| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| budget = $13.3 million
| gross =
Ryan's Daughter is a 1970 British epic romantic drama film directed by David Lean, written by Robert Bolt and starring Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles. The film, set between August 1917 and January 1918, tells the story of a married Irish woman who has an affair with a British officer during World War I, despite moral and political opposition from her nationalist neighbours. The supporting cast features John Mills, Christopher Jones, Trevor Howard and Leo McKern. The film is a re-telling of the plot of Gustave Flaubert's 1857 novel Madame Bovary.
The score was written by Maurice Jarre and the movie was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Freddie Young. In its initial release, Ryan's Daughter was harshly received by critics but was a box office success, grossing $30.8 million
Development
Robert Bolt's original idea was to make a film of Madame Bovary, starring Miles. Lean read the script and said that he did not find it interesting, but suggested to Bolt that he would like to rework it into another setting. The film still retains parallels with Flaubert's novel – Rosy parallels Emma Bovary, Charles is her husband, and Major Doryan is analogous to Rodolphe and Leon, Emma's lovers.
Casting
Alec Guinness turned down the role of Father Collins; it had been written with him in mind, but Guinness, a Roman Catholic convert, objected to what he felt was an inaccurate portrayal of a Catholic priest. His conflicts with Lean while making Doctor Zhivago also contributed. Paul Scofield was Lean's first choice for the part of Shaughnessy, but he was unable to leave a theatre commitment. George C. Scott, Anthony Hopkins, and Patrick McGoohan were considered but not approached, and Gregory Peck lobbied for the role but gave up after Robert Mitchum was approached.
Reportedly, Mitchum initially was reluctant to take the role. While he admired the script, he was undergoing a personal crisis at the time and when pressed by Lean as to why he would not be available for filming, told him: "I was actually planning on committing suicide." Upon hearing of this, scriptwriter Bolt told him, "Well, if you just finish working on this wretched little film and then do yourself in, I'd be happy to stand the expenses of your burial."
The role of Major Doryan was written for Marlon Brando, who initially accepted, but problems with the production of Burn! forced him to drop out. Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris and Richard Burton also were considered. Lean then saw Christopher Jones in The Looking Glass War (1969) and decided he had to have Jones for the part, and so cast him without ever meeting him. He thought Jones had that rare Brando/Dean quality he wanted on film.
Filming
Lean had to wait a year before a suitably dramatic storm appeared. The image was kept clear of spray by a glass disk spinning in front of the lens, known as a Clear View screen.
Mitchum clashed with Lean, saying that "Working with David Lean is like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks"; despite this, Mitchum confided to friends and family that he felt Ryan's Daughter was among his best roles and he regretted the negative response the film received. In a radio interview, Mitchum said that, despite the difficult production, Lean was one of the best directors he had worked with.
Jones claimed to have had an affair with Sharon Tate, who was killed by Charles Manson and his followers during filming, which devastated Jones. Miles and Jones also grew to dislike one another, leading to trouble when filming the love scenes. Jones was engaged to Olivia Hussey, and he was not attracted to Miles. He even refused to do the forest love scene with her, which prompted Miles to conspire with Mitchum. It was Mitchum who settled on the idea of drugging Jones by sprinkling an unspecified substance on his cereal. Mitchum overdosed Jones, however, and the actor was nearly catatonic during the love scene.
Jones and Lean clashed frequently. Due to Jones's inability to do a convincing British accent and because Lean thought that Jones's voice was too flat to be compelling, he decided to have all of Jones's lines overdubbed by Carry On actor Julian Holloway. Lean was not alone in his disappointment with the actor; Jones's retirement from acting was purportedly due to the bad reviews he received for Ryan's Daughter.
The film was more than 185 days over schedule.
Release
MPAA rating
The Motion Picture Association of America originally gave Ryan's Daughter an "R" rating. A nude scene between Miles and Jones, as well as its themes involving infidelity, were the primary reasons for the decision. At the time, MGM was having financial trouble and appealed the rating not due to artistic but financial reasons.
At the appeal hearing, MGM executives explained that they needed the less restrictive rating to allow more audience into the theatres; otherwise the company would not be able to survive financially. The appeal was granted and the film received a "GP" rating, which later became "PG". American political adviser Jack Valenti considered this to be one of the tarnishing marks on the rating system. When MGM resubmitted the film to the MPAA in 1996, it was re-rated "R."
Theatrical release
Ryan's Daughter opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on 9 November 1970 and grossed $50,050 in its opening week.
After two months of release, it had grossed over $2 million worldwide.
