Iris Murdoch

La Marató 2005 (2005)

Actors: Michael J. Fox (actor), Kirk Douglas (actor), Henry Fonda (actor), Alfonso del Real (actor), Jaume Balagueró (actor), Robert Carlyle (actor), Jim Broadbent (actor), Héctor Alterio (actor), Charles Bronson (actor), Robert De Niro (actor), Richard Burton (actor), Sergio Dalma (actor), Ricardo Darín (actor), Daniel Day-Lewis (actor), Peter Gabriel (actor),

Genres: ,

Iris (2001)

Actors: Scott Rudin (producer), David M. Thompson (producer), Anthony Minghella (producer), Penelope Wilton (actress), Eleanor Bron (actress), Sydney Pollack (producer), Kate Winslet (actress), Timothy West (actor), Judi Dench (actress), Samuel West (actor), Hugh Bonneville (actor), Guy East (producer), Jim Broadbent (actor), James Horner (composer), Harvey Weinstein (producer),

Plot: Iris, based on the life of revered British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch, is a story of unlikely yet enduring love. As a young academic, teaching philosophy at Oxford, Murdoch meets and eventually falls in love with fellow professor John Bayley, a man whose awkwardness seems in stark opposition to the spirited self-confidence of his future wife. The story unfolds as snippets of time, seen through Bayley's eyes. He recalls their first encounter over 40 years ago, activities they enjoyed doing together, and Iris' charismatic and individualistic personality. These images portray Murdoch as a vibrant young woman with great intellect and are contrasted with the novelist's later life, after the effects of Alzheimer's disease have ravaged her. Murdoch's great mind deteriorates until she is reduced to a mere vestige of her former self, unable to perform simple tasks and completely reliant on her at times frustrated yet devoted husband.

Keywords: acceptance, adultery, alzheimer's-disease, author, bare-breasts, based-on-book, beach, belief, bicycling, bisexual
Genres: Biography, Drama, Romance,
Taglines: Her greatest talent was for life

Quotes:

Iris Murdoch: There is only one freedom of any importance, freedom of the mind.

Young Iris Murdoch: [to John] You know more about me than anyone. You are my world.

Iris Murdoch: I... wrote?::John Bayley: Yes, my darling, clever cat! You wrote books.::Iris Murdoch: Books... I wrote?::John Bayley: You wrote novels. Wonderful novels.::Iris Murdoch: I... wrote...::John Bayley: Such things you wrote. Special things. Secret things.

Young John Bayley: I could get in trouble, having women in my room.::Young Iris Murdoch: I wouldn't say you'd had me, just yet.

Iris Murdoch: Education doesn't make you happy. And what is freedom? We don't become happy just because we are free, if we are. Or because we have been educated, if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears. Tells use where delights are lurking. Convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever: that of the mind. And give us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.

Iris Murdoch: People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.

Iris Murdoch: Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.

Iris Murdoch: Every human soul has seen, perhaps before their birth pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honour. We are moved towards what is good by the faint memory of these forms simple and calm and blessed which we saw once in a pure, clear light being pure ourselves.

Young Iris Murdoch: Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.

Sparkling Cyanide (1983)

Actors: Josef Sommer (actor), Robert Michael Lewis (director), Juan Fernández (actor), Agatha Christie (writer), Deborah Raffin (actress), Harry Morgan (actor), Anthony Andrews (actor), Nancy Marchand (actress), Stan Margulies (producer), Ismael 'East' Carlo (actor), Eric Sinclair (actor), David Saxon (editor), James Di Pasquale (composer), Michael Woods (actor), David Huffman (actor),

Plot: A socialite while having dinner with her husband, her sister, her aunt, a friend of her sister and her husband, her husband's assistant and an English reporter, dies. It is later learned that she died from ingesting cyanide, Initially it is believed she may have given it to herself because she's having emotional problems. But her husband gets a note saying she was murdered so he tries to prove it and part of his plan to bring out the people who were there when his wife died. He gives a toast then everybody gets up to dance or do something. When they return, he takes a drink of champagne and drops dead. So they wonder how the cyanide got into his glass. Her sister who has taken a liking to the reporter learns he is actually an investigator. And he works with the police to find the killer.

Keywords: based-on-novel, murder, poison
Genres: Mystery, Thriller,

United! (1965)

Actors: John Breslin (actor), Kynaston Reeves (actor), Basil Dignam (actor), Ballard Berkeley (actor), David Lodge (actor), Jean Kent (actress), Harold Goodwin (actor), Finlay Currie (actor), Bryan Marshall (actor), Graham Armitage (actor), Rudolph Walker (actor), Paul Whitsun-Jones (actor), John Gabriel (actor), Hilary Mason (actress), William Lucas (actor),

Genres: Drama, Sport,