Out of Africa

Redford and Streep with Africa as the background. Academy award performances.

Epic and splendid movie. Gorgeous score. Stellar cinematography, brilliant story, beautifully acted. One of my favorites.

One of my favorite movies.

Beautiful story great acting

I had my “African period” once, when it was so near. Five years, 1979-84, and save for a month in Morocco (which some might say does not count) in 1990, I have not been back…save by books. More recently I’ve read books by Africans themselves, like Moses Isegawa and Alain Mabanckou. In the “African period” I read mainly books by those of European descent. There were those by males, Alan Paton, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Ernest Hemingway. It was three women however who helped put the “awe” into my appreciation for Africa. Each got some dirt under their fingernails – they were farmers. Each inspired visits with words of their experiences. Olive Schreiner wrote “The Story of an African Farm.” Elspeth Huxley wrote “The Flame Trees of Thika.” And Karen Blixen, under the pen name, Isak Dinesen, wrote “Out of Africa,” which was first published in 1937 and commenced with the subject line.Sidney Pollack directed the movie, which was released in 1985. Two big-named Hollywood stars, Meryl Streep, who played Baroness Blixen and Robert Redford, with his perpetually perplexed expression, played the independent English hunter, Denys Finch Hatton, who would eventually become the paramour of Blixen. Klaus Maria Brandauer, played Blixen’s philandering husband, who gifted her with some syphilis, back in the pre-antibiotic days when the poison, mercury, was the treatment, which worked in Blixen’s case. The two were eventually divorced. And Africa, well, it played itself and Pollack has his camerapersons reinforce the “awe.”Can watching a movie that sorta glorified the colonial period be “politically correct” nowadays? Well, at one level, I don’t care, but I think that Pollack did a good job of showing a lot of the warts, shorn of the glory. Blixen, for example, is not allowed into the men’s only club. And as she must have done in real life, she did go to considerable lengths to ensure that the natives were given a better deal, on land that was once theirs, as she dramatically states on her knees.I liked watching the interactions between Streep and Redford, depicting relationships from the days when, as Bob Dylan once sung, in “Tom Thumb’s Blues”: “And you try not to go to her too soon.” Best to make sure you wait at least an hour, sometimes a metaphorical one. And I loved the scene of confrontation between Blixen’s husband and Denys when the former said: “You might have asked, Denys.” Redford comes back with: “I did, and she said Yes.”Furthering the realism, shorn of the glory, as Marguerite Duras attested, in far off Indochine, many colonists were far from wealthy and lead rather hardscrabble existences. The one off-note in the film was the impressive stone home the Blixens lived in, almost certainly much better than the initial homes built before 1913. As Huxley says of her experience: we built a house of grass and ate off a damask cloth spread between packing cases. As for Blixen, assorted disasters on the farm eventually forced her to return to Denmark, in 1931, destitute.A good movie that evoked a bit of nostalgia for my own experiences of four decades ago, and a yearning to return to the continent. Algeria might be a good start, even though some might say that doesn’t count either. 5-stars for Africa, the awe, and a couple very good actors.

For many years, I loved Isak Dinesen's writings, including her several volumes of stories and her memoir "Out of Africa" and the much later "Shadows on the Grass." Unfortunately, my fascination with Dinesen had ended just before the release of this movie adaptation of "Out of Africa". I didn't even see the movie in spite of the fanfare it generated. And the many books of hers I owned, including some rare titles, are long since lost from my shelves.I have thought fondly of Dinesen over the years and took the opportunity to watch for the first time the film "Out of Africa" on Amazon Prime. Dinesen (Karen von Blixen) lived in Kenya from 1913 -- 1931 when the coffee plantation she owned went bankrupt and she returned to Denmark. Her memoir "Out of Africa" appeared in 1937. I have little memory of the details of the book, having read it long ago. I watched the film for itself.Directed by Sydney Pollack, the film won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. Meryl Streep received the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of von Blixen, and Robert Redford was the leading actor in the role of Denys Finch Hatton, a big game hunter and von Blixen's lover. The movie shows von Blixen struggling to make a life for herself in Kenya with her philandering husband, (in an Academy Award winning performance by Klaus Maria Brandauer), to manage the farm, and to better the conditions of the natives. Underlying it all in the film is the relationship between von Blixen nd Finch Hatton.There are many beautiful things in "Out of Africa", particularly the sweeping cinematography of Africa and the musical score by John Barry with frequent use of music by Mozart. The viewer sees the majesty of Africa with its plains, jungles, lions, zebras, giraffes, hippopotamuses, and much more. In a time of colonization, the film offers a highly sympathetic portrayal of native life. The life of the European colonizers and of the difficulties of von Blixen's efforts with the coffee plantation also are effectively portrayed. I loved the scenes of von Blixen improvising stories for Finch Hatton and for others. It foreshadowed the stories Dinesen would write upon her return to Denmark.With so much to love about the film in terms of the scenery, music, the story, and my memory of reading Dinesen, I wasn't completely satisfied. The film moves at a snail's pace over its two and one half hour length. It frequently failed to hold my attention and to keep me involved. With all its virtues, the film became more of a Hollywood romance than the story of Africa and of a strong-willed woman.I was still glad to have the opportunity to see this film. I have become much more interested in Africa than had been the case during the time I was reading Dinesen. And the film was lovely in its own right. The main impact of the movie was to remind me of a writer I treasured. With the passage of the years, I lost sight of Isak Dinesen. I am tempted to acquire her books again and to reread them. They doubtless would mean more to me now even that they did years ago. It was moving to become reacquainted with a treasured author, even in a different medium.Robin Friedman

Redford and Streep are great along with the cast. Though I really truly HATE the European Imperialist sentiment.

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