The English Patient: Character Profiles | Novelguide The English Patient: Character Profiles Total Votes: 143 David Caravaggio Caravaggio was a thief before the Second World War (in Canada), and was used for this purpose during the war in Cairo and Italy. He was tortured and had his thumbs removed by a German inquisitor. He comes to the villa after discovering Hana is there as he knew her as a child and young woman in Canada. Geoffrey Clifton Clifton is the husband of Katharine and both are referred to in the novel’s epigraph. Caravaggio reveals towards the end of the novel that Clifton had been working for British Intelligence. Hana During the war, Hana was a nurse and continues to nurse the English patient in the villa at the beginning of the novel. She is depicted as being mentally scarred by the war and is grieving for the death of her father. Katharine Clifton Katharine’s affair with the English patient is a central back story of the novel. Kirpal Singh/Kip He is most commonly referred to as Kip and during the war and through his stay at the villa he works in a bomb disposal unit for the British Army.

After the death of his mentor, Lord Suffolk, he also helped to construct Bailey Bridges in the invasion of Italy. He leaves the villa in rage and disgust after learning of the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Madox Madox, like the Cliftons, does not appear in the present storyline in the villa. He was a colleague and friend of the English patient and committed suicide in church at the outbreak of war. The English Patient/Count Ladislaus de Almásy This eponymous anti-hero is also one of the main protagonists. The identity of this supposed English patient is revealed gradually and on Caravaggio’s prompting. Caravaggio believes correctly that this patient is not English but Hungarian, and worked for the German powers during the war. SparkNotes: The English Patient: Plot Overview The English Patient Context Character List In The English Patient, the past and the present are continually intertwined. The narrative structure intersperses descriptions of present action with thoughts and conversations that offer glimpses of past events and occurrences. Though there is no single narrator, the story is alternatively seen from the point of view of each of the main characters.

The novel opens with Hana, a young nurse, gardening outside a villa in Italy in 1945. The European theater of the war has just ended with the Germans retreating up the Italian countryside. As the Germans retreated, they left hidden bombs and mines everywhere, so the landscape is particularly dangerous. Although the other nurses and patients have left the villa to escape to a safer place, Hana decides to stay in the villa with her patient. Hana does not know much about the man for whom she cares. Found in the wreckage of a plane crash, he been burned beyond recognition, his whole body black and even the slightest touch painful to him. He talks about the Bedouin tribe who found him in the wreckage, cared for his wounds, and eventually returned him to a British camp in 1944. He does not know who they were, but he feels grateful to them nonetheless. To pass the time, Hana reads to the English patient—she assumes he is English by his manner and speech—and also gardens, fixes up the villa, and plays hopscotch.

Sometimes she picks up the patient's notebook, a copy of Herodotus's The Histories marked throughout with his own notes, figures, and observations, and reads to him or to herself. One day, a man with bandaged hands named Caravaggio arrives at the villa. He is an old family friend of Hana's father, Patrick, and had heard about her location while he was recovering in a hospital a few miles away. In Canada, where Caravaggio knew Hana years ago, he was a thief. He tells her how his skills were legitimized in the war and how he put them to use working for British Intelligence in North Africa. He tells her that the Germans caught him after an attempt to steal a camera from a woman's room. They tortured him and cut off his thumbs, leaving his hands mutilated and nearly useless. Although he has recovered somewhat, he is still addicted to morphine. In the villa, he reminisces with Hana and mourns with her over the death of her father in the war. As Hana plays the piano in the library, two soldiers come in and stand alongside while she plays.

One of them is Kip, an Indian Sikh trained as a sapper, or bomb-defuser, in the British army. After hearing the piano, Kip has come to clear the villa of bombs, knowing that the Germans frequently booby-trapped musical instruments. Kip and the English patient get along very well, as they are both experts in guns and bombs and enjoy talking to each other and sharing stories. Kip makes camp in the garden of the villa and becomes a part of the "family" that now exists there. He goes off into town every day to clear more bombs from the area and to bury fellow sappers who have died. Kip's job is extremely dangerous. He feels a strong attraction to Hana, and soon they become lovers. Asked about his past, the English patient begins to tell the others his story. His real name is Almasy, though this is not definitively confirmed until Chapter IX. He spent the years from 1930 to the start of World War II exploring the North African desert. His job was to make observations, draw maps, and search for ancient oases in the sands. Along with his fellow European counterparts, Almasy knew every inch of the desert and made many trips across it.

In 1936, a young man from Oxford, Geoffrey Clifton, and his new wife Katharine, joined their party. Geoffrey owned a plane, which the party found especially useful in helping to map the desert. The explorers, Almasy, and the Cliftons got along very well. One night, after hearing Katharine read a passage from his book of Herodotus, Almasy realized he was in love with her. They soon began a torrid and tumultuous affair. Everywhere they stole glances and moments, and they were obsessed with each other. Finally, in 1938, Katharine broke off their affair, telling Almasy that Geoffrey would go mad if he ever found out. Although their affair was over, Almasy remained haunted by her, and he tried to punish her for hurting him by being particularly mean to her in public. At some point, Geoffrey somehow found out about the affair. World War II broke out in 1939, and Almasy decided to close up their camp and arranged for Geoffrey to pick him up in the desert. Geoffrey arrived in his plane with Katharine.

Geoffrey attempted to kill all three of them by crashing the plane into Almasy, who was standing on the ground. The plane missed Almasy, but the crash killed Geoffrey, left Katharine severely injured, and left them with no way to escape the desert. Almasy placed Katharine in a nearby cave, covering her with a parachute for warmth, and promised to come back for her. He walked across the desert for four days until he reached the nearest town, but when he got there, the English army would not help him get back to Katharine. Because Almasy had a foreign-sounding name, the British were suspicious and locked him up as a spy, prevented him from saving Katharine. Almasy was eventually released, but he knew it was too late to save her. He worked for the Germans, helping their spies make their way across the desert into Cairo. After he left Cairo, his truck broke down in the desert. Without transportation, he walked to the cave to get Katharine. He took her dead body and placed it in a plane that had been buried beneath the sand. The plane malfunctioned during their flight and caught fire. Almasy parachuted down from the plane, his body covered in flames.

That was the point at which the Bedouins found him and cared for his burns. Little by little, the English patient tells this whole story. Caravaggio, who has suspected the English patient was not really English, has his suspicions confirmed. He fills in gaps for the Almasy, telling him that Geoffrey Clifton was really an agent of British Intelligence and that Intelligence had known about Almasy and Katharine's affair the whole time. They knew Almasy had started helping the Germans and planned to kill him in the desert. They lost him between Cairo and the plane crash, and now, of course, he is unrecognizable. The focus of the novel shifts to Kip, and we are told his entire story. Although Kip's brother always distrusted the west, Kip went willingly to serve in the British army. He was trained as a bomb defuser under Lord Suffolk, a true English gentleman, and was then virtually welcomed into an English family. Kip soon grew quite skillful at his job, able to figure out both the "joke" and the "character" of each bomb he tackled.

