The movie's narrator is Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), a recurring character in Roth's later novels. Silk must have someone to confide in, and Zuckerman provides a listener. $14.95/mo after 30 days. (I am not forgetting that to cross from white to black would be much more difficult, because you'd take on the impact of racism.) One day, his carefully constructed life threatens to unravel due to an incident with his students. Silk teaches at the same university which, we are told, once employed ⦠This review discusses it. Not even with sadness. Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman star in The Human Stain, a romantic drama about a man and his demons. One problem with "The Human Stain," however, is that Anthony Hopkins doesn't look anything like Wentworth Miller, who plays him as a young man. Human Stain, The Reviewed By Erik Childress Posted 10/31/03 17:06:59 ... Upcoming spoiler If you don't already know the big secret. Which is more difficult? The opening scene shows a car driven off the icy road. The film opened to mixed reviews and was a box office bomb grossing $24.9 million against its $30 million budget. We simply have to accept the mismatch as a given, and move on. Its screenplay, by Nicholas Meyer, is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. $0.00 Yes, we have to suspend disbelief over the casting, but that's easier since we can believe the stories of these people. I think she clears it. It was heavily criticized for the bizarre casting choice of Anthony Hopkins, which if you know the spoiler for that character, demolishes suspension of disbelief. He is accused of making a racist epithet, and quits. The Human Stain is a 2003 drama film directed by Robert Benton. There are heartbreaking scenes involving his mother (Anna Deavere Smith), whom he treats with cool disregard. A light-skinned negro decides to "pass" as white and to do so successfully, he separates himself from his family. Not many movies probe into matters of identity or adaptation. Thatâs how it isâin her own dry way, that is all Faunia was telling the girl feeding the snake: we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Passing for white is not as uncommon as some of the reviewers of "The Human Stain" seem to think. SPOILER ALERT â some of the quotes reveal the plot. Included with free trial. The book is set Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. The Human Stain (2003) Plot Synopsis. WARNING: Spoilers. Aug 10, 2014 #1. [spoilers] Discussion in 'Movie Alley' started by Sashasash, Aug 10, 2014. Here are complex, troubled, flawed people, brave enough to breathe deeply and take one more risk with their lives. ''The Human Stain,'' directed by Robert Benton from a screenplay by Nicholas Meyer, is an honorable B+ term paper of a movie: sober, scrupulous and earnestly respectful of its literary source. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. (It's tempting to say the response to his slip is exaggerated, but every campus has a story or two about P.C. When his affair with young troubled janitor Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) is uncovered, the secret Silk had harbored for over fifty years from his wife, his children, and colleague, writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), fast explodes in a conflagration of ⦠The film stars Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris. Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slo⦠"There's no way we can contain the secret, and we're not even trying to," the film's producer, Tom Rosenberg, told me at the Toronto Film Festival. The human stain,â she said, and without revulsion or contempt or condemnation. What makes "The Human Stain" ambitious and fascinating is how it considers both of these journeys. The Human Stain is a novel of identity that revolves around the love affair of two people who could not be more opposite. For Language and Sexuality/ Nudity, SXSW 2021: Broadcast Signal Intrusion, Offseason, SXSW 2021: Clerk, Not Going Quietly, Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free, SXSW 2021: Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes, Alien On Stage, The Spine of Night, SXSW 2021: Sound of Violence, Jakob's Wife, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. "It's out there already with the Philip Roth novel. Anyone who works a 12-step program knows how strangers from different backgrounds become friends because they identify with similar experiences. The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. It expanded to 187 theaters the following weekend with diminishing returns at $762,379 and ⦠One problem with "The Human Stain," however, is that Anthony Hopkins doesn't look anything like Wentworth Miller, who plays him as a young man. Once he decides to pass, Coleman Silk finds it relatively easy to exist as a white Navy officer, college student and professor; he must have had problems, but we don't see them. Once the award heat evaporated, the film proved to be a hard sell. Wentworth Miller (Young Coleman Silk) has said in interviews that he greatly identified with Silk's dilemma as a mixed-race man (Miller's ⦠The dehumanizing power of racism is an undeniable part of Americaâs past, but it was every bit as important a discussion in the early years of the new millennium when the film came out. Hopkins plays a light-skinned African-American professor who has spent his entire life telling people he is Jewish. âChicago Tribune About this guide The introduction, discussion questions, author biography, and suggested reading list that follow are designed to enhance your group's reading of Philip Roth's The Human Stain. Many black family trees have branches that drifted over the color line. You can talk and think just the way you do now. Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) is a professor who has revitalized Athena, a small New England college. National Bestseller PEN/Faulkner Award Winner New York Times Editors' Choice "In American literature today, there's Philip Roth, and then there's everybody else." Roth's extraordinary recent productivity (the prizewinning Sabbath's Theater, 1995, and American Pastoral, 1997) continues apace with this impressively replete and very moving chronicle of an academic scandal and its impact on both the aging professor at its center and his friendâalter ego novelist Nathan Zuckerman. It is narrated by 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain. | He decides the choice is clear, enlists in the Navy as a white man, and severs his links with his past. Cancel anytime Enjoy a free audiobook + more. Helen takes the job as she faces the possibility of ⦠The opening scene shows a car driven off the icy road. As is true of every other Roth novel that I have read, the issue of identity and its shifting permutations dominate the narrative. The story involves two different kinds of passing: crossing the race line, and the class line. One day he notes that two students have not attended class. Get this audiobook free. Harris is frighteningly effective as the ex-husband; hard to believe this is the same man who plays the kind football coach in "Radio." The Human Stain Philip Roth (Author), Dennis Boutsikaris (Narrator), Audible Studios (Publisher) Get Audible Premium Plus Free. Download The Human Stain Study Guide Subscribe Now Silk had been dean of the faculty at Athena, a small liberal-arts college, for sixteen years before returning to the classroom in 1995. 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