Product Description
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Ryan's Daughter: Special Edition (Dbl DVD)
Lovely, headstrong Rosy (Sarah Miles) cannot forsake her
passionate romance with the handsome British officer (Christopher
Jones). Yet there is a greater love ? the devotion of her
reserved schoolteacher husband Charles (Robert Mitchum), who
stands by Rosy when her illicit affair leads to a charge of
treason. Two honored alumni of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor
Zhivago director David Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt frame
this brooding tale within the expansive beaches, craggy cliffs
and heathered hills of Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. Freddie
Young's lush cinematography and John Mills' memorable portrayal
of a town simpleton won Academy Awards.* The remarkable movie
containing them casts a haunting spell.
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In 1970, Ryan's Daughter had the distinction of being the first
David Lean film to be included in Playboy magazine's annual "Sex
in the Cinema" round-up, thanks to a back-to-nature sex scene
that earned the film its R rating. This old-school epic went on
to win two Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best
Supporting Actor for a grotesquely made-up John Mills as the
cruelly put-upon village simpleton. But the years have not been
quite kind to Ryan's Daughter. This brooding and storm-tossed
epic is lovely to look at, but hard to hold with its miscast
principles and unsympathetic characters. The film is set in 1916
in a British-occupied Irish village on the seacoast of Western
Ireland. Lean's Ireland is a world apart from the colorful
characters and close-knit community of John Ford's The Quiet Man.
The village is populated by hooligans, slatterns, and traitors.
No wonder the local priest (Trevor Howard) is compelled to haul
off and slap several of his parishioners, including Rosy Ryan,
the dreamy-eyed romantic daughter of the local "publican." The
"graceless gal," as the priest calls her, is married to "a good
man," a middle-aged local schoolteacher (a cast-against-type
Robert Mitchum). She has enough money, and she has her .
But it's not enough, she declares. Enter--at the film's hour
mark--a shell-shocked British officer (Christopher Jones) with
whom she enjoys an illicit and scandalous affair that offers the
promise of the "satisfaction of the " for which she yearns.
Ryan's Daughter reunited Lean with Robert Bolt, the screenwriter
of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Alas, the third time
was not quite the charm. Miles and Jones generate little heat and
Rosy's heedless behavior rouses even less audience empathy.
Little in Maurice Jarre's sweeping score equals the high notes of
his O-winnings scores for Lawrence or Zhivago. But the
landscapes, magnificent and foreboding, cast a ravishing spell of
their own. Ryan's Daughter, too, will be embraced by those who
have a soft spot in their hearts for love stories set against the
backdrop of historical events and this Hollywood epic that in the
year of M*A*S*H and Five Easy Pieces, was stubbornly out of
style. --Donald Liebenson
On the DVD
This two-disc special edition would seem to be everything for
which champions of Ryan's Daughter would wish. It presents the
film in its original 206-minute running time, and preserves the
original aspect ratio of the theatrical 70mm presentation. The
audio commentary views the film from a variety of perspectives,
including Miles, Lean's widow, Lean's biographer, Robert
Mitchum's daughter, and directors John Boorman and Hugh Hudson.
These and others are also featured in an illuminating new
three-part documentary, "The Making of Ryan's Daughter," which
also features archival interviews with Lean, and is candid enough
to address the film's less-than-welcome reception with critics
and audiences. Rounding out this set are two period documentaries
that went behind the scenes of the production. --Donald Liebenson