| Out of Africa | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sydney Pollack |
| Screenplay by | Kurt Luedtke |
| Based on |
|
| Produced by | Sydney Pollack Kim Jorgensen |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | David Watkin |
| Edited by | Fredric Steinkamp William Steinkamp Pembroke Herring Sheldon Kahn |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 161 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | English Swahili |
| Budget | $31 million[1] |
| Box office | $227.5 million[2] |
Out of Africa is a 1985 Americanepicromanticdrama film directed and produced bySydney Pollack, and starringMeryl Streep andRobert Redford. The film is based loosely on the 1937 autobiographical bookOut of Africa written byIsak Dinesen (the pseudonym of Danish authorKaren Blixen), with additional material from Dinesen's 1960 bookShadows on the Grass and other sources.
The book wasadapted into a screenplay byKurt Luedtke, and this screenplay was filmed in 1984. Streep played Karen Blixen, Redford playedDenys Finch Hatton, andKlaus Maria Brandauer played BaronBror Blixen. Others in the film includeMichael Kitchen as Berkeley Cole, Malick Bowens as Farah, Stephen Kinyanjui as the Chief,Michael Gough asLord Delamere,Suzanna Hamilton as Felicity, and the model and actressIman as Mariammo. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. It was also a commercial success and won sevenAcademy Awards includingBest Picture andBest Director for Pollack.
In 1913, after being rejected by a Swedish nobleman, Danish aristocrat Karen Dinesen proposes a marriage of convenience to the nobleman's brother, BaronBror Blixen. They plan to move toNairobi,British East Africa, where Bror intends to invest Karen's money in a dairy farm. She will join him a few months later, at which time they will marry. En route to Nairobi, Karen's train is hailed bybig-game hunterDenys Finch Hatton, who knows Bror and entrusts her with his ivory haul.
Farah, theSomali headman Bror hired, greets Karen at the railway station. She is taken to theMuthaiga Club. She enters the men-only salon seeking her future husband, but is soon asked to leave. Karen and Bror immediately marry and become Baroness Blixen. Karen learns that Bror has changed their plan and instead bought a coffee farm, but it is at too high an elevation to be very productive. Karen needs Bror's help managing the farm, but he is more interested in guiding big-game hunting safaris.
Karen comes to love Africa and its people. She looks after theKikuyu people who live on her land, establishes a school there, helps with their medical needs, and arbitrates their disputes. Meanwhile, she attempts to build a formal European homelife equal to other nearby upper-class colonists. She befriends a young woman, Felicity (whose character is based on a youngBeryl Markham). Eventually, Karen and Bror's mutual feelings deepen, and they do consummate their marriage. However, Bror keeps pursuing other women, while Karen fills her evenings, socialising with neighbor visitors.
AsWorld War I reaches East Africa, the colonists form amilitia led by colonialpatriarchLord Delamere, which includes Denys and Bror. A military expedition searches for forces from the neighbor German colony ofGerman East Africa. Responding to the militia's need for supplies, Karen leads a tiring and long expedition to find them and returns safely. Karen contractssyphilis from Bror, returns to Denmark for treatment and recuperation while Bror manages the farm in her absence. Bror resumes his safari work upon Karen's return. They live separately after she discovers that he is still a philanderer.
A relationship between Karen and Denys develops following an ambivalent kiss at a New Year's party, with their ultimately moving in with her in between his travels. Denys acquires aGipsy Mothbiplane and often takes Karen flying. After Bror expresses his desire to divorce and marry another rich woman, Karen asks Denys to solidify their relationship, but he prefers his autonomy and the status quo. When Karen learns Denys is taking Felicity on a private safari, she confronts him about his refusal to have monogamous relations. He assures Karen he only wants her, but feels marriage is immaterial. This eventually drives them apart.
The farm eventually yields a good harvest, but a fire destroys it and the factory, forcing Karen to sell out. Before leavingKenya for Denmark, she appeals to the incoming governor to provide land for her Kikuyu workers and sells most of her remaining possessions at arummage sale. Denys visits the now-empty house. He says he no longer feels comfortable being alone and that his feelings for her have changed. He asks to join her on her journey back.
Denys leaves for a safari scouting trip, promising to fly Karen toMombasa when he returns. Shortly after, Bror arrives to inform Karen that Denys' plane has crashed inTsavo. Karen organizes his funeral, during which she recites an excerpt from anA. E. Housman poem about a celebrated athlete who, like Denys, died young and was not destined to decline into old age.
