Patrick Stoner welcomes your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your questions to pstoner@whyy.org. Here's the current question and answer:
Q: What will you say when you present the Best Screenplay award to Anthony Minghella for THE ENGLISH PATIENT at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards Luncheon?A: Just the facts, ma'am.
Here's the text I've submitted for the "Critics' Choice" Awards Program:
It originally looked easy. When Anthony Minghella first read Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient, he noted it "has the deceptive appearance of being completely cinematic."
In his foreword to the screenplay, Minghella recalls that "brilliant images are scattered across (the novel's) pages in a mosaic of fractured narratives, as if somebody had already seen a film and was in a hurry to remember all the best bits." He had the good sense to look more closely and approach it with more care. What followed was much research, including steeping himself in such unfamiliar areas as Egypt, the desert, military history and even the country of his heritage but not his experience, Italy.
What emerged was a screenplay about double the standard length, and -- as he puts it -- including such unconventional cinematic treats as "episodes involving goat mutilation, scores of new characters, and a scene about the destruction of a wisteria tree in Dorset which I swore privately would be the most memorable in the film." You are forgiven if you can't remember any such memorable scene, because Minghella realized he could create a mosaic of intertwining threads if he limited those threads to a very few.
In this way, we follow several paths of characters -- albeit with a strong focus on Count Almasy, played by Ralph Fiennes. The result is epic in the strict sense of the word and in the film's ambiance, without losing the romance at its core. In this process, Anthony Minghella transformed a fine novel, with all the joys of that art form, into a film, with its related but different set of criteria. The result is the best screenplay of the year.
As we present the award to Minghella for his achievement, we should also reflect for a moment on one of the more positive developments in the film industry in recent years. Once upon a time, screenwriters tended to be ignored -- by studio executives, directors, actors and the public. They might not even be invited to the very awards ceremonies that honored the films they wrote. Times have changed, and the screenwriter's essential contribution is now given the recognition its due.
I then call Anthony to the podium and present the award.
Past questions and answers.
