Sophie's Choice
List Price:
Our Price: $4.73
You Save: $5.21 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.90 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Peter MacNicol, Rita Karin, Stephen D. NewmanBrand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 150 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-04-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Sophie's Choice
Movie Review: Citizen Kane step aside
Summary: 5 Stars
"Sophie's Chpoce" is the result of intense collaboration, of course. William Styron was an American treasure-in a league with Mark Twain- Kevin Klein's perforance, Alan Pakula's direction, Peter McNichols introduction would all stand out as history making were it not for the most amazing performance given on stage or screen by any actor in history.The above mentioned work is shadowed by the finest performance in history.
And that honor goes to Meryl Streep who was pregnant with her first child when she made this film. The now famous "Choice" scene was done in one take. Streeps flawless German (delivered with a slight Polish accent) slowed nothing. Streep herself said that it was not a scene that one had to read more than once and it was very expensive to do; just as it is not a scene that is easily watched more than once,no matter how it compells you. Imagine acting it with a baby growing inside of you.
That is the scene that is shown so often in classrooms, talk shows and is, without doubt, the scene that replaces Orpon Wells lips whisper "Rosebud." Still, Streeps performance (that won her an Oscar just two years after wining an Oscar for "Kramer vs Kramer")is honest, liquid, cryptic and brilliant from the moment we first see her, sobbing on the steps at the Pink Palace, to the last moment we see her-the image forever capttured on the cover of the DVD Box and the paerback novel;Kevin Kline's lips gently on her cheek.
Streep fought for this role, as it was a certainty to the producers that only an Eastern European unknown could make this happen. Not many of Styron's novels have made it to film because of the complexity of his characters and all of the internal struggle and conflict. How can an actor reproduce the emotions of one who is completely drowning in memory?
No one knows, because Streep- the ultimate soccer Mom- is very modest about it. She tends to let her work speak for itself; she doesn't have one or three different techniques that she clings to, despite her Masdters Degree from the Yale School of Drama (Where she poerformed in the premier production of Sondheim's "The Frogs".) She speaks only of honesty.
This DVD costs a little more than it would to rent it. As a result, every home in America should own a copy. Every acting student should study the performances; every directing and editing student whould look at the ways in which camera angles manipulate the strange to make it beautiful and how the horror is captured with taste rather than with violence. Like Demme did with "Silence Of The Lambs" our own imagination makes this film far more powerful than Carpenter does by showing us every detail in "Halloween"' Or speilberg with "Childler's List."
Streep's command of languages (She speaks three or four fluently in this film, the sloppiest being English)and dialect is rare. Many many actors have played roles in which they had to utilize a dialect, but the acting always suffers. Not in the case of Meryl Streep.
In fact, when she won the Oscar and gave her brief thank you, her cheeks flushed pink with humility, her belly bulging in her 36th week of pregnancy, I was shocked to hear a Connecticut non-accent come out of her mouth.
So you see, the film is one thing, but you must see this because Meryl streep has given us the most remarkable performance ever before. Her name is now synonomous with the best. She surpassed Katherine Hepburn and holds the record for the most Oscar nominagtions in history. (18)("I always lose," she says. And she does, despite the spectacular graveside scene in "Out Of Africa" or her feet hanging over the end of the bed as Julia Child- not copying the real Child, no, but rter-creating a believable and loveable one who was far more empotahtetic than the actual woman.)
You must see Sophie's Cpoice.
See it for Streep.
See it for youurself. You will never be the same.
Summary of Sophie's Choice
Sophie is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps who has found a reason to live in Nathan a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust. They befriend Stengo the movies narrator a young American writer new to New York City. But the happiness of Sophie and Nathan is endangered by her ghosts and his obsessions. Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her performance as Sophie. System Requirements:Directed by Alan J. Pakula Writing credits Alan J. Pakula Starring Meryl Streep Kevin Kline Runtime: 151 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 012236048701 Manufacturer No: 60487On Golden Pond
Writer Ernest Thompson, who came up with the original stage play of On Golden Pond and adapted it for film, is lucky to have two giants of the screen give dignity and breadth to his sometimes trite dialogue. Henry Fonda, in his last role, plays a prickly English professor at the disagreeable age of 80. Visiting his summer house by a Maine lake with his wife (Katharine Hepburn), the old man forges an unlikely bond with a lonely boy, comes to terms with his daughter (Jane Fonda), and suffers disorienting effects of mild dementia. Even playing a tired old man, Fonda is an absolute lion of a movie star, and Hepburn brings her special spirit to the part of his worried bride. The onscreen relationship between Henry and Jane Fonda naturally makes one think about their much-discussed difficulties offscreen, but that's a side benefit in a movie that is really just a celebration of simple human decency. --Tom Keogh
Sophie's Choice
The sunny streets of Brooklyn, just after World War II. A young would-be writer named Stingo (Peter MacNicol) shares a boarding house with beautiful Polish immigrant Sophie (Meryl Streep) and her tempestuous lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline); their friendship changes his life. This adaptation of the bestselling novel by William Styron is faithful to the point of being reverential, which is not always the right way to make a film come to life. But director Alan J. Pakula (All the President's Men) provides a steady, intelligent path into the harrowing story of Sophie, whose flashback memories of the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp form the backbone of the movie. Streep's exceptional performance--flawless Polish accent and all--won her an Oscar, and effectively raised the standard for American actresses of her generation. No less impressive is Kevin Kline, in his movie debut, capturing the mercurial moods of the dangerously attractive Nathan. The two worlds of Sophie's Choice, nostalgic Brooklyn and monstrous Europe, are beautifully captured by the gifted cinematographer Néstor Almendros, whose work was Oscar-nominated but didn't win. It should have. --Robert Horton
Similar DVD Movies
IronweedLions Gate; Release date: 2009-02-24; DVD
Best price: $7.33
Price in other shops:
One True ThingUniversal Studios; Release date: 1999-03-16; DVD
Best price: $8.25
Price in other shops:
Meryl Streep CollectionRelease date: 2011-10-18; DVD
Best price: $4.17
Price in other shops:
Falling in LoveDE NIRO,ROBERT; Release date: 2002-01-15; Published: 2002-01-01; DVD
Best price: $7.46
Price in other shops:
SilkwoodRelease date: 2003-10-07; DVD
Best price: $7.84
Price in other shops:
A Cry in the DarkSTREEP,MERYL; Release date: 1999-12-21; DVD
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Postcards from the EdgeSTREEP,MERYL; Release date: 2001-05-01; DVD
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops:
Kramer vs. KramerHOFFMAN,DUSTIN; Release date: 2001-08-28; DVD
Best price: $8.36
Price in other shops:
Out of AfricaREDFORD,ROBERT; Release date: 2000-02-29; Published: 2000-02-01; DVD
Best price: $6.85
Price in other shops:
The Bridges of Madison CountyWarner Brothers; Release date: 2010-06-01; DVD
Best price: $4.57
Price in other shops: