The Sweet Hereafter (film)

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The Sweet Hereafter
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAtom Egoyan
Screenplay byAtom Egoyan
Based onThe Sweet Hereafter
by Russell Banks
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPaul Sarossy
Edited bySusan Shipton
Music byMychael Danna, Toronto Consort
Production
company
Ego Film Arts
Distributed byAlliance Communications
Release dates
  • 14 May 1997 (1997-05-14) (Cannes)
  • 10 October 1997 (1997-10-10) (Canada)
Running time
112 minutes[1]
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5 million[2]
Box office$3.3 million[3]

The Sweet Hereafter is a 1997 Canadian

drama film written and directed by Atom Egoyan, adapted from the 1991 novel by Russell Banks. It tells the story of a school bus accident in a small town that kills 14 children. A class-action lawsuit ensues, proving divisive in the community and becoming tied with personal and family issues. It stars an ensemble cast featuring Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Maury Chaykin, Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Gabrielle Rose, Arsinée Khanjian and Alberta Watson
.

The film, inspired by the 1989 Alton, Texas, bus crash, was filmed in British Columbia and Ontario, incorporating a film score with medieval music influences and references to the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Although The Sweet Hereafter was not a box office success, it was critically acclaimed and won three awards, including the Grand Prix, at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, along with seven Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture. It also received two Academy Award nominations, for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Toronto International Film Festival critics named The Sweet Hereafter one of the top 10 Canadian films of all time.

Plot

In the small town of Sam Dent, British Columbia, a school bus hits a patch of ice, runs through a barrier and crashes into a lake, killing 14 children. The grieving parents are approached by an out-of-town lawyer, Mitchell Stephens, who is haunted by his dysfunctional relationship with his drug-addicted daughter. Stephens persuades the reluctant parents and bus driver Dolores Driscoll to file a class-action lawsuit against the town and bus company for damages, arguing that the accident is a result of negligence in constructing the barrier or the bus.

The case depends on coaching the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court, particularly Nicole Burnell, a 15-year-old paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the accident. Before the accident, Nicole was an aspiring musician and was being sexually abused by her father, Sam.

One bereft parent, Billy Ansel, distrusts Stephens and pressures Sam to drop the case; Nicole overhears their argument. In the pretrial deposition, Nicole unexpectedly accuses the bus driver Dolores of speeding, halting the lawsuit. Stephens and Sam know she is lying but can do nothing. Two years later, Stephens sees Dolores working as a bus driver in a city.

Cast

Production

Adaptation

The Pied Piper of Hamelin
.

The Canadian director

Armenian Canadian, he also saw the story as a metaphor for the Armenian genocide, in which those guilty had not accepted responsibility.[8]

In adapting the novel, Egoyan changed the setting from

The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, to emphasize how Egoyan saw The Sweet Hereafter as a "grim fairy tale."[10] Nicole is seen reading The Pied Piper to children who later die in the accident.[11] In that story, the Pied Piper leads all the children away, never to return, after their parents refuse to honour their debt to him. Egoyan wrote a new stanza in the Pied Piper style for the scene in which Nicole testifies Dolores was speeding, in which she describes her father's lips as "frozen as the winter moon."[12] Egoyan also made Mitchell Stephens the main character and increased the importance of Stephens' daughter, and moved the revelation of incest between the Burnells to later in the film.[10]

Filming

The film was shot in British Columbia (

Alliance Communications.[4] Egoyan assembled many Canadian actors he had worked with in prior films, including Bruce Greenwood, Gabrielle Rose and Sarah Polley.[14] Egoyan explained the benefit of working with a familiar cast, saying "When you're working on a limited production schedule, it's a comfort to know that you know the personalities involved, you know what they need as opposed to having to discover that and be surprised by that."[6]

Ian Holm was cast as Mitchell Stephens after the actor originally set to play the character, Donald Sutherland, quit the project.[15] In casting the part, Egoyan was inspired by Holm's "strangely compassionate, yet furtive and menacing" performance in The Homecoming (1973).[4] Holm explained why he accepted the role, saying, "It's not often you get offered a leading role at age 65... This is my first in a movie," and afterwards said the film is "very touching" and "a masterpiece".[16] Holm called his part challenging, as it was his first lead, but he found Egoyan and the Canadian actors to be great to work with.[17]

Music

Mychael Danna, left, arranged popular Canadian songs which actress Sarah Polley performed, and the two worked together to create original songs.

The Pied Piper references influenced the composer

TV movie.[26]

Polley's character, Nicole, is an aspiring singer before the accident, and is seen on stage performing Jane Siberry's "One More Colour." Danna and Polley cooperated to create Nicole's music, with Polley writing lyrics to Danna's original songs and Danna arranging the adaptations of "Courage" and "One More Colour". The songs were chosen because of their domestic popularity, reinforcing the local nature of Nicole's music.[27] The Tragically Hip's original version of "Courage" also appears in the film.[28]

Release

The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1997, and went on to play at the Toronto International Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, New York Film Festival and Valladolid International Film Festival.[29] In Canada, the film was distributed by Alliance Communications.[30] Following its screening at Cannes, Fine Line Features secured rights for the film for distribution in the United States, releasing it there on October 10, 1997.[6]

In Region 1, The Sweet Hereafter was released on DVD in May 1998.[31] In Canada, the film had a Blu-ray release in June 2012, with special features, including interviews.[32]

In 2023, Telefilm Canada announced that the film was one of 23 titles that will be digitally restored under its new Canadian Cinema Reignited program to preserve classic Canadian films.[33]

Reception

Box office

By the spring of 1998, The Sweet Hereafter had grossed $1 million domestically.[30] According to The Numbers, The Sweet Hereafter grossed $4,306,697 in North America and $3,644,550 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $7,951,247.[34] Although Canadian historian George Melnyk said the film achieved "mainstream popularity",[35] another Canadian historian, Reginald C. Stuart, said that the film "aimed for, but did not reach, a mass audience."[36] Dan Webster of The Spokesman-Review concluded that "despite generally good reviews", the film "never attracted much box-office attention."[37]

The Writers Guild of Canada commented that The Sweet Hereafter and contemporary Canadian films "never succeeded in scoring a home run at the international box office."[38] Melnyk suggested Egoyan's previous film Exotica performed better at the box office than The Sweet Hereafter because of Exotica's "sexual content ... rather than the early film's artistic merit."[35]

Critical reception

Ian Holm received critical praise for his performance in the film and won the Genie Award for Best Actor.

The film holds a 98% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.90/10 based on 59 reviews, and a 100% rating from 21 "Top Critic" reviews. The site's consensus reads, "Director Atom Egoyan examines tragedy and its aftermath with intelligence and empathy."[39] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[40] In 2002, readers of Playback voted it the greatest Canadian film ever made.[41] In 2004, the Toronto International Film Festival ranked it third in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time, tied with Goin' Down the Road,[42] and in 2015, it was the sole film in the third spot.[43]

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling it "one of the best films of the year, an unflinching lament for the human condition."[44] Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times, said "this fusion of Mr. Banks's and Mr. Egoyan's sensibilities stands as a particularly inspired mix", with Sarah Polley and Bruce Greenwood "particularly good here".[45] Brendan Kelly of Variety praised The Sweet Hereafter as "Egoyan's most ambitious work to date", and as "a rich, complex meditation on the impact of a terrible tragedy on a small town", adding Polley and Tom McCamus are "excellent".[46]

Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A, saying it "puts you in a rapturous emotional daze", and calling it a "hymn to the agony of loss" and "a new kind of mystical fairy tale, one that seeks to uncover the forces holding the world together, even as they tear it apart."[47] Paul Tatara of CNN called The Sweet Hereafter "devastating" and wrote Ian Holm gives "the performance of his hugely impressive career."[48] David Denby of New York magazine said that the film had "Ian Holm's greatest role in the movies" and the cast are "all excellent".[49] The film made over 250 critics' Top 10 lists for the best films of 1997.[29]

In 2001, an industry poll conducted by Playback named it the best Canadian film of the preceding 15 years.[50]

In 2004, Slovenian critic Slavoj Žižek called The Sweet Hereafter "arguably the film about the impact of trauma on a community."[51] That year, The New York Times also included the film on its list of "the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made".[52] In 2011, British director Clio Barnard praised the "real depth" and "healthy ambiguity" of the story and described Holm and Polley as "brilliant", giving "powerful, subtle performances".[53] One year later, The A.V. Club named The Sweet Hereafter the 22nd best film of the 1990s, praising it as a "masterpiece of adaptation".[54]

Accolades

The Sweet Hereafter won three awards at the

FIPRESCI Prize, the Grand Prize of the Jury, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.[55] This was the highest honour won at Cannes for a Canadian film and made Egoyan the first Canadian to win the Grand Prix, followed by Xavier Dolan with It's Only the End of the World in 2016.[56][57]

The Sweet Hereafter also won Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor for Holm, and three other prizes, at the 18th Genie Awards. It was nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 70th Academy Awards, but lost to Titanic and L.A. Confidential, respectively.[58]

