Film 2008 · Based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink The Reader
One story. Two mediums.
A legacy of silence.
Stephen Daldry’s film of Bernhard Schlink’s novel “Der Vorleser”: the story, the cast, Kate Winslet’s Oscar, the shoot in Germany and what the book tells differently.
A story of love, silence and moral responsibility.
A book, a trial and a secret
In a West German city in 1958, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg falls ill with jaundice on his way home from school. A woman he does not know helps him: Hanna Schmitz, a 36-year-old tram conductor. When he comes back to thank her, an affair begins, and it soon follows a ritual. Before they sleep together, Michael reads aloud to her, from the Odyssey, from Schiller and Lessing, from Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”. Then, one day, Hanna is gone without a word.
Years later Michael is a law student. His seminar follows a trial of former guards from a concentration camp, and in the dock he recognises Hanna. During the proceedings he understands what she has hidden all her life: she cannot read or write. Rather than admit it, she accepts responsibility for a report she could never have written and receives a life sentence. Michael could tell the court. He stays silent.
- DIRECTOR
- Stephen Daldry
- SCREENPLAY
- David Hare
- PRODUCERS
- Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti, Redmond Morris
- CAST
- Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Lena Olin, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara
- MUSIC
- Nico Muhly
- CAMERA
- Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
- BASED ON
- “Der Vorleser” by Bernhard Schlink
ONE2008FILM
From novel to screen
Thirteen years after the novel, Stephen Daldry brought the story to the cinema. David Hare wrote the screenplay; Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack were among the producers, together with Donna Gigliotti and Redmond Morris. The film was a German-American co-production with Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film, and it was shot in Germany: in Görlitz, whose old town stands in for the West German city of the 1950s, in Berlin, at Studio Babelsberg and in the Kirnitzsch valley near Bad Schandau. Nico Muhly wrote the score, and the cinematography is credited to Chris Menges and Roger Deakins.
Kate Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz. David Kross, then a young German actor, plays the teenage and student Michael, and Ralph Fiennes plays Michael as an adult. Lena Olin takes a double role as the survivor Rose Mather and her grown-up daughter Ilana, whom Alexandra Maria Lara plays as a young woman. Bruno Ganz is Professor Rohl, who leads the seminar at the trial, and the German cast includes Karoline Herfurth, Hannah Herzsprung as Michael’s daughter Julia, Susanne Lothar, Matthias Habich and Burghart Klaußner.
The film had its US release in December 2008, screened at the Berlinale on 6 February 2009 and opened in German cinemas on 26 February 2009, distributed by Senator. It runs 124 minutes and is rated FSK 12 in Germany. Worldwide it grossed around 108.9 million US dollars.
Kate Winslet’s Oscar
On 22 February 2009 Kate Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress for “The Reader”. It was one of five nominations for the film, alongside Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography. In the same season she also received the BAFTA for Best Actress, the Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe, the latter two in the supporting category. The film was also honoured at the European Film Awards.
Book and filmWhat the film tells differently
The novel is narrated by Michael in the first person, looking back. The film drops the voice-over and frames the story through the older Michael instead, moving between the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1990s. At the end he starts telling his daughter Julia about Hanna, a scene that does not exist in the book. The film is in English because Schlink wanted it that way. Several critics felt that the long reflections that carry the novel recede on screen.
The German-language pages of this site go further: a summary of all three parts, the characters, an interpretation of guilt, shame and illiteracy, the complete cast and locations of the film, and a portrait of the author Bernhard Schlink.
Frequently asked about “The Reader”
01Who wrote “The Reader”?
Bernhard Schlink, a German law professor and novelist born in 1944. The novel “Der Vorleser” was published in 1995 by Diogenes in Zurich and has been translated into more than 50 languages.
02Who directed the film “The Reader”?
Stephen Daldry directed it from a screenplay by David Hare. The producers included Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack. The film opened in the United States in December 2008 and in Germany on 26 February 2009.
03Did Kate Winslet win an Oscar for “The Reader”?
Yes. On 22 February 2009 she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Hanna Schmitz. The film received five nominations in total, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
04Where was “The Reader” filmed?
In Germany: mainly in Görlitz, in Berlin and at Studio Babelsberg, with further scenes in the Kirnitzsch valley near Bad Schandau in Saxony.
05Why is “The Reader” in English?
Bernhard Schlink wanted an English-language film. In his view, the story should not be read as an exclusively German matter but as a question about guilt and how a later generation deals with it.
06Is “The Reader” based on a true story?
No. Hanna and Michael are fictional. The novel draws on the real post-war trials of Nazi perpetrators in West Germany and on the debates of the generation born after the war.