Fatherland (1994 film)
Fatherland is a 1994 TV film written by Stanley Weiser and Ron Hutchinson and directed by Christopher Menaul as an adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. The film was produced by HBO, starring Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson.
| Fatherland | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Drama Romance Science Fiction |
| Written by | Novel Robert Harris Screenplay Stanley Weiser Ron Hutchinson |
| Directed by | Christopher Menaul |
| Starring | Rutger Hauer Miranda Richardson Peter Vaughan Jean Marsh Michael Kitchen |
| Music by | Gary Chang |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Gideon Amir Ilene Kahn Frederick Muller Leo Zisman |
| Production location(s) | Prague, Czech Republic |
| Cinematography | Peter Sova |
| Editor(s) | Tariq Anwar |
| Running time | 106 minutes |
| Production company(s) | HBO Pictures |
| Distributor | HBO |
| Budget | £4.1 million |
| Release | |
| Original network | HBO |
| Picture format | Black and White Colour |
| Audio format | Dolby Digital |
| Original release | 26 November 1994 (United States) 27 January 1995 (Germany) February 1995 (Sweden) |
Plot
A prologue outlines the story's alternate timeline. The failure of the D-Day invasion causes the United States armed forces to withdraw from the European theater and General Dwight D. Eisenhower to retire in disgrace. The USA continues the Pacific War against the Empire of Japan and, led by General Douglas MacArthur, uses atomic bombs in its victory. In Europe, Nazi Germany successfully achieved the invasion of the United Kingdom, which results in George VI fleeing with his family to Canada and continuing to reign in the British Empire. Under Nazi supervision Edward VIII assumes the throne in the UK while Wallis Simpson becomes his queen. Winston Churchill also goes into exile in Canada and lives there until his death in 1953. Germany corrals the rest of Europe (except neutral Switzerland as well as Vatican) into the Greater German Reich, abbreviated as "Germania". German society is largely clean and orderly, at least on the surface, with the SS reorganised into an elite, peacetime police force.
Germania is a state embroiled in its perpetual war with the Soviet Union, which is still led by the 85-year-old Joseph Stalin well into the 1960s. The 1960 election of President Joseph Kennedy, whose anti-Semitic views have been well-publicized, gives the Nazi leadership a chance to secure a détente with the United States and its South American allies. In 1964, as Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday approaches and Kennedy heads to Germany for a summit meeting, the nation opens its borders to the media of the USA and of Latin America.
The week before the summit, a body is discovered floating in a lake near Berlin by Hermann Jost (Rupert Penry-Jones), an SS cadet in training. SS Major Xavier March (Rutger Hauer) is assigned the case and questions Jost, who admits that he saw the body being dumped by Odilo "Globus" Globočnik (John Shrapnel), an Obergruppenführer in the Gestapo and a right-hand man of Reichsführer-SS, Reinhard Heydrich. The dead man is revealed to be Josef Bühler, a retired Nazi Party official who managed the Jewish resettlement to Germany's Eastern European territories during the war. The Gestapo takes over the case for "state security" reasons, and Jost dies in an apparent training accident.
Meanwhile, Charlotte "Charlie" Maguire (Miranda Richardson), a member of a visiting American press entourage, is discreetly given an envelope by an old man at her hotel. Inside is a photograph of several high-ranking Nazi officials outside a villa. A note on the photograph leads her to Wilhelm Stuckart, another retired Party official, but she finds him dead at his apartment. March is reassigned to the Stuckart case, but when he takes Charlie to the crime scene, the Gestapo claims jurisdiction, and March's superior, Arthur Nebe (Peter Vaughan), warns him against further investigation. When they follow up on the photo, Charlie and March visit Wannsee to learn the identities of the men, who attended the Wannsee Conference. Each is found to have died under suspicious circumstances except for Franz Luther (John Woodvine), who gave Charlie the picture.
March tells Charlie to get out of Germany since he now realizes that there is a plot at the very highest levels to cover up whatever was discussed at the conference. Luther contacts Charlie and asks her to meet him on a train, where he requests that she communicate his desire for safe passage to the USA, in exchange for what he knows about "the biggest secret of the war". SS troops corner Luther and kill him, but March rescues Charlie. March later blackmails a colleague to get Luther's file and learns that he had a mistress, former stage actress Anna von Hagen.
