31 March 2015 (Series 30:9) Karel Reisz, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN (1981, 124 minutes) Directed by Karel Reisz Written by John Fowles (novel) and Harold Pinter (screenplay) Produced by Leon Clore, Geoffrey Helman, and Tom Maschler Music by Carl Davis Cinematography by Freddie Francis Film Editing by John Bloom Casting by Patsy Pollock Production Design by Assheton Gorton Art Direction by Allan Cameron, Norman Dorme, and Terry Pritchard Meryl Streep... Sarah / Anna Jeremy Irons... Charles Henry Smithson / Mike Hilton McRae... Sam Emily Morgan... Mary Charlotte Mitchell... Mrs. Tranter Lynsey Baxter... Ernestina Jean Faulds... Cook Peter Vaughan ... Mr. Freeman Colin Jeavons... Vicar Tycoon (1976), The Homecoming (1973), The Birthday Party Karel Reisz (director) (b. 21 July 1926, Ostrava, (1968), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), and The Servant Czechoslovakia—d. 25 November 2002, London, England) (1963). He was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. In directed 15 films and television shows, which are “Act Without addition to his writing credits, Pinter appeared in 20 films and Words I” (2000), “Performance” (1994), Everybody Wins (1990), television shows, including 2007 Sleuth, 2007 “Krapp's Last Sweet Dreams (1985), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Tape” (TV Movie), 2001 The Tailor of Panama, 2001 “Wit” (TV Who'll Stop the Rain (1978), The Gambler (1974), Isadora Movie), 1999 Mansfield Park, 1997 Mojo, 1977 “Rogue Male” (1968), Morgan! (1966), Night Must Fall (1964), “Adventure (TV Movie), 1967 Accident, 1963 The Servant, and 1963 The Story” (TV Series, 6 episodes) (1961), Saturday Night and Guest. He also directed 5 films and television shows: 1995 Sunday Morning (1960), March to Aldermaston (1959), We Are “Performance” (TV Series), 1992 “Party Time” (TV Short), 1982 the Lambeth Boys (1958), and Momma Don't Allow (1955). “The Hothouse” (TV Movie), 1980 “The Rear Column” (TV Movie), and 1974 Butley. Harold Pinter (writer, screenplay) (b. October 10, 1930 in Hackney, London, England—d. December 24, 2008 (age 78) in Freddie Francis (cinematographer) (b. Frederick William London, England) wrote 110 screenplays and teleplays, in Francis, December 22, 1917 in Islington, London, England—d. addition to his stage plays. Some of his screenplays are The Trial March 17, 2007 (age 89) in Isleworth, Middlesex, England) won (1993), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), The Comfort of Strangers best cinematographer Oscars for Glory (1989) and Sons and (1990), The Birthday Party (1986), Betrayal (1983), The Last Lovers (1960). He was the cinematographer for 35 films and Reisz—THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN—2 television shows, some of which are 1999 The Straight Story, 1994 Princess Caraboo, 1992 School Ties, 1991 Cape Fear, 1991 The Man in the Moon, 1990 “The Plot to Kill Hitler” (TV Movie), 1989 Glory, 1989 Brenda Starr, 1984 Dune, 1984 The Jigsaw Man, 1982 “The Executioner's Song” (TV Movie), 1981 The French Lieutenant's Woman, 1980 The Elephant Man, 1964 Night Must Fall, 1961 The Innocents, 1961 “Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color” (TV Series), 1960 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960 Sons and Lovers, 1960 Never Take Sweets from a Stranger, 1960 The Battle of the Sexes, 1959 Our Virgin Island, 1959 Room at the Top, 1958 Next to No Time, 1957 Strange Affection, 1957 Time Without Pity, and 1956 Hell in Korea. He also has 37 directing credits, some of which are: 1996 “Tales from the Crypt” (TV Series), 1989 Dark Tower, 1985 The Doctor and the Devils, 1979 “Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson” (TV Series), 1975 Legend of the Werewolf, 1974 Son of Dracula, 1972 Tales from the Crypt, 1970 Trog, 1968 Karel Reisz from World Film Directors, V.II. Ed. John Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, 1967 Torture Garden, 1965 Wakeman. The H.W.Wilson Co., NY 1988 The Skull, 1965 Hysteria, 1965 Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, British director, born in Ostrava, central Czechoslovakia, the son 1964 The Evil of Frankenstein, 1963 Paranoiac, and 1962 The of a Jewish lawyer. His older brother Paul was educated in Brain. England, at Leighton Park School in Reading, Berkshire. In 1938, when the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia was imminent, Meryl Streep ... Sarah / Anna (b. 22 June 1949, Summit, NJ) this Quaker school accepted Karel Reisz as a refugee and has been nominated for 19 best actress Oscars and won three: sponsored his journey by sea to England. His parents, who stayed 2012 The Iron Lady (2011), 1983 Sophie's Choice (1982), and behind, both died in a concentration camp. 1980 Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). She has appeared in 74 films Uprooted from a secure and comfortable home at the and television shows, among them 2014 Into the Woods, 2014 age of twelve, Reisz arrived in Reading knowing scarcely a word The Giver, 2014 The Homesman, 2013 August: Osage County, of English. He adapted quickly, however, and says that he soon 2012 Hope Springs, 2011 The Iron Lady, 2009 Julie & Julia, wanted more than anything else to become as English as 2008 Doubt, 2008 Mamma Mia!, 2007 Rendition, 