LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Alan J. Pakula: Sophie's Choice
built 185 days ago
Sophie's Choice, Alan J. Pakula's adaptation of the William Styron bestseller, shows considerable hubris in reducing an epic tragedy to a false and dishonest melodrama. That gesture already risks an extreme understatement of the horrors that comprised the Holocaust of World War II, an event that Sophie's Choice takes care to demonstrate was a nightmare afflicting several people besides the Jews. Such a distinction may register with the viewer as anything from a laudable historicism to a myopic and unnecessary splitting of hairs.
Source:
Pakula branched into screenwriting with his critically-acclaimed (and Oscar-nominated) adaptation of William Styron's Holocaust drama "Sophie's Choice" (1983). The heart of the film, though, was Meryl Streep's luminous Oscar-winning portrayal of a concentration camp survivor romanced by a mentally unstable Jew (Kevin Kline) and a Southern would-be author (Peter MacNichol). Powerfully realized, "Sophie's Choice" was a mature look at a difficult subject. He later wrote his first original screenplay, the autobiographical "See You in the Morning" (1989), about a blended family. Helming and scripting (with Frank Pierson) the film version of Scott Turow's best-selling thriller "Presumed Innocent" (1990) afforded him the opportunity to combine the familiar themes of social and political tensions and with the sexual anxiety and although the result fell short of its potential for greatness, it is still a powerful addition to Pakula's legacy as an intelligent and literate filmmaker. (1993's "Consenting Adults" was ... in the same vein.) He also wrote, directed and produced "The Pelican Brief" (1993), a loose and rather superficial adaptation of the John Grisham novel.
Source:
In this first critical biography, Brown (formerly theater arts, Illinois Wesleyan U.) examines how Pakula's films relate to this most modest of men. Although he produced To Kill a Mockingbird and directed the blockbusters Sophie's Choice and All the President's Men, Pakula chose to remain steadfastly behind the scenes, expressing his faith in characterization and his politics and social convictions through nuance. Pakula was the perfect "actor's director," as evidenced by the extended interview material Brown presents here, and he was far more interested in the art and craft of making movies than making much of himself. Brown follows Pakula from the Broadway stage, analyzing his productions, and works through each of his films as frames for his life as well as his work. Brown closes with the tantalizing fact that Pakula was working on a film about FDR at the time of his death in 1998.
Source:
Pakula scored another hit in 1982 with Sophie's Choice, starring Meryl Streep. His screenplay, based on the novel by William Styron, was nominated for an Academy Award. In later years, he largely focused on courtroom dramas, achieving commercial success with Presumed Innocent, based on the bestselling novel by Scott Turow, and The Pelican Brief, an adaptation of the John Grisham bestseller.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Sophie's Choice