Lord Suffolk and his group were blown up defusing a bomb, and Kip decided to leave England and become a sapper in Italy. Kip has felt emotionally removed from everyone in his job as a sapper. When he meets Hana, he uses her to once again connect to humanity. All the residents of the villa celebrate Hana's twenty-first birthday, and Kip grows comfortable as her lover. When August comes, however, Kip hears on the radio of the atomic bomb that the United States has dropped on Japan. He becomes enraged, knowing that a western country would never commit such an atrocity against another white country. He takes his gun and threatens to kill the English patient, whom he sees as a symbol of the West. Kip does not kill Almasy, but takes off on his motorcycle, leaving the villa forever. Years later, he is a doctor in India with a family of his own. Though he is happy and fulfilled in his new life, he often wonders about Hana.

The English Patient Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 171 out of 235 people found the following review useful: A Magnificent Motion Picture from Salem, Oregon 29 July 2002 In a style reminiscent of the best of David Lean, this romantic love story sweeps across the screen with epic proportions equal to the vast desert regions against which it is set. It's a film which purports that one does not choose love, but rather that it's love that does the choosing, regardless of who, where or when; and furthermore, that it's a matter of the heart often contingent upon prevailing conditions and circumstances. And thus is the situation in `The English Patient,' directed by Anthony Minghella, the story of two people who discover passion and true love in the most inopportune of places and times, proving that when it is predestined, love will find a way. It's WWII; flying above the African desert, Hungarian Count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes) is shot down, his biplane mistaken for an enemy aircraft. And though he survives the crash, he is severely burned.

To his great good fortune, however, he is rescued by a tribe of nomads and winds up in a hospital. But existing conditions are governed by circumstances of war, and Almasy soon becomes one of many patients being transported via convoy to a different facility. Upon reaching Italy, he is too weak and ill to continue on, and a Canadian nurse, Hana (Juliette Binoche), volunteers to stay behind with him at an abandoned monastery. Hana soon discovers that her charge is something of a man of mystery, as Almasy remembers nothing of his past, and not even his own name. Thought to be English, the only clues pointing to who he is are contained in a book found in his possession after the crash, but even they are as cryptic as Hana's patient. Slowly, however, under prompting from Hana, Almasy begins to remember bits and pieces of his life, and his story begins to unfold. And his memory is helped along even more by the appearance of a mysterious stranger named Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), who suspects that Almasy is the man he's been looking for-- a man with whom he wants to settle a score.

But, burned beyond recognition, Almasy may or may not be that man. Meanwhile, Almasy's memories continue to surface; memories of a woman he loved, Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas)-- as well as memories of Katherine's husband, Geoffrey (Colin Firth). And, crippled in mind and body as he is, those memories become the only thing left to which he can cling with any hope at all, even as his life seems to be slipping farther away with each passing moment. In addition to directing, Anthony Minghella also wrote the screenplay for this film, which he adapted from the novel by Michael Ondaatje. The result is an epic saga presented in the tradition of Lean's `Doctor Zhivago' and `Lawrence of Arabia'; a magnificent film that fills the screen and the senses with unprecedented grandeur and beauty. Simply put, Minghella's film is genius realized; crafted and delivered with a poetic perfection, watching it is like watching a Monet come to life.

From the opening frames, Minghella casts a hypnotic spell over his audience that is binding and transporting, with a story that has an emotional beauty that equals the engagingly stunning and vibrant images brought to life by John Seale's remarkable cinematography; images that virtually fill the screen as well as the soul of the viewer. In every sense, this is a film of rare eloquence, with a striking emotional capacity that facilitates an experience that is truly transcendental. Nominated in twelve categories, it deservedly received a total of nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Binoche) and Cinematography. If one had to choose a single word to describe the `essence' of this film, it would be `excellence.' Even an extraordinary film, however, does not receive nine Oscars without performances that are extraordinary in kind; and the performances given by Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas here transcend the term `Oscar worthy.' Nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Almasy (Geoffrey Rush was awarded the gold for `Shine'), Fiennes has never been better, achieving an emotional depth with his character that is nearly palpable.

Private and introspective, Almasy is not by his very nature an individual to whom the audience will be able to form an intimate connection; Fiennes, however, finds a way to open that emotional door just enough to let you in, enough so that you taste the honest passion welling up within him. And it works. Almasy does not seek your friendship; he will, however, gain your compassion. Kristen Scott Thomas, too, received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (Frances McDormand received the award for `Fargo') for her portrayal of Katherine, a woman whose stoic countenance masks the emotional conflict raging within her, born of the forbidden passion that enslaves her and yet to which she gives herself willingly, casting off her shackles of repression to embrace a love so strong it threatens to consume her. The reserve Katherine must maintain evokes the empathy of the audience, as Scott Thomas successfully mines the emotional depths of her character to the greatest possible effect. It's the kind of performance that draws you in and holds you fast, taking you as it does beyond that curtain of hypocrisy that dictates what must be if only for the sake of appearances, and allows you to experience a true sense of unbridled passion.

Understated and shaded with subtlety, it's terrific work by Kristin Scott Thomas. Binoche gives a stunning, affecting performance, as well, as the kindhearted nurse, Hana; it is her humanity, in fact, which defines love in it's purest sense and offers a balanced perspective of it within the context of the film. Her relationship with Kip (Naveen Andrews) affords us a glimpse of passion of another kind, which contrasts effectively with the intensity of that between Almasy and Katherine. `The English Patient' is a film that will move you and fill you emotionally; one you will not want to see end. 10/10. Was the above review useful to you? 143 out of 196 people found the following review useful: A reader's movie. from canada 7 September 2003 I can understand why some people think this movie is boring. I think it appeals much more to people who are used to the pacing of classic books. I'm sure many of those who hated it are much like a co-worker of mine who said "Books?

I haven't a book since I had to in high school." I checked some of the names of the people who reviled this movie and sure enough it seems many of them think Armaggedon was an "awesome" movie and Chris Farley was a "Comic genius". And that's O.K. Taste is an individual thing. My sensibilities tell me that the english patient is a very good movie that takes effort to appreciate. Much in this movie is very subtle. It is not a vacation for the brain.(Hey, sometimes the brain NEEDS a vacation, and stupid movies provide that!) Also, it is not a cynic's movie. It's about idealism, tragedy and regret. About how people can want the best but have it all fall apart because of bad choices, and have to go on with the regret of never being able to remedy the situation. Not so much a love story as a tragic one. So many people destroyed because of the selfishness of two people couldn't(wouldn't?) control themselves.

I would ask those who thought the movie boring to watch it again when you feel able to pay full attention to what's going on in the film and how different bits of dialogue dovetail into subtle suggestions of how the characters are feeling and thinking. This movie takes an investment of time, thought and emotion. If this investment is made, I think most people who watch it will feel rewarded. Was the above review useful to you? 105 out of 139 people found the following review useful: A masterpiece of intimate moment and spectacular largesse... 28 May 2001 *** This review may contain spoilers *** 'The English Patient' is a love story set in Europe as World War II ends... It is a wartime romance mystery epic, like 'Hiroshima, Mon Amour,' 'The Sweet Hereafter,' and 'After Life.' Anthony Minghella weaves extravagant beauty around a central character whose condition is grotesque, and puts emotional barriers between the characters and the audience... This adult love story is an intimate portrait in the tradition of 'Casablanca' and 'Dr. Zhivago.' The film sweeps gracefully attaining a level of eroticism and emotional connection that many similar films had missed...

