Thanks for the recommendation - will check that one out.

Plot-spoiler warning

Seems Kate Winslet has won two Golden Globe awards - one for best actress in 'Revolutionary Road' and one fr best supporting actress in 'The Reader'.

Supporting actress? The main role,then, is assumed to be the Ralph Fiennes one. I'd thought reviewer Cosmo Landesman was mistaken to think the story's focus was on the lawyer, and the trauma inflicted on him by the sudden end of the sexual relationship, followed by the discovery that she became a concentration camp guard. I thought his failure to make known her illiteracy was a vengeful and cowardly act, allowing a miscarriage of justice all the more culpable because he was a law student. It was both revenge and a kind of fastidious disgust, the class difference evident from the start. It was made clear, though, that he had enjoyed was even the instigator, of sexual relationship with the tram conductor. So waht trauma? It ended - so he could have got over it.

It seemed clear to me that his constipated emotional state was more likely to stem from his repressive family, especially the sadistic father, than anything that happened later. All Ralph Fiennes had to do was reprise his usual uptight upperclass Englishman role, only as a German. It makes sense, of course, that as the book is partly autobiographical with the author seeing himself, not the woman, as the victim.

This was a case, perhaps, where the filmmaker gives an entirely differnt slant. The title signals that the main character is the woman, and she cerainly emerges from the film as the more 'noble' character, because we don't see any of her acts of cruelty, only her difficulties and the injustice done to her. Finally, of course, thanks to the lawyer's evident repulsion, she kills herself. So no, I don't think she was a 'supporting actress' in the film.

Sheila

Bumping this up, because The Reader fans might be interested in this fascinating interview with David Hare;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jan/19/david-hare-television

(I was and I am not particularly a DH fan, but can't help but admire hi venting of spleen about critics and the Holocaust.)

Thanks for that, Anna.

Yes, an interesting article.

'Well, there's this generation that returned from war radicalised. They went to war, they met the officer class, and they came back determined that the country should be changed.'

I don't know where DH gets this from. My father, called up in 1942, never 'met' the officer class, except when they were giving orders, and that would have been a sergeant. I did't notice, either, that he or his pals were 'radicalised'. They'd gone because they'd been sent, and they were glad to have survived, mostly. They didn't talk about it.

I don't know where he got that idea, but I can understand very well what he says about people accepting orders and doing as they were told.

I've read that the woman's illiteracy in the book is somehow equated with moral ignorance, but to me it seemed a device to show how she got the SS job. She was such a good tram conductor that she was promoted to the 'office', but of course she had to leave because she couldn't do a job that required literacy. She just 'heard' that the SS wanted guards. Once in the job, she carried out orders, to select people to go to the camps. That she felt no particular personal guilt was clear when she asked the judge, 'What would you have done?'They would have found someone else to do it.

I haven't read Peter Bradshaw's review, but DH's comment seems odd, as it's hard to imagine a critic saying he's had stood up to the Nazis. What is harder to understand is the Ralph Fiennes character's failure to give evidence,and make it clear she couldn't have written the report. After all, he was a boy when they'd been lovers, long before she joined the SS. There was no danger to him, except perhaps loss of face.

Sheila

But if you read the book, Sheila, you read that he almost does this but after a long conversation with his father, a philosopher, he changes his mind after taking hiss father's view that you cannot make other people's decisions for them, even if you think that what you want will be better for them than what they want. She would rather be accused of crimes against humanity than have her illiteracy made public. It may seem odd to us, but it's made believable in the novel.

<Added>

That's why I equated this novel with "A Judgement in Stone" - the Ruth Rendall novel about the housekeeper who slaughters an entire household when her own illiteracy is discovered - something she's managed to cover up successfully into middle age.

In the film he doesn't speak to his father,who is presented as a stern bully who terrifies his family.

