using Ferris as the fall guy to entrap Al-

Saleem himself. The scheme nearly goes wrong, as Hani’s

forces rescue Ferris in the nick of time just before Al-Saleem

kills him. Monahan’s original script shows the two men—

Ferris and Hani—at loggerheads, each blaming the other

for their deceit. Hani sarcastically describes Ferris as a hero,

but considers himself truly heroic, having captured Al-

Saleem. The implication is obvious: both men put personal

gain ahead of their responsibilities to their respective coun-

tries. The same also applies to people of the same culture:

Hoffman never informs Ferris about the true nature of his

plans, and thereby prevents the agent from undertaking his

duties efficiently, or establishing effective communication

with the Jordanians.

Body of Lies reveals the shortcomings of the so-called

“New Patriotism” that emerged from The Patriot (2000), We

Were Soldiers (2002), and Black Hawk Down. Frank J. Wetta

and Martin A. Novelli argue that these films celebrate “the

bond of brotherhood forged under fire.” In Body of Lies that

bond no longer exists; rather, it depicts a world that (as

James Der Derian observes) is dominated by “a new imbal-

ance of terror based on a mimetic fear and an asymmetrical

willingness and capacity to destroy the other without the

formalities of war.”

James Castonguay’s article “Conglomeration, New

Media and the Cultural Production of the ‘War on Terror’”

suggests that films showing America involved in foreign con-

flicts enable spectators to “participate vicariously in the US

imperial project as a mediated and exotic spectacle ...the

complicity between US media conglomerates, the govern-

ment, and the military created a context of reception with

limited possibilities for oppositional or politically progres-

sive readings.” This might be true for American audiences;

but box office figures show that films like Body of Lies were

more popular outside, rather than inside, the United States.

Perhaps some filmgoers constructed “oppositional or polit-

ically progressive readings.” The implications of the so-called

“war on terror” have been explored by Rosalind C. Morris,

focusing in particular on how “the Woman Question and the

Eastern Question came to substitute for one another,

securing different patriarchies in their awful complicity

and ensuring that technology of the highest and lowest sort

be used for a war that neither declares itself nor imagines

the possibility of its termination.” In contrast, Catherine

Elsworth’s article for the Daily Telegraph argues that Hol-

lywood misjudged the mood of the times, with films

such as Lions for Lambs, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah,

Redacted, Grace Is Gone (all 2007), and Stop-Loss (2008)—

all of which took the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as

subjects—performing badly at the box office. She quotes

one journalist who observes that “Hollywood and the left

have generally misread this discontent [with the Bush

administration] thinking there’s a mandate for their trite

Vietnam-era nostalgia for mass protest and Joan Baez spec-

ifying.” Ridley Scott himself was quoted as saying in an

interview with Digital Spy in late 2008 that many of the

films flopped due to public anger over the war.

References

Nigel Andrews,“Impaired Vision and Blind Panic,” Financial Times,

20 November 2008, www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e365e700-b648-11dd-

89dd-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1 (accessed 17 February

2009); Roger Clarke, “Body of Lies,” Sight and Sound,December

2008, www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/4558 (accessed 17

February 2009); James Castonguay, “Conglomeration, New Media

and the Cultural Production of the ‘War on Terror,’” Cinema Jour-

nal 43, no.4 (Summer 2004): 106; James der Derian, “Imaging Ter-

ror: Logos, Pathos and Ethos,” Third World Quarterly 26, no.1

(2005): 23; Roger Ebert, “Body of Lies,” Chicago Sun-Times,8 Octo-

ber 2008, http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID

=/20081008/REVIEWS/810089997/1023 (accessed 17 February

2009); Catherine Elsworth, “Hollywood Misreads Response to War

on Terror,” Daily Telegraph, 12 November 2007, www.telegraph

.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/3669211/Hollywood-misreads-

response-to-war-on-terror.html (accessed 19 February 2009);

Philip French, “Body of Lies,” The Observer (London), 23 Novem-

ber 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/23/body-of-lies-

review (accessed 27 February 2009); Charles Gant, “Body of Lies

Takes a Blow from My Best Friend’s Girl,” The Guardian,25

November 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/nov/

25/uk-box-office-body-of-lies (accessed 17 February 2009); Jeff

Giles, “DVD Review: Body of Lies,” http://popdose.com/dvd-review-

body-of-lies/#more-12672 (accessed 19 February 2009); Mick

LaSalle, “Muddled Body of Lies,” San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Octo-

ber 2008, E1; Rosalind C. Morris, “Theses on the Questions of War:

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BODY OF LIES

History, Media, Terror,” Social Text 20, no.3 (Fall 2002): 172; Mar-

tyn Palmer, “Russell Crowe: Why I had to Fatten up and Calm

Down,” Daily Telegraph, 6 November 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/

culture/film/3562948/Russell-Crowe-Why-I-had-to-fatten-up-and-

calm-down.html (accessed 17 February 2009); Production Notes:

Body of Lies (Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2008),

http://mix96tulsa.com/movies/notes/body-of-lies/note/4 (accessed

16 January 2009); Simon Reynolds, “Ridley Scott—Body of Lies,”

Digital Spy, 20 November 2008, www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/

a135416/ridley-scott-body-of-lies.html (accessed 19 February

2009); A. O. Scott, “Big Stars Wielding an Array of Accents, Fighting

the War on Terrorism,” New York Times, 10 October 2008, http://

movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/movies/10lies.html?scp=2&sq=bo

dy%20of%20lies&st=cse (accessed 17 February 2009); Frank J.

