Production
In April 1998, Miramax Films acquired the rights to the novel The Reader, and principal photography began in September 2007 immediately after Stephen Daldry was signed to direct the film adaptation and Fiennes was cast in a lead role. Winslet was originally cast as Hanna, but scheduling difficulties with Revolutionary Road led her to leave the film and Nicole Kidman was cast as her replacement. In January 2008, Kidman left the project, citing her recent pregnancy as the primary reason. She had not filmed any scenes yet, so the studio was able to recast Winslet without affecting the production schedule.
Filming took place in Berlin and Görlitz and was finished in Cologne on July 14. Filmmakers received $718,752 from Germany's Federal Film Board. Overall, the studio received $4.1 million from Germany's regional and federal subsidiaries.
Schlink insisted the film be shot in English rather than German, as it posed questions about living in a post-genocide society that went beyond mid-century Germany. Daldry and Hare toured locations from the novel with Schlink, viewed documentaries about that period in German history and read books and articles about women who had served as SS guards in the camps. Hare, who rejected using a voiceover narration to render the long internal monologues in the novel, also changed the ending so that Michael starts to tell the story of Hanna and him to his daughter. "It's about literature as a powerful means of communication, and at other times as a substitute for communication", he explained.
The primary cast, all of whom were German besides Fiennes, Olin and Winslet, decided to emulate Kross's accent since he had just learned English for the film.
Chris Menges replaced Roger Deakins as cinematographer.
One of the film's producers, Scott Rudin, left the production over a dispute about the release date and had his name removed from the credit list. Rudin differed with Harvey Weinstein "because he didn't want to campaign for an Oscar along with Doubt and Revolutionary Road, which also stars Winslet." Winslet won the Best Actress Academy Award for The Reader. Marc Caro wrote, "Because Winslet couldn't get Best Actress nominations for both movies, the Weinstein Co. shifted her to supporting actress for The Reader as a courtesy." Winslet also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Revolutionary Road.
The sex scenes were shot last after Kross had turned 18.
Read more about this topic: The Reader (2008 Film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)