Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes

Samuel Alexander Mendes CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage, film and commercial director at RSA US. He is known for his 1998 production of Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming, and his debut film, American Beauty, for which he won an Academy Award for Directing.

Mendes was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to Jameson Peter Mendes, a university professor, and Valerie Helene Barnett, an author of children's books. His father is from Trinidad's ethnic Portuguese community, and his mother an English Jew. His grandfather is the Trinidad writer Alfred Mendes. He attended Magdalen College School in Oxford and graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1987 (B.A.).

Mendes first attracted attention for his production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in the West End starring Judi Dench before he was twenty-five years old. Soon he was directing plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company where his productions, many of them featuring Simon Russell Beale, included Troilus and Cressida, Richard III and The Tempest.

He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre, directing Edward Bond's The Sea, Jim Cartwright's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, and Othello with Simon Russell Beale as Iago.

In 1992 Mendes was appointed artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, an intimate studio space in London's West End which he quickly transformed into one of the most exciting venues in the city. His opening production was Stephen Sondheim's Assassins which reveled in the show's dark, comic brilliance and rescued it from the critical opprobrium it had suffered on its American opening. He followed this with a series of excellent classic revivals, many of which attracted some of the finest actors and biggest stars of the decade. Among Mendes's best productions were John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret, Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Stephen Sondheim's Company, Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus and his farewell duo of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, which transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As artistic director Mendes also gave some of the country's finest younger directors the opportunity to do some of their best work: Matthew Warchus's production of Sam Shepard's True West, Katie Mitchell's of Beckett's Endgame, David Leveaux's of Sophocles's Elektra and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing were amongst the most critically acclaimed of the decade. The Donmar's present artistic director Michael Grandage directed some of the key productions of the later part of Mendes's tenure, including Peter Nichols's Passion Play and Privates on Parade and Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.

Mendes made his directorial debut with the box office/critically acclaimed film American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey. The film grossed US$356.3 million worldwide and had a 2373% ROI. The film won the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Picture. Mendes won a Director's Guild of America Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Academy Award for directing American Beauty.

Mendes' second film, in 2002, was Road to Perdition, which grossed US$181 million. The aggregate review score on Rotten Tomatoes was 82%; critics praised Paul Newman for his performance. The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor, and won one for Best Cinematography.

In 2005, Mendes directed the war film Jarhead. The film received mixed reviews, receiving a Rotten Tomatoes aggregate of 60%, and a gross revenue of US$96.9 million worldwide. The film focused on the boredom and other psychological challenges of wartime, instead of being a traditional combat-action film.

Mendes is in post-production on a comedy called Away We Go, about a couple searching across North America for the perfect community in which to settle down and start a family. The film stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. Mendes is also starting pre-production on a film adaption of the acclaimed 1971 Tony-winning Broadway musical Follies and has announced his intentions to film an adaptation of the novel Middlemarch in the near future.

According to ComingSoon.net, Columbia Pictures has purchased the rights to the Preacher graphic novel series and have hired Sam Mendes to direct it.

Mendes married British actress Kate Winslet on 24 May 2003 in Anguilla in the Caribbean. The pair met in 2001, when Mendes approached his future wife about appearing in a play at the Donmar Warehouse Theater, where he was then artistic director. Their first child, Joe Alfie Mendes, was born on 22 December 2003. Mendes also has a stepdaughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, from Winslet's first marriage to assistant director Jim Threapleton. The family now lives in New York City and Church Westcote Manor, Church Westcote, Gloucestershire, England. He previously dated Rachel Weisz and Calista Flockhart. Mendes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

To the top

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (born March 22, 1930) is an American composer and lyricist for stage and screen, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer) and the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theatre." His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981.

Stephen Sondheim was born to Herbert and Janet ("Foxy") Sondheim, in New York City, New York, and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and later on a farm in Pennsylvania. While living in New York, Stephen Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Herbert, his father, was a dress manufacturer and Foxy, his mother, designed the dresses. An only child of well-to-do parents living in a high-rise apartment on Central Park West, Sondheim's childhood has been portrayed as isolated and emotionally neglected in Meryle Secrest's biography, Stephen Sondheim: A Life.

When Stephen was ten years old, his father Herbert, a distant figure in Stephen's life, abandoned him and his mother. Stephen "famously despised" Foxy; he once wrote a thank-you note to close friend Mary Rodgers that read, "Dear Mary and Hank, Thanks for the plate, but where was my mother's head? Love, Steve." When Foxy died on September 15, 1992, Sondheim refused to attend her funeral.

None of these "assignment" musicals was ever produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced at all, because the rights holders for the original works refused to grant permission for a musical to be made.

In 1950, Sondheim graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He went on to study composition with the composer Milton Babbitt. Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied "No, I don't think you've exhausted your tonal resources yet." . Sondheim agreed, and despite frequent dissonance and a highly chromatic style, his music remains resolutely tonal.

In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics for Saturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. In 1998 Saturday Night received a professional recording, followed by a revised version with two new songs and an Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2000 and its full British premiere with the new songs due in 2009 at London's Jermyn Street Theatre.

Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, accompanying Leonard Bernstein's music and Arthur Laurents's book. The 1957 show, directed by Jerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances. While this may be the best-known show Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed some dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they don't always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic.

In 1959, he wrote the lyrics for another hit musical, Gypsy. Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record. Thus, Jule Styne was hired. Sondheim questioned if he should write only the lyrics for yet another show, but his mentor Oscar Hammerstein told him it would be valuable experience to write for a star. Sondheim worked closely with book writer Arthur Laurents to create the show. It ran 702 performances.

