Out of Africa
by Sydney Pollack
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Actor: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Malick Bowens, Meryl Streep, Michael Kitchen, Robert RedfordDirector: Sydney Pollack
Brand: REDFORD,ROBERT
Producer: Anna Cataldi
Producer: Judith Thurman
Writer: Judith Thurman
Producer: Kim Jorgensen
Writer: Errol Trzebinski
Writer: Karen Blixen
Writer: Kurt Luedtke
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 4.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 4.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 161 minutes
Published: 2000-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2011-01-04
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Out of Africa
DVD Review: What is love?
Summary: 3 Stars
It seems Africa is quickly becoming the film capital of the world. There is the film Nowhere In Africa, and there is Hotel Rwanda, and this one, Out Of Africa. Hollywood is also making a film called, "Back To Africa," but I think three films is plenty.
These stories have a lot in common. Nowhere In Africa and Out Of Africa both deal with adjusting to a new lifestyle based on the African culture. The first film deals with trying to hang on to a family, and not doing very well. The second film deals with trying to find a family, and not doing very well. Hotel Rwanda deals with simply trying to survive as a family, and not doing very well. All three movies are based on true stories, with two of the films based upon books written by a real life central character. Nowhere In Africa was written by the young girl in the movie as an adult, Stefanie Zweig. Out of Africa was written by Isak Dinesen, the pen name of Karen Blixen. In all three movies, war interrupts people's lives. There is also theology in all three films, or at least a lack of theology. Nowhere In Africa deals with a family with no God. Hotel Rwanda has people give thanks to God, and in Out Of Africa, people don't have a clue as to how God relates to them. And in a telling way, here are some Africans who have lived in the same place for generations, who do not think in terms of owning anything, but simply managing it, basically for God. The whites move into Africa during a time of exploration and settling, basically claiming Africa for their own, and the Africans then become field hands, cooks, and house boys.
But within each film, the individual paths diverge. Here in Out Of Africa, Meryl Streep plays Karen Dinesen, a single woman from Denmark, who has a lot of money, but nowhere to go with it. On a whim, she suggests that she and Bror Blixen marry. She would get some social status by being a married woman, and not just a single woman, and he would get her money, and together they could build a farm in Africa. But this was not a real marriage, but simply a business relationship tied together with paper. Instead of planting vegetables like they agreed, he took her money and without consulting with her planted coffee beans, a high risk venture since no one had successfully done this before at such high altitudes. It was a marriage made in...well, not made in heaven, but the other place.
As Karen Dinison is adjusting to life in Africa, she has to learn about chasing away baboons, never going outside alone without a gun, how to fend off lions, and how to be married to one person while developing a romance with someone else. That "someone else" is Robert Redford as Denys Hatton, a man who has everything her husband does not have--grace, charm, wit, and style.
This movie was a winner of seven Academy Awards. With its lush African setting of beautiful skies, picturesque mountains, and miles upon miles of open flat land, this film has romance written all over it. Roger Ebert called this movie, "one of the great recent epic romances."
[...]
But what kind of love is this? There was no love in Karen's real marriage, and she expressd her love by being unfaithful to her husband, even if they were married in name only. This same husband gives her syphilis that he got from his sexual activities, and then just when she was focusing in on Redford's character Denys Hatton, she sees a side to him that she didn't see before. His idea of love is not to be tied down to one woman. He may say that he loves her, and maybe he does, but he doesn't have a problem with just taking off and doing his own thing for however long he wants, and even if that involves another woman, a minor character in his life.
Perhaps it is the lush settings that disguises this. Or maybe it is the lush, romantic music that sets us up for a love story. Perhaps Denys did change his ways, and his return to Karen Dinison was supposed to show this, but if so, it took him 90% of the movie to reach this point, so what are we supposed to think? Does this last 10% of the movie justify the previous 90%? My idea of love and romance does not involve anything described in this movie. And I don't think the last ten minutes of a movie qualified this film to be called an epic love story. It seems to me that in the same way that ten years of being sober do not justify 30 years of an alcoholic rage, a man can't just forgiven when he "comes around" after dividing his love between multiple partners. But in this movie, no one says, "take me now, or else I'm leaving. Make your choice." Rather, it is, "I hate what you do, and there is no real reason that says I have to stay here, but I have decided to take more emotional abuse and just stick around and wait for you to change your way of thinking."