Wetta and Martin A. Novelli, “Now a Major Motion Picture: War

Films and Hollywood’s New Patriotism,” Journal of Military His-

tory 67, no.3 (July 2003): 880.

BOLD AS BRASS

GB 1964 TV Series 6 ⫻ 25 min episodes b/w. Production

Company: British Broadcasting Corporation. Producer/ direc-

tor: Philip Barker. Writers: Ron Watson and David Climie.

Production Designer: Ridley Scott. Music: Gordon Franks.

Cast: Jimmy Edwards (Ernie Briggs), Beryl Reid (Bessie

Briggs), Jill Hyem (Peggy Briggs), Ronnie Barker (Mr.

Oakroyd).

The comic exploits of brass band-mad Ernie Briggs and

his downtrodden wife Bessie. The series came out of a one-

hour pilot (broadcast 28 November 1963) written by Dou-

glas Moodie from an idea by Ron Watson. This six-part

comedy ran from 4 April to 13 June 1964.

BOLOTIN, CRAIG (1954– )

Director and scriptwriter. Bolotin made his debut as a

screenwriter with No Small Affair (1984) under the pseudo-

nym of Charles Bolt. Other credits include one episode of

Miami Vice (1986) and Sapphire Man (1988).

Bolotin was inspired to write BLACK RAIN after hav-

ing visited Kobe, JAPAN, in 1987 and having witnessed at

first-hand the large CARS driven by the yakuza, or Japan-

ese gangsters. He also believed that the story of American-

Japanese relations had a particular significance at a time

when the two countries were not exactly getting along with

one another. According to a documentary on the script

issued with the film’s DVD release in 2001, Warren Lewis

was brought in to collaborate after Bolotin had written an

outline. The first completed draft (dated November 1987)

portrays Nick Conklin as a violent yet isolated police offi-

cer seeking brief solace with a succession of temporary girl-

friends. Both he and Charlie become involved with the

yakuza by accident while trying to arrest a member of the

mafia in a New York bar. They are sent to Japan by their

superior officer, Oliver (who harbors a particular resent-

ment for Nick), on a mission to return the yakuza leader

Kobo to his home country. Unfortunately they manage to

lose him at Osaka airport, and try to find him once again

accompanied by Inspector Ichiro Matsumoto—an over-

weight Japanese police officer with a penchant for Scotch

whiskey. The three of them prove no match for Kobo’s gang,

and Charlie is eventually killed by Kobo, who pushes him

in front of a subway train. Nick tries to find out what hap-

pened, but is served with a deportation order and told to

leave the country within twenty-four hours. He escapes and

pursues Kobo’s girlfriend in the hope of finding further

leads. Eventually he discovers that the best route to Kobo is

to become acquainted with the elderly yakuza leader Sugai,

and travels to the seaside resort of Beppu for that purpose.

Kobo is eventually apprehended in a “love hotel” in Beppu

and brought back by train to Osaka; however, he manages

to escape and takes Nick’s friend Joyce hostage in the

process. The screenplay ends with a protracted gun battle

in which Sugai loses his life, Joyce escapes, while Nick and

Kobo fight one another on motorcycles. Badly wounded,

Nick overpowers Kobo by slashing him with a Japanese

sword. Eventually he returns to New York in triumph,

accompanied by Matsumoto.

In addition to some name changes (Kobo becomes Sato

and Matsumoto is changed into Masahiro), the final script

portrays Nick somewhat differently: as a family man con-

cerned for his two children’s welfare, despite being divorced.

The Italian-American plot-strand completely disappears:

Nick is sent to Japan in an attempt to reestablish his reputa-

tion as an honest cop after having been found guilty of han-

dling stolen money. Matsumoto/Masahiro is transformed

into an unassuming personality obsessed with doing the

right thing. The deportation order disappears altogether;

instead, Nick is merely threatened with arrest if he should

dare set foot in Japan again. Needless to say, Nick takes no

notice and travels to Sugai’s house, which is now located on

the outskirts of Osaka. The final sequence takes place in a

sake firm; ostensibly Sato and Sugai make peace, but Sato

ends by stabbing Sugai in the hand and escaping. Joyce’s role

as a hostage is eliminated altogether. The ending remains

roughly the same, except that Nick is seen departing for New

York while Masahiro stays in Japan, having decided to

renounce any loyalty to specific social groups and forge a

new career on his own.

References

“Black Rain: The Script, The Cast,” Special Feature included in the

Special Collector’s Edition DVD release of Black Rain (d. Laurent

Bouzereau) (Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures, 2001); Craig Bolotin

and Warren Lewis, “Black Rain: Draft Script” (November 1987),

http://sky.ru/sfy.html?script=black_rain_ds (accessed 8 June 2008).

