The English Patient (1996)

At the close of WWII, a young nurse tends to a badly-burned plane crash victim. His past is shown in flashbacks, revealing an involvement in a fateful love affair.

Director:

Anthony Minghella

Writers:

Michael Ondaatje (novel), Anthony Minghella (screenplay)

Stars:

Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe

Won 9 Oscars. Another 53 wins & 75 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ralph Fiennes	...	Almásy
Juliette Binoche	...	Hana
Willem Dafoe	...	Caravaggio
Kristin Scott Thomas	...	Katharine Clifton
Naveen Andrews	...	Kip
Colin Firth	...	Geoffrey Clifton
Julian Wadham	...	Madox
Jürgen Prochnow	...	Major Muller
Kevin Whately	...	Hardy
Clive Merrison	...	Fenelon-Barnes
Nino Castelnuovo	...	D'Agostino
Hichem Rostom	...	Fouad
Peter Rühring	...	Bermann
Geordie Johnson	...	Oliver
Torri Higginson	...	Mary

Storyline

October 1944 in war torn Italy. Hana, a French-Canadian nurse working in a mobile army medical unit, feels like everything she loves in life dies on her. Because of the difficulty traveling and the dangers, especially as the landscape is still heavily booby-trapped with mines, Hana volunteers to stay behind at a church to care solely for a dying semi-amnesiac patient, who is badly burned and disfigured. She agrees to catch up to the rest of the unit after he dies. All the patient remembers is that he is English and that he is married. Their solitude is disrupted with the arrival at the church of fellow Canadian David Caravaggio, part of the Intelligence Service, who is certain that he knows the patient as a man who cooperated with the Germans. Caravaggio believes that the patient's memory is largely in tact and that he is running away from his past, in part or in its entirety. The patient does open up about his past, all surrounding his work as a cartographer in North Africa, which ...

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Plot Keywords:

patient | nurse | flashback | english | church | 

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Taglines:

In memory, love lives forever.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexuality, some violence and language

Details

Official Sites:

Juliette Binoche: The Art of Being - Official Fansite Official Facebook

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English German Italian Arabic

Release Date:

6 December 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

El paciente inglés

Filming Locations:

Degache, Tunisia

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$278,439, 17 November 1996, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$78,651,430, 7 September 1997

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$134,700,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Miramax, Tiger Moth Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

162 min 250 min (rough cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS (8 channels) DTS-Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the scene where Hana is being pulled up to see the paintings in the church, the electric power and smoke for her "torch" was being piped through the seemingly real rope on which she was sitting.

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Goofs

As Hana reads the note Almásy has written on the Christmas cracker paper - "the heart is an organ of fire" - we see that it is dated only "December 22". However, when we see Almásy originally writing the note in flashback, we see him date it "December 22nd 1938".

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Quotes

Almásy: You're wearing the thimble.
Katharine Clifton: Of course, you idiot. I always wear it; I've always worn it; I've always loved you.

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Crazy Credits

Disclaimer in end credits: "While a number of the characters who appear in this film are based on historical figures, and while many of the areas described - such as the Cave of Swimmers and its surrounding desert - exist and were explored in the 1930s, it is important to stress that this story is a fiction and that the portraits of the characters who appear in it are fictional, as are some of the events and journeys."

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Connections

Referenced in The Graham Norton Show: Ralph Fiennes/Tracey Ullman/James Nesbitt/James Bay (2016)

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Soundtracks

Manhattan
(1925)
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Published by Edward B. Marks Music Company

User Reviews

An epic tale of doomed love

'The English Patient' can rightly be compared to the films of David Lean, whose sweeping epics such as 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Bridge on the River Kwai' must have inspired the director Anthony Minghella. The film is beautifully photographed, and like 'Lawrence', is set in Northern Africa, but during the second world war. The story is complex, but it boils down to a forbidden love between an opinionated and often difficult archeologist played by Ralph Fiennes and a married woman played by Kristin Scott Thomas.

The story, based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje, is told in flashbacks by Fiennes' Count Laszlo de Almasy - the titular character. The fact that his name does not sound like he's English plays a key role in what unfolds. He has been badly burned in a plane crash, occurring just as the film opens, and is being cared for back in Europe by Hana, an army nurse played by Juliette Binoche. What makes this story epic is the vast sweep across place and time, and the development of characters beyond that of the two ill-fated lovers. The film makes clear that true love and passion, even with dreaded consequences, can make life worth living, or worth dying for. If you're a romantic at heart, and can appreciate a film without the standard happy endings and simple moral codes, you may find that 'The English Patient' speaks directly to you.