The English Patient is a 1996 epic romantic war drama film directed by Anthony Minghella from his own script based on the 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje, and produced by Saul Zaentz. The film stars Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas alongside Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Naveen Andrews and Colin Firth in supporting roles.
The protagonist of the title, a man burned beyond recognition who speaks with an English accent, recalls his history in a series of flashbacks, revealing to the audience his true identity and the love affair in which he was involved before the war. The film ends with an onscreen statement that it is a fictionalized account of László Almásy (died 1951) and other historical figures and events. The English Patient was released by Miramax Films on November 15, 1996. The film received widespread critical acclaim and emerged as a major commercial success at the box-office.
The film received twelve nominations at the 69th Academy Awards, winning nine, including Best Picture, Best Director for Minghella, and Best Supporting Actress for Binoche. It was also the first to receive a Best Editing Oscar for a digitally edited film. Ralph Fiennes, playing the titular character, and Kristin Scott Thomas were Oscar-nominated for their performances. The film also won six BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globes. The British Film Institute ranked The English Patient the 55th-greatest British film of the 20th century. The American Film Institute ranked it the 56th-greatest love story of all time.
Plot
German gunners shoot down a British biplane, containing a pilot and a slumped down woman, flying across the desert. A group of Bedouin pulls the badly burned pilot from the wreckage, rescuing him.
Hana, a French-Canadian Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps nurse, learns from a wounded soldier that her boyfriend has been killed. In October 1944 Italy, she is caring for a dying, severely burned patient who speaks with an English accent and says he cannot remember his name. His only possession is a copy of Herodotus's Histories, with personal notes, pictures, and mementos stored inside.
When a fellow nurse is killed in front of her, Hana decides she's a curse to her loved ones. Her hospital unit is being relocated, but she gains permission to settle in a bombed-out monastery with her patient, as he is likely not to survive the move. She's joined by Lieutenant Kip Singh, a Sikh sapper in the British Army posted with Sergeant Hardy to clear German mines and booby traps, and David Caravaggio, a Canadian Intelligence Corps operative who was tortured in German captivity. Caravaggio questions the patient, drawing out details of his past while Hana and Kip begin a love affair.
In the late 1930s, Hungarian cartographer Count László Almásy is exploring a region of the Sahara as part of a Royal Geographical Society archeological and surveying expedition, which includes his good friend Englishman Peter Madox, and British couple Geoffrey and Katharine Clifton, who conduct aerial surveys from their plane.
Almásy discovers the location of the ancient Cave of Swimmers, containing cave paintings. As the group documents the find, Almásy and Katharine fall in love. He writes about her in notes folded into his book, which she discovers when he awkwardly accepts two watercolours of the cave walls and asks her to paste them into the book.
They return to Cairo and begin an affair, while the group arranges for more detailed archaeological surveys of the cave and surrounding area. Almásy buys her a silver thimble as a gift. Geoffrey secretly watches her from his car and realizes she is being unfaithful. Later, Katharine breaks it off, saying she cannot continue. Almásy takes it badly. When the geographic projects are halted by the onset of the war, Madox leaves his Tiger Moth airplane at Kufra Oasis and returns to Britain.
Caravaggio seeks revenge for his injuries, killing the German interrogator who cut his thumbs off and the spy who betrayed him, and seeks out whoever provided maps to the Germans, allowing them to infiltrate Cairo. He confronts Almásy about the Cliftons' death, and he concedes "Maybe ... I did".
Hana overhears Almásy telling Caravaggio about packing camp in 1941 when Geoffrey arrives in the biplane. He aims at Almásy, who jumps out of the way, and crashes. Almásy finds Geoffrey dead at the controls and Katharine badly injured in the front seat. It was an attempted double murder-suicide, as Geoffrey had uncovered their affair. Almásy carries Katharine to the Cave of Swimmers. He observes that she is still wearing the thimble he gave her and she declares she has always loved him.
