Out of Africa **** (1985, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer) – Classic Movie Review 1958

Producer-director Sydney Pollack’s deliriously plush and gorgeous-looking 1985 real-life romantic drama stars beautiful people Meryl Streep and Robert Redford as Danish baroness, plantation owner Karen Blixen and free-spirited big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, who fall in love against ravishing African landscape backdrops. About 70 per cent of the movie was actually filmed in Africa.

Meanwhile Klaus Maria Brandauer steals the acting honours out from under them as Karen Blixen’s marriage-of-convenience husband, Baron Bror Blixen, in director Pollack’s outstanding version of the autobiographical story by Karen Blixen (writing as Isak Dinesen). Life on the plantation Karen Blixen establishes in colonial Kenya, Africa, in the 20th-century is complicated by various troubles, the schooling of the locals, war and catching VD from her husband.

As producer, Pollack ensures that it’s an extremely posh, ravishing production with a haunting john Barry score, luscious cinematography by David Watkin, marvellous art direction and lovely costume designs (by Milena Canonero). But, as director, Pollack takes it all a bit reverentially and at too stately a pace. Streep is far more convincing as Danish author Dinesen than Redford as a conventionally romantic British adventurer.

It triumphed at the box office and the Academy awards, winning Oscars, including Best Picture, Direction, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Stephen B. Grimes, Josie MacAvin), Sound and Score, but none at all for the acting, though Streep and Brandauer were nominated.

Kurt Luedtke’s meticulous screenplay melds four different sources – Errol Trzebinski’s novel Silence Will Speak, Judith Thurman’s book Isak Dinesen, Blixen’s memoirs and Blixen’s letters.

Michael Kitchen, Michael Gough, Malick Bowens, Suzanna Hamilton, Rachel Kempson, Graham Crowden, Leslie Phillips, Shane Rimmer, Joseph Thiaka, Stephen Kinyanjui, Mike Bugara, Jon Seda, Maryam d’Abo and Iman also appear.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1958

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