Told in flashback, it is a masterpiece of intimate moment and spectacular largesse... Ralph Fiennes plays the English patient, Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian cartographer of few words, who works for the British government, and is stationed in the North African desert... Count Laszlo is the unidentified survivor of a plane crash turned over to the Allies, taken into custody by a medical convoy in Italy, and essentially left to die in peace, in an isolated monastery in Tuscany, under the care of an inspiring pretty nurse who injects him with morphine, and reads to him a book, considered his great treasure, and his one surviving possession... Hana seeks to stimulate his touching memories, wrapped up in his head, released in lost pieces from his disturbed mind... Fiennes gives a haunted, pained performance, playing the young man whose veneer of charm cannot plainly cover his heart's capacity for passion... He makes us sympathize with the character in showing self-doubt and weakness... As a badly burned man, he has only cherished memories... His joy and heartbreak are completely clear and visible in his eyes... He remembers falling under the spell of an attractive English married woman...

He remembers the way this turns him from a harsh abrupt wanderer into a man willing to betray everything for love... His tragic love affair forms the heart of the motion picture... Kristin Scott Thomas matches Fiennes' work with a radiant sensuality... She is captivating as the married European woman, conveying the audience with the energy and enthusiasm for life that the Count finds irresistible... Their different world, despairing and hopeful, menacing and resilient, is simply beautiful... With intense passion and intelligence, this attractive blonde burns the screen as the different wife... Juliette Binoche seems to shine as the French-Canadian nurse full of life and energy... This vibrant young woman has a heart of gold, kissing wounded soldiers, but she thinks that she is a curse as anybody she ever loved tends to die on her... Colin Firth is good as Katherine's husband... He is a British spy flying into the tough desert in a yellow biplane to take aerial maps of the whole North African continent... He quickly becomes friend of the Count, yet when he realizes that his wife has committed adultery, his face reflected a peaceful fury... William Dafoe plays a double-agent spy who covers his anger with a strange charm... He is a crippled war veteran who has a hidden agenda...

This cunning Canadian man seems to know of some dark secret in Almasy's past... He believes the 'English patient' is partially responsible for the mutilation of his hands, and is busy seeking revenge on everyone even remotely involved...

Naveen Andrews is Hana's ardent lover He is a handsome Sikh, and an explosives expert with a dangerous job There's a scene that is stuck in my head because it literally had me on the edge of my seat for what seemed an eternity In this particular scene, the military sapper has to cut the wires on a bomb that has been hidden on a bridge It's on a timer and he only has a few minutes left The scene cuts back and forth between his tense face, the wires and his dirty fingers as they try madly to figure out how to untangle and cut the wires without detonating the bomb All the conventional elements of the genre are at peaks of excellence in "The English Patient." John Seale's cinematography is breathtaking, and Gabriel Yared's majestic music is dreamy, and romantic This is a rich motion picture with ambition and style, a fever dream, lyrical and complex We are almost able to feel the heat of the desert, the pain of the burnings, the intimate flush of humanity that becomes the most haunting element of this epic love story... Was the above review useful to you? 143 out of 216 people found the following review useful: The greatest romance movie of all time? Probably...

from London, England 7 May 2001 I've seen a few movies in my time, but this one is exceptional. You'll have to watch it more than once to truly appreciate it, it is emotionally very complex, it explores love and passion at it's most extreme and it's cinematography is just breathtaking. The character of the Count is intensely passionate and tragic without him having to raise his voice or indeed leave his bed, the film is perfectly cast and perfectly acted. The film has a sort of mathematical precision and perfection to it which is rare these days. It combines action, love, tragedy, drama and politics all in one. This movie is unmissable, all the hype surrounding it and all the awards cannot begin to do it any justice. Hats off to Michael Ondaatje for writing the incredible book on which it is based. Was the above review useful to you? 88 out of 120 people found the following review useful: as below from Australia 20 January 2005 I like this movie above all others. It is "multi-layered"; there is so much to see and appreciate. Every viewing brings a new appreciation of the story-line, the plot and the characters.

Faultlessly acted and extremely enjoyable if you take the time to watch it and appreciate it. I love the interaction between the players; the subtle relationships; the period atmosphere. Ralph Fiennes is perfectly cast as the brooding lover and Geoffrey the wronged husband is beautifully underplayed by Colin Firth. The scene in the sand storm where Catherine & El-masy are discussing the different types of sand storms is one of the high-lights of the film and where the affair really starts. The other relationship between Hanna & El-masy is yet another "layer" of the movie which is totally enchanting (and heart-rending). A worthy winner of so many awards. Was the above review useful to you? 86 out of 119 people found the following review useful: a patience taking movie.. ;) from Den Haag 8 November 2004 as can be read in many reviews here it is a movie you love or hate - apparently not so much space for opinions in between. I for one think that is a good sign. I always appreciated this movie, although the genre is not my typical style (I never watched Titanic for instance, and am not planning to).

The English Patient grips because it shows how people can be different when they are in an exotic environment as opposed when they are 'home' (Katherine), it shows how destructive love can be in a slow, strong and utterly painful way, it excites because of the extremely passionate affair, the pain of the one(s) who leave behind, how pointless one can feel to move on. The photography is just stunning, not to mention the play of the actors. The pace is slow, but timely, and that does justice to the book, the timeline, and the depth/development of the characters. To put this in 110 minutes (as some seem to suggest here) would amputate the multi-layeredness of this movie. People tend to have difficulties with the pace of movies... as if they are in a rush to get to work.. hey - get a life ! ;-) enjoy... I give this movie 4.5 out of 5. Was the above review useful to you? 90 out of 129 people found the following review useful: Epic story that mixes lust with a mystery story  worthy stuff but a touch too slow from United Kingdom 26 February 2002 Tuscany WW2.

Traumatised by the loss of anyone she cared for or loved, Canadian nurse Hana stays behind her unit with a dying patient, Count Laszlo de Almásy. de Almásy is burnt all over and has lost his memory. When a vengeful, mysterious thief arrives at their abandoned monastery with a past that seems to include de Almásy , and as Hana reads from his book, memories return regarding his past. He relives his story of lust and love and the destructive force that forbidden passion unleashed upon his life. This is quite a modern epic. It has the running time of an epic, it has the gorgeous cinematography of an epic, it has the acting of an epic and it has a story of love (lust) against the backdrop of major events in history. Even though it changes or leaves out a significant amount of the original novel it still manages to be a great mix of passionate desire and mystery. The mystery of the story is represented by the thief Caravaggio who casts light on what he knows of de Almásy's past (as he sees it) while the love story is unfolded as it develops in a passionate affair between him and Katherine, a colleagues' wife.