Finally, Sondheim participated in a musical for which he wrote both the music and lyrics, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It opened in 1962 and ran 964 performances. The book, based on the farces of Plautus, was written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Sondheim's score was not especially well-received at the time. Even though the show won several Tony Awards, including best musical, Sondheim did not even receive a nomination. In addition, some critics felt the songs were not properly integrated into the farcical action.

At this point, Sondheim had participated in three straight hits. His next show ended the streak. Anyone Can Whistle (1964) was a 9-performance flop, although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theatre and has developed a cult following.

Since then Sondheim has devoted himself to both composing and writing lyrics for a series of varied and adventurous musicals, beginning with the innovative "concept musical" Company in 1970.

Sondheim's work is notable for his use of complex polyphony in the vocal parts, such as the chorus of five minor characters who function as a sort of Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He also displays a penchant for angular harmonies and intricate melodies reminiscent of Bach (Sondheim has claimed that he "loves Bach" but his favorite period is Brahms to Stravinsky). To aficionados, Sondheim's musical sophistication is considered to be greater than that of many of his musical theater peers, and his lyrics are likewise renowned for their ambiguity, wit, and urbanity.

Sondheim collaborated with producer/director Harold Prince on six distinctive musicals between 1970 and 1981. Company (1970) was a "concept musical", a show centered on a set of characters and themes rather than a straightforward plot. Follies (1971) was a similarly-structured show filled with pastiche songs echoing styles of composers from earlier decades. A Little Night Music (1973), a more traditionally plotted show based on the film Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman, was one of his greatest successes, with Time magazine calling it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date." Notably, the score was mostly composed in waltz time (either ¾ time, or multiples thereof.) Further success was accorded to A Little Night Music when "Send in the Clowns" became a hit for Judy Collins. Although it was Sondheim's only Top 40 hit, his songs are frequently performed and recorded by cabaret artists and theatre singers in their solo careers.

Pacific Overtures (1976) was the most non-traditional of the Sondheim-Prince collaborations, an intellectual exploration of the westernization of Japan. Sweeney Todd (1979), Sondheim's most operatic score and libretto (which, along with "A Little Night Music," found a definite foothold in opera houses), once again explores an unlikely topic, this time murderous revenge and cannibalism. The book, by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage version of the Victorian original.

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's more "traditional" scores and was thought to hold potential to generate some hit songs (Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon each recorded a different song from the show). Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, said, “Part of Steve’s ability is this extraordinary versatility.” Merrily, however, was a 16-performance flop. "Merrily did not succeed, but its score endures thanks to subsequent productions and recordings. According to Martin Gottfried, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs… But that there is nothing ordinary about the music." Sondheim and Furth have extensively revised the show since its initial opening.

The failure of Merrily greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies or create video games or write mysteries. He was later quoted as saying, "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal." The collaboration between Sondheim and Prince would largely end after Merrily - until the 2003 production of Bounce, another failure.

However, instead of quitting the theater following the failure of Merrily, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show", and found a new collaborator in the "artsy" James Lapine. Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually oriented theater in particular." Sunday in the Park with George (1984), their first collaboration, was very much the avant-garde, but they had blended it together with the professionalism of the commercial theater to make a different kind of musical. Sondheim again was able to show his versatility and his adaptability. His music took on the style of the artist Georges Seurat's painting techniques. In doing so, Sondheim was able to bring his work to another level.

In 1985, he and Lapine won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. It is one of only seven musicals that have received this prestigious award. The show had its first revival on Broadway in 2008. The Sondheim-Lapine collaboration also produced the popular fairy-tale show Into the Woods (1987) and the rhapsodic Passion (1994). 1990 saw the opening of Sondheim's Assassins off-Broadway.

In the late nineties, Sondheim reunited with Hal Prince for Wise Guys, a long-in-the-works musical comedy about brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner. Though a Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber and directed by Sam Mendes was announced for Spring 2000, the New York debut of the musical was delayed. Rechristened Bounce in 2003, the show was mounted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Bounce received disappointing reviews and never reached Broadway. A revised version of Bounce premiered off-Broadway at The Public Theater under the new name Road Show from October 28, 2008 through December 28, 2008, under the direction of John Doyle.

Lapine has created a "multimedia revue", titled iSondheim: aMusical Revue, which had been scheduled to premiere in April 2009 at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia. However that production was canceled, due to "difficulties encountered by the commercial producers attached to the project...in raising the necessary funds".

In March 2008, Sondheim and Frank Rich of the New York Times appeared in four interviews/conversations in Californiaand Portland, Oregon titled "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim".

An earlier conversation took place on April 28, 2002, during the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center.

Sondheim and Rich have more conversations: on January 18, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall ; on February 2, 2009 at the Landmark Theater, Richmond, Virginia, ; on February 21, 2009 at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, , and on April 20, 2009 at the University of Akron College of Fine and Applied Arts, EJ Thomas Hall, Akron, Ohio.

Sondheim's mature career has been varied, encompassing much beyond composition of musicals.

An avid fan of games, in 1968 and 1969 Sondheim published a series of cryptic crossword puzzles in New York magazine. (In 1987, Time referred to his love of puzzlemaking as "legendary in theater circles," adding that the central character in Anthony Shaffer's hit play Sleuth was inspired by Sondheim. That the show was given the working title Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim? is an urban legend. In a New York Times interview on March 10, 1996, Shaffer denied ever using the title, and Sondheim speculated that it was the invention of producer Morton Gottlieb.) He parlayed this talent into a film script, written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins, called The Last of Sheila. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, starred Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, Richard Benjamin, and others.

