Cold Mountain is a 2003 epic period war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling 1997 novel by Charles Frazier. Historical painter Don Troiani was hired and served as historical advisor to the production.
As the script was developed, the scope of the film grew from a period love-story of a $40 million budget into an expensive epic. The budget grew to nearly $120 million, with Minghella having trouble finding American landscapes that could pass for 19th-century towns. Tom Cruise, at the time married to Nicole Kidman, wanted to play Inman, but the studio did not want to meet his $20 million fee demand. To get the budget down, production was moved to Romania. Principal photography started on July 10, 2002, but during filming, in October 2002, MGM pulled out. Executive producer Harvey Weinstein was going to cancel the shoot, but, with Minghella already in pre-production, Weinstein agreed to fund the $80 million project after receiving a $10 million tax break. This was a leap for such a big-budgeted film, where expensive Avid systems are usually the standard editing system. His efforts on the film were documented in the 2005 book Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. The film made $14.5 million in its opening weekend, finishing third at the box office. It made $11.7 million in its second weekend and $7.9 million in its third, finishing fourth both times.
Critical response
Cold Mountain opened to positive reviews from critics, with Law, Kidman and Zellweger's performance receiving widespread critical acclaim. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on scale of A+ to F.
Movie critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, noting, "It evokes a backwater of the Civil War with rare beauty, and lights up with an assortment of colorful supporting characters." Richard Corliss, film critic for Time, gave the film a positive review. He called it "A grand and poignant movie epic about what is lost in war and what's worth saving in life. It is also a rare blend of purity and maturity—the year's most rapturous love story." In his movie guide, Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4, writing "Minghella's adaptation of the Charles Frazier best-seller captures both the grimness of battle and the starkness of life on the home front in the South," and concluded the film was "meticulously crafted" with "first-rate performances all around."
Top ten lists
Cold Mountain was listed on many critics' top ten lists of 2003.
- 1st – Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post
- 1st – Megan Lehmann, New York Post
- 2nd – Jonathan Foreman, New York Post
- 3rd – Ruthie Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
- 5th – Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
- 5th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- 7th – Lou Lumenick, New York Post
- 7th – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
- 8th – Mike Clark, USA Today
- 8th – Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe
- Top 10 (listed alphabetically) – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Historical accuracy
Several scholars of historical studies reviewed the film for its representation of North Carolina during the Civil War, especially the state's mountainous western region. Their justification is the effect popular media have on national and worldwide perceptions of Appalachian people, particularly southern Appalachians in this case. The opinions vary, but the consensus among them is the historical context of the movie is close to the scholarship.
Scholars praised the film for its conformity to the historical scholarship in other subjects, with one saying "The final product should... provide so unflinching a portrayal of the bleak and unsettling realities of a far less familiar version of the Civil War, but one that would be all too recognizable to thousands of hardscrabble southern men and women who lived through it."
One scholar said, "Some of the best of the soundtrack was not composed for the movie but garnered from the body of time-tested and proven masterpieces of an earlier rural American culture." Such selections were not necessarily performed authentically in the film: the two Sacred Harp songs, although generally authentic to the period and region, contained vocal parts not yet written at that time.
The beginning Battle of the Crater is depicted as happening in broad daylight but it began at 4:44 am with the detonation of the mine.
Soundtrack
Cold Mountain: Music from the Motion Picture shares producer T Bone Burnett with the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a largely old-time and folk album with limited radio play that still enjoyed commercial success, and garnered a Grammy. As a result, comparisons were drawn between the two albums. Burnett brought in musician and scholar Tim Eriksen to teach the performers Sacred Harp singing, which features prominently in the soundtrack.
It features songs written by Jack White of The White Stripes (who also appeared in the film in the role of Georgia), Elvis Costello and Sting. Costello and Sting's contributions, "The Scarlet Tide" and "You Will Be My Ain True Love", were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and featured vocals by bluegrass singer Alison Krauss. Gabriel Yared's Oscar-nominated score is represented by four tracks amounting to approximately fifteen minutes of music.
Awards
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Recipient/Nominee
! scope="col" | Result
|-
| rowspan="7" | 76th Academy Awards
| Best Actor
| Jude Law
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress
| Renée Zellweger
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| John Seale
|
|-
| Best Film Editing
| Walter Murch
|
|-
| Best Original Score
| Gabriel Yared
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Original Song
| "The Scarlet Tide"
|
|-
| "You Will Be My Ain True Love"
|
|-
| rowspan="13" | 57th British Academy Film Awards
| Best Film
| Cold Mountain
|
|-
| Best Direction
| Anthony Minghella
|
|-
| Best Actor in a Leading Role
| Jude Law
|
|-
| Best Actress in a Supporting Role
| Renée Zellweger
|
|-
| Best Adapted Screenplay
| Anthony Minghella
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| John Seale
|
|-
| Best Costume Design
| Ann Roth and Carlo Poggioli
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Walter Murch
|
|-
| Best Makeup and Hair
| Paul Engelen and Ivana Primorac
|
|-
| Best Original Music
| Gabriel Yared and T Bone Burnett
|
|-
| Best Production Design
| Dante Ferretti
|
|-
| Best Sound
| Eddy Joseph, Ivan Sharrock, Walter Murch, Mike Prestwood Smith and Matthew Gough
|
|-
| Outstanding British Film
| Sydney Pollack, William Horberg, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa and Anthony Minghella
|
|-
| rowspan="8" | 61st Golden Globe Awards
| Best Motion Picture – Drama
| Cold Mountain
|
|-
| Best Director
| Anthony Minghella
|
|-
| Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama
| Jude Law
|
|-
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
| Nicole Kidman
|
|-
| Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
| Renée Zellweger
|
|-
| Best Screenplay
| Anthony Minghella
|
|-
| Best Original Score
| Gabriel Yared
|
|-
| Best Original Song
| "You Will Be My Ain True Love"
|
|-
|10th Screen Actors Guild Awards
|Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
|Renée Zellweger
|
|-
| rowspan="4" |9th Critics' Choice Awards
|Best Picture
|Cold Mountain
|
|-
|Best Actress
|Nicole Kidman
|
|-
|Best Supporting Actress
|Renée Zellweger
|
|-
|Best Score
|Gabriel Yared
|
|}
See also
- Captain Daniel Ellis
References
Bibliography
- Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp. 63–66.