Reception
Upon its initial release, Ryan's Daughter received a hostile reception from many film reviewers. Roger Ebert gave it two stars out of four and wrote that "Lean's characters, well written and well acted, are finally dwarfed by his excessive scale." Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the screenplay "the kind of book-club fiction that should be read under a hair-dryer, a fact that cannot be disguised by the elaborate production (Mr. Lean built his own, brand-new Irish village for the film) and the almost metaphysical style." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film a "brilliant enigma, brilliant, because David Lean achieved to a marked degree the daring and obvious goal of intimate romantic tragedy along the rugged geographical and political landscape of 1916 Ireland; an enigma, because overlength of perhaps 30 minutes serves to magnify some weaknesses of Robert Bolt's original screenplay, to dissipate the impact of the performances, and to overwhelm outstanding photography and production." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Poor casting, heavy-handed direction that becomes comical during the big love scene and empty-headed characters make David Lean's 'Ryan's Daughter' an epic disappointment." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The original love story which Robert Bolt has set in these desolate seascapes seems both too frail and too banal to sustain the crushing weight of 3 hours and 18 minutes of Super Panavision." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "There is no artistic or moral rationale for this movie—only expediency ... The emptiness of 'Ryan's Daughter' shows in practically every frame." According to James Wolcott, at a gathering of the National Society of Film Critics, Time critic Richard Schickel asked Lean "how someone who made Brief Encounter could make a piece of bullshit like Ryan's Daughter."
Some attribute the negative reviews to critics' expectations being too high, following the three epics Lean had directed in a row before Ryan's Daughter. The preview cut ran for over 220 minutes and was criticised for its length and poor pacing. Lean felt obliged to remove up to 17 minutes of footage before the film's wide release. The missing footage has not been restored or located. Lean took these criticisms very personally, claiming at the time that he would never make another film. (Others dispute this, citing the fact that Lean tried but was unable to get several projects off the ground, including The Bounty.) The film was moderately successful worldwide at the box office and was one of the most successful films of 1970 in Britain, where it ran at a West End cinema for almost two years straight.
The film was also criticised for its alleged depiction of the Irish proletariat as uncivilised. An Irish commentator in 2008 called them "the local herd-like and libidinous populace who lack gainful employment to keep them occupied".
Since the film's release on DVD, Ryan's Daughter has retained its reputation as one of Lean's weakest films, critics finding it "overlong" (Variety), "a weary Madame Bovary rehash" (The Times) and "a lush and overblown self-indulgence in which David Lean has given us a great deal less than meets the eye" (Roger Ebert). Other elements, like John Mills' caricature of "the village idiot" (an Oscar-winning performance), have been met with ambivalence. A 2020 review of an account of the film's production, Making Ryan’s Daughter: The Myths, Madness and Mastery in The Irish Times characterises its extravagances and personality clashes in much the same way as critics of the film itself, "a fascinating but ultimately indulgent and doomed enterprise."
Accolades
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
!
|-
| rowspan="4"| Academy Awards
| Best Actress
| Sarah Miles
|
| align="center" rowspan="4"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| John Mills
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Freddie Young
|
|-
| Best Sound
| Gordon McCallum and John Bramall
|
|-
| rowspan="10"| British Academy Film Awards
| Best Film
| rowspan="2"| David Lean
|
| align="center" rowspan="10"|
|-
| Best Direction
|
|-
| Best Actress in a Leading Role
| Sarah Miles
|
|-
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role
| John Mills
|
|-
| Best Actress in a Supporting Role
| Evin Crowley
|
|-
| Best Cinematography
| Freddie Young
|
|-
| Best Costume Design
| Jocelyn Rickards
|
|-
| Best Editing
| Norman Savage
|
|-
| Best Production Design
| Stephen B. Grimes
|
|-
| Best Sound
| Gordon McCallum
|
|-
| British Society of Cinematographers Awards
| Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film
| Freddie Young
|
| align="center"|
|-
| David di Donatello Awards
| Best Foreign Production
| Anthony Havelock-Allan
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Directors Guild of America Awards
| Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
| rowspan="2"| David Lean
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Evening Standard British Film Awards
| Best Film
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="3"| Golden Globe Awards
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
| Sarah Miles
|
| align="center" rowspan="3"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
| Trevor Howard
|
|-
| John Mills
|
|-
| Grammy Awards
| Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special
| Maurice Jarre
|
| align="center"|
|-
| Kansas City Film Circle Critics Awards
| Best Supporting Actor
| John Mills
|
| align="center"|
|-
| rowspan="6"| Laurel Awards
| colspan="2"| Best Picture
|
| align="center" rowspan="6"|
|-
| Top Female Dramatic Performance
| Sarah Miles
|
|-
| Top Male Supporting Performance
| Trevor Howard
|
|-
| Top Cinematographer
| Freddie Young
|
|-
| Top Composer
| Maurice Jarre
|
|-
| Star of Tomorrow – Male
| Christopher Jones
|
|-
| National Board of Review Awards
| colspan="2"| Top Ten Films
|
| align="center"|
|}
Others
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
- 2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated
References
Further reading
External links
- Ryan's Daughter at AllMovie
- British Film Institute on Ryan's Daughter
- Location on The Dingle Peninsula