The Human Stain

The Human Stain
by Robert Benton

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller
Director: Robert Benton
Producer: Andre Lamal
Producer: Bob Weinstein
Producer: Eberhard Kayser
Producer: Gary Lucchesi
Producer: Harvey Weinstein
Writer: Nicholas Meyer
Writer: Philip Roth
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Unknown
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-07-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax

Movie Reviews of The Human Stain

Movie Review: An Unraveling Life...
Summary: 5 Stars

A man has achieved great success academically, and then, while enjoying the fruits of such as a dean in a prestigious college, he makes a casual remark - something seemingly innocent - which is then perceived by two students as a racial slur.

Thus begins the unraveling of the man's career. In the stress of the aftermath, Professor Coleman Silk's wife Iris is felled by a heart attack and dies. And then, Silk (portrayed brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins) begins an unusual friendship with a reclusive writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who lives in a cabin by a lake on the outskirts of town. As Silk reminisces - the goal is that Zuckerman will write a book about Silk's life - many secrets, held inside for more than fifty years, are revealed to the viewer. But not to Zuckerman, apparently, because he is startled by the secrets at the very end of the film.

Some of what Silk confesses is portrayed for us through flashbacks; the secrets are portrayed via flashbacks as "memories". Then, almost as an aside, Silk describes an "affair" with a younger woman (Nicole Kidman): she is someone down-and-out, a former rich girl who ran away when she was being molested by a stepfather; and then, she becomes the abused wife of a Vietnam vet (Ed Harris), who stalks her and threatens her repeatedly. In the midst of this, Silk is the perceived redemptive hero (to himself, at least), but when townspeople learn of the affair, he is scorned again.

In the end, a surprising dramatic turn reveals, finally, to the characters in the story, the "secret" Silk kept close to him for all those years.

The Human Stain is a compelling movie that is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of:
Web of Tyranny, etc.

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Summary of The Human Stain

Academy Award(R) winners Anthony Hopkins (1991 Best Actor, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) and Nicole Kidman (2002 Best Actress, THE HOURS) along with Gary Sinise (FORREST GUMP) and Ed Harris (THE HOURS) star in the provocative mystery THE HUMAN STAIN. Coleman Silk (Hopkins) has a secret. A terrible 50-year-old secret that the esteemed college professor has kept hidden from everyone - including his wife, his children, and his down-and-out young lover (Kidman) - and it's about to ruin his entire life.

Given the formidable challenge of adapting Philip Roth's acclaimed novel to the screen, it's a wonder that The Human Stain retains so much of what makes Roth's novel a masterpiece. As adapted by Nicholas Meyer, Robert Benton's film is inevitably a different animal altogether, and it's wide open to charges of miscasting and thematic diffusion. But at its core, this delicate drama succeeds in exposing the sins that stain all of humanity, forcing men like former welterweight boxer and esteemed professor Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) to forsake family and career to conceal his African American heritage. Light-skinned and passing as a Jewish professor of classics in a tony East Coast college, 71-year-old Silk sinks into scandal when an innocent remark is misinterpreted as a racist slur, and this--along with his affair with an illiterate 34-year-old janitor (Nicole Kidman), and friendship with a reclusive novelist (Gary Sinise)--forms the crux of Benton's multilayered inquiry into the oppressive aftershocks of guilt, shame, and mourning, and the effects of judgment (internal and external) on our ability to connect. Roth's novel was one thing, Benton's film is another. Despite differing degrees of success, both are worthy of praise. --Jeff Shannon

African American Cinema DVD Video

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