fiction.wikisort.org - Movie

The Crying Game is a 1992 thriller film written and directed by Neil Jordan, produced by Stephen Woolley, and starring Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, Adrian Dunbar, Ralph Brown, and Forest Whitaker. The film explores themes of race, sex, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The Crying Game
UK quad poster
Directed by	Neil Jordan
Written by	Neil Jordan
Produced by	Stephen Woolley
Starring	Stephen Rea Miranda Richardson Jaye Davidson Forest Whitaker
Cinematography	Ian Wilson
Edited by	Kant Pan
Music by	Anne Dudley
Production companies	Palace Pictures Channel Four Films British Screen Nippon Film Development
Distributed by	Palace Pictures
Release dates	2 September 1992 (1992-09-02) (Venice) 30 October 1992 (1992-10-30) (U.K.) 19 June 1993 (1993-06-19) (Japan)
Running time	111 minutes[1]
Countries	United Kingdom Japan[2]
Language	English
Budget	£2.3 million
Box office	$71 million[3]

The film follows Fergus (Rea), a member of the IRA, who has a brief but meaningful encounter with a British soldier, Jody (Whitaker), who is being held prisoner by the group. Fergus later develops an unexpected romantic relationship with Jody's lover, Dil (Davidson), whom Fergus promised Jody he would take care of. Fergus is forced to decide between what he wants and what his nature dictates he must do.

A critical and commercial success, The Crying Game won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, alongside Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Rea, Best Supporting Actor for Davidson, and Best Film Editing. In 1999, the British Film Institute named it the 26th-greatest British film of all time.

Plot

At a rural Northern Irish fairground, a Provisional IRA volunteer named Fergus (Stephen Rea) and a unit of other IRA members, led by Peter Maguire (Adrian Dunbar), kidnap a black British soldier named Jody (Forest Whitaker) after a female member of their unit, Jude (Miranda Richardson), lures Jody to a secluded area by promising sex. The unit intends to hold Jody until an imprisoned IRA member is released, and if their demands are not met within three days, he will be executed. Fergus—assigned to stand guard over Jody—begins bonding with him, and Jody tells Fergus the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog.

Realising he will most likely die, Jody requests Fergus to promise to seek out his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson). When the deadline set by Jody's captors passes with their demands unmet, Fergus is ordered to take Jody into the woods to kill him. Fergus seemingly complies but when Jody attempts escape, Fergus pursues him without shooting him. Just as Jody escapes onto a road, a British armoured personnel carrier accidentally runs over and kills him. The British army attacks the IRA unit and Fergus manages to escape, believing that his companions have perished in the attack. Fergus escapes to London, taking a job as a day labourer under the alias "Jimmy".

A few months later, Fergus encounters Dil, working as a stylist at a hair salon. Later, they talk in a bar, where a drunken customer torments Dil. Fergus, consumed by guilt over Jody's death, follows the pair, rescuing Dil. Fergus soon begins falling in love with her and their relationship progresses, but when the two prepare to become intimate in her apartment, Dil reveals her transgender status while undressing. An initially repulsed Fergus rushes to the bathroom to vomit after hitting Dil in the face, and then leaves her apartment. A few days later, Fergus leaves Dil a note in her mailbox apologising and the two reconcile. Despite initially being shocked by Dil's gender identity, he is still taken by her. Around the same time, Jude unexpectedly reappears and tells Fergus the IRA has tried and convicted him of treason in absentia. She forces him to agree to help assassinate a British judge, and mentions that she knows about his affair, warning him that the IRA will kill Dil if he does not cooperate.

Fergus continues to woo Dil, cutting her hair short and dressing her in Jody's old cricket uniform as a disguise to shield her from possible retribution. The night before the IRA mission, Dil gets drunk and Fergus escorts her to her apartment, where she asks him to never leave her again. Fergus stays with her, and admits his role in Jody's death. Dil, drunk, appears not to understand; however, in the morning, before Fergus awakens, Dil restrains him by tying his arms and legs to the bed with stockings, leaving Fergus unable to complete the assassination. Holding Fergus at gunpoint with his own pistol, Dil demands that he tell her that he loves her and will never leave her; he complies, and she unties him.

Without Fergus present, an angered Maguire decides with Jude to proceed with the mission. Maguire underestimates the judge's protection, and an armed bodyguard shoots and kills him while Jude manages to escape. She vengefully enters Dil's flat with a gun, seeking to kill Fergus for missing the assassination. Dil subdues her and shoots her repeatedly after uncovering her part in Jody's death, finally killing her with a shot to the neck. She then points the gun at Fergus, but lowers it, saying that she cannot kill him because Jody will not allow her to. Fergus prevents Dil from shooting herself and tells her to go into hiding. He wipes her fingerprints off the gun, replaces them with his own, and allows himself to be arrested in her place. A few months later, Dil visits Fergus in prison and asks why he took the fall for her. He responds, "As a man once said, it's in my nature," and tells her the story of the Scorpion and the Frog.

