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Waking the Dead (film)
Encyclopedia
Waking the Dead is a 2000
American
drama film
directed by Keith Gordon
. The screenplay by Robert Dillon
is based on the 1986
novel of the same name
by Scott Spencer.
officer with political ambitions, and idealistic Roman Catholic Sarah Williams, who is drawn to programs designed to better the lives of the underprivileged and has mixed feelings about his career goals.
In the opening scene, Fielding sees a television news program reporting Sarah's death in a Minneapolis car bomb
ing following a church-organized excursion to Chile
to feed the poor and organize resistance to the oppressive right-wing
government. He never quite recovers from the news, and he finds himself increasingly haunted by the past, in which the couple were as romantically close as they were politically apart, divided by his desire to work within the system and her conviction that the system is the root of all evil. His obsession with Sarah slowly puts his career, forthcoming marriage, and sanity in jeopardy.
The question of whether or not Sarah actually was killed remains unresolved as Fielding's sister Caroline reports having seen her on the street some years later and Fielding himself supposedly meets her after being elected to the United States Congress
, only to wonder afterwards if she merely was a hallucination
.
was eliminated from the completed film, although he is seen briefly on a television screen. Sandra Oh
appears in one short scene and has little dialogue; a longer scene with her was deleted but is included as an extra feature in the DVD
release.
Before Billy Crudup
was cast as Fielding Pierce, Tom Cruise
, Tom Hanks
and Kevin Spacey
were also considered.
Brooke Shields
was originally cast as Sarah Williams, but ultimately turned the role down due to the erotic nature of the film. Jessica Alba
, Christina Applegate
, Drew Barrymore
, Neve Campbell
, Cameron Diaz
, Brittany Murphy
, Christina Ricci
, Winona Ryder
, Tori Spelling
, Britney Spears
, Hilary Swank
and Liv Tyler
auditioned for the lead role to ease Shields' departure, but they lost out to Jennifer Connelly
. Coincidentally, Connelly's character in the 1986 film Labyrinth
was also named Sarah Williams.
.
Waking the Dead debuted at the Sundance Film Festival
in January 2000. It opened in Brazil
one week later and Austria
in February and was shown at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
in early March before going into limited release in North America later that month. It went on to gross $327,418 in North America, well below its budget.
In his review in The New York Times
, Stephen Holden wrote, "In falling short of its goal, the movie raises the question of whether it's possible to film an intelligent tear-jerker that prompts us to think and cry at the same time. Or are serious suds and serious ideas a cinematic oxymoron
? At its best, Waking the Dead suggests an intellectually upscale answer to Love Story
. At its weakest, it comes off as a stiff, muted exercise in countercultural nostalgia
... [it] makes a terrible mistake by continually and abruptly cutting back and forth between the 70s and the early 80s. The movie is forever stumbling over itself and breaking its own spell. At exactly the moment it begins to draw us in to one of its stories, it makes another leap, and the mood is broken. Because it barely distinguishes between the two decades, the flashback
s have none of the resonance of treasured memories". Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
said the film "has a good heart and some fine performances, but is too muddled at the story level to involve us emotionally. It's a sweet film. The relationship between Sarah and Fielding is a little deeper and more affectionate than we expect in plot-driven melodrama
s". Entertainment Weekly
gave the film a "C" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "the arbitrariness of the lovers' passion and the somber hysteria with which the novelist and filmmaker treat every issue, whether it's South American dictatorship or female armpit hair, is enough to anesthetize the living". In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum
wrote, "I can cite only one unequivocal reason for seeing Waking the Dead, and that's Jennifer Connelly ... What makes Connelly so remarkable isn't her character's radicalism but her capacity to keep the character fresh every time she appears and to leave a lingering impression that makes the hero's (and the movie's) sense of loss acute". In the San Francisco Chronicle
, Mick LaSalle
called it "a film teeming with riches. One of the most powerful romances of recent years, it is as generous as they come ... an intelligent tale told with go-for-broke passion ... Crudup and Connelly are splendid together ... Waking the Dead gives us acting at its biggest and most beautiful". In his review for the Los Angeles Times
, Kevin Thomas wrote, "The seeming presence of Sarah creates a special challenge for Gordon and his stars, and that Waking the Dead deals with it so imaginatively, makes the film all the richer and provocative an experience".
but lost to Kenneth Lonergan
for You Can Count on Me
.