BOLOTIN, CRAIG (1954– )

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BOSCH, ROSELYNE

In the late 1980s Bosch was working as a journalist for the

French news magazine Le Point. She went to Seville to do a

piece on how Spain was planning to commemorate the five

hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s expedi-

tion. The more time she spent in the archives, the more she

became enthralled, and the more she believed that his story

should be transformed into a film. She wrote a précis of what

was eventually to form the script, focusing on Columbus’s

many journeys—the existential as well as the maritime—as

narrated by one of his illegitimate sons.

Bosch contacted fledgling film producer and distribu-

tor ALAIN GOLDMAN, who asked her to turn her ideas

into a screenplay, and together they decided to make a film.

Initially they planned it as a French venture but they found

little support among French producers. They contacted Rid-

ley Scott, who by chance had been planning a film about

Columbus, and he agreed—so long as GÉRARD DEPAR-

DIEU played the leading role.

Conflicts emerged between writer and director over the

script. While Scott wanted to focus more on the plot, Bosch

was more interested in preserving the ambiguities of Colum-

bus’s character while still emphasizing his heroic qualities.

An epigraph attributed to Columbus (and included in the

first draft copy of the script, dated 1991) makes this clear:

“Nothing that results from human progress is achieved with

unanimous consent. And those who are enlightened before

the others are condemned to pursue that light in spite of

others.” Bosch’s screenplay formed the basis of Robert

Thurston’s novelization of the film, which included several

scenes not in the finished film—for example, an opening

sequence involving Columbus’s two sons Diego and Fer-

nando, who discuss their father’s contribution to posterity.

Diego criticizes him for promising paradise and failing to

deliver: “He made them [his crew] believe that all they’d

have to do is to reach out for fruit, or bend for gold. He was

a dreamer!” Fernando responds by calling him an idealist—

and resolves to publish his father’s memoirs. Diego petu-

lantly responds,“I won’t read it.”

Bosch’s finished screenplay was criticized by Vincent

Canby of the New York Times, who observed that “only a

very great writer could do justice to all the themes the

Columbus story suggests. Ms. Bosch might be a very good

researcher, but she’s not a very great writer.”

References

Roselyne Bosch,“Columbus,” Unpub. script revised 4 May 1991

(Los Angeles: Percy Main Productions), 2; Vincent Canby, quoted

in Paul Chutkow, Depardieu: A Biography (London: HarperCollins

Publishers, 1994), 313; Robert Thurston, 1492: Conquest of Paradise

Based on a Screenplay by Roselyne Bosch (London: Penguin Books,

1992), 11.

BOTTIN, ROB (1959– )

Rob Bottin began his career as a special effects and makeup

artist on films such as The Fog (1980) and The Thing (1982),

both for John Carpenter.

For LEGEND Bottin transformed Darkness (TIM

CURRY) into the quintessential horned demon by outfitting

the actor with fluorescent contact lenses, two satyr-like

furred and hoofed feet (which encased eighteen-inch-long,

stilt-like extensions, to make Curry look taller), plus light-

weight polystyrene horns measuring over three feet in

length. The final touch was a dark scarlet makeup applied all

over Curry’s body. The effect was to make Darkness seem

like a satyr—half-man, half-goat—an unearthly presence in

an unearthly forest.

Miles Teves, who worked for Bottin as an illustrator on

the production, recalled that Darkness was “a very bestial

character—much more like a Minotaur” that could encour-

age the actor to develop his own performance without the

need for animatronics. Not all of the characters in Legend had

so much time lavished upon them. “Because we spent so long

on Darkness and some of the other characters, when it came

to the witch, Meg Mucklebones [ROBERT PICARDO], there

was very little time left ...Rob basically brought me a pic-

ture of the witch from Disney’s Snow White, and said, ‘This

is what we’re going to do—only more real and more extreme.’

He liked the simple lines—the little apple cheeks, the bulgy

eyes, and the way the chin hooked up to meet the nose. We

really pulled that one off fast.” Bottin believed that “the

makeup [was] shocking in a fun way; it was like a childhood

memory of Eerie and Creepy magazines.”

References

Rob Bottin, quoted in Steve Biodrowski,“Legend Make-Up,” Cine-

fantastique 15, no.5 (January 1986): 26; Rickard Rickitt, “Miles

Teves—Character Designer,” Designing Movie Creatures: Discover

the Best in the Business from the Best in the Business (New York:

Rotovision, 2006), www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections

&op=viewarticle&artid=501 (accessed 13 May 2008).

BOURDON, DIDIER (1959– )

Bourdon made his debut in an English language film in A

GOOD YEAR as Francis Duflot. Screenwriter MARC KLEIN

portrays the character in stereotypical fashion as an eccen-

tric fond of red wine and dressed in a traditional black beret.

However Bourdon makes something of the role, by portray-

ing him as fundamentally fond of yet simultaneously

repelled by Max Skinner (RUSSELL CROWE). Bourdon

summed up their relationship thus in a preproduction inter-

view: “They knew each other when they were younger. Their

relationship is between friendship and mistrust.” The two of

them make a pact to clean up the château: Duflot spits into

his palm and extends it to shake; Max spits an even bigger

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BOSCH, ROSELYNE

hock into his own palm; and the two of them shake, spit

merging. They walk off in separate directions, describing one

another in asides as a Frog tosspot and an English prick.

