Customer Reviews

The English Patient: A Screenplay

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Anthony Minghella has created a superbly intelligent script based on a beautiful but lyrically difficult book. The script, in effect, excerpts the obsessive love affair buried among the many layers of the novel and makes it central to the movie without losing the poetical force of Ondaatje's language or the appeal of the well delineated characters. A more concise, yet equally powerful story retains the magical imagery, the sense of compassion, memory and loss that haunts its distant world and weaves its spell on the reader.

In The English Patient, we have a story that is able to rend the heart and soothe the soul within a single passage. The book spins an intricate web both with its storyline and with the way we piece the characters together; each fragment fitting into its own place until we finally form a complete picture which brings new light to every element we have discovered before. It is that web which captivates the reader, forcing us to complete the whole picture before we are able to put the book down

If you love movies and writing than the screenplay is an interesting companion to the movie and book. Read along to the movie or figure out what a character really said, you can take this along with you anytime and enjoy the movie all over again. Filled with photos from the film and comments by Minghella, Zaentz, and Ondaatje, this is an excellent addition to your English Patient collection.

Anthony Minghella has re-created one of the most remarkable screenplays of our time by giving a new dimension to the original work. It is more concise, but has kept the essence of the novel. It portrays a journey of several people; Hana, Kip, Caravaggio and Almasy who met each other perhaps by chance. But Minghella's work is not an outcome of a mere chance, but a carefully crafted masterpiece like the novel it is based on.

If you have enjoyed the book and the film, then you must somehow other read the screenplay to better understand and appreciate both the book and the film. I have read it over five times and will read it again and perhaps again!

Although it is different from the original novel, this screenplay does round out the film quite well. The intense feelings of the characters are conveyed very well through the script. However, I have a feeling that this book only appeared as a result of the massive publicity given the movie. I recommend watching the film prior to reading this, or perhaps reading it while watching the film. Whatever you do, enjoy it!

Adapting novels to screenplays is fraught with perils - the expectations of readers who want to see the movie as they imagined the story when reading the book; trying to condense hundreds of pages of prose to 120 pages of sparsely written screen directions and (one hopes) pithy, memorable dialogue; and not least, dealing with an author resentful of the screenwriter's "messing around" with his or her work. But in "The English Patient", a screenplay by Anthony Minghella, who also directed the film, we have an adaptation brilliant in its execution, one which the author actually praises in a prologue to the published script (Miramax Books). The script is based on Canadian author Michael Onjaatje's novel of the same name. The novel is quite different, an amazing, drug-hazed trip in its own right. When Minghella decided to do the film version, he read the book once, then put it away and began afresh. He's taken the sense of the book, the emotional core of it, and brought that forward, using elements from the novel and inventing a few of his own. Both men have nothing but admiration for each other, and Ondaatje was on the set of "The English Patient" much of the time. For anyone interested in filmmaking, scriptwriting, adaptations, or just a good read, both the novel and the screenplay will not disappoint. -michael cox.

If you loved THE ENGLISH PATIENT, then you'll probably appreciate reading the screenplay. It matches the film so this is either the final draft or it's more of a transcript of the final cut of the film.

If you're really interested in seeing how it originally read, you can look for the "Revised Draft: 28th August, 1995" version at screenplay websites and read it there. It's obviously an earlier draft with some interesting scenes and sequences that didn't make it into the film.

For example, the order of some scenes have changed. A pompous rival named Fenelon-Barnes who insists on riding camels to explore (and keeps a young sex slave girl tied up in his tent) is cut. There is also an interesting scene where an enraged Kip draws down on the Patient with a rifle after hearing about the Hiroshima blast.

The published version is the film you see. Both are worth reading if you're interested in how Anthony Minghella adapted the novel. Or if you just loved that movie.

A true masterpiece...some may say too long, however I say not long enough. So sad to say goodbye to these characters and so sad to say goodbye to Anthony Minghella. What gifts you have left this world with your brilliance. Bravo! He had a wonderful book by Michael Ondaatje to muse upon, together they've cast a magical spell on us.

Unlike most, I find this book intriging; something only a movie can provide. I've read the book The English Patient and have to say I like this much better. When I first saw the movive I instantly fell in love with it. It's about a man who is burned in a plain shot down by Germans in WW2. He is marked "English Patient" by the hospital caravans. Through his long journey he has flash backs of his life with Katherine; of his intimate and intense affair with the only woman he has ever loved. The one problem is, she is married. He carries with him always his book, The Histories, by Herodotus, the father of history. Through reading The Histories, and hearing the people around him speaking, bringing back memeories of a life he wants no one to know about, he finally reveals the sad and tragic end to his love that will make you wet the pages with your tears. I recomend this for all hopeless romantics. But, before you read the screenplay watch the movie. It will bring tears to your eyes even more seeing the actors playing the scenes out in your mind. Love, passion and tragic death. Great combinations!

This dark tale delivers the strongest argument against "one person can make a difference"conceivable.It's overall theme of being pathetic describes the book's author's ability to enlighten.The Booker Prize appears to be a booby one