The story is compelling enough to carry the long running time, at times the pace seems a little slow and when I saw it in my local multiplex there were some moments where large portions of the audience seemed to be shifting in their seats. The love' of the story was interesting as it seems to be contrasted with Hana's relationship with Kip the bomb disposal expert. While de Almásy's relationship with Katherine starts as lust and desire before growing into what seems to be love (or could be grief at the result of their affair), Hana's is portrayed as purer and more careful as she fears those she loves will die. This difference helped me see that the film did want to show the destructive power of lust and affairs, however the fact that the central relationship was based more on lust than love took away from the emotional core of the story. The acting is almost impeccable. Fiennes is excellent even when he is lost behind an unrecognisable mask of burnt flesh. Thomas is actually very good, I find she tends to be very wooden in some things but this type of very English character brings the best out of her. Binoche is excellent as Hana and carries the heart of the film.

Dafoe is truly excellent - his element of the story is the mystery and he does it well. He is a great actor and deserves to be in things this good. The support cast include plenty of good actors including Colin Firth, Jurgen Prochnow and Naveem Andrews. The film is beautifully shot - even though it's all a bit too picturesque to be real! However the director can handle himself well with many different scenes - a tense bomb diffusal, a passionate love scene, a dangerous sand storm etc. Overall the slow pace may frustrate some younger audiences but this is a really good film that draws it's values from classy sources. Was the above review useful to you? 110 out of 174 people found the following review useful: Absolute Perfection! from Chicago, Illinois 8 December 1998 TEP is like a long cool drink of water after crawling across the Sahara to classic film buffs who have been too long deprived of that certain cinematic magic! Not only is it beautifully photographed, but the characters are perfectly portrayed. If you're looking for the film to be a mirror of the book, you will be seriously disappointed.

Instead, it is an excellent "companion" to the book, and I think that is what Anthony Minghella intended. Ralph Fiennes is probably the most beautiful man in the world; not to mention a brilliant actor. Juliette Binoche is the posterchild for vulnerability and childlike enthusiasm. And, of course, I'll go see any film in which Kristin Scott Thomas is featured. She simply must be THE best actress since the likes of Deborah Kerr. So much was promised with this film, and so much is delivered! Was the above review useful to you? 78 out of 111 people found the following review useful: One of the greatest achievements in all of cinema, peerlessly beautiful from Toledo, Ohio 7 March 2007 Count Laszlo (Ralph Fiennes) has just been transferred to a hospital in Italy during World War II. He is horrifically burned from an ambush. His nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) tends to him, body and mind, for she fears, quite rightly, that he may be a very troubled soul. In the course of his care, the Count starts to tell Hana of his recent past.

It seems he worked in a government capacity in Africa, where he met a beautiful married lady named Katherine (Kristin Scott Thomas). Although they tried to avoid each other, they fell in love. After a brief affair, Katherine called it quits, leaving the Count desolate. Even so, the two would meet again, under heart-wrenching circumstances. Meanwhile, Hana herself falls for a Sihk man in the British bomb squad. Yet, the war is raging relentlessly. Can love exist when the world is in turmoil? This is a tremendous film, based on an equally fine but complex novel. The plot has many story lines that are woven together beautifully, each of them poignant beyond description. The script itself is elegant and contains many memorable lines. Fiennes is magnificent, both as the burn victim and as the man who thought love was a myth. Scott Thomas is also quite fine as the woman who fights against her passions. As for Binoche, she richly deserved the Oscar that she was presented, as her nurse is a shining example of hope in a hopeless situation. The scenery is utterly gorgeous, as are the costumes, the direction, and the production. If you have missed out on viewing this film, rectify that soon, very soon.

The English Patient will remain one of the greatest achievements in film for centuries to come. Was the above review useful to you? 65 out of 89 people found the following review useful: An epic tale of doomed love from Saskatchewan 19 March 2004 'The English Patient' can rightly be compared to the films of David Lean, whose sweeping epics such as 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Bridge on the River Kwai' must have inspired the director Anthony Minghella. The film is beautifully photographed, and like 'Lawrence', is set in Northern Africa, but during the second world war. The story is complex, but it boils down to a forbidden love between an opinionated and often difficult archeologist played by Ralph Fiennes and a married woman played by Kristin Scott Thomas. The story, based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje, is told in flashbacks by Fiennes' Count Laszlo de Almasy - the titular character. The fact that his name does not sound like he's English plays a key role in what unfolds.

He has been badly burned in a plane crash, occurring just as the film opens, and is being cared for back in Europe by Hana, an army nurse played by Juliette Binoche. What makes this story epic is the vast sweep across place and time, and the development of characters beyond that of the two ill-fated lovers. The film makes clear that true love and passion, even with dreaded consequences, can make life worth living, or worth dying for. If you're a romantic at heart, and can appreciate a film without the standard happy endings and simple moral codes, you may find that 'The English Patient' speaks directly to you. Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 46: The English Patient - Wikiquote The English Patient Jump to: navigation , search We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. The English Patient is a 1996 film taking place near the end of WWII. A young nurse tends to a badly-burned plane crash victim. His past is shown in flashbacks, revealing an involvement in a fateful love affair. Directed and written by Anthony Minghella .

Based on the 1993 novel The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje . In love, there are no boundaries. Count Laszlo de Almásy[ edit ] I think I was a pilot. A very… plum… plum. Its probably none of my business— your wife… do you think it is appropriate to leave her? I once traveled with a guide who was taking me to Faya. He didn't speak for nine hours. At the end of it he pointed to the horizon and said, Faya! That was a good day. [to Katharine] There's really no need. This is just a scrapbook. They are too good. I should feel obliged. Thank you. [to Katharine] We planned badly. [to Katharine] In a few minutes there'll be no stars— the air is filling with sand. [to Katharine] I apologize if I appear abrupt. I am rusty at social graces. [to Katharine] Let me tell you about winds. [to Katharine] Could I ask you, please, to paste you paintings into my book? I should like to have them. I *should be honored. [to Katharine] Mrs. Clifton. . .

I believe you still have my book. [to Katharine] K at dawn — silhouetted. My God… they're swimming. Swimming. [to himself in Cave of Swimmers] I can still taste you. I try to write with your taste in my mouth. [to Katharine] Swoon, They'll catch you. [to Katharine] Maddox knows I think— he keeps talking about Anna Karenina— I think it's his idea of a man to man chat… well it's my idea of a man to man chat. [to Katharine] I long for the rain on my face. [to Hana] I'm not agreeing. Don't think I'm agreeing, because I'm not. [to Katharine] Katherine? My God, Katherine what are you doing here? Thousands of people did die. Just different people. [to Caravaggio] No! I was never a spy. [to Caravaggio] The International Sand Club: misfits, buggers, fascists, and fools— God bless us every one. Ooops! mustn't say international — dirty word, filthy word. Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again. [to Katharine] K is for Katherine.