Bourdon’s climactic moment comes in the tennis match

with Max: two middle-aged men huffing and puffing on a

shabby court but playing as if their lives depended on it. Max

eventually wins; and the two of them appraise one another;

at last they are prepared to acknowledge each other as close

friends. Crowe explained the origins of the tennis sequence

thus: “[It] came about because Ridley is a great lover of the

sport . . . He was bemoaning to me over a glass of red wine

that we didn’t have any battle sequences in the movie. That

got me thinking. And we had the whole sequence set up by

the tennis court, and a sequence playing tennis in flashback.

And so I made the suggestion that perhaps we find a way of

getting these two men to do battle on the clay court.”

References

Marc Klein, “A Good Year: Screenplay” (Draft dated 5 September

2005), www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A-GOOD-YEAR-2.pdf (accessed

26 January 2009); Pressbook: A Good Year (Los Angeles: Twentieth

Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2006), 7.

BOWDEN, MARK (1951– )

Journalist and author of Doctor Dealer and Bringing the Heat.

Began his career at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and also wrote

for magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Rolling

Stone, and Parade. Bowden wrote Black Hawk Down (1999),

the original book from which Ridley Scott made his 2001

film of the same name. The book itself is a minute-by-minute

account of the 1993 raid on Mogadishu, which took place

against a background of increasing political instability in the

country. Bowden’s book began as a newspaper project and

was eventually expanded into a book, based both on inter-

views with those involved and radio broadcasts produced at

the time. Described at the time as “rip-roaring stuff, with one

of the most gruesome battlefield wound treatments ever

committed to paper,” it was eminently suitable for filming.

When JERRY BRUCKHEIMER bought the film rights

to Black Hawk Down, Bowden’s contract stipulated that he

write the first draft of the script: “I automatically assumed

that the producers would throw out my script but at least I

would still receive eighty thousand dollars for having done

it.” He spent three months writing the screenplay, and then

KEN NOLAN was signed as primary scriptwriter. Bowden

recalled that “the big discussion at the beginning of this proj-

ect was how to focus the film. It was a process of narrowing

down which characters and scenes we were going to use. Our

first list of ‘must-have’ scenes and characters would have

resulted in a seventeen-hour long film ...Ridley decided to

focus the film on the soldiers’ experience.” Bowden believed

that the center of the film was the battle: “The key to good

filmmaking is storytelling and figuring out how to put it

across. I always try to put myself into the shoes of the per-

son I’m writing about to try and capture their feelings.”

References

Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down (London: Corgi Books, 2000);

Mark Bowden, quoted in Joanna Sterkowicz, “Written Word ver-

sus Moving Image,” ScreenAfrica 16 (April 2004): 34.

Bibliography

James Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Ger-

many to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2003), 55–71.

BOWIE, DAVID (1947– )

Born David Burns in Brixton, south London. Bowie has for

nearly five decades been involved in the music industry as a

trendsetting singer and writer. He has also pursued an act-

ing career in films such as Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence

(1983) and THE HUNGER (also 1983).

Bowie’s performance in The Hunger (directed by TONY

SCOTT) was described as competent, but tended to be lost

in a film in which style triumphed over content. Bowie him-

self recalled in 1987 that he “felt very uncomfortable with

that role . . . although . . . [he] loved being involved in a Tony

Scott movie.” In 1998–1999 Bowie was involved in THE

HUNGER (TELEVISION), a Canadian-made horror anthol-

ogy produced by Scott, based loosely on the concepts of the

1983 film. Bowie took over as host for the second series from

TERENCE STAMP and played the starring role in the open-

ing episode “Sanctuary,” directed by Tony Scott. Here Bowie

plays Julian Priest, a reclusive avant-garde artist focusing on

macabre themes. An angry young man berates him with the

words: “What does that mean, he’s [Priest has] lost his art?

Okay, I’ll tell you what it means. Icons notwithstanding, it

means you suck. You hung around too long, and look what

happened—you created crap. Congratulations! You are the

Fat Elvis!” In a series of ghoulish plot-twists, Priest regains

his place at the cutting edge of modern art.

Bowie introduced the subsequent episodes in the char-

acter of Priest. Each sequence was photographed in a prison

(and directed by Tony Scott), where the central character

indulged in a series of bizarre activities, including taking an

acid bath, feeding a mouse to a rattlesnake, or looking at a

series of impassive faces on a bank of television screens. His

comments focused in particular on people being true to

their emotions, and the difficulties they experience in adjust-

ing to life. His introduction to “Dream Sentinel” (Series 2,

episode 3), sums up his view of life: “Facing death is easy,

facing life is hard.” Bowie does not give a great acting per-

formance, but his eerie presence at the beginning and end

of each episode is hard to ignore. As he himself observes in

“The Perfect Couple” (Series 2, episode 22), viewers may

BOWIE, DAVID (1947– )

■

want to “keep things out [including himself],” but this is

ultimately an impossible task.