He tried his hand at writing one more time - in 1996 he collaborated on a play called Getting Away with Murder. It was not a success, and the Broadway production closed after 29 previews and 17 performances.

His compositional efforts have included a number of film scores, notably a set of songs written for Warren Beatty's 1990 film version of Dick Tracy; one song, "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" (as performed by Madonna), won Sondheim an Academy Award.

Unless otherwise noted, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Side By Side By Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1980), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983) and Putting It Together (1993) are anthologies or revues of Sondheim's work as composer and lyricist, featuring both produced songs and songs cut from productions.

This organization, founded by Sondheim in 1981, is intended to introduce young people to writing for the theater. He is the Executive Vice President.

The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts opened December 7-9, 2007, located at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center in Fairfield, Iowa. The Center opened with performances from seven notable Broadway performers, including Len Cariou, Liz Callaway and Richard Kind, all of whom had taken part in the musicals of Sondheim. The center is the first one in the world named after him.

In 1993 The Stephen Sondheim Society was set up to promote and provide information about the works of Stephen Sondheim. "The Sondheim Review" is a quarterly magazine totally devoted to Sondheim's work. Most of the episode titles from the popular television series Desperate Housewives reference his work in some way, through the use of either song titles or lyrics.

In 1990, Sondheim took the Cameron Mackintosh chair in musical theatre at Oxford, and in this capacity ran workshops with promising writers of musicals, such as George Stiles, Anthony Drewe, Andrew Peggie, Paul James and others. These writers jointly set up the Mercury Workshop in 1992, which eventually merged with the New Musicals Alliance to become MMD, a UK-based organisation developing new musical theatre, of which Sondheim continues to be patron.

The Signature Theatre, Arlington, Virginia, has announced a new award, "The Sondheim Award", "as a tribute to America's most influential contemporary musical theatre composer." The first award will be presented at a gala fund-raiser in April 2009. Sondheim himself will be the first recipient of the award, which also includes a $5000 honorarium for the recipients' choice of a nonprofit organization.

To the top

Follies

Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. Several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby," "I'm Still Here," "Too Many Mornings," "Could I Leave You?" and "Losing My Mind." The play was nominated for eleven Tonys and won seven.

The Broadway production opened on April 4, 1971, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, and with choreography by Bennett. The production, which ultimately lost money, ran for 522 performances. Nevertheless, the piece has enjoyed a number of major revivals. In December 2007, Sondheim told The New York Times that a film adaptation of Follies was in development, with the director Sam Mendes and the writer Aaron Sorkin.

Originally entitled The Girls Upstairs, Follies is set in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, during a reunion for all the past members of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies) which played in that theatre between the World Wars. The musical focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Ben and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion. Sally and Phyllis were both showgirls in the Follies as were many of the other guests. Both marriages are having problems because Buddy, a traveling salesman, is having an affair with a girl on the road, Sally is still in love with Ben as she was years ago, and Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned.

The two couples interact with each other and other partygoers, and throughout the first half, musical numbers from the old Follies are performed by the characters, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of their former selves. Most of the songs are pastiches of songs by popular songwriters of the past. Losing My Mind is in the style of a George Gershwin ballad, The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues is in the style of Cole Porter and Loveland is akin to a 1920s Ziegfeld Follies serenade. The last section of the show features a string of vaudeville-style numbers reflecting the leading characters' emotional troubles before returning to the theatre for the end of the reunion party.

Follies opened on Broadway on April 4, 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett, with choreography by Bennett. It starred Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin), Dorothy Collins (Sally), Gene Nelson (Buddy), and Yvonne De Carlo, along with several veterans of the Broadway and vaudeville stage. Even though the production ran for well over a year (522 performances), it was not considered a success, and lost money. This was due partly to the rather bleak nature of the show itself, particularly Goldman's book. Frank Rich, for many years the chief drama critic for The New York Times, wrote on the occasion of the 1985 concert performance that audiences at the original production were baffled and restless. (While an undergraduate at Harvard University, Rich had first garnered attention from the theatre community with a lengthy essay about the show he wrote for the Harvard Crimson during its pre-Broadway run in Boston. In his unusually astute study of the work, he predicted the legendary staus the show eventually would achieve.) Goldman subsequently revised his work right up to his death, which occurred shortly before the 1998 Paper Mill production. Sondheim too has added and removed songs that he judged to be problematic in various productions.

The plum supporting role of Carlotta Campion, the seen-it-all ex-Follies girl who sings the showstopping "I'm Still Here," was created by Yvonne De Carlo in 1971, and has subsequently been given often to a celebrated veteran performer.

A production ran from July 22, 1972 through October 1, 1972 at the Shubert Theatre, Century City, California. It was directed by Prince, and starred Dorothy Collins (Sally), Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin), Gene Nelson (Buddy), and Yvonne De Carlo (Carlotta) reprising their original roles. The production was the premiere attraction at the newly constructed 1,800-seat theatre, which was razed in 2002 to make way for a new office building.

A concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, was produced September 6 and 7, 1985; it starred Barbara Cook (Sally), George Hearn (Benjamin), Mandy Patinkin (Buddy), and Lee Remick (Phyllis), and featured Carol Burnett (Carlotta), Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Liliane Montevecchi, Elaine Stritch, Phyllis Newman and Licia Albanese.

Among the reasons the concert was staged was to provide an opportunity to record the entire score. The resulting album was much more complete than the original cast album. However, director Herbert Ross took many liberties in adapting the book and score for the concert format--dance music was changed, songs were given false endings, new dialogue was spoken, reprises were added, and Patinkin was allowed to sing "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" as a solo instead of a trio with two chorus girls. A videotape and DVD of the concert have been released titled Follies in Concert.