[to Hana] In that case I suppose we can't charge. [to Hana] Condensed milk - one of the truly great inventions. [to Hana] Hana was just telling me that you were indifferent. . . to her cooking. [to Kip] I have come to love that little tap of the fingernail against the syringe. Tap… Tap… Tap. [to Caravaggio] It wouldn't be make believe if you believed in me. [Almásy singing the tune It's Only a Paper Moon (by Harold Arlen, Billy Rose, and E. Y. Harburg)] Read to me will you? Read me to sleep. [to Hana] Hana[ edit ] I must be a curse. Anybody who loves me, anybody who gets close to me. . . —or I must be cursed. Which is it? It's raining. [to Almásy] There's a war. Where you come from becomes important. Dec. 22nd [1938] — Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace. New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire.

For the heart is an organ of fire— I love that. I believe that. [Reading Almásy's note on the Christmas firecracker] Katharine Clifton[ edit ] I've been thinking—how does someone like you decide to come to the desert? [to Almásy] And that would be unconscionable, I suppose, to feel any obligation? Yes. Of course it would. [to Almásy] I'm not one of the walking wounded. It's only one night. Besides, if I remain it's the most effective method of persuading my husband to abandon whatever he's doing and come and rescue us. This is not very good is it? [to Almásy] Am I a terrible coward to ask how much water we have? [to Almásy] Yes is a comfort. Absolutely is not. [to Almásy] You still have sand in your hair. [to Almásy] A woman should never learn to sew, and if she can she shouldn't admit to it. [to Almásy] This a different world is what I tell myself; a different life. And here I'm a different wife.

[to Almásy] The neck of K can never [be something] not in my mind. and K's clothes always at ease on her. Does he notice? What is the significance of Betrayal? Does K bother with a moral Labyrinth - K's debate - does she debate? [reading from notes she found in Almásy's book] Am I 'K' in your book? I think I must be. [to Almásy] You speak so many bloody languages, and you never want to talk.[to Almásy] I can't do this anymore. [to Almásy] Do you think you are the only one who feels anything? Is that what you think? [to Almásy] Why did you hate me? Don't you know you drove everybody mad? [to Almásy] My darling, I'm waiting for you — how long is a day in the dark, or a week? The fire is gone now, and I'm horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there would be the sun. . . I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings and on writing these words.

We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we have hidden in, like this wretched cave. I want all this marked in my body. We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you will come and carry me out into the palace of winds. That's all I've wanted — to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on earth without maps. The lamp is gone now, and I'm writing in the darkness. [written in journal] David Caravaggio[ edit ] So. I come across the hospital convoy, I'm looking for this stuff. This nurse, Mary, tells me about you and Hana, hiding in some monastery, in what you call it — retreat - how you'd come in from the desert and you were burned and you didn't remember your name, but you knew the words to every song that ever was and you had one possession - a copy of Herodotus and it was filled with letters and cuttings, and then I know it was you. . . I'd seen you writing in that book.

At the embassy in Cairo, when I had thumbs, and you had a face. And a name. [to Almásy] In Italy, there's always chickens, but no eggs. In Africa there's eggs, but never chickens. Who separated them? Ask him. Ask your saint who he is. Ask him who he's killed. [to Hana] There was a result to what you did! [to Almásy] Kirpal Singh (Kip)[ edit ] Look. See? Move that — and no more Bach. [to Hana after playing the piano] It's still there, the cannon, outside the museum. It was made of metal cups and bowls taken from every household in the city as tax, then melted down. Then later they fired the cannon at my people - comma - The natives - full stop. [reading from w:Kipling to Almásy] What I really object to, Uncle, is your finishing all my condensed milk —and the message everywhere in your book - however slowly I read it - that the best destiny for India is to be ruled by the British. [to Almásy] This is what I do. I do this every day.

[to Hana] Why are you people so threatened by a woman? [to Almásy, et.al.] I'm going to suprise her. It's our anniversary. She's forgotten, of course. [to Madox] Muller: Are thumbs fingers? [to Lieutenant] Muller: Ist ein Daumen ein Finger? Interrogation Room Soldier: [phone rings] Telefon. Muller: I'm sick of this room. I'm sick of this heat! And I'm sick of this damn telephone! [hangs it up] Almásy: There is no God... but I hope someone looks after you. Madox: Just in case you're interested, it's called the suprasternal notch. Come and visit us in Dorset when all this nonsense is over. [Heads away but turns back] Madox: You'll never come to Dorset. Officer: May I see your papers sir? Almásy: I'm sorry, I'm not making sense— forgive me— I, I'm—I've been walking, and I've-there's a woman badly injured at the Gilf Kebir ,—the Cave of Swimmers. I'm a member of the Royal Geographical Society.

Officer: Could you spell your name sir? Almásy: I have been walking for three days, I do not want to spell my name! The English Patient Summary - eNotes.com The English Patient Summary Homework Help The English Patient Summary French-Canadian nurse Hana has lost everything: her lover is dead, her father is dead, and she has had an abortion. Exhausted, she abandons her position and moves into the Villa San Girolamo, where she takes in the "English patient." The English patient tells Hana that he is, in fact, Hungarian. His name is Count Laszlo de Almásy, and he was a cartographer before he was injured in the war. The English patient had an affair with Katharine Clifton, whose husband Geoffrey was later revealed to be a spy for the British government. Geoffrey attempted to kill Almásy and Katharine in a plane crash. Almásy survived, but wasn't able to find help in time to save Katharine. Two more men come to live at the Villa San Girolamo: Kip and Caravaggio. Caravaggio suspects that the English patient was the one who caused him to lose his thumbs.

Kip has an affair with Hana, but later flees to India, leaving her alone. In the end, Hana agrees to help Almásy die. link Link In the Villa San Girolamo, Hana, Kirpal Singh, David Caravaggio, and Count Ladislaus de Almásy, the “English patient” of the novel’s title, come together at the end of World War II. Each is haunted by ghosts of the dead, and each tells stories of how he or she came to be injured physically or emotionally. In the villa, these individuals unite as a multicultural society, in retreat from battle, their community ironically shattered at the war’s end. The Canadian Hana is exhausted from nursing the wounded and the dying, her lover has died in the war, and she has aborted their child. Haunted by the ghosts of lover and child, she discovers that her father has died of burns in France, another casualty of battle. Hana asks to remain in the villa after the other hospital personnel and patients have left for safety in Pisa, caring for the burned and dying English patient, a surrogate for her dead father.

The English patient, the Hungarian Count de Almásy, listens to Hana read to him and talks to Kirpal Singh and David Caravaggio, flickering in and out of his morphine-induced dreams of prewar desert explorations and an affair with Katharine Clifton. He remembers when Katharine’s husband Geoffrey learned of their affair and attempted to kill all of them in 1939, crashing his plane in the Libyan desert when he and Katharine came to pick up Almásy. However, Geoffrey succeeded only in killing himself and injuring Katharine. Almásy had buried Geoffrey and carried Katharine into the Cave of Swimmers, promising to return as soon as he could get help. However, the British soldiers he found refused to listen to him, believing him a German spy. They imprisoned him so that he could not get back... (The entire section is 700 words.) Get Free Access Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to this resource and thousands more. 30,000+ Study Guides Save time with thousands of teacher-approved book and topic summaries. Get Homework Help Ask real teachers questions on any subject or search 300,000+ answers.