2007 Evening, possible. Leaving school at eighteen, he joined the Czech 2006 The Devil Wears Prada, 2006 A Prairie Home Companion, squadron of the Royal Air Force and trained as a fighter pilot, 2005 Prime, 2004 Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate though the war ended before he saw active service. In 1945 he Events, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), The Hours (2002), was repatriated to Czechoslovakia. The war had left it a very Adaptation (2002), Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001), Marvin's different place from the country he remembered, and he soon Room (1996), The House of the Spirits (1993), Defending Your returned to England, where he studied natural sciences at Life (1991), Postcards from the Edge (1990), She-Devil (1989), Emmanuel College, Cambridge University (1945-1947). A Ironweed (1987), Heartburn (1986), Out of Africa (1985), socialist during his teens, he was disillusioned by the Stalinist Silkwood (1983), Sophie's Choice (1982), Still of the Night coup in Czechoslovakia in 1947; though he continued to respond (1982), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Kramer vs. to the “vague left wind blowing at that time” through British and Kramer (1979), Manhattan (1979), The Deer Hunter (1978), and artistic circles. Julia (1977). When he graduated from Cambridge, Reisz joined the staff of the St. Marylebone Grammar School in London, where Jeremy Irons ... Charles Henry Smithson / Mike (b. 19 he taught from 1947 to 1949. He says of that period that, September 1948, Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK) won the 1991 “coming straight from the university, the whole impact of that Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Reversal outside world was very, very strong. It was probably the first of Fortune (1990). He has appeared in 85 films and television kind of wide community life I’d come across at all; for though shows, among them 2011-2013 “The Borgias” (TV Series, 29 I’d been happy at boarding school and university, I’d felt totally episodes), 2013 Night Train to Lisbon, 2012 The Words, 2011 incapsulated there. Teaching was my first sense of social reality: “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2009 and you can’t deal daily with working-class youngsters and their “Georgia O'Keeffe” (TV Movie), 2009 The Pink Panther 2, 2008 parents in their own habitat and retain an archaic view of the Appaloosa, 2006 Eragon, 2006 Inland Empire, “Elizabeth I” lower classes as comic relief or criminals, the roles they (2005), The Merchant of Venice (2004), The Man in the Iron traditionally filled in British films.” Mask (1998), Stealing Beauty (1996), Die Hard: With a In 1949, Reisz quit teaching to take his chances as a Vengeance (1995), The House of the Spirits (1993), M. Butterfly free-lance journalist and film critic. By 1950 he was a contributor (1993), Damage (1992), Kafka (1991), Reversal of Fortune to Sequence–originally the magazine of the Oxford Film Society, (1990), Dead Ringers (1988), The Mission (1986), Betrayal later an independent journal published in London—and to Sight (1983), The Wild Duck (1983), Moonlighting (1982), and and Sound, which came that year under the editorship of another Nijinsky (1980). Sequence writer, Gavin Lambert. Like the young contributors to Cahiers du Cinéma in France, the Sequence critics became Reisz—THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN—3 filmmakers themselves—Reisz, Tony Richardson, and Lindsay documentary financed by the British Film Institute’s Anderson (who as Reisz says, was “always the high priest” of the Experimental Fund, photographed by Walter Lassally and with Sequence set). John Fletcher as sound recordist and editor. Sequence never evolved a clearly defined film aesthetic, Momma Don’t Allow simply follows a group of young mostly because its contributors were less interested in people to a London jazz club and observes them there, with the synthesizing theories than in the individual critic’s direct and camera (as Lewis Jacobs wrote) acting as a “casual spectator, immediate response, emotional as well as intellectual—to the focussing upon the passing moment and letting it speak for material before him. They did have certain attitudes in common, itself.” Raymond Durgnat has since indicted the movie as “badly however, and believed in something quite similar to the auteur cut, badly shot, with no feelings for jazz, for dancing, for bodies, theory enunciated by their Cahiers colleagues in France: that the for clothes, or for place,” and there is an element of truth in these best films were those that most fully expressed the personal harsh strictures. What made it seem remarkable in its time is that vision of a single artist—the director. For this reason—and out of the uninhibited young dancers who are its subjects are of the political idealism—they were hostile to the commercial film working class and are presented, not as “comic relief or industry, which they saw as tending to stifle free and personal criminals,” but seriously and sympathetically—they are even expression and “poetry “ in the work of directors as diverse as favorably contrasted with a prim and snobbish group of upper- John Ford, Jean Vigo, Preston Sturges, and Jean Cocteau.