In Love and War (1996 film)
- Allan Scott
- Dimitri Villard
1989 novel
by Henry S. Villard and James Nagel
- Sandra Bullock
- Chris O'Donnell
- Mackenzie Astin
- Emilio Bonucci
- December 18, 1996 (1996-12-18)
Italian
In Love and War is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the book, Hemingway in Love and War by Henry S. Villard and James Nagel. The film stars Sandra Bullock, Chris O'Donnell, Mackenzie Astin, and Margot Steinberg. Its action takes place during the First World War and is based on the wartime experiences of the writer Ernest Hemingway. It was directed by Richard Attenborough. The film was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.[2]
This film is largely based on Hemingway's real-life experiences in the First World War as a young ambulance-driver in Italy. He was wounded and sent to a military hospital, where he shared a room with Villard (who later wrote the book the movie is based on) and they were nursed by Agnes von Kurowsky. Hemingway and Kurowsky fell strongly in love, but somehow the relationship didn't work out.
The film—apparently in a deliberate attempt to capture what the director called Hemingway's "emotional intensity"—takes liberties with the facts. In real life, unlike the movie, the relationship was probably never consummated, and the couple did not meet again after Hemingway left Italy.[3]
Hemingway, deeply affected by his romantic relationship with Kurowsky, later wrote several stories about it, including his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.
Plot
In Italy during World War I, the US president has sent teams of Red Cross doctors and nurses to boost Italian morale and help with the wounded. Volunteers drive ambulances and work in the front line canteens. 19-year-old Ernest Hemingway becomes an ambulance driver in Italy, although he wishes to become a reporter and writer. Wanting to fight against the enemy, he ends up with a shot leg, trying to save a companion from the field.
He is taken into a hospital, where an American nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, takes care of him. During the first night at the hospital, Ernest tells Agnes "I love you. Let's get married." while in a state of delirium. Ernest's health becomes worse and Agnes tries everything to save his leg from what she believes is gangrene. A successful operation puts Ernest on the path to recovery. As time passes, they become attached, even though Agnes has reservations because of their age difference.
Eventually, Agnes and some other nurses need to be moved closer to the front. As she can't find Ernest to tell him the bad news in person, she asks their friend to give him a letter. Ernest is shocked at finding out that she has left. While working on the front, Agnes receives a letter from Ernest telling her how much he misses her. After a few days, Ernest finally visits, telling her that he has received orders to return to the United States. He declares his love for Agnes, asking her to meet him at a nearby hotel to spend their remaining time together and to promise each other daily letters, until they are able to get married.
After some time spent on the front, Agnes is asked by one of the nurses, a good friend, to spend the weekend at Dr. Domenico Caracciolo's, who has feelings for Agnes. The three of them spend time together, seeing the surroundings of Venice. The letters from Agnes soon become less and less frequent, causing Ernest great concern. While showing her an unfinished hospital, Dr. Domenico proposes. She hesitates, still thinking of Ernest. She decides to write him a letter, telling him their relationship must end, partly because of their age gap. Ernest is devastated.
Eight months later, in New York, Agnes meets an old friend and ex-patient, Harry. She confesses that she did not marry the doctor and finds out that Ernest is still angry. She decides to go to Ernest's family cabin, on Walloon Lake. Still angry and proud, Ernest doesn't accept her love. The film ends with Agnes telling him "I love you" as she leaves the cabin, never to see him again.
Cast
- Sandra Bullock as Agnes von Kurowsky
- Chris O'Donnell as Ernest Hemingway
- Mackenzie Astin as Henry Serrano Villard
- Margot Steinberg as Mabel "Rosie" Rose
- Alan Bennett as Porter
- Ingrid Lacey as Elsie "Mac" MacDonald
- Emilio Bonucci as Dr. Domenico Caracciolo
- Terence Sach as Porter
- Carlo Croccolo as Town Mayor
- Vincenzo Nicoli as Enrico Biscaglia
- Tara Hugo as Katherine "Gumshoe" De Long
- Gigi Vivan as Italian child
- Giuseppe Bonato as Grandfather
- Allegra Di Carpegna as Loretta Cavanaugh
- Diane Witter as Adele Brown
- Mindy Lee Raskin as Charlotte Anne Miller
- Tracy Hostmyer as Ruth Harper
- Tim McDonell as The Adjutant (Tenente Alberte)
- Kay Hawtrey as Grace Hall Hemingway
- Evan Smirnow as Leicester Hemingway
- George Rossi as Triage Medic
- Noah Reid as Boy
Reception
Box office
In Love and War was released theatrically on December 18, 1996, and was a moderate box-office success.[4] For Super Bowl weekend of January 1997, the film was close to a three-way tie for the number one spot at the box office with Jerry Maguire and Beverly Hills Ninja;[4] it ultimately placed at number two.[5] The film ultimately grossed $25,372,294 worldwide.[1]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 11%, based on reviews from 27 critics. The website's consensus reads, "Formulaic and trite, In Love and War unconvincingly recreates Ernest Hemingway's early life with all the stuffy tropes that the author would have excised in a second draft."[6]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 and wrote: "In Love and War is not much interested in Ernest Hemingway's subsequent life and career, and even in its treatment of this early period, it doesn't deal with themes such as his macho posturing, his need to prove himself, his grandiosity."[7] In The New York Times, Stephen Holden called the film "a generic historical romance and older woman-younger man fable of sexual initiation too muted for either character to come to life".[8]
References
- ^ a b "In Love and War (1996)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
- ^ "Berlinale: 1997 Programme". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2012-01-08.