This production ran at the Theatre Under the Stars, Houston, Texas and later at the 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle with Virginia Mayo, Denise Darcel, Edie Adams, Constance Towers and Karen Morrow in the cast. The 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse revival in Millburn, New Jersey featured the legendary MGM star Ann Miller in the role of Carlotta. Also in the cast were Donna McKechnie, Kaye Ballard, Eddie Bracken, and Laurence Guittard; Newman and Montevecchi reprised the roles they played in the Lincoln Center production. "Ah, But Underneath" was substituted for "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" in order to accommodate non-dancer Dee Hoty in the role of Phyllis. This production received a full-length recording on two CDs, including not only the entire score as originally written, but a lengthy appendix of songs cut from the original production in tryouts.

The 1996 Dublin Production starred Lorna Luft, Millicent Martin, Mary Millar and Enda Markey.

Another former MGM star, Betty Garrett, played the role of Hattie in the 2001 Broadway revival at the Belasco Theatre, which ran for 117 performances. Directed by Matthew Warchus, with choreography by Kathleen Marshall, also starring were Blythe Danner (Phyllis), Judith Ivey (Sally), Treat Williams (Buddy), Marge Champion, Gregory Harrison (Benjamin), Polly Bergen (Carlotta), Joan Roberts (later replaced by Marni Nixon), Larry Raiken, and an assortment of famous names from the past. It was significantly stripped down (previous productions, especially the original, were most notable for their extravagant sets and costumes) and was not a success critically or financially.

London's Royal Festival Hall mounted a full production in August 2002, with Paul Kerryson from the Leicester Haymarket directing. The cast starred David Durham as Ben, Kathryn Evans as Sally, Louise Gold as Phyllis, and, Henry Goodman as Buddy.

Julianne Boyd directed this fully staged version of Follies to launch Barrington's (Massachusetts) 11th season in June-July 2005. Principal cast included: Kim Crosby (Sally), Leslie Denniston (Phyllis Rogers Stone), Jeff McCarthy (Ben Stone), Lara Teeter (Buddy Plummer), Joy Franz (Solange La Fitte), Marni Nixon (Heidi Schiller), and Donna McKechnie (Carlotta Campion). Stephen Sondheim attended one of the performances.

New York City Center's Encores! "Great American Musicals in Concert" series featured Follies as its 40th production for 6 performances in February 2007 in a sold out semi-staged concert. The cast starred Donna Murphy (Phyllis), Victoria Clark (Sally), Victor Garber (Ben), and Michael McGrath (Buddy). Christine Baranski played Carlotta, and Lucine Amara sang Heidi. The cast also included Jo Anne Worley, and Philip Bosco. The director and choreographer was Casey Nicolaw, the music director Eric Stern. One objective of the Encores! series is to use the full original instrumentation intended by the composer. Stephen Sondheim spoke from the stage at the post-matinee audience "talkback" session.

The original Broadway production of Follies was performed in one act; however, many later productions added intermissions.

To the top

53rd British Academy Film Awards

The 53rd British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts on 9 April 2000, honored the best in film for 1999.

Sam Mendes's American Beauty won the award for Best Film (also won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Actor (Kevin Spacey; would go on to win the Academy Award) and Actress (Annette Bening), Cinematography, Editing and Film Music. Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Maggie Smith (Tea with Mussolini) won the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Pedro Almodóvar, director of Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Directing. East Is East was voted Best British Film.

To the top

Simon Russell Beale

Beale was born to General Peter Beale, and Julia Winter in Penang, Malaya, where his father served as a physician. Several members of his family had careers in medicine. He was first drawn to performance when, at the age of eight, he became a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral.

At the age of fourteen he gave his first theatre performance playing Desdemona in Othello at Clifton College's Redgrave theatre; in the sixth form he also performed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a play in which he would later star at the National Theatre. After Clifton, he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and obtained a first in English, after which he was offered a place to do a PhD. He graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1983.

Russell Beale first came to the attention of theatre-goers in the late 1980s with a series of lauded comic performances, on occasion extremely camp, in such plays as The Man of Mode by George Etherege and Restoration by Edward Bond at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He broadened his range in the early 1990s with moving performances as Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull, as Oswald in Ibsen's Ghosts, Ferdinand in The Duchess of Malfi and as Edgar in King Lear. It was at the RSC that he first worked with Sam Mendes who directed him there as Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, as Richard III and as a striking Ariel in The Tempest, in the last of which he revealed a fine tenor voice.

Sam Mendes also directed him as Iago in Othello at the Royal National Theatre and in Mendes' farewell productions at the Donmar Warehouse, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, in which he played the title role, and Twelfth Night, in which Beale played Malvolio.

Since 1995 he has been a regular at the National Theatre where his roles have included Mosca in Ben Jonson's Volpone opposite Michael Gambon, George in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers and the lead in Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones written especially for him. In 1999 he was a key part of Trevor Nunn's ensemble, playing in Leonard Bernstein's Candide, Edward Bulwer Lytton's Money and Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk. In autumn 2006 he played Galileo in David Hare's adaption of Brecht's Life of Galileo and Face in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist. From December 2007 to March 2008 he played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing directed by Nicholas Hytner and from February to July 2008, he played Andrew Undershaft in Hytner's production of Shaw's Major Barbara; he then appeared in Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache and "Landscape".

His performance at the National as Hamlet attracted attention and provoked commentary; some considered Beale an unlikely choice to embody the quintessentially youthful and contemplative hero once played by virile actors like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton and Mel Gibson. Beale's performance, more restrained and conversational in nature, was a resounding success, becoming one of the most noteworthy Hamlets of recent decades.