The 'philosophising' or discussions that take place are with his tutor and fellow students in a series of seminars. Even if she doesn't herself speak out, thus condemning her to a much longer sentence than the others, wouldn't he feel obliged to speak up, especially as he is a trainee lawyer?

Sheila

Well I don't know. I haven't seen the film and you saying this has made me realise why I don't want to. It's the central convincing argument for me in the book and if it's been left out then it would be missing the point I think.

Just to say I've read the opening chapters of The Reader, and have put it to one side because I found it a little boring... I may come back to it, or just watch the film.

I thought it boring at the start but it's worth persevering with it. Please don;t judge it by the film which hasn't been well received by "respectable" critics and from what our own Sheila says she saw, it's not really what I read.

I agree it can interfere with enjoyment of a film if you've admired the book. I disliked the Lady Chatterley film set in France, released last year, but I'm sure that was because I was comparing it in my mind with the book as I recalled it. As a stand-alone film, it worked quite well, and I think 'The Reader' was a good film if you hadn't read the book, although obviously part of the reason was that it was a good story with interesting issues. It was well-directed and photographed, too.Maybe the fact the setting for the early scenes, Germany in the thirties was so well-recreated, was a compelling aspect for me, too. I do like a bit of gritty realism, compared with, for instance, the deliberate romanticism of 'Australia' and 'Slumdog Millionaire'

I see Kate Winslet has an Oscar nomination for 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' for this film, not 'Revolutionary Road'. I did wonder why the 'Reader' role was described as 'supporting' for the Golden Globe. I think maybe that was just a way of getting her two awards instead of one, or for distibution reasons.

It's better, I think, with films from books, to consider the director's choices where they divert from the book. The relationship between film and written text is a fascinating topic, though. I looked into it a bit when I was planning a course called 'Jane Austen: from Page to Screen' that I intended to teach with my daughter.I remember an interesting account by Emma Thompson, who adapted ' Sense and Sensibility' for Ang Lee's film. It was instructive, watching different interpretations when I was compiling the video clips.

Naomi,I'm not so sad now that no copies of 'The Reader'were held by Westminster Libraries. I did manage to reserve a couple by Ricahrd Yates, author of 'Revolutionary Road', but not that particular novel.

Sheila

Oh I agree it's an interesting topic. It's just that we've (well me, really) have been talking about the book and since I haven't seen the film I can't comment on it. I went to Bath recently, speaking of JA and there was a letter from Emma Thompson, in the style of Jane Austen, which was her acceptance speech when she won her Bafta for best screenplay for Sense and Sensibility. It was brilliant and led me to wonder how she copes in Tinseltown in that environment, so unlike her natural academic one.

Yes, it does make you wonder, but in the case of S&S, it was shot in England, by a Taiwanese director. Her first US film seems to have been 'The Tall Guy', also starring Jeff Goldblum.I don't think I've seen it. A quick look at Wikepedia tells me most of her films have been in England. My favourite is her portrayal of Carrington in the film of that name, with my favourite line: 'Well, there's always something to put up with', in response to someone who asks how she tolerats 'that filthy disgusting pervert' (ie Lytton Strachey).

I expect she mainly goes over to collect the prizes. I didn't see 'Nanny McPhee' because it looked very silly. Was that American? I don't as a rule like American films, so I'm not expecting great things of 'Milk', which I've agreed to see this afternoon. The alterative was Frost/Nixon, which I really don't fancy.

Sheila

oh, I really fancy Milk. And Frost/Nixon. Hoping to do both next week. The Arts is showing a double bill of "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Orphanage" next Sunday afternoon, both of which I've seen, but I'm sorely tempted to go and soak both up again.

It's very confusing when they re-use movie titles. I keep thinking of 'Milk' which was a Brit-flick with that guy off four weddings and a funeral (no, not Hugh Grant, the one with all the money and the stately pile, who married Little Bo Peep at the end), who has all his grasping relatives and old lovers round when his horrible old mother finally pops her cloggs, and he's left the farm....great film.