Duet for One (1986)

Director:

Andrei Konchalovsky

Writers:

Tom Kempinski (play)
Tom Kempinski (screenplay)

Release Date:

February 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Stephanie, a famous violin player married to a composer becomes ill from multiple sclerosis. Her whole...

Plot Keywords:

Multiple Sclerosis | Disability | Wheelchair | Independent Film | Based On Play

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Julie Andrews	...	Stephanie Anderson
Alan Bates	...	David Cornwallis
Max von Sydow	...	Dr. Louis Feldman
Rupert Everett	...	Constantine Kassanis
Margaret Courtenay	...	Sonia Randvich
Cathryn Harrison	...	Penny Smallwood
Sigfrit Steiner	...	Leonid Lefimov
Liam Neeson	...	Totter
Macha Méril	...	Anya
Siobhan Redmond	...	Totter's wife
Janette Newling	...	Mrs. Burridge
John Delaney	...	Drunk
Kevin Ranson	...	Derek
Dorothea Phillips	...	Betty
Marcia Linden	...	Gail

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-16 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

Golan-Globus Productions

Trivia:

In 1987, on the set of Barfly (1987), Faye Dunaway told film critic Roger Ebert that she was originally cast in the role of Stephanie Anderson.

Quotes:

Stephanie Anderson: You know I have nothing but contempt for you. Sitting there year after year listening to miserable people like me tell you how the world does destroy them. Have you ever once felt anything like the pain they feel? All the despair...all the fear? You make your living from their suffering and you don't understand a shred of it. Anyone of us is more qualified to speak than you because we have been there. We are still there.

How to rip the guts out of your own work...

...and also make a nonsense of your title. The film is based on a stage play, which is so called because, although a two-hander, it is much closer to being a one-woman show. The stage version was produced for BBC Television with Frances De La Tour, the original star, and is much more worth watching than this sentimentalised claptrap. For one thing, when in a magnificent outburst she attempts to shock the psychiatrist by admitting that she has been "f***ing a totter", part of the power of this is by your wondering what is going on in the head of this refined and cultural woman, for her to be taking a dirty Steptoe-like rag and bone man into her bed. The point is completely lost if you *show* the totter, and what is more cast Liam Neeson in the part!

Kempinski remained on the credits as the screenwriter, so it seems he only has himself to blame for this utter emasculation of what was really an excellent play, loosely based on the shattering loss of Jacqueline Du Pré's art, career and normal life to multiple sclerosis.