In the spring of 2009 Beale and Sam Mendes will be collaborating on The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard, in which Russell Beale will play Leontes and Lopakhin respectively, at the Old Vic Theatre; he is currently rehearsing in New York.

In 1997 he portrayed the pivotal role of Kenneth Widmerpool in a television adaptation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, for which he won the Best Actor award at the British Academy Television Awards in 1998. He also played the King of Hearts in a 1999 television adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. In both of these he played the spouse of two characters played by Miranda Richardson, Pamela Flitton in the former and the Queen of Hearts in the latter.

In 2008 he made his debut as a television presenter, fronting the BBC Four series Sacred Music about Western church music.

He is President of the Anthony Powell Society, a tribute to his portrayal of Kenneth Widmerpool. In the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List - a list of the most influential gay men and women in the UK - he was placed at number 30, an increase of four places from the year before.

To the top

Oliver!

Oliver! is a British musical, with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is loosely based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

It premiered in the West End in 1960, enjoying a long run, a successful Broadway production in 1964 and further tours and revivals. It was made into a musical film in 1968. A new London production opened in January 2009.

Oliver! was the first musical adaptation of a Charles Dickens work to become a stage hit, one of the reasons why it attracted attention. There had been two previous Dickens musicals in the 1950s, both of them television adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but the dramatic story of Oliver Twist was the first Dickens work to be presented as a successful stage musical. Another reason for the success of the musical was the revolving stage set, an innovation designed by Sean Kenny.

The show launched the careers of several child actors, including Davy Jones, later of The Monkees; Phil Collins, later of Genesis; and Tony Robinson, who later played the role of Baldrick in the television series Blackadder. The singer Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie) also featured in early line-ups, eventually graduating to the role of Artful Dodger in the West End production.

The plot of Dickens's original novel is considerably simplified for the purposes of the musical, with Fagin being represented more as a comic character than as a villain, and large portions of the latter part of the story being completely left out. (It may well be that Bart based his musical on David Lean's film, rather than Dickens' book). Although Dickens' novel has been called antisemitic in its portrayal of the Jew Fagin as evil, the production by Bart (himself a Jew) was more sympathetic and featured many Jewish actors in leading roles: Ron Moody (Ronald Moodnik), Georgia Brown (Lilian Klot), and Martin Horsey.

The musical opens in the workhouse, as the half-starved orphan boys are entering the enormous lunchroom for dinner ("Food Glorious Food"). They are fed only gruel. Nine year old Oliver Twist (actually identified as thirteen in the libretto but generally played as much younger) gathers up the courage to ask for more. He is immediately apprehended and is told to gather his belongings by Mr Bumble and the Widow Corney, the heartless and greedy caretakers of the workhouse ("Oliver!"). Mr Bumble and Widow Corney start flirting during conversation. Mr Bumble goes too far in "I Shall Scream!". At the end, Widow Corney ends up on Mr Bumble's lap, kissing him. Oliver comes back and is promptly sold ("Boy for Sale") and apprenticed to an undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. He and his wife taunt Oliver with the song "That's Your Funeral". He is sent to sleep in the basement with the coffins, something which makes him visibly uncomfortable. ("Where is Love?").

The next morning bully Noah Claypole, who oversees Oliver's work, badmouths Oliver's dead mother, whereupon Oliver begins pummeling him. Mrs Sowerberry and her daughter, Charlotte run in, and become hysterical. Mr. Bumble is sent for, and he and the Sowerberrys lock Oliver in a coffin, but during all the commotion Oliver escapes. After a week on the run, he meets the Artful Dodger, a boy wearing an oversize coat and a top hat. He beckons Oliver to join him with "Consider Yourself". Dodger is, unknown to Oliver, a boy pickpocket, and he invites Oliver to come and live in Fagin's lair. Fagin is a criminal, and he is in the business of teaching young boys to pick pockets. Oliver, however, is completely unaware of any criminality, and believes that the boys make handkerchiefs rather than steal them. Oliver is introduced to Fagin and all the other boy pickpockets, and is taught their ways in "You've got to Pick a Pocket or Two".

The next day, Oliver meets Nancy, the live-in girlfriend of the evil, terrifying Bill Sikes, a burglar whose abuse she endures because she loves him. Nancy and Oliver take an instant liking to each other, and Nancy shows motherly affection toward him. Bet, Nancy's younger sister (merely her best friend in the 1968 film and in Dickens' novel), is also with her. Nancy, along with Bet and the boys, sing about how they don't mind a bit of danger in "It's a Fine Life". Dodger humorously starts pretending to be an upper-class citizen, ("I'd Do Anything"), along with Fagin, Oliver, Nancy, Bet, and the boys mocking high society. Nancy and Bet leave and Oliver is sent out with the other boys on his first pickpocketing job ("Be Back Soon"), though he still believes that they are going to teach him how to make handkerchiefs. The Dodger, another boy pickpocket named Charley Bates, and Oliver decide to stick together, and when Dodger and Charley rob Mr. Brownlow, a wealthy old man, they run off, leaving Oliver to be arrested for the crime.

In the Three Cripples pub, Nancy is called upon to sing an old tavern song ("Oom Pah Pah"). Bill Sykes enters and sings ("My Name"), and gets the crowd to leave. Dodger runs in and tells Fagin about Oliver being captured before being subsequently cleared of the crime and taken in by Mr. Brownlow. Fagin and Bill decide to kidnap Oliver to protect the whereabouts of their den. Nancy refuses to help until Bill slaps her around. She tries to convince herself that he really loves her ("As Long As He Needs Me").