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref(s)
Academy Awards 23 March 1998 Best Director Atom Egoyan Nominated [58]
Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated
Atlantic Film Festival
19–27 September 1997 Best Canadian Film or Video Over 60 Minutes Won[a] [59]
Boston Society of Film Critics 14 December 1997 Best Supporting Actress Sarah Polley Won [60]
Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards 29 March 1998 Best Cinematography in Theatrical Feature Paul Sarossy Won [61]
Cannes Film Festival 7–18 May 1997 Grand Prize of the Jury Atom Egoyan Won [55]
FIPRESCI Prize
Won
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Won
Chicago Film Critics Association 1 March 1998 Best Film Nominated [62]
Best Director Nominated
Best Screenplay Nominated
Best Original Score Mychael Danna Nominated
Best Actor Ian Holm Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Sarah Polley Nominated
Most Promising Actress Nominated
Genie Awards 14 December 1997 Best Motion Picture Atom Egoyan and Camelia Frieberg Won [63][59]
Best Direction
Atom Egoyan Won
Best Actor Ian Holm Won
Best Actress Sarah Polley Nominated
Best Actress Gabrielle Rose Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Tom McCamus Nominated
Best Screenplay
Atom Egoyan Nominated
Best Art Direction
Phillip Barker and Patricia Cuccia Nominated
Best Cinematography
Paul Sarossy Won
Best Costume Design
Beth Pasternak Nominated
Best Editing
Susan Shipton Nominated
Best Sound
Daniel Pellerin, Keith Elliott, Peter Kelly and Ross Redfern Won
Best Sound Editing
Steve Munro, Sue Conley, Goro Koyama, Andy Malcolm and David Drainie Taylor Won
Best Original Score
Mychael Danna Won
Best Original Song
"The Sweet Hereafter", Mychael Danna and Sarah Polley Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards 21 March 1998 Best Foreign Film Atom Egoyan Won [64]
Los Angeles Film Critics Association December 1997 Best Picture Runner-up [65]
Best Director Runner-up
Best Cinematography Paul Sarossy Runner-up
National Board of Review 9 February 1998 Best Acting by an Ensemble Cast Won [59]
Top Ten Films Atom Egoyan Won
New York Film Critics Circle 4 January 1998 Best Film Runner-up [66]
Best Director Runner-up
Best Actor Ian Holm Runner-up
Society of Texas Film Critics 29 December 1997 Best Film Atom Egoyan Won [67]
Toronto Film Critics Association 13 January 1998 Best Film Won [68]
Best Director Won
Best Canadian Film Won
Best Actor Ian Holm Won
Best Actress Sarah Polley Runner-up
Toronto International Film Festival 4–13 September 1997 Best Canadian Feature Film Atom Egoyan Won[a] [59]
Writers Guild of Canada 1997 WGC Award Won [59]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Tied with The Hanging Garden

