‘Out of Africa’ competition

Press, 13 March 1986, Page 18

‘Out of Africa’ competition

To mark tomorrow’s opening at the Savoy of Sydney Pollack’s ‘‘Out of Africa,” which has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards, United International Pictures is offering 10 books on the film, 10 double passes and five cassette recordings of the film music for the winners of the following competition.

Meryl Streep, who has already won two Oscars, has been nominated for another best-actress Academy Award for her role in "Out of Africa;” while Robert Redford, who has still to win an Oscar, has appeared in many memorable roles during his distinguished career.

List as many films as possible by both Streep and Redford. The 10 persons who have named the most films by both actors will win a copy of the book and a double pass to see "Out of Africa." The five nearest runners-up will receive cassettes of the music.

Please send your entries to “Out of Africa” Competition, At the Cinema, "The Press,” P.O. Box 1005, Christchurch. Entries will close mid-day on Tuesday, and the winners will be announced in this column next Thursday.

Besides Streep’s nomination for best actress, “Out of Africa” has also been nominated for best picture (Pollack), best direction (Pollack), best supporting actor (Klaus Maria Brandauer), best screenplay based on material from another medium (Kurt Luedlke), best original score (John Barry), best cinematography (David Watkin), best film editing, best art direction, best costume design and best sound. Over the years, many film-makers have tried to

adapt Isak Dinesen’s novel, “Out of Africa,” to the screen. Appropriately in 1985, the centenary of her birth, Sydney Pollack realised that dream.

“Out of Africa” is the Danish writer’s account of her life on a Kenyan coffee farm in the early part of this century.

"It’s never been an easy picture to solve; there’s not much narrative drive,” says Pollack. "It’s a pastorale, a beautifully formed memoir that relied on her prose style, her sense of poetry and her* ability to discover large truths in very small, specific details. That’s difficult to translate to film.”

Karen Blixen (Dinesen was her maiden name and Isak her nom de plume) arrived in Kenya in 1914 to start a new life with her Swedish cousin, Baron Bror Blixen (Brandauer), and raise cattle. Bror, however, had already invested her money in a coffee farm, a risky though, he believed, less demanding enterprise. Their life together was

not everything she had hoped for, and his incorrigible promiscuity soon put a strain on their marriage — then, enter the Great White Hunter (Redford).

hans petrovic