Cast

Production

Neil Jordan first drafted the screenplay in the mid-1980s under the title The Soldier's Wife, but shelved the project after a similar film was released. A 1931 short story by Frank O'Connor called Guests of the Nation, in which IRA soldiers develop a bond with their English captives, whom they are ultimately forced to kill,[4] partly inspired the story. The original draft had the character Dil as a cisgender woman, but Jordan decided to make the character transgender at the premiere of his film The Miracle at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival in 1991.[4]

Jordan sought to begin production of the film in the early 1990s, but found it difficult to secure financing,[4] as the script's controversial themes and his recent string of box office flops discouraged potential investors. Several funding offers from the United States fell through because the funders wanted Jordan to cast a woman to play the role of Dil, believing that it would be impossible to find an androgynous male actor who could pass as female.[5] Derek Jarman eventually referred Jordan to Jaye Davidson,[5] who was completely new to acting, and was spotted by a casting agent while attending a premiere party for Jarman's film Edward II.[4] Rea later said, "'If Jaye hadn't been a completely convincing woman, my character would have looked stupid'".[6] The film included full-frontal "male" nudity on Davidson's part; he was filmed nude in the notable bedroom scene in which Dil's sexual anatomy was revealed.[7]

The film went into production with an inadequate patchwork of funding, leading to a stressful and unstable filming process. The producers constantly searched for small amounts of money to keep the production going, and the unreliable pay left crew members disgruntled. Costume designer Sandy Powell had an extremely small budget to work with and ended up having to lend Davidson some of her own clothes to wear in the film, as the two happened to be the same size.[4]

The film was known as The Soldier's Wife for much of its production, but Stanley Kubrick, a friend of Jordan, counselled against the title, which he said would lead audiences to expect a war film. The opening sequence was shot in Laytown, County Meath, Ireland, and the rest in London and Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire, England.[8] The bulk of the film's London scenes were shot in the East End, specifically Hoxton and Spitalfields.[9] Dil's flat is in a building facing onto Hoxton Square, with the exterior of the Metro on nearby Coronet Street. Fergus's flat and Dil's hair salon are both in Spitalfields. Chesham Street in Belgravia was the location for the assassination of the judge, with the now-defunct Lowndes Arms pub just around the corner.[9]

Release

The film was shown at festivals in Italy, the United States and Canada in September, and originally released in Ireland and the UK in October 1992, where it failed at the box office. Director Neil Jordan, in later interviews, attributed this failure to the film's heavily political undertone, particularly its sympathetic portrayal of an IRA fighter. The bombing of a pub in London is specifically mentioned as turning the English press against the film.[10]

The then-fledgling film company Miramax Films decided to promote the film in the U.S. where it became a sleeper hit. A memorable advertising campaign generated intense public curiosity by asking audiences not to reveal the film's "secret" regarding Dil's gender identity.[6] Those surveyed by CinemaScore on opening night gave the film a grade "B" on a scale of A+ to F.[11] Jordan also believed the film's success was a result of the film's British–Irish politics being either lesser-known or completely unknown to American audiences, who flocked to the film for what Jordan called "the sexual politics".

The film earned critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Actor (Rea), Best Supporting Actor (Davidson) and Best Director. Writer-director Jordan finally won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to success around the world, including re-releases in Britain and Ireland.

Critical reception

The Crying Game received worldwide acclaim from critics. The film has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The consensus states, "The Crying Game is famous for its shocking twist, but this thoughtful, haunting mystery grips the viewer from start to finish."[12]

Roger Ebert awarded the film a rating of four out of four stars, describing it in his review as one that "involves us deeply in the story, and then it reveals that the story is really about something else altogether" and named it "one of the best films of 1992".[13]

Richard Corliss, in Time magazine, stated: "And the secret? Only the meanest critic would give that away, at least initially." He alluded to the film's secret by means of an acrostic, forming the sentence "she is a he" from the first letter of each paragraph.[14]

Much has been written about The Crying Game's discussion of race, nationality, and sexuality. Theorist and author Judith Halberstam argued that the viewer's placement in Fergus's point of view regarding Dil being a trans woman reinforces societal norms rather than challenging them.[15]

The Crying Game was placed on over 50 critics' ten-best lists in 1992, based on a poll of 106 film critics.[16]

Box office

The film grossed £2 million ($3 million) in the United Kingdom.[17] In the United States and Canada it was more successful, grossing $62.5 million.[17] Based on its US gross, it was the most successful film of the year on a cost to US gross basis.[3] It grossed a total of $71 million worldwide.[3]

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Best Picture	Stephen Woolley	Nominated
Best Director	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Best Actor	Stephen Rea	Nominated
Best Supporting Actor	Jaye Davidson	Nominated
Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen	Neil Jordan	Won
Best Film Editing	Kant Pan	Nominated

British Academy Film Awards

Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Best Film	Stephen Woolley and Neil Jordan	Nominated
Best British Film		Won
Best Direction	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Best Actor in a Leading Role	Stephen Rea	Nominated
Best Actor in a Supporting Role	Jaye Davidson	Nominated
Best Actress in a Supporting Role	Miranda Richardson	Nominated
Best Original Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Nominated

