AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
SOME WERE THERE BECAUSE they cherished the book. Others showed up because they flipped for the movie. Quite a few loved the book, the movie and the music. Whatever the reason, a sold-out crowd of 1,500 jammed New York City's stately Town Hall and paid $10 a pop to see author Michael Ondaatje and director-screenwriter Anthony Minghella, two of the men behind The English Patient experience.
"This is a celebration of a remarkable event," Minghella, 43, told the crowd. "Which is that a marvelous book is written and somehow even a movie from it hasn't spoiled it." The genial British filmmaker was referring to his own feat of Hollywood alchemy: turning Ondaatje's lyrical 1992 novel into a sweeping epic that earned 12 Academy Award nominations and, so far, more than $48 million at the box office—all without alienating the novel's many fans. "I couldn't imagine how it could be made into a film," said one such devotee, archivist Ellen Sowcheck, 45. "But the movie was very much in the spirit of the book. It didn't disappoint."
Neither did the evening's main attractions. After an orchestra under the direction of the film's composer, Gabriel Yared, played a song from the movie, Sri Lankan-born Ondaatje, 53, and Minghella read parts from the novel and the screenplay, respectively. The unusual event ended with a signing that saw dozens line up for autographs, some bearing novels, others clutching screenplays. "The film takes the audience seriously," explained Minghella, "and they are taking the film seriously."
To put it mildly. "I'm possessed," said David John Ackermann, 36, a composer. "I saw the film eight times in four weeks!" Even hardened movie types couldn't help getting swept up by the story of a count, a plane crash and a whole lot of sand. "In the making of it," said Ondaatje, "we were conscious that for everyone—the actors, the director, the whole company—it was a very emotional thing. And that's what made it a special, timeless film."
- Contributors:
- Louisa Ermelino,
- Paula Chin,
- Jill Smolowe,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Eric Levin,
- Pam Lambert,
- Lan N. Nguyen.
