Directed by:
Karel ReiszScreenplay:
Harold PinterCinematography:
Freddie FrancisComposer:
Carl DavisCast:
Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Hilton McRae, Charlotte Mitchell, Jean Faulds, Peter Vaughan, Colin Jeavons, Liz Smith, Patience Collier, John Barrett, Leo McKern (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
An astounding array of talent came together for the big-screen adaptation of John Fowles’s novel "The French Lieutenant’s Woman", a postmodern masterpiece that had been considered unfilmable. With an ingenious script by the Nobel Prize–winning playwright Harold Pinter, British New Wave trailblazer Karel Reisz transforms Fowles’s tale of scandalous romance into an arresting, hugely entertaining movie about cinema. In Pinter’s reimagining, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep star in parallel narratives, as a Victorian-era gentleman and the social outcast he risks everything to love, and as the contemporary actors playing those roles in a film production, and immersed in their own forbidden affair. Shot by the consummate cinematographer Freddie Francis and scored by the venerated composer and conductor Carl Davis, this is a beguiling, intellectually nimble feat of filmmaking, starring a pair of legendary actors in early leading roles. (Criterion)
(more)Awards
- Winner
- Nominations
Academy Awards
- 1982 - Meryl Streep (Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role)
- 1982 - Harold Pinter (Best Adapted Screenplay)
- 1982 - Best Achievement in Film Editing
- 1982 - Best Achievement in Production Design
- 1982 - Best Achievement in Costume Design
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
- 1982 - Meryl Streep (Best Leading Actress)
- 1982 - Carl Davis (Best Music)
- 1982 - Best Sound
- 1982 - Best Film
- 1982 - Karel Reisz (Best Director)
- 1982 - Jeremy Irons (Best Leading Actor)
- 1982 - Harold Pinter (Best Screenplay)
- 1982 - Freddie Francis (Best Cinematography)
- 1982 - Best Editing
- 1982 - Best Costume Design
- 1982 - Best Production Design
César Awards
- 1983 - Best Foreign Film
Golden Globes
- 1982 - Meryl Streep (Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama)
- 1982 - Best Motion Picture – Drama
- 1982 - Harold Pinter (Best Screenplay)
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
- 1981 - Meryl Streep (Best Actress)
- 1981 - Freddie Francis (Best Cinematography)