Before departing, Karen visits the Muthaiga Club to arrange for the forwarding of her mail. The members, having come to admire her, invite her into the men-only salon for a toast. Karen gives Farah a compass that Denys had given her and asks him to say her name so that she can hear his voice one last time. Sometime later, Farah writes to Karen, informing her that a pair of lions frequently visits Denys's grave.
Anepilogue reveals that Karen became an author, publishing her works under the name Isak Dinesen, and never returned to Africa.
The film tells the story as a series of six loosely coupled episodes from Karen's life, intercut with her narration. The final two narrations, the first a reflection on Karen's experiences in Kenya and the second a description of Finch Hatton's grave, were taken from her bookOut of Africa, while the others were written for the film in imitation of her very lyrical writing style. The pace of this film is often rather slow, reflecting Blixen's book, "Natives dislike speed, as we dislike noise..."[3]
Klaus Maria Brandauer was director Sydney Pollack's only choice for Bror Blixen, causing problems finding a replacement when it appeared that Brandauer's schedule would prevent him from participating.Robert Redford became Finch Hatton, with Pollack thinking Redford had a charm no British actor could convey.Meryl Streep landed the part by showing up for her meeting with the director wearing a low-cut blouse and apush-up bra, as Pollack had originally thought the actress did not have enough sex appeal for the role.[4]
Out of Africa was filmed using descendants of several people of the Kikuyu tribe who are named in the book, including the grandson of chief Kinyanjui who played his grandfather. Much of it was filmed in theKaren /Lang'ata area near the actualNgong Hills outside Nairobi. TheChyulu Hills stood in for the less picturesque Ngong Hills. As Karen's farmhouse was at the time of filming a part of a local nursing school, the filming took place in her nearby first house "Mbogani", which is a dairy today. Her actual house, known as "Mbagathi" is now theKaren Blixen Museum. A substantial part of the filming took place in the Scott house and in a recreation of 1910s Nairobi built in an area of unoccupied land in Langata.
The scenes depicting theGovernment House were shot atNairobi School with the administration block providing a close replica of British colonial governors' residences.[5] The train sequences were filmed along a section of abandoned track between Gilgil and Thompsons Falls some 97 km (60 mi) north west of Nairobi. The steam locomotive, taken from display in the Nairobi Railway Museum was non functional, therefore a diesel locomotive was hidden inside a box car behind the steam locomotive and the diesel pushed the train along while steam and smoke effects were provided. The scenes set in early 20th-century rural Denmark were filmed atCastle Rising, nearKing's Lynn,England.[6] Thehistoric castle was visually adapted to represent a Danish counterpart, providing the backdrop for Karen Blixen's return home for medical treatment following her illness in Kenya.
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Out of Africa" film – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Although bearing the name of Dinesen's book, the picture was actually taken from two other books (not written by her) as well. It quotes the start of the Dinesen's book, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills",[7] and Karen recites, "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast" fromThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which becomes the epitaph inscribed on Finch Hatton's grave marker.[8]
The film omits much of Dinesen's book, such as a devastating locust swarm, some local shootings, and her writings about the German army. The production also plays down the size of her 4,000 acres (16 km2) farm, which had 800Kikuyu workers and an 18-oxen wagon. Scenes show Karen as owning only one dog, but actually, she had two similar dogs named Dawn and Dusk.
The movie also takes liberties with Denys and Karen's romance. They met at a hunting club, not in the plains. Denys was away from Kenya for two years on military assignment inEgypt, which is not mentioned. Denys took up flying and began to leadsafaris after he moved in with Karen. The film also ignores that Karen was pregnant at least once with Finch Hatton's child but suffered frommiscarriages. Furthermore,Denys was an English aristocrat and son of13th Earl of Winchilsea, but this fact was minimized by the hiring of the actorRobert Redford, an inarguably all-American actor who had previously worked with Pollack. When Redford accepted the contract to play, he did so fully intending to play him as an Englishman. Pollack, however, felt an English accent would be distracting for the audience, and told Redford to use his real accent. In fact, Redford reportedly had to re-record some of his lines from early takes in the filming, in which he still spoke with a trace of English accent.
