Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Nostalgia Central
    • Home
    • Blog
      • Lists
    • Television
      • TV by Decade
        • TV – 1950s
        • TV – 1960s
        • TV – 1970s
        • TV – 1980s
        • TV – 1990s
      • Comedy
      • Drama
      • Kids TV
      • Variety
      • News & Sport
      • Advertisements
    • Music
      • Music by Decade
        • Music – 1950s
        • Music – 1960s
        • Music – 1970s
        • Music – 1980s
        • Music – 1990s
      • Artists – A to K
        • Artists – A
        • Artists – B
        • Artists – C
        • Artists – D
        • Artists – E
        • Artists – F
        • Artists – G
        • Artists – H
        • Artists – I
        • Artists – J
        • Artists – K
      • Artists – L to Z
        • Artists – L
        • Artists – M
        • Artists – N
        • Artists – O
        • Artists – P
        • Artists – Q
        • Artists – R
        • Artists – S
        • Artists – T
        • Artists – U
        • Artists – V
        • Artists – W
        • Artists – X
        • Artists – Y
        • Artists – Z
      • Artists – 0 to 9
      • Genres
      • Music on Film & TV
      • One-Hit Wonders
      • Playlists
      • Online Radio
    • Movies
      • Movies by Decade
        • Movies – 1950s
        • Movies – 1960s
        • Movies – 1970s
        • Movies – 1980s
        • Movies – 1990s
      • Movies – 0 to 9
      • Movies – A to K
        • Movies – A
        • Movies – B
        • Movies – C
        • Movies – D
        • Movies – E
        • Movies – F
        • Movies – G
        • Movies – H
        • Movies – I
        • Movies – J
        • Movies – K
      • Movies – L to Z
        • Movies – L
        • Movies – M
        • Movies – N
        • Movies – O
        • Movies – P
        • Movies – Q
        • Movies – R
        • Movies – S
        • Movies – T
        • Movies – U
        • Movies – V
        • Movies – W
        • Movies – X
        • Movies – Y
        • Movies – Z
    • Pop Culture
      • Fads
      • Toys & Games
      • Fashion
      • Decor
      • Food & Drink
      • People
      • Technology
      • Transport
    • Social History
      • 1950s Year by Year
      • 1960s Year by Year
      • 1970s Year by Year
      • 1980s Year by Year
      • 1990s Year by Year
      • Events
    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1980s
    Movies - 1980s Movies - O 3 Mins Read

    Out Of Africa (1985)

    Share
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email

    Out of Africa is big, beautiful to look at, impressive, and the kind of sweeping, literary experience for which awards are given. This one picked up Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.

    Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke lived from 1913 to 1931 in Kenya, and then was forced through economic disaster to return to her native Denmark, where she was haunted the rest of her life by the images of the country she described as “a glimpse of the world through God’s eye.”

    Her memoirs, written under her pen name, Isak Dinesen, form the material in Out of Africa, and director Pollack has been a faithful interpreter (although he certainly applied a sugar-coating).

    The images are as luminous and evocative as the prose from the verdant valleys and dappled skies to the peaceful coexistence of man and game in a great country on the verge of destruction through progress.

    Practically everybody connected with Out of Africa is British. They know how to light a scene. They know all about composition, movement, and cinematic form. The result is a film of extraordinary visual elegance in which every frame is suitable for eleven-by-fourteen framing.

    But there comes a time when we grow restless of art gallery exhibits and long for some real people to arrive.

    Meryl Streep is too damn aristocratic. She has the Danish accent down perfectly (would it be a Meryl Streep movie without a new accent?) and even manages to meld arrogance with humanity.

    But she never shows much vulnerability, even when her coffee farm reduces her to financial ruin. She never crumbles even when her rakish, good-for-nothing husband gives her syphilis and she’s forced to return to Denmark for long and torturous arsenic treatments.

    She never cracks her porcelain exterior, even when she loses her dashing adventurer-aviator-big game safari hunter lover (Robert Redford). What’s with this woman?

    Karen Blixen marries a man she doesn’t love in order to buy a title, moves to Africa with her books, antiques, and Limoges china, crosses the desert with only a compass, sleeps by a campfire beside the black natives, encounters rampaging lions and Masai warriors, and builds a reputation among the British colonials that is unconventional and controversial.

    But whether she is raising money to teach English to native children or watching a friend die of black-water fever, she is dispassionate, indifferent, reserved. And boring.