On the Go Access Are you a teacher or educator? Find out about our Teacher’s Edition . More Content: Summary (hide) link Link Near the end of World War II in 1945, the Villa San Girolamo in Tuscany, Italy—a former nunnery and German headquarters—has become a badly bombed out Allied military hospital. All the hospital staff and patients have moved on with the Allies, who are advancing across Europe. The only ones left behind are Hana, a twenty-year-old Canadian nurse from Toronto, and her badly burned and unidentifiable dying patient, who is believed to be English. Hana is joined at the villa by David Caravaggio—an Allied spy from Toronto who is a friend of her father—and Kirpal (Kip) Singh, a Punjabi Indian military engineer, or sapper, who works for the British army dismantling and defusing bombs. This motley foursome spends the summer of 1945 together in the villa. All four characters have experienced losses due to the war. Hana’s father, Patrick, and her lover have both been killed in action, and she miscarried the child she conceived with that lover.

The English patient—Count Ladislaus de Almásy—was forced to abandon his injured former lover, Katharine Clifton, after her husband intentionally crashed an airplane in an attempt to kill all three of them; he was prevented from returning to her rescue by the outbreak of the war. Caravaggio, an Italian Canadian thief turned spy, lost his thumbs when he was captured and interrogated by the Germans. Kip left his home in Punjab to fight in the war in Europe and lost his mentor, Lord Suffolk, when a bomb that Suffolk had been trying to defuse exploded. The four main characters also experience a loss of home and identity in their war-torn setting: All are foreigners in Tuscany. Over the course of the summer of 1945, Kip and Hana (who celebrates her twenty-first birthday that summer) become intimate but celibate friends, but celibate for only one month. Caravaggio, who has become addicted to morphine, takes it upon himself to uncover the identity of the “English” patient through the use of morphine, to which the patient is also addicted. Almásy’s history is revealed nonchronologically, in bits and pieces....

(The entire section is 846 words.) Get Free Access link Link The English Patient is Ondaatje’s most conventional novel, but it retains many characteristics of his earlier works in its shifting viewpoints, its use of historical documents, and its insistence on the ambiguity of truth. It won the Man Booker Prize in 1992. As the novel begins, Hana, a young Canadian nurse, has been left in charge of a badly burned patient who seems to have been shot down while flying over the desert. They are the only inhabitants of the Italian villa that had been used as a hospital until the close of World War II, when staff and patients moved elsewhere. Hana often puzzles over the notebook the patient has made from an old copy of Herodotus’s Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b.c.e.; The History, 1709). Most of his entries concern the Arabian desert. Hana is joined in the villa by Caravaggio, a thief whose thumbs have been cut off. He accuses her of being in love with the English patient, but she denies it, saying that she thinks he is a “despairing saint” whom she wants to protect.

Soon the three are joined by Kip, a young Indian explosives expert. Kip is a detached and solitary person who sleeps in his tent at the edge of the villa’s grounds. After Hana helps him defuse a bomb, they are drawn into a love affair, although Caravaggio is also vying for Hana’s attention. The novel’s fourth section concerns the events that happened to an expedition... (The entire section is 512 words.) link Link Revisiting characters from In the Skin of a Lion, The English Patient opens with Hana, a Canadian nurse, newly arrived with her English patient at the ruined Villa San Girolamo. The patient, Almasy, once a desert explorer, has been burned over his entire body. Soon the two are joined by Caravaggio, a Canadian thief conscripted as a spy, and Kirpal “Kip” Singh, an Indian bomb-detonator. Ondaatje immediately reveals the intensity of recent suffering in the group’s sharpened perceptions. Indeed, the entire book is expressed in the striking imagery characteristic of poetry.

Hana drops a peeled plum into the mouth of Almasy, whom she calls her “despairing saint” with the “hipbones of Christ.” Emphasizing the crucial role of imagination in shaping identity, the Christ-like patient becomes the blank tablet on which the villa inhabitants begin to carve their new selves. Kip and Almasy develop a bond based on their mutual knowledge of explosives and weapons. For Hana, mourning her father, baby, and lover, Almasy represents someone to nurture. Caravaggio, in contrast, blames Almasy for the mutilation of his thumbs on grounds that Almasy was once a German spy; he increases his morphine to make him talk. The novel relies heavily on punning—Kip is a pun on Kim, the hero of Rudyard Kipling’s story and a mutilation of his actual name, Kirpal. In fact, mutilation becomes a key theme as the characters’ mutilated identities are healed through allegiance to nationality. Leading the way,... (The entire section is 625 words.) The English Patient The English Patient Last revised: Dec-06-2006 Summary It is part of the interest of this film that it is not easily summarized.

The present tense of the film is the final year of World War II, the setting a bomb-damaged villa in the hills north of Florence, the action four characters seeking shelter there and attempting to undo some of the damage of the war. The title character (Ralph Fiennes), whose identity is a mystery at the beginning of the film, was badly burned all over his body when his plane crashed in the desert. He lies in a bed, morphine deadening his pain and loosening his memory, reminiscing about a love affair with Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his career in military intelligence as a desert expert The young Canadian nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche), emotionally shut down as the result of her work in the war and the death of her lover, has refused to withdraw with her Red Cross unit and lovingly tends to the badly burned patient and develops an intimate relation with Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh munitions expert who by day disarms unexploded mines and bombs.

An American nicknamed Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), a criminal who has been recruited by military intelligence, shows up and probes with increasing intensity into the mystery of the history and identity of the "English" patient, who he believes in some way responsible for the amputation of his thumbs by the Germans. Much of the film consists of flashbacks through the point of view of the English patient, who it turns out is a Hungarian count, Laszlo Almasy, an explorer and geographer of the north African desert, who in his deep devotion to Katherine Clifton did in fact commit a treasonous act that indirectly led to Caravaggio's amputations. The film ends with Caravaggio finally forgiving the badly wounded Almasy, Hana granting Almasy's request of a peaceful death, and she herself leaving for Florence, where we expect she will meet Kip, who has just been reassigned there. Commentary Like the lyrically written novel on which it is based, this film is at heart a story about borders (political, geographical, and domestic), the wounds caused by the conflicts they raise, and the process of healing those wounds.

All the major characters in the present except Kip have been deeply wounded by a war based on national divisions, and the patient, the most obviously wounded, has lost his lover Katherine Clifton to a combination of personal and national jealousies. In the present tense of the narrative, the patient's grotesquely scarred face and his pain are the central exhibit of the film--saying, in effect, this is the result of dividing things up stupidly. Hana's deep caring is given without knowledge of the identity of the wounded man, who, it turns out, has subverted the divisive conventions of nationality and patriotism in the name of love. The patient's love of the desert adds resonance to this theme, the desert being to him and his fellow explorers the place that defies nationalism and allows those it attracts to devote themselves to "something finer than that." (The last wish of the dying Katherine Clifton, read from her notes by Hana: "A life without maps.") Frequent shots of planes flying through beautiful desert landscapes and images of the ancient painted images of swimming humans in a desert cave help to build the film's anti-boundary thematic foundation.