Posing as an official of the U.S. embassy to process Luther's safe passage, Charlie visits Hagen and obtains Luther's papers. Hagen reveals that the Jews were not really resettled, but killed en masse by the Germans during the war, as planned at the conference. March, horrified by the photos and the documents that prove it to have happened, agrees to join Charlie in escaping Germany with his son Pili. However, the Gestapo has already persuaded Pili to betray his father, and March is lured into a trap set by Globus. During his escape, March kills a Gestapo agent but is mortally wounded. He manages to reach a phone booth and calls Pili one more time before he dies. As Kennedy arrives at the Great Hall, a member of the press entourage helps Charlie slip the documents to him via the U.S. ambassador. When Kennedy looks at the materials, he abruptly cancels the scheduled meeting with Hitler and flies back to America immediately.
The epilogue reveals that the narrator is a grown-up Pili. He notes that although Charlie was eventually arrested by the Gestapo, the revelation of the extermination of the European Jews derailed any prospect of a strategic alliance with the United States. Eventually, revolutions across Europe resulted in the Nazi regime's collapse.
Cast
- Rutger Hauer as Xavier March
- Miranda Richardson as Charlie Maguire
- Peter Vaughan as Arthur Nebe
- Jean Marsh as Anna von Hagen
- Michael Kitchen as Jaeger
- John Woodvine as Franz Luther
- John Shrapnel as General Globus aka Odilo Globocnik
- Clive Russell as Krebs
- Clare Higgins as Klara
Production
Mike Nichols bought the film rights before the novel was published in the United States.[1] When a theatrical film proved unfeasible, the production moved to HBO. The film was budgeted at $7 million and was filmed entirely in Prague.[2]
The newly-opened Praha Penta Hotel, today's Hilton Prague Old Town, doubled for Berlin's Hotel Adlon, where Charlie stays. The headquarters of Radio Free Europe, today the New Building of the National Museum, served as the Berlin Police HQ, where March works. The National Monument in Vitkov was used as the Sepp Dietrich SS Academy. The rear facade of the headquarters of Motokov, the Czech state car company, today the City Empiria tower, served as the exterior of the Reichsarchiv. The Nazi rally in the finale was filmed at Letná Park, including at the former Stalin Monument.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 50% from six reviews.[3]
Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly graded the film at B+. He states that the book's plot was faithfully reproduced and helped pull good performances from Hauer and Richardson. He also took note of Menaul's directing by adding small details such as advertisements on the Beatles' shows. However, Tucker said the predictability of the revelation detracted from the film.[4]
Since its release, Harris has announced he was disappointed with the adaptation. Speaking to The Independent in 2012, he said:
"My first novel, Fatherland, was made into a very bad film. [It] was originally bought by Mike Nichols to be made into a feature film. But in the end he couldn't get a studio to back it so the project became a made-for-television movie for HBO instead. By the time it was shot there'd been so many artistic compromises – in particular two fundamental changes in the story – that it ceased to have the feel of the novel. Some people like it but I have to say that I don't."[5]
Awards
Miranda Richardson received a Golden Globe Award in 1995 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV for her performance. Rutger Hauer's performance was also nominated, as well as the film itself. The film also received an Emmy nomination in 1995 for Special Visual Effects.
Gallery
- Fatherland filming locations in Prague
.JPG)
The New building of the National Museum, used as Berlin Police HQ.jpg)
Hilton Prague Old Town, used as the Hotel Adlon
National Monument in Vitkov, used as the Sepp Dietrich SS Academy
The Motokov tower, used as the Reichsarchiv
The former Stalin Monument in Letná Park, used for the Nazi rally in the finale
References
- Whitney, Craig R. (3 June 1992). "Inventing A World In Which Hitler Won". Germany: NYTimes.com. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
- Variety Staff (1 March 1994). "Hauer, Richardson set for HBO's 'Fatherland' – Variety". Variety.com. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
- "Fatherland". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
- Ken Tucker (25 November 1994). "Fatherland Review | TV Reviews and News". EW.com. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
- Charlotte Philby (18 February 2012). "Hollywood ate my novel: Novelists reveal what it's like to have their book turned into a movie". The Independent. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