The title scenes of the film show the main railway, fromMombasa toNairobi, as traveling through theKenyan Rift Valley, on the steep back side of the actualNgong Hills. However, the real railway track is located on the higher, opposite side of the Ngong Hills. The passenger car was actually a small combination office/sleeper that was originally used by supervisors during the building of theUganda Railway and was the actual car from which a man was taken and killed by a marauding lioness (seeThe Man-eaters of Tsavo).
| Out of Africa | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by | |
| Released | 1985 (US) / 1986 (UK) |
| Recorded | 1985 |
| Genre | soundtrack |
| Length | 12 at33:27 18 at 38:42 |
| Label | MCA Records Varèse Sarabande |
The music forOut of Africa was composed and conducted by veteran English composerJohn Barry. The score included a number of outside pieces such as the second movementMozart'sClarinet Concerto and African traditional songs. The soundtrack garnered Barry anOscar forBest Original Score and sits in fifteenth place in theAmerican Film Institute's list oftop 25 American film scores.[9] The soundtrack was first released throughMCA Records in 1985 and features 12 tracks of score at a running time of just over thirty-three minutes. In 1987, a Special Edition was issued that included the song "The Music of Goodbye (Love Theme)" by Melissa Manchester & Al Jarreau. A rerecording conducted byJoel McNeely and performed by theRoyal Scottish National Orchestra was released in 1997 throughVarèse Sarabande and features eighteen tracks of score at a running time just under thirty-nine minutes.[10]In 2024Intrada Records issued a 2-CD expansion containing the full score, alternates, source music and the 1985 soundtrack album.[11]
| Chart (1986) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[12] | 29 |
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA)[13] | Gold | 35,000^ |
| France (SNEP)[14] | Gold | 100,000* |
| Spain (PROMUSICAE)[15] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[16] | Silver | 60,000* |
| United States (RIAA)[17] | Gold | 500,000^ |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
In the Director's Notes on theDVD of Pollack's 2005 filmThe Interpreter,[18] Pollack himself stated that he filmedOut of Africa and his later films of that decade in 1.85:1widescreen; and that it "...probably was one I should have had in widescreen" (i.e.anamorphic 2.39:1 widescreen). In his director's notes, Pollack stated that prior to the filming ofOut of Africa, he mademotion pictures exclusively in the anamorphic 2.39:1 widescreen format and style, and that he did not resume theanamorphic 2.39:1 widescreen format, due to the rise ofpan and scan which had affected the compositions of many anamorphic movies, until his last movie,The Interpreter, in 2005.
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 6.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Though lensed with stunning cinematography and featuring a pair of winning performances from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford,Out of Africa suffers from excessive length and glacial pacing."[19]Metacritic reports a score of 69 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[21]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and called it "one of the great recent epic romances," adding, "What we have here is an old-fashioned, intelligent, thoughtful love story, told with enough care and attention that we really get involved in the passions among the characters."[22]Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times described it as "a big, physically elaborate but wispy movie" with Redford's character "a total cipher, and a charmless one at that. It's not Mr. Redford's fault. There's no role for him to act."[23]Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, and declared: "My basic problem with this otherwise sumptuous and well-acted film is that I never was able to accept Redford in character ... He seems distant to the point of distraction. He is not convincing in his period outfits. He looks and acts as if he just walked out of the safari fitting room atAbercrombie & Fitch."[24]David Ansen ofNewsweek wrote that the film was "well worth the wait," calling it "a sprawling but always intelligent romantic epic that depicts Karen Blixen's struggles to hold on to both the man and the land she loves and cannot possess."[25]
Sheila Benson of theLos Angeles Times wrote that the film "seems to be just the thing for famished culture mavens at Christmastime. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Meryl Streep, there doesn't seem to be enough electricity generated out there in Africa to power a love story 2½ hours long".[26]Variety found that the film "rarely really comes to life except when Redford is around, which unfortunately is not often in the first hour," but once Streep and Redford get together it becomes "a wonderful romance, probably Redford's best sinceThe Way We Were".[27]
Pauline Kael ofThe New Yorker described the film as "unsatisfying" and wrote that Streep is "animated in the early scenes; she's amusing when she acts ditsy, and she has some oddly affecting moments. Her character doesn't deepen though, or come to mean more to us, and Redford doesn't give out with anything for her to play against."[28]Paul Attanasio ofThe Washington Post stated that the film "has little in the way of narrative drive" and "rarely seems more than an elevated form of tourism."[29]
Reviewing the film in 2009,James Berardinelli wrote: "WatchingOut of Africa a quarter of a century after its release, it's almost impossible to guess how it won the Oscar for Best Picture ... Sydney Pollack's direction is quietly competent and the acting by Meryl Streep and Robert Redford is top notch. But the lazy story is little more than an ordinary melodrama that simmers without ever reaching a boil. To tell the truth, during the entirety of the movie's nearly three-hour running length, I was more interested in the scenery and Barry's music than I was in the characters."[30]
The film was thefifth-highest-grossing film of 1985 in the United States and Canada with a gross of $87 million.[2] It grossed $227.5 million worldwide[2] and was the second highest-grossing film in Germany with a gross of $23 million.[31]
American Film Institute lists:
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