The next morning, at Mr. Brownlow's house, Ms. Bedwin, the housekeeper, sings Oliver a reprise of "Where is Love?" and as he wakes up they take notice of the street vendors outside in the song "Who Will Buy?". Mr. Brownlow and Dr. Grimwig discuss Oliver's condition. They come to the conclusion that he is fine and that he can return some books to the bookseller for Mr. Brownlow. The Vendors continue to sing ("Who Will Buy") and at the very end, Nancy and Bill show up and grab Oliver. They bring him back to Fagin's, where Nancy saves Oliver from a beating from Sykes after the boy tries to flee but is stopped. Nancy angrily and remorsefully reviews what their "fine life" has come to in "It's A Fine Life (reprise)". When Sykes and Nancy leave, Fagin ponders his future in the humorous song "Reviewing the Situation", in which, every time he thinks of a good reason for going straight, he reconsiders and decides to remain a criminal.

Back at the workhouse, Mr. Bumble and the Widow Corney, now unhappily married, meet up with the dying pauper Old Sally and another old lady, who tell them of how Oliver's mother came to the workhouse to have her baby and gave her a gold locket after the birth, implying that she came from a rich family. The mother then died. Mr Bumble and Widow Corney, realizing that Oliver may have wealthy relatives, visit Mr. Brownlow in order to profit from any reward given out for information of him ("Oliver! (reprise)"). He throws them out, knowing that they have suppressed evidence until they could get a reward for it. Brownlow looks at the picture inside the locket, a picture of his daughter, and realizes that Oliver, who knows nothing of his family history, is actually his grandson (Oliver's mother had disappeared after having been left pregnant by her lover, who jilted her).

Nancy, terrified for Oliver and feeling guilty, visits Brownlow and promises to deliver Oliver to him safely that night at midnight on London Bridge - if Brownlow does not bring the police or ask any questions. She then ponders again about Bill in "As Long As He Needs Me (reprise)". Bill suspects that Nancy is up to something. That night, he follows her as she sneaks Oliver out, although in the stage version it is never made clear how he knew exactly when to do this. At London Bridge, he confronts them, knocks Oliver temporarily unconscious, and brutally clubs Nancy to death (in some stagings of the show, he strangles her, stabs her, or slits her throat, but the musical's original libretto follows Dickens's original novel in having her beaten to death). He then grabs Oliver, who has since revived, and runs offstage with him, presumably back to the hideout to ask Fagin for getaway money. Mr. Brownlow, who had been late keeping the appointment, arrives and discovers Nancy's body. A large crowd soon forms, among them the distraught Bet. Bullseye, Bill's fierce terrier, returns to the scene of the crime and the crowd prepares to follow him to the hideout. After they exit Fagin and his boys, terrified at the idea of being apprehended, leave their hideout in panic. Not finding Bill at the hideout, the anxious crowd, now whipped up into a thirst for justice, returns to the Thames Embankment, when suddenly Bill appears at the top of the bridge, holding Oliver as hostage and threatening to kill him if the crowd tries to take him. Unseen by Bill, two policemen sneak up on him. One of them shoots Bill to death and the other grabs Oliver as Bill releases him. Oliver is then reunited with Mr. Brownlow. The mob, still eager for vengeance against this underground criminal network, begins a mad search for Fagin. When one of the members of the crowd suggest that he may be at the Three Cripples pub, they disperse offstage in order to track him down. As the crowd exits, Fagin sneaks on and sings a reprisal of "Reviewing the Situation," wherein he decides that, after years of pickpocketing and training junior pickpocketers, the time has never looked better for him to straighten out his life.

The original London production of Oliver! opened in the New Theatre (now the Noel Coward Theatre) on June 30, 1960 and ran for 2618 performances.Among the original cast were Ron Moody as Fagin, Georgia Brown as Nancy, and Barry Humphries in a small comic role as Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker. Keith Hamshere (the original Oliver) is now a Hollywood still photographer (Star Wars etc.); Martin Horsey (the original Dodger) works as an actor/director and is the author of the play L'Chaim. The part of Nancy was originally written for Alma Cogan, who despite being unable to commit to the production, steered a great many producers to invest in the production.

The musical previewed in the U.S. with a 1962 national tour (whose cast was preserved on recording), and the first Broadway production opened at the Imperial Theatre on January 6, 1963 and closed on November 14, 1964 after 774 performances. The American production had child actor Bruce Prochnik in the title role alongside Georgia Brown, reprising her West End turn as Nancy, and Clive Revill, replacing Ron Moody, as Fagin. While the national tour had young actor Michael Goodman as The Artful Dodger, the Broadway transfer had him replaced by a young Davy Jones. The original Broadway production was a critical success and was nominated for 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Actor (Revill), Actress (Brown) and Featured Actor (Jones). The show won Tonys for Sean Kenny's Scenic Design, Donald Pippin's musical direction and Lionel Bart's score.

A 1965 revival at the Martin Beck Theatre ran for 64 performances, and featured Robin Ramsay and Maura K. Wedge with direction by Peter Coe.

1983 saw a new production of Oliver as the first musical produced by the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, as part of its inaugural season as a self-producing theatre.

In 1984 there was a short lived Broadway revival of 17 performances and 13 previews with Ron Moody reprising his West End and film role as Fagin and Patti LuPone as Nancy, with direction again by Peter Coe.