Leaving her with provisions and his book, Almásy walks three days across the desert to British-held El Tag. He asks for help to rescue her, but a young officer detains him on suspicion of being a spy. Transported away by train, Almásy escapes and encounters a German army unit which takes him to the Kufra Oasis, where Madox has hidden his plane. Exchanging maps for fuel, Almásy flies to the cave, finds Katharine dead, and is shot down flying her body away. After hearing the story, Caravaggio abandons his quest for revenge.
The war ends and Kip is reposted and agrees with Hana they'll meet again. Almásy tells her he's had enough by pushing vials of morphine towards her. Though distraught, Hana grants his wish, administering a lethal dose. As he drifts to sleep, she reads him Katharine's final letter, written while alone in the cave. The next morning, Hana goes with Caravaggio to Florence, clutching Almásy's book.
Cast
Production
Saul Zaentz was interested in working with Anthony Minghella after he saw Minghella's film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990); Minghella brought this project to Zaentz's attention. Michael Ondaatje, the Sri Lankan-born Canadian author of the novel, worked closely with the filmmakers. According to Minghella, during the development of the project with 20th Century Fox, the "studio wanted the insurance policy of so-called bigger" actors. Zaentz recalled, "they'd look at you and say, 'Could we cast Demi Moore in the role'?" After months of disputes with Fox, the studio pulled out just three weeks before production was to begin and Harvey Weinstein came in and acquired worldwide rights for Miramax Films for $27.5 million. After Miramax Films became involved, Minghella's preference for Scott Thomas in the role of Katharine was honored.
To help the film get made, cast and crew agreed to salary deferrals totalling $10 million and Zaentz met the remainder of the production costs. Including the deferred costs, Variety reported the production costs at $43 million. The deferments were due to be paid after the film broke even. But, although the actors received a deferred payment of $5 million, more than three years after release, others were still waiting for their deferred salaries, subject to an audit of the figures. Zaentz sued Miramax Films in 2006, claiming $20 million, but the case was still unresolved when Zaentz died in 2014.
The film was shot on location in Tunisia and Italy.
The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje is based on the conversations between the author and film editor. Murch, with a career that already included such complex works as the Godfather trilogy, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, dreaded the task of editing the film with multiple flashbacks and time frames. Once he began, the possibilities became apparent, some of which took him away from the order of the original script. A reel without sound was made so scene change visuals would be consistent with the quality of the aural aspect between the two. The final cut features over 40 temporal transitions. It was during this time that Murch met Ondaatje and they were able to exchange thoughts about editing the film.
In the film, two types of aircraft were used: a De Havilland D.H.82 Tiger Moth and a Boeing-Stearman Model 75. Both are biplanes. The camp crash scene was made with a ½-size scale model.
The Hungarian folk song "Szerelem, Szerelem", performed by Muzsikás featuring Márta Sebestyén, was featured in the film.
Music
Reception The English Patient received widespread critical acclaim, and emerged as a major commercial success at the box-office, and received nine Academy Awards, six BAFTA awards, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the movie "a stunning feat of literary adaptation as well as a purely cinematic triumph". In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane argues that "the triumph of the film lies not just in the force and the range of the performances—the crisp sweetness of Scott Thomas, say, versus the raw volatility of Binoche—but in Minghella's creation of an intimate epic: vast landscapes mingle with the minute details of desire, and the combination is transfixing".
The film has a rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 91 reviews, with an average of 7.90/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Though it suffers from excessive length and ambition, director Minghella's adaptation of the Michael Ondaatje novel is complex, powerful, and moving." The film also has a rating of 87/100 on Metacritic, based on 31 critical reviews. Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert gave the film a four-star rating, saying "it's the kind of movie you can see twice – first for the questions, the second time for the answers". In his movie guide, Leonard Maltin rated the film out of 4, calling it "a mesmerizing adaptation" of Ondaatje's novel, saying "Fiennes and Scott Thomas are perfectly matched", and he concluded by calling the film "an exceptional achievement all around". In 2021, The Boston Globe called the movie a "masterpiece" in a 25-year anniversary review.
Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A−" on a scale of A+ to F.
It became the highest-grossing film in the history of Miramax with a worldwide gross of $232 million.
The film is referred to in the Seinfeld episode "The English Patient", where the character Elaine is shunned by her friends and co-workers for disliking the film.
Accolades