References

David Bowie, quoted in Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie

(Richmond UK: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd., 2006), 561.

BOY ON BICYCLE

GB 1962 r/t 27 min b/w. Production Company: British Film

Institute. Producer/ Director/ Writer/ Director of Photogra-

phy: Ridley Scott. Music: John Barry. Cast: Tony Scott (The

Schoolboy).

This black-and-white short film was made by Scott for

sixty-five British pounds while still a student at the Royal

College of Art. It records a day in the life of a young boy

(TONY SCOTT) who deliberately misses school and sets off

on his bicycle around the streets of Billingham, northeast

England, ending up on the coast. He passes the time by tak-

ing in the sights, sounds, and smells around him and allow-

ing his mind to wander on various subjects. Eventually it

begins to rain; the boy takes shelter in a small hut, unexpect-

edly encounters a stranger and runs away on his bicycle into

the distance.

This film records the thoughts, experiences, and emo-

tions of a teenager growing up in early 1960s Britain. It

begins with a long point-of-view shot of his bedroom, sur-

veying the untidy mess of clothes, toys and other bric-a-brac

littering the place. In the background we hear his mother

and father (actually Scott’s parents) telling him to come

down to breakfast. He leaves for school as usual, but chooses

to take the day off and explore his immediate surroundings.

As he passes the school, he hears the students singing the

familiar hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and imag-

ines just how dehumanizing school can be. He is no longer

a person but rather “Scott, T”—a name on a register. He

rides his bicycle along the quiet, deserted streets, passing the

local fish-and-chips shop and pausing to buy something at

the candy store before reaching the seaside. In the back-

ground we see the stark, forbidding towers of the Imperial

Chemical Industries (ICI) plant at Billingham. The boy

comments on what he observes through a stream of con-

sciousness, combining immediate responses with childhood

memories and imaginative speculation. Sometimes he recalls

nursery rhymes or favorite books (Louisa M. Alcott’s Little

Women being one of them), or speculates on what life would

be like for the boy in the Dutch folk-tale who puts his finger

in a dyke to prevent flooding. When he gets to the little hut,

certain objects he encounters stimulate further childhood

memories—a tin of Lyle’s Golden Syrup conjures up images

of his mother and how angry she will be if he comes home

late for tea, or his favorite teddy bear, or his grandparents

(who are both deceased). The film ends with him cycling

away into the distance; he is still free (at least for a limited

period) to do as he wishes.

Boy and Bicycle focuses on CHILDHOOD, and how cer-

tain memories associated with it dominate the young boy’s

mind. Although he believes himself to be an adult, he is still

very much tied to his parents’ apron strings; he has to be

home at a specific time or risk incurring their wrath. The

film itself provides a fascinating social picture of northeast

England in the early 1960s—a time when industry still flour-

ished in the region and the local main street provided a focal

point for the community, with family businesses still very

much in evidence. The film was not released until 1965, by

which time Scott had persuaded John Barry (the composer

of the James Bond theme) to record a track,“Onward Chris-

tian Spacemen,” for it.

The film includes images that would recur in Scott’s

later work: the boy on bicycle formed the subject for one of

his most famous commercials for HOVIS BREAD, while the

industrial landscape forms a backdrop for BLADE RUNNER

and BLACK RAIN.

BRACCO, LORRAINE (1954– )

Born in New York, Bracco became a star in the 1970s as a

model for the designer Jean-Paul Gautier. Her major break

in films came in Ridley Scott’s SOMEONE TO WATCH

OVER ME.

As Mike Keegan’s (TOM BERENGER’s) wife Ellie,

Bracco gives a feisty performance as someone refusing to

conform to her husband’s outmoded conception of gender

roles. Far from seeking her husband’s protection, she

assumes a proactive role, going out to clean the family car

while Mike sits at a table with a cup of coffee, or hitting him

square in the nose when he insults her. As the daughter of a

cop, Ellie knows the value of self-reliance. Although she and

her husband are eventually reconciled, we are made well

aware that she will not accept the roles imposed on her by a

basically patriarchal partner: she is not in need of someone

to watch over her. Lorraine Bracco’s former husbands

include HARVEY KEITEL and EDWARD JAMES OLMOS.

BRATT, BENJAMIN (1963– )

Born in San Francisco, Bratt made his name by playing

Detective Rey Curtis in ninety-four episodes of the televi-

sion series Law & Order (1994–1999).

