Copenhagen (PBS Hollywood Presents)
by Howard Davies
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Actor: Daniel Craig, Francesca Annis, Stephen ReaDirector: Howard Davies
Cinematographer: Ian Wilson
Writer: Howard Davies
Editor: Kevin Lester
Producer: Bettina Bennewitz
Producer: Eamon Fitzpatrick
Producer: Gordon Ronald
Producer: Karen Robinson Hunte
Producer: Mary Mazur
Producer: Megan Callaway
Producer: Richard Fell
Producer: Simon Curtis
Writer: Michael Frayn
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.0; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Copenhagen (PBS Hollywood Presents)
DVD Review: Thoughtful Scientific Symbolism
Summary: 5 Stars
This dramatized version of Frayn's play deals with a meeting between Niel's Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen during WWII. Both were founders of quantum mechanics, Bohr having made one of the profound initial steps by abandoning some comcepts of classical physics to develop the Bohr model of the atom, and Heisenberg having been the first to develop a correct non-relativitstic version of quantum mechanics.
At the time of the meeting Germany was occupying Denmark and Heisenberg was the director of the secret German project to work on atomic weapons. There are multiple theories why Heisenberg chose to visit Bohr, a political enemy but a revered and respected teacher. Although some theories are more plausible than others, there are still strong emotions generated by attempts to clarify Heisenberg's motivation. The drama is heightened by the earth shaking consequences possible had Heisenberg been successful. But the meeting went awry and neither participant ever clarified the story during their long lifetimes.
The play's artistry is not to dramatize the meeting in such a way as to support one theory or the other---but precisely the opposite. Frayn very cleverly uses the language of quantum mechanics to emphasize the uncertainty of motives and to draw a parallel between our knowledge of each other and ourselves and our knowledge of the physical world as constrained by Heisenberg's indeterminancy principle.
This is interesting history of science, political history and beautiful art. It is well acted and nicely filmed.
DVD Review: THREE GREAT ACTORS SHINE IN "COPENHAGEN"
Summary: 5 Stars
Haunting in more ways than one "Copenhagen" is framed by the meeting of the ghosts of three friends who try to come to grips with why sixty years earlier their friendship was destroyed by a visit. This film is fascinating in structure and brilliantly realized as drama.
Francesca Annis is simply wonderful as the wife of Danish Physicist Niels Bohr. She is as brittle and supportive of her husband as she is distrustful and yet tender to their old friend, German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Stephen Rea towers in his portrayal of Bohr and commands the screen in velvet gloved over steel performance. His role is one of such extreme depth and subtlety that I was truly impressed with what he delivered. As Heisenberg, Daniel Craig is a towering presence. Not that the personality of the man he plays is towering, but in his grasp of the complexities and conundrums is. What he does with the slight turn of the head, the shifting of the eyes and the turn of the mouth or the pout of his lips is a lesion in the art of screen acting. It is all about thinking and Craig lets us see what he is thinking. He has the ability to inhabit the moment and let the deepest and sometimes the guarded emotions play across his face.
So here you have three great actors in a challenging work that is worthy of your time you might give to it. This film raises an important question, that of moral responsibility to humanity and when it is split like an atom by the three characters it multiplies the question into even deeper ones of loyalty, friendship, and love. A wonderful experience is waiting your arrival in "Copenhagen".
DVD Review: A stunning combination of science and drama
Summary: 5 Stars
Superb direction, editing, acting...but most of all, screenwriting: the principles of Uncertainity and of Relativity are the main characters that unfold during this profound and intriguing film.DVD Review: PBS - Copenhagen
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this play in London when it was first presented. It was fantastic! The PBS made for TV version is not like the play but still maintains the same poignant tension. The film is well worth viewing.DVD Review: A Perfect Example of Why We Need Public Broadcasting
Summary: 5 Stars
Directed by Howard Davies for PBS and based on Michael Frayn's prize-winning play by the same name, COPENHAGEN is a perfect example of why we need public broadcasting. The film is a three person drama starring Stephen Rea as Niels Bohr, Francesca Annis as his wife Margrethe and Daniel Craig as Werner Heisenberg. The play/movie is based on an eventful meeting that these two physicists had in Copenhagen in September, 1941. The film asks the question that historians have asked since that meeting of precisely why did Heisenberg, who had at least a working relationship with the Nazis, although the playwright in the preface to the film indicates that no one ever considered Heisenberg to be a Nazi, himself, came to Copenhagen for the ill-fated meeting with his mentor and up to that time good friend. The film does not answer this question. Perhaps Heisenberg came to find out if Bohr had information or was collaborating with the Allies on developing an Atom bomb. Whatever the reason for the meeting, the film is a beautiful commentary on friendship-- even one that becomes embittered when one friend is living in a land occupied by the army of the other-- and the brevity and uncertainty of life. Heisenberg upon his arrival at the Bohr home: "It is as if I had come home after a long journey." And finally, we "settle among all the dust we raised."
These three actors give stellar performances in this film that obviously translates well from stage to screen. It is one that one can watch again and again.
In addition to the commentary by the playwright, there are also interviews with Heisenberg's children and others familiar with the lives of these two very interesting and decent men. Mr. Frayn discusses an unsent letter that Bohr wrote over and over to Heisenberg after their 1941 meeting that he only received knowledge of after his play was first produced. The letter indicates that Bohr was much more bitter and hostile toward his former friend later in his life than the play would indicate. Frayn regrets that he did not have knowledge of this letter-- the Bohr family only produced it after he wrote the play-- when he created this really fine work.
Description of Copenhagen (PBS Hollywood Presents)
Inspired by actual events which have baffled and intrigued historians for years, this Tony Award-winning drama by Michael Frayn (Spies, Noises Off) comes to life in this stirring presentation. At a 1941 meeting, two brilliant physicists and longtime friends, Denmark's Niels Bohr (The Crying Game's Stephen Rea) and Germany's Werner Heisenberg (The Road to Perdition's Daniel Craig), find themselves on opposite sides of World War II. Heisenberg's covert trip at great risk to see Bohr and his wife, Margrethe (Reckless' Francesca Annis), in Copenhagen results in disaster. Why did Heisenberg really go to Denmark, what did the two men discuss, and what happened during this pivotal meeting which became a defining moment of the modern nuclear age? "Among the most exhilarating, challenging and involving two hours you ever spend in a theater!" - The NationThis 2002 film, based on the play by Michael Frayn, imagines what might have happened between the physicists Niels Bohr (Stephen Rea, The Crying Game) and Werner Heisenberg (Daniel Craig, The Road to Perdition) on a particular night in September of 1941. Heisenberg was collaborating with Nazis in Germany; Bohr, a Jew, was living in occupied Denmark but had contact with physicists on the Allied side. Something in this meeting destroyed their longstanding friendship; Frayn envisions their ghosts--and that of Bohr's wife, Margrethe (Francesca Annis, Dune)--reliving, arguing, and fantasizing about a conversation in which an innocent topic like skiing could slide into a dangerous discussion of physics and politics. This skillfully woven and well-acted conversation, far from being a static talk-fest, has all the dynamism of a psychological thriller. Our intentions, like the particles at the heart of physics, can never be known for certain. --Bret Fetzer
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