And did Karen Dinison learn anything from her experiences? We don't know. Like the characters in Nowhere In Africa, and Hotel Rwanda, she leaves Africa to start over. Thanks to her real husband, she left Africa financially bankrupt. So why would she risk all of her money on an unknown? If she had any sense, she would have seen this coming, or at least padded her bet a little bit. But movies tend to make heroes out of just about anybody, since we are seeing their story from their perspective. There was, apparently, no one to advise her not to do what she did.
The strength of this movie lies in its filmed on location mentality. In fact, the movie used some of Karen Dinison's actual furniture that she left behind when she moved back to Denmark. People are seen sleeping on the ground around a campfire, while real lions stroll through the campsite intent on killing and eating the cattle used to pull wagons. Lions are seen attacking Dinison and Redford's character Hatton at full charge. And with a war on, you don't know if some African natives coming toward you at a steady trot are friends, neutrals, or an enemy.
Highlights of the extras are Meryl Streep's commentary. She mimics people and things from this movie to good effect.
Robert Redford started his breakthrough film career in films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting. These roles were definitive standout roles, helped no doubt by his all American boy good looks. But since then, it seems to me any way, most of his films have been films that dealt with non stand out roles that at best told more enjoyable, but low key stories, such as, The Great Waldo Pepper, Brubaker, The Natural, and Legal Eagles. He has received more acclaim for his work behind the camera as a director, but even here some of his films were not big blockbusters, such as The Horse Whisperer. By the time of Out of Africa, his boyish good looks were beginning to peak. But maybe the time has just gone by so fast that before you realize it, Redford has been in this movie business for about 45 years or more.
Meryl Streep's career seems to have begun to peak with this movie. At one time she was the definitive actress, but her career seems to have cooled somewhat. She has gone from being a strong stand alone actress to a strong supporting actress in strong movies. But then, she too has been making movies for about 33 years or more, and as you age, good roles are not as easy to come by.
Perhaps the defining moment of this movie is when Karen Dinison's husband catches her and Redford's Hatton having breakfast together. The husband and Hatton have this conversation:
Baron Bror Blixen: You could have asked, Denys.
Denys: I did. She said yes.
So here we have a man who doesn't want to commit himself to anything, whether out of fear or whatever. Yet, he has no problem moving in between a married couple to try and enjoy something that he may not necessarily even stick with, and may end up putting the woman in yet another compromised situation without even intending to marry her. Maybe even destroy her marriage, then walk away.
Rather, than this movie being seen as an epic love story, I see it as a film about three people who don't really know what they are doing, who don't place someone else's best interest first, and who don't see the harm they are doing to other people. "Sorry" doesn't make the syphilis go away. "Sorry" doesn't restore the squandered wealth. And there is no "sorry" from a man who refuses to be bound by someone else's idea of love and faithfulness. Just when two people seem to have really found each other, with the husband even out of the way, not so much as an apology. Maybe love still means never having to say you are sorry.
So what are we to think of Karen Dinison? She makes poor business decisions, and doesn't keep a close eye on her investments. Her idea of marriage is one where she risks everything without expecting anything of equal value in return. Then she gets involved with a man who is not big on commitments, but she sticks around anyway, even though by this time Africa doesn't owe her a thing. So why not just get up and leave? "You want me? I'll be in Belgum trying to straighten out my life." Most people I know would have a limited patience toward another person who did these kinds of things, but not Karen. There is never a cut off point for her, never a time when it was too late. We are expected to believe that this male thing of a human being would just change his ways without so much as a whimper. And of course, just when they finally find do find each other...love crashes and burns a second time, making Karen a hero, and bringing an epic and h
Description of Out of Africa
The most acclaimed motion picture of 1985 stars Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in one of the screen?s great epic romances. Directed by Oscar winner Sydney Pollack, Out of Africa is the fascinating true story of Karen Blixen, a strong-willed woman who, with her philandering husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer), runs a coffee plantation in Kenya, circa 1914. To her astonishment, she soon discovers herself falling in love with the land, its people and a mysterious white hunter (Redford). The masterfully crafted, breathtakingly produced story of love and loss earned Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (based on material from another medium), Cinematography, Original Score, Art Direction (Set Decoration) and Sound.Sydney Pollack's 1985 multiple-Oscar winner is a sumptuous and emotionally satisfying film about the life of Danish writer Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), better known as Isak Dinesen, who travels to Kenya to be with her German husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) but falls for an English adventurer (Robert Redford). The film is slow in developing the relationship, but it is rich in beautiful images of Africa and in the romantic tone surrounding Blixen's gradual discovery of her life and voice. One downside: while we may all love Redford, he is as convincingly British as Kevin Costner is in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. --Tom Keogh
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