Cast as Dr. Jeremy Stone in THE ANDROMEDA

STRAIN, Bratt plays a brilliant scientist who has made a mess

of his personal life. He is separated from his wife Lisa (Anna

Galvin) and has a teenage son Lance (Michal Suchánek), who

accuses him of using his work as an excuse to avoid respon-

sibility for his family. In a sense Lance is right: we learn later

on that he has had an affair with Dr. Angela Noyce

(CHRISTA MILLER) which ended unhappily. Nonetheless

■

BOY ON BICYCLE

Stone redeems himself through a combination of dedication

to his job and unflappability in the face of crisis. Even when

the Andromeda virus has been released in the laboratory, he

still finds the time to work out before devoting himself to his

duties. The New York Times felt that Bratt’s performance

detracted from the overall effect of the production: “He looks

dressed for a weekend in South Beach, and amid the film’s

urgent atmosphere, he adds all the tension of someone con-

ducting a tax audit . . . Stone doesn’t embody an interesting

Crichtonesque paradox, the highly rational mind that makes

poor moral choices. The film casts no judgments on his infi-

delity, portraying it as merely another aspect of his entitle-

ment. His ex-wife at home is an irresponsible shrew.” His role

in many ways resembles that of Dallas (TOM SKERRITT) in

ALIEN; the leader of a group of scientists and/or specialists

faced with the responsibility of counteracting an invading

force (the alien or the virus). Stone not only survives but also

has the chance to speak out against those forces of capitalism

that threaten the future of the entire planet.

Reference

Gina Bellafante,“Earth’s End Is Near Again: Crichton’s Brain Squad

Is Back,” New York Times, 26 May 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/

05/26/arts/television/26andro.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=androm-

eda%20strain&st=cse (accessed 13 February 2009).

BRAUGHER, ANDRE (1962– )

Born in Chicago, Braugher has been associated with success-

ful television series including Homicide: Life on the Street

(1993–1998), and the Stephen King adaptation of The Mist

(2007).

Cast as General George W. Mancheck in THE ANDROM-

EDA STRAIN, Braugher plays an officer of questionable

motives who spends much of his time trying to cover up the

story of how and why the Andromeda Strain came to be

released in the first place. His behavior might seem out-

wardly respectable, but director MIKAEL SALOMON sug-

gests that this is nothing more than a front. However,

Mancheck meets a sticky end as he is eventually murdered

by an unseen assailant (probably from the US MILITARY)

for his part in causing the crisis. Braugher outlined his

involvement in the film, and his role in particular, in an

interview: “My interest in the entire project stems from my

curiosity about how we were going to reconfigure this

Andromeda Strain. Even before the script got to me I was

intrigued by that idea. Mancheck, in his own way, is a mis-

guided military figure who suddenly awakens to the extent

and the depth of the danger of our situation and our unease

with this Andromeda and what we’ve wrought.” He was

nominated for an Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a

Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for this

performance in 2009.

Reference

Ian Spelling, “Andre Braugher: The Andromeda Strain Interview,”

Ugo.Com: Lifestyle for Games, www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id

=18609 (accessed 15 February 2009).

BREMNER, EWEN (1971– )

Made his name in Trainspotting (1996), followed by roles in

The Acid House (1998), and Pearl Harbor (2001).

Cast as Nelson in BLACK HAWK DOWN, Bremner has

the chance to participate in some of the film’s moments of

semi-comic relief, as he and Twombly (Thomas Hardy)

become detached from their company of Rangers and have

to fend for themselves. Twombly resolves to go to the crash

site; Nelson agrees but tells his friend not to fire his rifle too

close as Nelson can “barely hear as it is.” As soon as Nelson

breaks his cover, however, enemy bullets start raining around

him. An armed figure appears on the horizon; Twombly fires

inches from Nelson’s head to kill him; but ends up by deaf-

ening the unfortunate Nelson. Nelson rounds on his friend

with a voice of thunder: “What did I just tell you? I swear to

God if you ever . . . ” In a later sequence Twombly is about to

shoot what he thinks is another enemy soldier; but finds that

it is actually a donkey that “briskly trots past.” A little further

down the block Yurek (Thomas Guiry) hears an unearthly

sound: “clop, clop, clop.” He prepares himself to fire—then

he too discovers it is just the donkey patiently making his

way home. Such sequences emphasize the fact that daily life

in Mogadishu continues despite the conflict taking place.

Like most of his colleagues, however, Nelson remains ded-

icated to the task at hand. Although eventually separated from

Twombly, he manages to survive. The two men reencounter

one another at the Olympic Stadium; they embrace, secure

in the knowledge that their mission has been completed.

Reference

Ken Nolan, Black Hawk Down: The Shooting Script (New York:

Newmarket Press, 2002), 64, 76.

BRIDGES, JEFF (1949– )

Described once by the British critic Barry Norman as “a

character actor trapped in the body of a leading man,” which

perhaps helps to explain why he has not become a major

Hollywood star.

Cast as Captain Sheldon in WHITE SQUALL, Bridges’s

work was admired by Scott, who told Brian J. Robb that he

was “one of the best actors in America . . . What’s really

remarkable about him is that Jeff always finds a unique char-

acter in each piece he does.” Bridges spent some time with

the real Captain Sheldon and discovered that he had “never

completely rid himself of his guilt, especially about his wife.

But he knew it was an existential happening, an act of

nature. He had no control over it.” In another interview with

BRIDGES, JEFF (1949– )

■

the London Observer, Bridges admitted that “Sheldon wasn’t

an emotional person. He was very emotional. What is inter-

esting is how each of us manifests that. The filters are fasci-

nating. I try to put emotion in all the roles and it leaks out of

the characters in different ways.” This proved especially inter-

esting for an actor not normally accustomed to revealing his

emotions on screen: “it [the role] surprised Bridges, an emo-

tionally judicious man who seeks to contain his life in bound

copies of his scripts. It is embarrassing, but also a privilege,

to witness him . . . hit by a white squall of grief.”