    Klaus Maria Brandauer as her titled but irresponsible husband easily steals the film, while Robert Redford as the great white hunter who symbolizes the rugged, untamed Africa she loves only drops in from time to time to get his socks darned.

    Although Redford gets top billing and piles of money, he has virtually nothing to do and contributes only a minor presence while doing it.

    In the role of Karen Blixen, Meryl Streep swaps her European attire for clothes more practical in early 1900s Kenya – jodhpurs and riding boots or shapely linen jackets with full ankle-length skirts.

    “The film had an enormous impact on the sale of linen,” says Leanne Whitehouse, the principal and founder of the Whitehouse Institute of Design. “Everyone was wearing it, in all forms.”

    Out of Africa is a beautifully made film, but this version of Karen Blixen’s life is thickly coated with sugar.

    Karen Blixen
    Meryl Streep
    Denys Finch-Hatton
    Robert Redford
    Bror Blixen
    Klaus Maria Brandauer
    Berkeley
    Michael Kitchen
    Farah
    Malick Bowens
    Kamante
    Joseph Thiaka
    Kinanjui
    Stephen Kinyanjui
    Delamere
    Michael Gough
    Felicity
    Suzanna Hamilton
    Lady Belfield
    Rachel Kempson
    Lord Belfield
    Graham Crowden
    Sir Joseph
    Leslie Phillips
    Belknap
    Shane Rimmer
    Juma
    Mike Bugara
    Kanuthia
    Job Seda

    Director
    Sydney Pollack

    Video

    Related Posts

    • Brainstorm (1983)
      Brainstorm (1983)
      Research scientists Michael Brace (Christopher Walken) and Lillian Reynolds (Louise Fletcher) develop a device that can record and playback physical,…
    • Gandhi (1982)
      Gandhi (1982)
      Richard Attenborough's powerful account of the saintly Indian leader picked up eight Oscars and drew breathless praise from critics, partly…
    • Big Red One, The (1980)
      Big Red One, The (1980)
      The most ambitious war film in Samuel Fuller's career, a chronicle of his own experiences with the 1st Infantry Division…
    • Last Emperor, The (1987)
      Last Emperor, The (1987)
      The Last Emperor is a spectacular epic about China's last emperor, Pu Yi,  who lived a cloistered life until the age…
    • Powaqqatsi (1988)
      Powaqqatsi (1988)
      Having censured the old world order for allowing itself to be enslaved by modern technology in Koyaanisqatsi (1983), director Godfrey Reggio…
    • Big Chill, The (1983)
      Big Chill, The (1983)
      Much imitated but never bettered, The Big Chill brought together a group of college friends who had known each other since…
    • Two Of A Kind (1983)
      Two Of A Kind (1983)
      Five years on from Grease (1978), John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John re-teamed for a fantasy romance about a couple used as…
    • Gorillas In The Mist (1988)
      Gorillas In The Mist (1988)
      The true story of Dian Fossey, the anthropologist who spent twenty years with the rare mountain gorillas of Rwanda, is…

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleOsterman Weekend, The (1983)
    Next Article Outsiders, The (1983)

    Comments are closed.

    Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Instagram
    You May Also Like
    • Very Brady Sequel, A (1996)
      One of the rare occasions when a sequel works better than the […]
    • Philadelphia (1993)
      Tom Hanks, in the most artistically challenging and physically […]
    • Hot Rods To Hell (1967)
      Tom Phillips (Dana Andrews), his wife Peg (Jeanne Crain), their […]
    • Tanks Are Coming, The (1951)
      The Tanks Are Coming follows the American 3rd Armoured […]
    • Magic Ball, The
      1 9 7 1 – 1 9 7 2 (UK) 26 x 15 minute episodes Written and […]
    • Myra Breckinridge (1970)
      At its core, Michael Sarne’s film is essentially a $5 million […]
    Twitter Feed
    Please note


    Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
    Popular Tags
    1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 Action Figures Amicus Arcade games Australia Beach movies Beatles Blaxploitation Board games Britpop Canada Crime Disco Disney Doo-Wop Elvis Presley Girl groups Glam Goth Hammer Heavy Metal Irwin Allen Labels Merseybeat Mod revival Motown New Romantic New Wave NWOBHM Oi! One-hit wonders Power Pop Pub rock Punk Radio Scotland Ska Soul music Surf music
    Search Nostalgia Central
    Copyright © 1998, 2022 Nostalgia Central
    • About
    • Contact
    • FAQ

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.