In 1994, Oliver! was revived for the London Palladium with some additional music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. It was directed by Sam Mendes, with Graham Gill as the resident director, and featured Jonathan Pryce as Fagin, Sally Dexter as Nancy (Alison Sevitt understudying), James Villiers (Mr Brownlow) and Miles Anderson as Bill Sikes. Later in the run Jon Lee, Tom Fletcher and Andrew James Michel played the title role and Adam Searles played the Artful Dodger. Danielle McCormack appeared as Bet.

The show was a lavish affair, with designs by Anthony Ward, new and fresh orchestrations by William David Brohn and a move from its original intimate melodramatic feel to a cinematic and symphonic feel to accommodate an audience that was raised on the motion picture.

The Australian tour was a successful trip through Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore from 2002 to 2004. The show, which mirrored Sam Mendes' production, was recreated by Graham Gill. John Waters (the actor, not to be confused with John Waters, the director) portrayed Fagin, Tamsin Carroll was Nancy, and the production also featured Stuart Wagstaff, Steve Bastoni and Keegan Joyce in the title role. The role of Oliver was also rotated with Maddison Orr. The role of the Artful Dodger was shared between Matthew Waters and Tim Matthews. Both of the children's casts earned good notices.

A North American tour began in 2003, produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Networks. It ran till March 2005 and played most major theatrical venues in the U.S. and one in Canada. The show was directed by the London team which managed the Sam Mendes version in London and the Australian tour, with Graham Gill as director.

In October 2008 Columbia Artists Theatricals mounted a new North American National tour directed by Clayton Philips and starring Zachary Mordechai as Fagin, and Rhiannon West as Nancy. The production is scheduled to tour until March 2009.

The Estonian revival was produced in 2003 in Tallinn (the original ran in early 1990s in Tartu, the theatre Vanemuine). It ran in November and December that year, with well-known actors Aivar Tommingas as Fagin, Raivo E. Tamm as Bill and Evelin Samuel as Nancy.

A revival of the 1994 Sam Mendes production, directed by Rupert Goold, opened on 14 January 2009 (previews from 13 December 2008) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring Rowan Atkinson as Fagin, Burn Gorman as Bill Sykes, Julian Glover as Mr Brownlow, Jordan Li-Smith as Charlie Bates and Julian Bleach as Mr Sowerberry. , Louise Gold as Mrs Sowerberry / Mrs Bedwin . The roles of Nancy and Oliver were cast through the BBC reality television talent show series I'd Do Anything. The three young actors who won the role of Oliver are Laurence Jeffcoate, Harry Stott and Gwion Jones. Jodie Prenger won the role of Nancy,with Tamsin Carroll as the alternate Nancy.

Dodger!, a sequel to Lionel Bart's Oliver! was composed by Andrew Fletcher with the book and lyrics written by David Lambert. It is set seven years after the events in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens where the Artful Dodger has been sentenced to an Australian penal colony and has a romantic involvement with the character Bet.

To the top

American Beauty (film)

American Beauty is a 1999 dramedy film set in modern American suburbia. Starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, it was the feature film debut for writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes, all of whom won Academy Awards. The film won a total of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Lester Burnham (Spacey) is a 42-year-old father and advertising executive who serves as the film's narrator. "I'm 42 years old; in less than a year, I'll be dead. Of course, I don't know that yet. And in a way, I'm dead already." Lester's family life is messy—his wife Carolyn (Bening) is an ambitious realtor who feels that she is unsuccessful at fulfilling her potential, and his 16-year-old daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is unhappy and struggling with self-esteem issues. Lester himself is a self-described loser in a dead end job with despicable bosses he does not respect. Lester is reinvigorated, however, when he meets Jane's friend and classmate Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a high school basketball game. Lester immediately develops an obvious infatuation with Angela, much to his daughter's distress. Throughout the film, Lester has fantasies involving a sexually aggressive Angela and red rose petals. The Burnhams' new neighbors are Col. Frank Fitts, USMC (Cooper), his dissociated wife Barbara (Janney) and his teenage son Ricky (Bentley). When confronted with the gay couple living two doors down, Col. Fitts reacts with homophobic disgust.

Over the course of a few days, each of the Burnhams individually makes a life-changing choice. Carolyn meets real estate rival Buddy Kane for a business lunch and ends up beginning an affair with him and later takes up gun lessons. Seconds away from being downsized, Lester defiantly blackmails his boss for $60,000, quits his job and takes up low-pressure employment as a burger-flipper at a fast food chain. He continues to liberate himself by trading in his Toyota Camry for his dream car, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, starts running and working out to "look good naked" in order to have a body that will impress Angela, and starts smoking a genetically enhanced form of the marijuana he enjoyed in his youth. Jane grows increasingly disillusioned with and distant from Angela, allowing herself to develop a romantic relationship with Ricky. Ricky and Jane bond over what he considers to be the most beautiful camcorder footage he has ever filmed, that of a plastic grocery bag dancing in the wind; meanwhile, Ricky also quickly befriends Lester and secretly acts as his marijuana supplier.

Col. Fitts, concerned over the growing relationship between Lester and Ricky, roots through his son's possessions, finding footage of Lester working out in the nude (captured by chance while Ricky was filming Jane through her bedroom window)—slowly bringing him to the conclusion that his son is gay. Buddy and Carolyn are found out by Lester, who seems to be completely unfazed by his wife's infidelity. Carolyn, who is almost more devastated by Lester's indifference than by her being exposed as an adulteress, is further dismayed when Buddy reacts by breaking off the affair. As evening falls, Ricky returns home to find his father waiting for him with fists and vitriol, having mistaken his drug rendezvous with Lester for a sexual affair. Realizing this as an opportunity for freedom, Ricky falsely agrees that he is gay and goads his father until Col. Fitts throws him out. Ricky rushes to Jane's house and asks her to flee with him to New York City—something she agrees to, much to the dismay of Angela, who quickly protests. Ricky shoots her down with her deepest fear: that she is boring and completely ordinary. Devastated, Angela storms out of the room, leaving Jane and Ricky to one another permanently. Meanwhile, Carolyn, listening to self-help tapes in her car, decides she refuses "to be a victim," loads a gun and starts the car, apparently with the intention to kill Lester.

