The English Patient: Collector’s Series
Miramax Home Entertainment, $29.99Eight years ago, and quite unwittingly, Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient became the blueprint for the nascent (and now somewhat maligned) Miramax Prestige Picture: epics steeped in equal parts pedigree and tragedy. But don’t blame Minghella – his sumptuous adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s award-winning novel rightfully stands alongside Lean’s Dr. Zhivago (an obvious influence) in the pantheon of great historical romances. Trimming some of the content but none of the complexity of the source novel, Minghella tells his story simultaneously on two fronts: pre-World War II, on an expedition into the Egyptian desert, where Ralph Fiennes’ Count Almásy begins a ruinous affair with Kristin Scott Thomas’ married Katharine Clifton; and then on the heels of the war, in bombed-out Tuscany, where a nurse (Juliette Binoche) tends to the dying Almásy. The first disc contains two commentary tracks, with the second disc providing the bulk of the special features, including conversations with the filmmakers, a short film on the real Count Almásy, and a “making of” doc (absent, however, is a feature on Gabriel Yared’s heart-stopping score). The deleted scenes, including an ostrich sequence that was meant to serve as an ongoing metaphor, are of interest, but overall, the extras, while plentiful, add up to something curiously unilluminating – too many fuzzy sentiments and mutual accolades repeated ad nauseam, too little hard information.
This article appears in July 9 • 2004.