In the film Bridges portrays the captain as an essentially

humane person who, while fond of his young crew, nonethe-

less remains determined to educate them. Although com-

mending his performance for its sincerity, the Washington

Post reviewer observed that he seemed to be “summoning

the old Sea Hunt spirit of his [actor] father . . . knitting his

brow convincingly and spouting such briny aphorisms as ‘It

takes discipline to make it out here!’ and ‘Where we go one,

we go all’ . . . a crewman sums up Bridges’s character by say-

ing, ‘He’s a real salt.’”

References

“Andrew Billen Talks to Jeff Bridges about Charisma, Conflict and

Control,” Observer Review, 28 April 1996, 28; Richard Leiby,“White

Squall,” Washington Post, 2 February 1996, www.washingtonpost

.com/wpsrv/style/longterm/movies/videos/whitesquallpg13leiby

_c0457a.htm (accessed 14 September 2008); Neil Norman, “Scott of

the Caribbean,” Evening Standard, 18 May 1995, 28; Barry Norman,

“Give This Man an Oscar,” Radio Times, 2–8 February 2002, 54;

Brian J. Robb, Ridley Scott (Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2002), 68.

BROADBENT, JIM (1949– )

Lugubrious British character actor, who made his name in

Great Britain in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the comedy

team The National Theatre of Brent. In the 1990s his film

career expanded, with leading roles in Life Is Sweet (1990),

Richard III (1995), The Borrowers (1997), and Topsy-Turvy

(1999) where he played W. S. Gilbert.

Cast as Desmond Morton in THE GATHERING STORM,

Broadbent plays a dependable civil servant—one of the few

trustworthy friends Winston Churchill (ALBERT FINNEY)

possesses to advise him. Churchill doesn’t always listen to

Desmond, but Desmond is always there, and supports him

even if it no longer seems feasible to do so. Broadbent him-

self described the character thus in an interview: “He was a

great friend of Churchill’s—he was a neighbour of his near

Chartwell, and head of the industrial intelligence services—

and in the story of the film he is instrumental in feeding

Winston the true facts and figures about what Germany was

up to.” He also serves as a source of support to Churchill

during his “Black Dog” periods of depression; as witnessed,

for instance, when Morton goes to the pigpen at Chartwell

to persuade Churchill to come to lunch. Morton does not

say much, but his reassuring presence encourages Churchill

inside, where Morton tells him about a report from Britain’s

air attaché in Berlin alleging that Hitler is training over

eight thousand pilots. This inspires Churchill to further

action.

Reference

The Gathering Storm: Information Pack, issued 17 June 2002 (Lon-

don: BBC, 2002), www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/

2002/06_june/17/gathering_storm_pack.pdf (accessed 24 Decem-

ber 2008), 12.

BROLIN, JOSH (1968– )

Noted character actor who made his film debut in The

Goonies (1985). Other successes include Hollow Man (2000)

and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007).

As the corrupt detective Trupo in AMERICAN GANG-

STER, Brolin described himself in an interview with the

British film magazine Empire as a “criminal with a badge”

who personified the police corruption of the early 1970s. He

recalled a conversation with a seasoned police officer who

candidly told him that “All you had to tell a drug dealer was,

‘All I have to do is shoot you, put the gun in your hand, and

I’m gonna get a medal. That’s it. It’s that simple.’ Back then,

there weren’t a lot of drug dealers or gangsters who killed

cops, that was just off-limits; you didn’t do it.”

Trupo’s appearance, as described in STEVEN ZAIL-

LIAN’s script, reveals his true nature; with his Zapata mus-

tache and slicked-back hair, he is one of four officers reveling

in his position as kingpin of his particular district. He comes

up to Richie Roberts (RUSSELL CROWE), looks him

straight in the eye, and threatens him in a menacing tone:

“Now, never, ever, come into the city again unannounced.

You come in to see a fuckin’ Broadway show you call ahead

to see if it’s okay with me.” He laughs and remarks to his

friends: “What do we hate most? Isn’t it the transgressions

of others we fear we’re capable of ourselves?” However,

Trupo’s reign of terror proves a short one, as Frank Lucas

names him as one of the officers involved in the web of cor-

ruption dominating early 1970s NEW YORK. Eventually he

has no other option than to commit suicide as an alterna-

tive to lifetime imprisonment.

References

“Brolin Point,” Empire 224 (February 2008): 21; Steven Zaillian,

“American Gangster: Final Shooting Script” (27 July 2006), www.

roteirodecinema.com.br/scripts/files/american_gangster.htm

(accessed 8 February 2009).

THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859): Ger-

man literary scholars, philologists, and editors of the famous

■

BROADBENT, JIM (1949– )

collection of folktales. Some of them are sinister, some

funny; others talk about love, compassion or revenge, greed,

cruelty or kindness. Because of their sheer range and scope,

they have become central to the western children’s literary

tradition. The tales transport readers to strange lands where

birds and beasts deal with dwarves, giants, princesses, and

peasants.

