The Handmaid's Tale (film)

The Handmaid's Tale is a 1990 film adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff, the film stars Natasha Richardson (Kate/Offred), Faye Dunaway (Serena Joy), Robert Duvall (The Commander, Fred), Aidan Quinn (Nick), and Elizabeth McGovern (Moira). The screenplay was written by Harold Pinter. The original music score was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto. MGM Home Entertainment released an Avant-Garde Cinema DVD of the film in 2001. The film was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.

Plot summary

In the near future war rages across the fictional Republic of Gilead and pollution has rendered 99% of the population sterile. Kate is a woman attempting to emigrate to Canada with her husband and daughter. While attempting to take a dirt road, they are caught by the Gilead Border Guard, who orders them to turn back or they will open fire. Kate's husband uses an automatic rifle to draw the fire, telling Kate to run, but he gets shot, Kate gets captured, whilst their daughter wanders off into the backcountry confused and unaccompanied. The authorities take Kate to a training facility with several other women, where they are all trained to become a Handmaid, a concubine for one of the privileged but barren couples who rule the country's religious fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the cult of the Handmaids, mixing Old Testament orthodoxy and misogyny with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate is soon assigned to the home of the Commander and his cold, inflexible wife, Serena Joy. There she is renamed "Offred" - "of Fred".

The Handmaid

The Handmaid may refer to:

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a dystopian novel, a work of speculative fiction, by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. Set in the near future, in a totalitarian Christian theocracy which has overthrown the United States government, The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain agency. The novel's title was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which is a series of connected stories ("The Merchant's Tale", "The Parson's Tale", etc.)

The Handmaid's Tale won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It has been adapted for the cinema, radio, opera, and stage.

Plot summary

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.

Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. They are quickly able to take away all of women's rights, largely attributed to financial records being stored electronically and labelled by gender. The new regime, the Republic of Gilead, moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. In this society, almost all women are forbidden to read.

Elisabeth Moss

Elisabeth Singleton Moss (born July 24, 1982) is an American actor, known for her roles as Zoey Bartlet, the youngest daughter of President Josiah Bartlet, on the NBC television series The West Wing (1999–2006); Peggy Olson, secretary-turned-copywriter on the AMC series, Mad Men (2007–2015), which earned her six Emmy Awards nominations and one Golden Globe nomination; and Det. Robin Griffin in the BBC miniseries Top of the Lake (2013), the last of which won her a Golden Globe and Satellite Awards for Best Actress in a Miniseries and/or TV film.

Early life and career

Elisabeth Moss was born in 1982 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of musicians. She was first seen onscreen in 1990, when she appeared in the NBC miniseries Lucky/Chances.

From 1992 until 1995, Moss appeared as Cynthia Parks in seven episodes of the TV series Picket Fences. She provided the voice of Holly DeCarlo, a main character in the TV special Frosty Returns (1992) and of Michelle in the animated film Once Upon a Forest (1993). She appeared in the television remake of the 1993 film Gypsy (2013) and played Harvey Keitel's younger daughter in the film Imaginary Crimes (1994). The following year, she appeared in the remake of the Walt Disney Pictures film Escape to Witch Mountain (1995) and played a young Ashley Judd in the TV-movie biopic Love Can Build A Bridge (1995).

Tale

A tale is a narrative.

Tale may also refer to:

See also