Besieged (film)
| Besieged | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| Produced by | Massimo Cortesi |
| Written by | Bernardo Bertolucci Clare Peploe |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Alessio Vlad |
| Cinematography | Fabio Cianchetti |
| Edited by | Jacopo Quadri |
| Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
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Release date
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September 14, 1998 (Toronto) May 21, 1999 (USA) |
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Running time
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93 min. |
| Box office | $2,048,740 |
Besieged (Italian title: L'assedio) is a 1998 film by Bernardo Bertolucci starring Thandie Newton and David Thewlis. The film is based on the short story "The Siege" by James Lasdun.
The film opens in an unnamed African town where Shandurai (Thandie Newton) watches with distress as a school teacher is taken away by police.
In Rome, Shandurai is now a housemaid for Jason Kinsky (David Thewlis), an eccentric English pianist and composer, and is also a promising medical student. Kinsky is in love with Shandurai, sending gifts down to her room via the dumbwaiter. One gift is a ring, which leads to an impassioned marriage proposal, which she rejects. Asked how he could make her love him, she shouts, “Get my husband out of jail!” Only then does Kinsky realize that Shandurai is married.
Shandurai notices a tapestry and some figurines she had dusted are now missing. Later, Kinsky begins composing using Shandurai, vacuuming nearby, as his muse. Hearing his piano riffs, she begins to fall in love herself.
Kinsky bargains with an African priest over an undisclosed transaction. Coming home from the school, Shandurai looks up to see Kinsky's piano being lowered into a truck; he has sold it. From a letter, she discovers that Kinsky has raised the money to secure her husband's release. He is coming to Rome. The night before his arrival, Shandurai unbuttons the sleeping Kinsky's shirt and curls up with him in bed. Morning arrives with her husband ringing the doorbell below. Shandurai at first doesn't react. Then she gets up, and the film ends with her husband still waiting by the door.
Clare Peploe first suggested adapting James Lasdun's short story "The Siege", which first appeared in the author's 1985 book The Silver Age (published in the United States as Delirium Eclipse and Other Stories). Bertolucci conceived the project as a one-hour television movie, but expanded it for theatrical release after seeing the rushes projected on a large screen. It nonetheless remained a low-budget film with a small crew and a brisk shooting schedule of 20-25 scenes each day, roughly four times the director's usual pace. By Peploe's and Bertolucci's own account, the project, Bertolucci's first love story, was a particularly apt one for them as a married couple. Peploe served as both screenwriter and, informally, as co-director.
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