An emotionally fragile Col. Fitts approaches Lester's garage/workout room in the pouring rain. Lester is concerned and attempts to comfort him, but is taken by surprise when Fitts, who turns out to be a closeted homosexual, kisses him. Moments later, Lester finds a distraught Angela and the two of them prove to be in the appropriate mental spaces to be on the verge of sexual intercourse. The seduction, while powerful, is derailed when Angela confesses that she is a virgin. Now viewing her only as an innocent child, Lester immediately withdraws, his affections shifting to that of a father-figure, and they bond over their shared frustrations with and concern for Jane. Lester asks "How's her life?" and is pleased when Angela says that Jane's in love. When Angela then asks how Lester is, he realizes, to his own surprise, that he feels great. A happy Lester sits at the table looking at a photograph of his family in happier times, as Angela is at the toilet, unaware of the gun being slowly led into the camera frame and pressed to the back of his head. A gunshot is heard and blood splatters the kitchen wall.

In his final narration, Lester looks back on the events of his life, intertwined with images of everyone's reactions to the sound of the subsequent gunshot, including one of a bloody and shaken Col. Fitts with a gun missing from his collection. Despite his death, Lester, from his vantage point as narrator, is happy.

Alan Ball originally wrote American Beauty for the stage. He saw a paper bag floating in the wind near the World Trade Center plaza and was inspired by it to write the film.

Many of the school scenes were shot at South High School in Torrance, California, and most of the extras in the gym crowd were South High students. Sam Mendes designed the two girls' appearances to change over the course of the film, with Thora Birch gradually using less makeup and Suvari gradually using more, to emphasize their shifting perceptions of themselves.

Originally, the role of Lester Burnham was offered to Chevy Chase, but he turned it down.

During the movie's second dinner scene, Spacey was only supposed to throw the plate of asparagus onto the floor. However, while shooting, Spacey improvised and pitched it at the wall, bringing about genuine reactions of shock to Bening and Birch's faces.

According to Cooper, much of Col. Fitts' backstory was eliminated from the final script, in which Fitts lost his male lover during the Vietnam War.

Ball's original screenplay had opening and ending scenes in which Col. Fitts frames Jane and Ricky for Lester's murder. They go to jail, but Col. Fitts' wife finds his bloody shirt. After shooting these scenes, Mendes removed many of them for the first cut, feeling that they made the film lose its mystery. Although Ball and Mendes initially disagreed, Ball accepted the new version after Mendes made further cuts to that part of the plot, which "worked on the page but not really on screen". In the DVD commentary, Mendes refers to deleted scenes for the viewer to find on the disc. However, these scenes are not on the DVD as he had changed his mind after recording the commentary.

The score to American Beauty was composed by Thomas Newman, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The soundtrack features songs by artists such as Bobby Darin, The Who, Free, Eels, The Guess Who, The Folk Implosion, Gomez, and Bob Dylan, as well as a cover version of The Beatles "Because" performed by Elliott Smith. The film also features "Don't Let It Bring You Down" performed by Annie Lennox, though this was not included on the soundtrack.

The Original Motion Picture Score was later released on January 11, 2000. This contains 19 tracks composed by Thomas Newman for the film.

The score was sampled in the 2000 dance track "American Dream" by Jakatta.

Three months before the film's opening, New York Times reviewer Bernard Weinraub described it as "the most talked about film of the moment." His column, which ran on the weekend of July 4, gave few specifics regarding the film but noted that it was generating "tremendous buzz" in the DreamWorks studio, as the details of how and when the movie would be released were debated; it also reported that Steven Spielberg (a co-founder of DreamWorks) called the film one of the best he had seen in years and that Bening was moved to tears when she first saw the whole film put together at an early screening.

The movie premiered on September 8, 1999, in Los Angeles, California, to reviews that generally reaffirmed the advance hype, uniformly praising the cast, script, and cinematography, as well as the first-time direction by Mendes. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthman called it "a dazzling tale of loneliness, desire and the hollowness of conformity". Jay Carr for the Boston Globe called the film "a millennial classic"; the New York Post called it "a flat-out masterpiece". Among the smaller number of critics who expressed negative opinions of the film were J. Hoberman of the Village Voice and Wesley Morris of the San Francisco Examiner, both of whom were critical of the film's script and direction, if not its performances. Filmmaker Robert Altman hated the film.

On September 11, it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice award just days before its opening. Aided tremendously by the positive press, the film took in $861,531 on its opening weekend in the United States, despite a limited release to only 16 screens. By October, the film was released to a wider audience, and quickly surpassed the film's estimated $15,000,000 production budget. After its total theatre count steadily dropped near the end of 1999 and the start of 2000, it was given a wider relaunch after it received several Academy Award nominations. Ultimately, the film would gross $356,296,601 internationally.

Scenes from the Los Angeles and Toronto premieres, as well as other unique footage related to American Beauty, are featured in the 2008 documentary My Big Break, directed by Tony Zierra, which follows Wes Bentley before and after he landed his breakout role as Ricky Fitts.

Overall, the film was well-received by critics, with an 89% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

The film dominated the 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, with a total of eight nominations and five wins. It also had another 63 wins and 82 nominations at numerous other award ceremonies.

To the top