Hana's story is that of a wounded caregiver who heals herself through an almost fused, definitely against regulations relation (boundaries again) with the badly wounded Almasy, whose scorched and scarred skin looks the way we imagine she feels. For Caravaggio, healing from his anger comes partly through the confession he extracts from Almasy and partly though sympathy for Almasy's undeniably deep suffering. The film is quite true to the novel except that it spends less time developing Kip and entirely omits his sudden angry departure at the end, replacing the bleak intrusion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a mellower set of rewards for its suffering characters. Miscellaneous Based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje. Screenplay by Anthony Minghella. Winner of many awards, including Oscar for Best Picture, Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama, and both awards to Juliette Binoche for Best Supporting Actress.

Primary Source The English Patient Plays Casablanca by David Aaron Murray | Articles | First Things by David Aaron Murray May 1997 If it does nothing else, the success of the film version of The English Patient (nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture) proves that the secret to postmodern film technique lies more in the way the story gets packaged than in the story itself. Hide a commonplace sentiment behind layers of montage, bricolage, multiple viewpoints, time shifts, and dazzling cinematography and music. Keep the plot ends loose for the first third of the film. Cut back and forth from a ruined villa in World War II Italy, in which a mysterious English patient with a burned face is recovering from being shot down over the North African desert, to his remembered past. Make it disjointed and strange, like a Hallmark card cut apart and reassembled into a Cubist construction. But the Hallmark card nonetheless remains, and The English Patient proves that sentimentalism can survive endless adaptation”even postmodern film techniques.

Count Laszlo Almasy, the title character (his being called  The English Patient  is meant to be ironic), was, before being shot down, a Hungarian on an international team mapping the North African desert on the eve of World War II. He is in an Italian villa because Hana, his army nurse, has defied her superiors in order to stay behind with him while he dies. When a mysterious Canadian named Caravaggio intrudes on the idyll in the ruined villa, it turns out that he and Hana come from within two blocks of each other in Montreal. Almasy protests, Why should where we come from be so important? I don’t like it. Hana demurs, arguing that in wartime these things become important. The desert-mapping team is supposed to embody a fleeting cosmopolitanism, since it comprises Englishmen, Canadians, a Hungarian, and some Arabs.

One of the team members says wistfully on the eve of war, Countries didn’t mean anything to us out there, did they? The mapping team is joined by Geoffrey Clifton, a dashing aristocrat and pilot who later turns out to be secretly working for the British government in anticipation of war. Even though the film goes out of its way to show what a nice guy he is, he’s working for the old world that still believes in boundaries and borders, while Laszlo and Clifton’s wife Katherine enter into an affair that takes them into an emotional desert beyond all boundaries. Even though Katherine insists that the one thing she hates is a lie, she finds herself fornicating with her lover while, a short distance away, her husband plays Santa Claus to the British troops in Cairo. There are references to numerous films and novels in The English Patient . A volume of Herodotus’ Histories plays an important symbolic part, Anna Karenina is mentioned, and there are references to Lawrence of Arabia. But the inverted parallels to the 1942 film Casablanca are most striking.

In fact, The English Patient can be regarded, in part, as a deconstruction of Casablanca , an anti- Casablanca that turns all the assumptions of the older film on their heads. You could say that The English Patient answers the question that all Bogie-lovers have been carrying around for decades: What if Ilsa had stayed behind with Rick? But there is more than that. Imagine a Rick who willingly gives the letters of transit to Major Strasser, a Victor Laszlo who tries to kill Rick and maybe Ilsa too, and you’ve got the flavor of this film. In Casablanca the good-guy husband is named Laszlo; in The English Patient it’s the tortured lover. A drunken Rick makes an ass of himself when Ilsa first visits him alone. A jealousy-crazed Almasy makes an ass of himself in front of a roomful of people after Katherine breaks off the affair. Ilsa says to Rick, One woman has hurt you, and you’ll take your revenge on the rest of the world. Almasy revenges himself on the British for not helping him rescue Katherine by giving valuable maps to the Germans.

Almasy’s last words to Katherine when he leaves her are, I’ll never leave you. In their last exchange at the airport, Ilsa says to Rick, Last night, I said I’d never leave you. Rick: And you never will. Casablanca was a brilliant piece of propaganda justifying formerly isolationist America’s participation in the good war. For all its sex appeal, Rick’s bitter self-pity was ultimately to be understood as regressive. Casablanca , too, was concerned with nationality. Remember Rick’s answer to Colonel Strasser’s question, What nationality are you? I’m a drunkard. By the end of the film he’s emerging from his isolation and making necessary alliances, even with the morally questionable Captain Reynaud, who achieves his own regeneration. Reynaud teasingly accuses Rick, Not only are you a sentimentalist, but you’ve become a patriot. But of course, beyond sentiment or patriotism, Rick and Louis’ moral choices involve the recognition of a larger struggle between good and evil going on, not simply a struggle between countries.

It’s too much to call Katherine an anti-Ilsa; she’s more of an Anna Karenina, in that we never understand her motive for the affair. But Almasy is definitely an anti-Rick. Like Rick, he is a brooding loner. Rick, however, has an activist past. We know nothing of Almasy before he joins the mapping team, except for a few details the film encourages us to regard as misleading: he is a Hungarian count who speaks German and has a mysterious French document in his treasured copy of Herodotus. In Casablanca , Victor Laszlo tells Rick that he’s trying to run away from himself and can never succeed. In The English Patient , Almasy does succeed; his affair with Katherine is his running away from himself, to his and everyone else’s destruction. In The English Patient , the fundamental things definitely do not apply. The characters in this film make choices, too, but then pretend that their choices simply happen to them. After Katherine breaks off the affair, Almasy broodily returns to his desert mapping. Geoff Clifton flies down from Cairo to pick him up, and crashes his bi-plane with Katherine inside.

We’re not sure whether Clifton is trying to run Almasy down, or simply to commit suicide and kill Katherine. Almasy carries the injured Katherine to the nearby Cave of Swimmers, which contains primitive rock paintings, and promises to return. Almasy walks three days through the desert to get help. Instead of helping him retrieve Katherine, the British soldiers in Cairo distrust him because of his foreign name and arrest him. This ill-treatment (one British soldier calls him Fritz) apparently is enough to justify Almasy’s handing over his maps to the Germans (after murdering a British guard and escaping captivity) in exchange for their help in returning him to Katherine’s cave. Never mind that thousands of innocent people will die during the invasion of Tobruk as a result. As Almasy retorts to Caravaggio when they discuss the incident later in Italy, thousands of other innocent people would have died somewhere else in any case. War happens. We’re all caught up in an inchoate swirl of meaningless events, and the best we can do is to grab the passion while we can. Almasy’s passion has lifted him above these petty concerns, and besides, the British were mean to him.