- ^ Diliberto, Gioia (January 26, 1997). "A Hemingway Story, and Just as Fictional". The New York Times.
- ^ a b "Weekend Box-Office Derby Appears Too Close to Call". Los Angeles Times. 1997-01-27. Archived from the original on June 14, 2021. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
- ^ "Domestic 1997 Weekend 4". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 20, 2021.
- ^ "In Love and War (1996)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 17, 2020.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (1997). "In Love And War movie review & film summary (1997)". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ Holden, Stephen (January 24, 1997). "In Love and War: A Mythical Hemingway In a Blur of Muted Love". The New York Times. Retrieved April 20, 2014.
External links
- In Love and War at IMDb
- In Love and War at AllMovie
- In Love and War at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- In Love and War at the TCM Movie Database
- In Love and War at Box Office Mojo
- Agnes Von Kurowsky @ http://www.ernest.hemingway.com/
- Agnes's breakup letter to Hemingway
- v
- t
- e
- The Torrents of Spring (1926)
- The Sun Also Rises (1926)
- A Farewell to Arms (1929)
- To Have and Have Not (1937)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
- Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
- The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
- Death in the Afternoon (1932)
- Green Hills of Africa (1935)
- A Moveable Feast (1964)
- Islands in the Stream (1970)
- The Dangerous Summer (1985)
- The Garden of Eden (1986)
- True at First Light (1999)
- Under Kilimanjaro (2005)
- "Up In Michigan" (1921)
- "Indian Camp" (1924)
- "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" (1925)
- "The End of Something" (1925)
- "The Three-Day Blow" (1925)
- "The Battler" (1925)
- "A Very Short Story" (1925)
- "Soldier's Home" (1925)
- "The Revolutionist" (1925)
- "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" (1925)
- "Cat in the Rain" (1925)
- "Out of Season" (1925)
- "Cross Country Snow" (1925)
- "My Old Man" (1925)
- "Big Two-Hearted River" (1925)
- "Banal Story" (1926)
- "Today is Friday" (1926)
- "A Canary for One" (1927)
- "Fifty Grand" (1927)
- "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927)
- "The Killers" (1927)
- "The Undefeated" (1927)
- "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" (1927)
- "In Another Country" (1927)
- "Now I Lay Me" (1927)
- "A Simple Enquiry" (1927)
- "Ten Indians" (1927)
- "An Alpine Idyll" (1927)
- "A Pursuit Race" (1927)
- "On the Quai at Smyrna" (1930)
- "Fathers and Sons" (1932)
- "A Natural History of the Dead" (1932)
- "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (1933)
- "A Day's Wait" (1933)
- "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" (1933)
- "A Way You'll Never Be" (1933)
- "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936)
- "The Capital of the World" (1936)
- "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1936)
- "Old Man at the Bridge" (1938)
collections
- Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923)
- In Our Time (1925)
- Men Without Women (1927)
- Winner Take Nothing (1933)
- The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938)
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1961)
- The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War (1969)
- The Nick Adams Stories (1972)
- The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1987)
- Ernest Hemingway: The Collected Stories (1995)
- "On Writing"
- 88 Poems (1979)
- Complete Poems
- Today is Friday (1926)
- The Fifth Column (1938)
- The Spanish Earth (1937 film)
journalism
- By-Line: Ernest Hemingway (1967)
- Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917–1961 (1981)
- Dateline: Toronto (1985)
- The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway (2011)
The Sun Also Rises |
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"The Killers" |
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A Farewell to Arms |
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To Have and Have Not |
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For Whom the Bell Tolls |
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The Old Man and the Sea |
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Other film adaptations |
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- Birthplace and boyhood home
- Michigan cottage
- Hemingway-Pfeiffer House
- Key West home
- Hotel Ambos Mundos, Havana home
- Finca Vigía, Cuba home
- Idaho home
- Bacall to Arms (1946 cartoon)
- Hemingway: On the Edge (1987 play)
- In Love and War (1996 film)
- Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
- Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012 film)
- Cooper & Hemingway: The True Gen (2013 documentary)
- Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (2015 film)
- Genius (2016 film)
- Hemingway (2021 documentary series)
- Nick Adams
- Floridita
- Pilar (boat)
- Iceberg theory
- Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament
- International Imitation Hemingway Competition
- Maxwell Perkins
- Adriana Ivancich
- Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Premio Hemingway
- Hello Hemingway (1990 film)
- Hemingway: A Portrait (1999 documentary)
- Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999 documentary)
- Hemingway crater
- Kennedy Library Hemingway collection
- Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (first wife)
- Jack Hemingway (son)
- Pauline Pfeiffer (second wife)
- Patrick Hemingway (son)
- Gloria Hemingway (daughter)
- Martha Gellhorn (third wife)
- Mary Welsh Hemingway (fourth wife)
- Lorian Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Margaux Hemingway (granddaughter)
- John Hemingway (grandson)
- Mariel Hemingway (granddaughter)
- Grace Hall Hemingway (mother)
- Leicester Hemingway (brother)