References

  1. ^ "The Sweet Hereafter (1997)". IMDb.
  2. ^ a b Kaufman, Anthony (21 November 1997). "An Interview with Atom Egoyan, Director of 'The Sweet Hereafter,' Part I". IndieWire. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  3. ^ "The Sweet Hereafter (1997) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  4. ^ a b c Macnab, Geoffrey (18 September 1997). "Film interview: The inscrutable in pursuit of the unspeakable". The Independent. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  5. ^ Robbennolt & Hans 2016, p. 8.
  6. ^ a b c Kaufman, Anthony (24 November 1997). "An Interview with Atom Egoyan, Director of 'The Sweet Hereafter,' Part II". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  7. ^ Wilson 2009, p. 89.
  8. ^ Hutchison 2004, p. 146.
  9. ^ Cardullo 2004, p. 41.
  10. ^ a b Pulver, Andrew (14 May 2005). "Grim fairytale". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  11. ^ Cardullo 2004, p. 45.
  12. ^ Wilson 2009, p. 101.
  13. ^ Rist 2001, p. 218.
  14. ^ Cardullo 2004, p. 50.
  15. ^ Mell 2005, p. 234.
  16. Canoe.ca. Archived from the original
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  17. ^ "'Every inch a king': A Talk with Sir Ian Holm". Masterpiece Theatre. 1998. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  18. ^ Mera 2007, p. 37.
  19. ^ Mera 2007, p. 36.
  20. ^ "Toronto Consort". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Performance ensemble formed in Toronto in 1972 to perform early vocal and instrumental music (about 1200 to 1675)... in 1997 it performed on the soundtrack of Canadian director Atom Egoyan's award-winning film, The Sweet Hereafter.
  21. Fanfare Magazine
    . Scarecrow Press. p. 262.
  22. ^ "The Sweet Hereafter (1997) ****". Film Score Monthly. 3 (1): 39. 1 January 1998. ...featuring the Toronto Consort and Hossein Omoumi on the Iranian ney flute.
  23. ^ Wyndham Wise (ed.). Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film. p. 204. Sweet Hereafter, The [...] mus Mychael Danna, Toronto Consort...
  24. ^ Whitesell, Lloyd (Summer 2011). "Musical Eclecticism and Ambiguity in The Sweet Hereafter". American Music. 29 (2). University of Illinois Press: 229–263. p. 245: Danna enlists the Toronto Consort to perform on a variety of historical instruments, including lute, recorder, shawm, sackbut, krumhorn, vielle, hurdy gurdy, and percussion. Contrapuntal texture, modal harmony, and melodic shape evoke renaissance styles; repeating rhythmic patterns often suggest dance music.
  25. ^ Mera 2007, p. 38.
  26. ^ Wood 2006, p. 59.
  27. ^ Mera 2007, p. 41.
  28. ^ Mera 2007, p. 42.
  29. ^ a b Burwell & Tschofen 2007, p. 368.
  30. ^ a b Wise, Wyndham (Spring 1998). "Editorial". Take One. Vol. 6, no. 9.
  31. ^ "Sweet Hereafter,The". IGN. 12 December 2018.
  32. ^ Monk, Katherine (18 June 2012). "New on DVD, Blu-ray: Exotica among highlights of week's releases". The Gazette. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016.
  33. Point of View
    , May 9, 2023.
  34. ^ "The Sweet Hereafter (1997)". The Numbers. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  35. ^ a b Melnyk 2004, p. 160.
  36. ^ Stuart 2007, p. 59.
  37. ^ Webster, Dan (29 May 1998). "'Sweet Hereafter' studies town coping with deaths of children". The Spokesman-Review. p. 3.
  38. ^ Pryke & Soderlund 2003, p. 439.
  39. ^ "The Sweet Hereafter (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  40. CBS Interactive
    . Retrieved 5 March 2018.
  41. ^ Dillon, Mark (2 September 2002). "Egoyan tops Canada's all-time best movies list". Playback. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  42. ^ Gravestock, Steve. "Essay". Toronto International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 4 July 2016. Retrieved 28 August 2016.
  43. ^ "Atanarjuat voted No. 1 Canadian film of all time". CBC News. 24 April 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  44. ^ Ebert, Roger (23 December 1997). "The Sweet Hereafter". Rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  45. ^ Maslin, Janet (3 October 1997). "FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; A Town Bereft, Limping Into the Future". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  46. ^ Kelly, Brendan (16 May 1997). "Review: 'The Sweet Hereafter'". Variety. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  47. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (28 November 1997). "The Sweet Hereafter". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  48. ^ Tatara, Paul (15 December 1997). "Review: Vengeance in a town full of grief in 'The Sweet Hereafter'". CNN. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  49. ^ Denby, David (24 November 1997). "From Here to Eternity". New York. pp. 68, 70.
  50. ^ Michael Posner, "Egoyan tops film poll". The Globe and Mail, November 25, 2001.
  51. ^ Bullard 2013, p. 26.
  52. ^ The Film Critics (2004). "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 July 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.
  53. ^ Lee, Marc (18 May 2011). "Clio Barnard on The Sweet Hereafter". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  54. ^ Adams, Sam; D'Angelo, Mike; Murray, Noel; Phipps, Keith; Rabin, Nathan; Robinson, Tasha; Tobias, Scott; Willmore, Alison (9 October 2012). "The 50 best films of the '90s". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  55. ^ a b "Festival de Cannes: The Sweet Hereafter". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2009.
  56. ^ Howell, Peter (22 May 2016). "Canada's Xavier Dolan wins Grand Prix at Cannes for It's Only the End of the World | Toronto Star". Toronto Star. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  57. ET Canada. Archived from the original
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  58. ^ a b "The 70th Academy Awards (1998) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. AMPAS. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
  59. ^ a b c d e "The Sweet Hereafter". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  60. ^ "Past Award Winners". Boston Society of Film Critics. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  61. ^ Hoffman, Andy (6 April 1998). "Sarossy snags CSC award for Hereafter". Playback. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  62. ^ "Chicago Film Critics Announce Absolut Nominees for the 10th Annual Chicago Film Critics Awards at Planet Hollywood Chicago". PR Newswire. 13 January 1998. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  63. ^ Playback Staff (17 November 1997). "The 1997 Genie Awards". Playback. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  64. ^ Cunha, Tom (22 March 1998). "The 1998 Independent Spirit Awards: Reactions and Responses…". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  65. ^ Kronke, David (14 December 1997). "'L.A. Confidential' Gets L.A. Critics' Top Award". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  66. ^ Maslin, Janet (12 December 1997). "'L.A. Confidential' Wins Critics Circle Award". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  67. ^ "Texas Critics Honor 'The Sweet Hereafter' as Best Picture". IndieWire. 5 January 1998. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  68. ^ "Past Award Winners". Toronto Film Critics Association. 29 May 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2016.

Bibliography

External links