The subplot involving Caravaggio, a Canadian spy in Cairo who is caught and tortured because Almasy’s betrayal allows the Germans to photograph him, is awkwardly melodramatic. In revenge for his mutilation by the Germans, Caravaggio has tracked down and killed all who were responsible, with only Almasy left. Caravaggio would seem like a voice for moral responsibility when he protests to Almasy, What you did had consequences!”one consequence being that one of Almasy’s British teammates in the desert commits suicide when he learns that Almasy has sold out to the Germans. But Caravaggio declines to kill him in the end, presumably out of admiration for the depth of his passion. In one of the film’s less felicitous lines, Almasy says, You can’t kill me; I died long ago. If this means anything, it means that an experience of passion like that of Almasy and Katherine lifts one above petty concerns like morality and personal responsibility. We’re meant to see that Caravaggio recognizes the fruitlessness of the quest for moral responsibility, or perhaps that his revenge is no more noble than Almasy’s.

War and passion have happened to Almasy, and he’s not responsible; killing him would be pointless. A short time later, Hana achieves her own transcendence of the fundamental things by giving Almasy a fatal overdose of morphine at his request. We are apparently to understand that she is maturing. Her motivation for staying behind with Almasy in the first place was that everyone she loved has been killed, and she wanted to hold onto at least one patient. But now she is facing her fears and realizing herself”by becoming a killer (albeit a sympathetic one). Hana’s action is consistent with the only messages of the film: No boundaries, and We are the countries. A superficial reading of the film might see gestures toward a kind of cosmopolitanism or internationalism: the polyglot mapping team; the conversation between Caravaggio, Hana, and Almasy; and the remark about countries meaning nothing in the desert. Indeed, director Anthony Minghella has been encouraging some such interpretation in interviews. But all this is a feint. The second message completely negates internationalism, or any kind of public involvement.

The only character in The English Patient who comes close to Victor Laszlo is Geoff Clifton”both are nice guys selflessly working for a larger cause. But when it comes to his wife’s infidelity, Clifton cannot control his emotions or offer forgiveness as Victor Laszlo can. (It’s also true, of course, that Katherine’s betrayal is much less excusable than Ilsa’s.) What’s really celebrated in this film is not cosmopolitanism or internationalism but a moral and spiritual isolationism more profound than that which Casablanca was trying to disturb. The lack of boundaries The English Patient celebrates is not that of cosmopolitanism but that of narcissism, the chief symptom of which is the inability of the self to feel or recognize proper boundaries of feeling. With Katherine’s final diary entry”a lot of blather about how we should die with our bodies marked by all of our intense experiences (including, in a bit of gender blurring, bodies we’ve entered)”the film descends rapidly into a bathos from which it never recovers. Katherine’s diary, read by the alternating voices of Katherine and Hana, provides the overinflation of sentiment.

If we are the countries, then our troubles don’t just amount to less than a hill of beans in a world that’s larger then we are. Instead, our tawdry love affairs and betrayals acquire the drama of armies marching and empires collapsing (as suggested by the way Almasy stores his personal mementos between the pages of Herodotus). The point here is to make nationalism and mapmaking into symbols for a traditional moral order”the fundamental things of Casablanca . The film suggests that people who believe in maps and countries, those nasty things that uptight Europeans created and that caused World War II, are like people who believe that adultery is wrong. They’re both hung up on boundaries, unlike the brave new narcissists who know that the only things that matter in life are me and my intense personal experiences. There is really no more to the central point of this film than can be shown in a sixty-second ad for Nike, Calvin Klein perfume, or any other of the increasing number of products that can be sold by images of two faux-sweaty bodies rubbing together.

That’s presumably why David Denby, on the Charlie Rose show, waxed eloquent about the texture of the film. Our visual expectations”and moral sensibilities”have been so influenced by elegantly nihilistic TV commercials that it reassures us to find them at the heart of such putatively complex, high-brow films as The English Patient . David Aaron Murray teaches humanities and literature at Maryville University in St. Louis. He is currently working on a book about gnosticism and literary theory. SparkNotes: The English Patient: Chapter IX The English Patient page 1 of 3 Summary The English patient talks about "how one falls in love." He tells about the first time he ever saw Katharine, as she was emerging from a plane. She was too eager for his taste, and her husband Geoffrey, still in the flush of honeymoon, could not stop singing the praises of his new wife. After a month in Cairo, Katharine was more muted, reading constantly, but her husband was still young and excited. The English patient was fifteen years older than Katharine, and cynical about everlasting love. She was hungry for change, however: she learned everything she could read about the desert, and she grew up quickly.

Geoffrey's praise meant very little to Katharine, but she was charmed by the English patient's nuance. When she asked if she could read his Herodotus, he gracefully declined to give it to her, as his notes were in it. But he promised to show it to her when he returned from his journey. When he did return from the journey, which had been successful, Geoffrey threw a party for him. Before the party, he loaned Katharine his Herodotus to read as she pleased. At the party, Katharine chose to read a famous story from Herodotus, but one the English patient usually skips over. It was the story of a very beautiful queen whose husband, the king, praised her beauty all the time. The king was telling a man named Gyges of his wife's beauty, but she was so beautiful that the king wanted Gyges to see for himself. So he arranged for Gyges to sneak into her room and hide in order to watch her while she undressed. The queen saw Gyges sneak out of her room and realized what her husband had done.

The next day, she called for Gyges and offered him one of two options: either to slay his friend the king and thus possess her and the kingdom, or to stand there and be slain immediately. Gyges kills the king and reigns with the queen for twenty-eight years. After Katharine finishes this anecdote, which seems quite human and familiar, the English patient realizes he is in love with her. In the months that followed, the patient and Katharine would be in the same company frequently, as they traveled in similar circles. She and Geoffrey were stationed in Cairo and moving in the circles of the city's society. The pateient would go to events just to see her, and could think of little besides her body, which became the inspiration for one of his books. Naturally, he grew more formal around her, as he did not want her to know of his secret thoughts. One day, at a formal garden party, Katharine came to him and said simply, "I want you to ravish me." After that, the English patient became her lover, and they would steal glances and touches everywhere. The only person they had to avoid was Geoffrey.

However, Geoffrey was enmeshed in the circle of British aristocracy, and had a strong web of relations who watched out for him and would let him know if they ever found out about his young wife's infidelity. Katharine became frustrated at what she called the patient's "inhumanity," his hatred of ownership, of identity, of being owned. She needed words to convince her that she was special to him, but he had none for her. She decided to leave him and go back to her husband. The English patient remembers Madox, his best friend in the desert for ten years. Madox could describe his love of the desert in words, whereas the patient could only write factually about the environment around him. The two friends were different in many ways. Madox, for one thing, was entirely faithful to his wife in England. The English patient never knew for certain whether Madox knew about his relationship with Katharine, but he suspected he did. When Madox returned to England at the start of the war in 1939, he and his wife went to church, where they heard a very jingoistic sermon from the priest in support of the war.

Madox took out his desert pistol and shot himself right on the spot. The patient reasons that Madox was a man who died because of nations. 1

Question: Count Almasy is the name of which eponymous literary character?
Answer: The English Patient