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An astounding array of talent came together for the big-screen adaptation of John Fowles's novel The French Lieutenant's Woman, a postmodern masterpiece that had been considered unfilmable. With an ingenious script by the Nobel Prize—winning playwright Harold Pinter, British New Wave trailblazer Karel Reisz transforms Fowles's tale of scandalous romance into an arresting, hugely entertaining movie about cinema. In Pinter's reimagining, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep star in parallel narratives, as a Victorian-era gentleman and the social outcast he risks everything to love, and as the contemporary actors playing those roles in a film production, and immersed in their own forbidden affair. Shot by the consummate cinematographer Freddie Francis and scored by the venerated composer and conductor Carl Davis, this is a beguiling, intellectually nimble feat of filmmaking, starring a pair of legendary actors in early leading roles.
FILM INFO
Karel Reisz
United Kingdom
1981
123 minutes
Color
1.85:1
English
Spine #768
SPECIAL FEATURES
New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New interviews with actors Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep, editor John Bloom, and composer Carl Davis
New interview with film scholar Ian Christie
Episode of The South Bank Show from 1981 featuring director Karel Reisz, novelist John Fowles, and screenwriter Harold Pinter
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Lucy Bolton