Golden Globe Awards

Category	Result
Best Motion Picture – Drama	Nominated

Critics awards

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Argentine Film Critics Association Awards	Best Foreign Film	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Awards Circuit Community Awards	Best Director		Nominated
	Best Actor in a Supporting Role	Jaye Davidson	Nominated
	Best Actress in a Supporting Role	Miranda Richardson	Nominated
	Best Original Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Nominated
	Best Film Editing	Kant Pan	Nominated
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Film	Stephen Woolley	Nominated
	Best Foreign Language Film		Won
	Best Director	Neil Jordan	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actress	Miranda Richardson	Nominated
	Best Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Nominated
	Most Promising Actor	Jaye Davidson	Nominated
	Most Promising Actress		Nominated
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards	Best Film		Nominated
London Film Critics' Circle Awards	British Director of the Year	Neil Jordan	Won
	British Screenwriter of the Year		Won
	British Producer of the Year	Stephen Woolley	Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards	Best Foreign Language Film	Neil Jordan	Won
	Best Supporting Actress	Miranda Richardson	Runner-up
	Best Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Runner-up
National Board of Review Awards	Top Ten Films		2nd Place
	Most Auspicious Debut	Jaye Davidson	Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Film		2nd Place
	Best Director	Neil Jordan	3rd Place
	Best Actor	Stephen Rea	Won
	Best Supporting Actor	Jaye Davidson	2nd Place
	Best Supporting Actress	Miranda Richardson	2nd Place
	Best Screenplay	Neil Jordan	2nd Place
New York Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Miranda Richardson (also for Damage and Enchanted April)	Won
	Best Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Won
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards	Best Picture		Nominated

Guild awards

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Directors Guild of America Awards	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Producers Guild of America Awards	Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures	Stephen Woolley	Won
Writers Guild of America Awards	Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen	Neil Jordan	Won
Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards	Best Film – Screenplay		Won

Other awards

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Amanda Awards	Best Foreign Feature Film	Neil Jordan	Won
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards	Top Box Office Films	Anne Dudley	Won
Australian Film Institute Awards	Best Foreign Film	Stephen Woolley	Won
David di Donatello Awards	Best Foreign Film	Neil Jordan	Nominated
	Best Foreign Actor	Stephen Rea	Nominated
Edgar Allan Poe Awards	Best Motion Picture	Neil Jordan	Nominated
European Film Awards	European Achievement of the Year	Nik Powell and Stephen Woolley	Won
Goya Awards	Best European Film	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards	Best International Film		Won
MTV Video Music Awards	Best Video from a Film	Boy George – "The Crying Game"	Nominated
NAACP Image Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Forest Whitaker	Nominated
Nastro d'Argento	Best Foreign Director	Neil Jordan	Nominated
Satellite Awards	Outstanding Overall DVD		Nominated
20/20 Awards	Best Picture		Nominated
	Best Director	Neil Jordan	Won
	Best Actor	Stephen Rea	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actor	Jaye Davidson	Nominated
	Best Original Screenplay	Neil Jordan	Nominated

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the film, The Crying Game: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, released on 23 February 1993, was produced by Anne Dudley and Pet Shop Boys. Boy George scored his first hit since 1987 with his recording of the title song – a song that had been a hit in the 1960s for British singer Dave Berry. The closing rendition of Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" was performed by American singer Lyle Lovett.

1. "The Crying Game" – Boy George
2. "When a Man Loves a Woman" – Percy Sledge
3. "Live for Today" (Orchestral) – Cicero and Sylvia Mason-James
4. "Let the Music Play" – Carroll Thompson
5. "White Cliffs of Dover" – The Blue Jays
6. "Live for Today" (Gospel) – David Cicero
7. "The Crying Game" – Dave Berry
8. "Stand by Your Man" – Lyle Lovett
9. "The Soldier's Wife"*
10. "It's in my Nature"*
11. "March to the Execution"*
12. "I'm Thinking of You"*
13. "Dies Irae"*
14. "The Transformation"*
15. "The Assassination"*
16. "The Soldier's Tale"*

*Orchestral tracks composed by Anne Dudley and performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra of London

See also

• Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
• List of films featuring the Irish Republican Army
• List of transgender characters in film and television
• List of transgender-related topics
• BFI Top 100 British films

References

External links

• The Crying Game at IMDb
• The Crying Game at Box Office Mojo
• The Crying Game at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Crying Game at Metacritic

На других языках

---

- [en] The Crying Game

---

[es] The Crying Game

The Crying Game (Juego de lágrimas en España y México, El juego de las lágrimas en Hispanoamérica) es una película de 1992 escrita y dirigida por Neil Jordan. Explora temas de raza, nacionalidad, género y sexualidad, teniendo como trasfondo el conflicto irlandés. Está protagonizada por Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson y Forest Whitaker.

---

[ru] Жестокая игра

«Жестокая игра» (The Crying Game) — психологический триллер ирландского режиссёра Нила Джордана, самый успешный его фильм в плане зрительского внимания и наград.

---

---