Ridley Scott acknowledged the influence of the Broth-

ers Grimm in his screenplay for LEGEND (written in collab-

oration with WILLIAM HJORTSBERG). Not only does the

story deal with dwarves and giants, but its main subject con-

sists of a quest where a peasant rescues a beautiful princess

from the evil Darkness’s clutches.

Bibliography

Cay Dollerup, “Translation as a Creative Force in Literature: The

Birth of the European Bourgeois Fairy-Tale,” Modern Language

Review 90, no.1 (January 1995): 94–102.

BROWN, JAMES (1933–2006)

The self-styled “Godfather of Soul” made a few appearances

in films such as Rocky IV (1985) and Blues Brothers 2000

(1998). He also guest-starred in one episode of Miami Vice

(1987).

Cast as himself in THE HIRE: BEAT THE DEVIL,

Brown does little acting, but his sheer physical presence in

the film suggests excess. Although not a young man any

more, his vitality impresses The Driver (CLIVE OWEN) to

such an extent that the Driver even becomes willing to

accompany him on a crazy car-chase with The Devil (GARY

OLDMAN) down the Las Vegas streets. James Brown died

of pneumonia on Christmas Day 2006.

THE BROWNING VERSION (1951)

GB 1951 r/t 90 min b/w. Cert PG. Production Company:

Javelin Films. Producer: Teddy Baird. Director: Anthony

Asquith. Director of Photography: Desmond Dickinson.

Writer: Terence Rattigan from his stage play of the same

name. Production Designer: Carmen Dillon. Cast: Michael

Redgrave (Andrew Crocker-Harris), Jean Kent (Millie

Crocker-Harris), Nigel Patrick (Frank Hunter), Wilfrid Hyde

White (Frobisher), Ben Smith (Tap lo w), Ronald Howard

(Gilbert).

Michael Redgrave gives the performance of his career

in Anthony Asquith’s adaptation of TERENCE RATTIGAN’s

unforgettable play. Redgrave portrays Andrew Crocker-Har-

ris, an embittered, middle-aged schoolmaster who begins to

feel that his life has been a failure. Diminished by poor

health, a crumbling MARRIAGE, and the derision of his

pupils, the once brilliant scholar is compelled to reexamine

his life when a young student offers an unexpected gesture

of kindness. A heartbreaking story of remorse and atone-

ment, The Browning Version is a classic of British realism and

the winner of best actor and best screenplay honors at the

1951 Cannes Film Festival. The Browning Version was one of

Ridley Scott’s favorite films, which he himself was slated to

remake in the early 1990s. Eventually the responsibility as

director passed to MIKE FIGGIS, with Scott as producer.

THE BROWNING VERSION (1994)

GB 1994 r/t 97 min col. Production Company: Percy Main.

Producers: Mimi Polk Gitlin and Ridley Scott. Director:Mike

Figgis. Writer: Ronald Harwood from an original play by Ter-

ence Rattigan. Director of Photography: Jean-Francois Rabin.

Production Design: John Beard. Music: Mark Isham. Cast:

Albert Finney (Andrew Crocker-Harris), Greta Scacchi (Laura

Crocker-Harris), Michael Gambon (Headmaster), Matthew

Modine (Frank Hunter), Julian Sands (Tom Gilbert), Ben Sil-

verstone (Ta p l o w ), Bruce Myers (Dr. Rafferty).

The Browning Version was planned as part of a series of

projects from Paramount British Pictures, the Hollywood

major’s London-based European production arm. The ini-

tiative was launched in June 1990; by 1992 it had only green-

lighted one film, a remake of Wuthering Heights (1992)

starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.

Originally Scott had wanted to direct this remake of

TERENCE RATTIGAN’s play himself, but he eventually

passed the responsibility on to MIKE FIGGIS. The two of

them decided to update the piece, which had been filmed as

THE BROWNING VERSION (1951) by Anthony Asquith

with Michael Redgrave in the title role. Figgis explained that

he “had a real problem with period pieces . . . particularly in

film. Radio and novels work fine, but the minute you put

people in wigs, and using cars that are of the period, and

perfect tea sets, all people do is wonder where you got it all

from.” They decided to update the piece to the mid-1990s,

in the belief that “the public school system hasn’t changed

visually in any way—the codes are the same but the nuances

are going to be completely different. In the original they’re

getting rid of [the central character] Crocker-Harris because

he’s an absolute duff. In this one they’re moving him out

because they’re moving his subject out—the Classics are of

less importance.”

The script was written by RONALD HARWOOD, a

playwright and screenwriter whose major successes included

The Dresser (1983). He consciously updated Rattigan’s text,

incorporating a more explicit focus on the central relation-

ship between Laura and Frank, while emphasizing the hard-

ships of public school life—the bullying, the reliance on

outmoded traditions, and the determination to suppress

emotional involvement at all costs.

From the outset Figgis treated The Browning Version as

a character piece, focusing less on the school environment

and more on the protagonists’ emotions. The pressbook

THE BROWNING VERSION

(1994)

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