Sweeping the sands: Geographies of desire in The English Patient

III

"[T]he sexual pleasure of conversation came to me only after I was married. I had never thought words erotic. Sometimes I really do like to talk more than fuck."

-"David Caravaggio," The English Patient

In addition to the sheer emotional effects of the film, The English Patient has generated considerable hype surrounding its status as an "independent film," suggesting that, like its characters, the film manages to transcend mainstream sentiments and situations.14 Articles in the popular press have pointed out how The English Patient was rescued by Miramax after Twentieth Century Fox pulled out as filming was set to begin, how it was not thought to warrant its $31 million budget, and how the casting of Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas were considered too risky since they were neither bankable stars nor even American (Svetkey 24-25). But the critical and box office successes of The English Patient have vindicated the choices made by Minghella and Zaentz et al. and transformed this visually stunning but topically predictable costume drama into a symbol of artistic integrity and personal conviction. As a result, a discomforting parallel has been obtained between the film's makers and its principle character in which the film itself plays Katharine Clifton to Minghella and Zaentz's Almasy; this time, however, our heroes get the girl. Minghella and Zaentz have been represented by themselves, by one another, and by the media as men whose belief in the film overcame profit-driven resistance. Zaentz has come to embody uncompromising integrity while Minghella has emerged as a romantic visionary working in a callous environment.15 In this way, not only has Minghella's adaptation of Ondaatje's novel all but elided questions of individual responsibility and complicity, of one's stake in enduring tropes like exoticism and the heterosexual romance, but the mythic narratives that have sprung up around Minghella and Zaentz have likewise pushed into the background questions regarding cinematic adaptation and the responsible uses of history in film. In its transformation from postmodern novel to popular film, the history of and in The English Patient represents a nostalgically dischronic move from history as discursive, indeterminate, and problematic back to a model that privileges the stories of exceptional individuals. Not merely the film, but the epiphenomena produced in and around its wake reinforce the notion that the personal, quite simply, is not only distinct from "mere politics" but that it is bigger, deeper, and therefore more meaningful as well.

In the introduction to the published screenplay, Michael Ondaatje differentiates between the experience of novel reading and film viewing. "A film was closer to the simulated excitement of a soccer stadium while books were a meditative and private act-you sat down to read one or write one and the first thing you did was ignore the rest of the world" (xiii). 16 Ironically, it is the soccer stadium excitement of Minghella's film that ultimately encourages us to ignore the rest of the world, and it is the private encounter with Ondaatje's novel that insists the world will always intrude upon our private longings, because that world is already out there, and our desires, our very selves, are wrought deep with its making.