Sophie's Choice | 1982
- DIRECTOR |
- Alan J Pakula
A gift of a role for Meryl Streep, who is duly awarded her second Best Actress Oscar as Sophie Zawistowska, a survivor of the Nazi camps in German-occupied Poland unable to escape the trauma of her past.
In post-WWII Brooklyn, naive young writer Stingo (Peter MacNicol) finds he’s helpless as Sophie is drawn into a destructive relationship with the disturbed Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline).
Although Sophie quaffs champagne on the Brooklyn Bridge and frolics with Nathan at Coney Island Amusement Park, tragedy is only ever a step away.
The ‘Pink Palace’ boarding house shared by the three is 101 Rugby Road, south of Prospect Park in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The shades of raspberry were, of course, purely for the movie. The house is a much more sensible red, grey and white.
The flashbacks to wartime ‘Poland’ at the Jadran Studios, Oporovecka 12, in eastern Zagreb, Croatia. The studio is still in existence, but much reduced in size since its heyday in the Sixties and Seventies – most of its backlot having been sold off and developed as a shopping mall.
