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| Images courtesy of Universal Pictures |
Writer-director Alan J. Pakula is ordinarily associated with
his ‘paranoia trilogy’ starting with Klute a modern-day film noir
followed by the Warren Beatty starring The Parallax View before concluding
with the Watergate scandal dramatization All the Presidents Men (recently
released on 4K UHD). While ordinarily a conspiracy
thriller filmmaker nominated for Best Director for All the Presidents Men,
Pakula who also produced the Oscar winning To Kill a Mockingbird and sought
to branch out of genre trappings. Moving
into the American western with Comes a Horseman followed by comedy and a
brief return to the western with Rollover, Pakula’s next project in 1982
couldn’t be more different in tone, style or intent from anything he had
attempted before: an adaptation of William Styron’s 1979 profoundly affecting triangular
romantic period drama Sophie’s Choice.
Set in 1947 over the course of four months, a young author
named Stingo (Peter MacNicol in an unlikely dramatic turn) settles into Brooklyn
working on a writing project when he is interrupted by the noisy bickering
between his neighbors who introduce themselves as Sophie Zawistowska (Meryl Streep)
a Polish immigrant and her flakey, emotionally hypersensitive lover Nathan
Landau (Kevin Kline in his screen debut).
At first their meeting is contentious but the next day following an
apology they’re a newfound trio of best buddies who go about Brooklyn fairs on
amusement park rides and sightseeing.
Despite their friendship, Nathan’s jealousies continue to erratically
spiral out of control suspecting Sophie of cheating on him with Stingo. One evening during one of Nathan’s rages and
storming into the night on the town to drink it up, Sophie confides in Stingo a
painful secret involving her past experiences as a former inmate and later forced
intern in the Auschwitz death camp.
A film that unfolds slowly with layer after layer peeled
away until a complete contextual picture of grief, survivor’s guilt and
devotion comes into view, Sophie’s Choice by Alan J. Pakula is a slow
buildup towards wrenching emotional devastation. From its ornate period set design exquisitely
lensed by Days of Heaven cinematographer Nestor Almendros, somber score
from Ice Castles and Ordinary People composer Marvin Hamlisch and
a sensitively adapted screenplay by Pakula, the film begins as a summer film
spoken of the same breath as David Lean’s Summertime before sneakily
veering into a searing series of memories from the Holocaust. Paving the way conceptually for later WWII
dramas such as Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, it represents one
of the earliest depictions of the queasy juxtaposition between idyllic fascist
utopia and the vile horror of the death camp next door.
Though the film is shouldered by Peter MacNicol in a kind of
broad bland Tom Hulce boyish innocence as our protagonist, the film essentially
boils down to Sophie’s recollections of her wartime ordeal told in powerful
trained soliloquys of Meryl Streep gazing unblinkingly tearfully into the
camera. Playing against both of them is
Kevin Kline who is either an eccentric genius or a sociopathic ticking time
bomb and for a first-time role for the recurring Lawrence Kasdan performer
Kline all but disappears into the part.
The film is populated by a number of supporting performers but is
otherwise trained on this trio with Stingo becoming further infatuated by
Sophie sympathizing with her plight but unable to intervene on her seemingly impulsive
self-destructive trajectory. Reportedly
Alan J. Pakula’s original choice for Sophie was Ingmar Bergman muse and ex-wife
Liv Ullmann before Meryl Streep ultimately scored the part, Streep completely
top to bottom becomes Sophie and we can’t imagine another actress more
impassioned in the role.
Made for $9 million and released in 1982, the
two-and-a-half-hour period epic romantic drama alternating between English with
German and Polish spoken flashbacks became a strong critical and commercial
hit. Taking in $30 million at the box
office, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Cinematography while Meryl Streep ultimately won the
coveted Best Actress award. With most
praise and attention going to Streep’s performance, the film was also
criticized for doing away with characters and elements in the novel instead
focusing more intensely on the trio.
Still, in the years since Streep’s performance was voted the third
greatest performance of all time by Premiere Magazine and further appeared on
the AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list. Proof
positive Alan J. Pakula could succeed across many genres and further cemented
Meryl Streep’s prowess as a Hollywood power player, Sophie’s Choice is
somber and sobering but also undeniably affecting with a screen performance
that demands viewing on the largest screen possible.
--Andrew Kotwicki
