Oscar & Lucinda
by Gillian Armstrong
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Actor: Cate Blanchett, Ciarán Hinds, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Roxburgh, Tom WilkinsonDirector: Gillian Armstrong
Brand: Fox
Cinematographer: Geoffrey Simpson
Editor: Nicholas Beauman
Producer: Mark Turnbull
Producer: Robin Dalton
Producer: Timothy White
Writer: Laura Jones
Writer: Peter Carey
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 132 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-11
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Oscar & Lucinda
DVD Review: "Where is the sin?"
Summary: 5 Stars
Ralph Fiennes was good in this movie. It is amazing to me that he was able to so transform himself into this character. In my opinion his performance was better than Blanchett's though she was good also. The story is kind of deep with lots of different angles, the religious angle is both mystical and traditional/conventional. Story takes place in the late 1800s in Australia, New South Wales - not surprisingly, the scenery is lush and beautiful. But beyond scenery, there are some real sublime moments in the human drama as well. Fiennes character is deeply religious and bases his communication with God almost on I Ching style divination tactics. That is, heads or tails will help him determine what he beleives God wants him to do.
To come up with money to meet the basic necessities of living, he takes to betting on horse racing after a friend introduces him to the pastime. He keeps what he needs and gives the rest to the poor. His faith seems to keep him winning. It starts to become a real issue for him though when he realizes he is no longer using the gambling simply as a means to an end, but that in fact he is enjoying the thrill of it as well. There is a hilarious scene where, somehow by mistake Blanchett's character has come to him for confession and when she confesses that she loves to gamble, Fiennes character comes to the conclusion that gambling cannot really be a sin since to beleive in God already is the greatest gamble - those who beleive weigh the odds and are finally betting that He does exist. Since this belief itself is the ultimate wager - how could God fault a person for wagers much smaller and of much less importance - dice or cards for example?
"Where is the sin? We bet. It is all in Pascal. We bet that there is a God. We bet our lives on it. We calculate the odds and the return.. Our anxiety about our bet wakes us before dawn in a cold sweat. And God sees us suffer. I cannot beleive that such a God, whose fundamental requirement of us is that we gamble our souls - it's true, we stake everything on the fact of His existence -- I cannot beleive that such a God can look unkindly on a chap wagering a few quid on the likelihood of a dumb animal crossing the line first..... unless... unless it might be considered a blasphemy to apply to common pleasure that which is divine."
Oscar is not without his personal demons, mostly in the form of ideals that he is constantly trying to live up to. The ending of the movie was something of a shock, loaded with symbolic possibilities and plain poetry, in a word (see 'a glass church').
I saw an Australian version of this DVD. The cover shows Oscar holding a 5 of diamonds, not a 5 of hearts. I think I prefer the 5 of diamonds and the clear-eyed expression of the actors rather than the 'romantic' look of the Stateside version. The movie is more than a romance - although it is a love story as tragic as any by Shakespeare. This movie is not a high speed ride, but it is watchable all the same.
Description of Oscar & Lucinda
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