2000 in film
The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Keith Gordon
Keith Gordon
Keith Gordon is an American actor and film director.-Life and career:Gordon was born in New York City, the son of Barbara, an actress, and Mark Gordon, an actor and stage director. He grew up in an atheist Jewish family and was inspired to become an actor at the age of twelve, after seeing James...
. The screenplay by Robert Dillon
Robert Dillon
Robert Dillon is a screenwriter and film producer. In 1976 he was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen for French Connection II. In 2001 he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for Waking the Dead...
is based on the 1986
1986 in literature
The year 1986 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Michael Grade. Controller of BBC One, axes plans to televise Ian Curteis's The Falklands Play.-New books:*Kingsley Amis - The Old Devils...
novel of the same name
Waking the Dead (novel)
Waking the Dead is a 1986 novel by Scott Spencer. The book, Spencer's fourth, was adapted into a 2000 film of the same name starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly.-Plot introduction:...
by Scott Spencer.
Plot
The film flashes back and forth between the 1970s and 1980s and centers on the relationship between Fielding Pierce, a young Coast GuardCoast guard
A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...
officer with political ambitions, and idealistic Roman Catholic Sarah Williams, who is drawn to programs designed to better the lives of the underprivileged and has mixed feelings about his career goals.
In the opening scene, Fielding sees a television news program reporting Sarah's death in a Minneapolis car bomb
Car bomb
A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...
ing following a church-organized excursion to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
to feed the poor and organize resistance to the oppressive right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
government. He never quite recovers from the news, and he finds himself increasingly haunted by the past, in which the couple were as romantically close as they were politically apart, divided by his desire to work within the system and her conviction that the system is the root of all evil. His obsession with Sarah slowly puts his career, forthcoming marriage, and sanity in jeopardy.
The question of whether or not Sarah actually was killed remains unresolved as Fielding's sister Caroline reports having seen her on the street some years later and Fielding himself supposedly meets her after being elected to the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, only to wonder afterwards if she merely was a hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
.
Principal cast
- Billy CrudupBilly CrudupWilliam Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
as Fielding Pierce - Jennifer ConnellyJennifer ConnellyJennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
as Sarah Williams - Hal HolbrookHal HolbrookHarold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. is an American actor. His television roles include Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 TV series Lincoln, Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator and Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo. He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild, for which he was nominated for...
as Isaac Green - Janet McTeerJanet McTeerJanet McTeer, OBE is a British actress.-Life and career:McTeer was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom, the daughter of Jean and Alan McTeer...
as Caroline Pierce - Paul HippPaul Hipp-Early years:Paul Hipp was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hipp left Pennsylvania for New York City immediately after high school, starting his career playing for tips on the streets of Greenwich Village while studying acting with Mira Rostova and at HB Studio with...
as Danny Pierce - Molly ParkerMolly ParkerMolly Parker is a Canadian actress, notable for her roles in Canadian and American independent films and the HBO television series Deadwood.Parker won a Genie Award in 1997 as Best Actress in a Leading Role for Kissed...
as Juliet Beck - Sandra OhSandra OhSandra Oh is a Canadian actress. She is best known for the role of Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award. She also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the...
as Kim
Production
The film was shot in Montréal, Québec with a budget of USD $8.5 million. The character portrayed by Ed HarrisEd Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
was eliminated from the completed film, although he is seen briefly on a television screen. Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh is a Canadian actress. She is best known for the role of Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award. She also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the...
appears in one short scene and has little dialogue; a longer scene with her was deleted but is included as an extra feature in the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release.
Casting
Filming began on February 4, 1998 and ended on January 15, 1999.Before Billy Crudup
Billy Crudup
William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
was cast as Fielding Pierce, Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
, Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
and Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
were also considered.
Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields
Brooke Christa Shields is an American actress and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle....
was originally cast as Sarah Williams, but ultimately turned the role down due to the erotic nature of the film. Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba
Jessica Marie Alba is an American television and film actress. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack . Alba rose to prominence as the lead actress in the television series Dark Angel...
, Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate is an American actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children. Since then, she has established a film and television career, winning a Primetime Emmy and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations...
, Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager...
, Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
, Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
, Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
, Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
, Tori Spelling
Tori Spelling
Victoria Davey "Tori" Spelling is an American actress. Spelling became known in the early 1990s for her role as Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210. Spelling then had roles in a string of made-for-television films, such as A Friend to Die For and Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?...
, Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
, Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank
Hilary Ann Swank is an American actress. Swank's film career began with a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then a major part in The Next Karate Kid , as Julie Pierce, the first female protégé of sensei Mr. Miyagi...
and Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
auditioned for the lead role to ease Shields' departure, but they lost out to Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
. Coincidentally, Connelly's character in the 1986 film Labyrinth
Labyrinth (film)
Labyrinth is a 1986 British/American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed by Brian Froud. Henson collaborated on the screenwriting with children's author Dennis Lee, Terry Jones from Monty Python, and Elaine May .The film stars David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin...
was also named Sarah Williams.
Soundtrack
- "Snow Come Down" performed by Lori CarsonLori CarsonLori Carson is a singer/songwriter. She has released several solo albums, appeared on many soundtracks, and collaborated with artists such as The Golden Palominos. She performed lead vocals on the song "In the Middle of the Night" on French producer Hector Zazou's album Strong Currents...
- "A Case of You" performed by Joni MitchellJoni MitchellJoni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
- "Maggie May" performed by Rod StewartRod StewartRoderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
- "Help Me Somebody" performed by Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
and David ByrneDavid Byrne (musician)David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,... - "Mercy Street" performed by Peter GabrielPeter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
Reception
Waking the Dead has an overall approval rating of 52% on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Waking the Dead debuted at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
in January 2000. It opened in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
one week later and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in February and was shown at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
Santa Barbara International Film Festival
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is a film festival and non-profit organization, established in 1985, that showcases independent American and international films. The SBIFF line-up includes 20 world premieres and 11 U.S. premieres, with newly expanded 11-day festival...
in early March before going into limited release in North America later that month. It went on to gross $327,418 in North America, well below its budget.
In his review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Stephen Holden wrote, "In falling short of its goal, the movie raises the question of whether it's possible to film an intelligent tear-jerker that prompts us to think and cry at the same time. Or are serious suds and serious ideas a cinematic oxymoron
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms...
? At its best, Waking the Dead suggests an intellectually upscale answer to Love Story
Love Story (1970 film)
Love Story is a 1970 romantic drama film written by Erich Segal and based on his novel Love Story. It was directed by Arthur Hiller. The film, well known as a tragedy, is considered one of the most romantic of all time by the American Film Institute , and was followed by a sequel, Oliver's Story...
. At its weakest, it comes off as a stiff, muted exercise in countercultural nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
... [it] makes a terrible mistake by continually and abruptly cutting back and forth between the 70s and the early 80s. The movie is forever stumbling over itself and breaking its own spell. At exactly the moment it begins to draw us in to one of its stories, it makes another leap, and the mood is broken. Because it barely distinguishes between the two decades, the flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s have none of the resonance of treasured memories". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
said the film "has a good heart and some fine performances, but is too muddled at the story level to involve us emotionally. It's a sweet film. The relationship between Sarah and Fielding is a little deeper and more affectionate than we expect in plot-driven melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
s". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film a "C" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "the arbitrariness of the lovers' passion and the somber hysteria with which the novelist and filmmaker treat every issue, whether it's South American dictatorship or female armpit hair, is enough to anesthetize the living". In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
wrote, "I can cite only one unequivocal reason for seeing Waking the Dead, and that's Jennifer Connelly ... What makes Connelly so remarkable isn't her character's radicalism but her capacity to keep the character fresh every time she appears and to leave a lingering impression that makes the hero's (and the movie's) sense of loss acute". In the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
called it "a film teeming with riches. One of the most powerful romances of recent years, it is as generous as they come ... an intelligent tale told with go-for-broke passion ... Crudup and Connelly are splendid together ... Waking the Dead gives us acting at its biggest and most beautiful". In his review for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Kevin Thomas wrote, "The seeming presence of Sarah creates a special challenge for Gordon and his stars, and that Waking the Dead deals with it so imaginatively, makes the film all the richer and provocative an experience".
Awards
Robert Dillon was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best ScreenplayIndependent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay
The Film Independent's Spirit Award for Best Screenplay is one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards.-1980s:* 1985: The Trip to Bountiful - Horton Foote** After Hours - Joseph Minion** Blood Simple - Joel and Ethan Coen...
but lost to Kenneth Lonergan
Kenneth Lonergan
Kenneth Lonergan is an American playwright, screenwriter, and director.-Background and education:Born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, Lonergan began writing in high school at the Walden School .His first play, The Rennings Children, was chosen for the Young Playwright's Festival in...
for You Can Count on Me
You Can Count on Me
You Can Count on Me is a 2000 American drama film starring Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin, and Matthew Broderick. Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, it tells the story of Sammy, a single mother living in a small town, and her complicated relationships with family and friends...
.