By John Charles
Edmonton Express in the Sunday Sun
28 January, 1996
It's being filmed and the kid from Cowley, Geordie Johnson, is in it. He filmed his scenes in Tuscany, Italy last fall.
"I play Dr. Oliver, who's not in the novel. He's the head of the Canadian mobile hospital, like a MASH unit, in Italy, in the Second World War.
The director is Anthony Minghella, who made Truly, Madly, Deeply for the BBC, which was later released in movie theatres and quite highly praised by critics everywhere, I may add.
"He's written a fabulous script. He's managed to keep both the sense of forward action and yet retain many esoteric things that make the book so remarkable, like Ondaatje's surreal feeling and his poetry. It jumps back and forth in time and space, but each time you make the jump you're looking for new information, so there's a mystery element," says Johnson.
Ralph (Schindler's List) Fiennes plays the unknown English-speaking patient who is burned from head to toe.
French sensation Juliette Binoche plays Hana, the nurse who is the central character. All of Johnson's scenes are with her.
Also starring are Willem Dafoe, Lothaire Bluteau (Jesus of Montreal, Black Robe), and Colin Firth, who played Mr. Darcy in TV's recent Jane Austen miniseries, Pride and Prejudice, on A&E.
"Ondaatje was on the set for a week and he was just great. It was one of those situations where a writer watches his work actually coming to life, being translated into another medium, and I think he was thrilled."
Johnson, several years ago, read the novel's first half, then forgot to pack it when going to Europe for TV filming. He finished it four months later.
"I was intensely compelled as I seldom have been, in terms of having to deal with death, of trying to keep going in spite of it. I'd been through that in a personal way, but this was on such a large, incessant scale."
At first Johnson had a problem with Minghella's directing style. "In a film I like to be directed technically, know what the setup is so I can fill the whole thing in. Dafoe is the same way.
"But Anthony likes to 'suggest' things. He'd say, 'Don't worry about where the camera is, don't worry about the chalk marks on the floor. Finally I said, 'Anthony, knowing these things helps my performance!" and he looked at me like 'This isn't the actor I thought I was hiring.' But next time he told me and saw that it did work. In the end, he was terrific and very sensitive."
Johnson says there are some images he can't wait to see, such as "the Bedouin oil and spice peddler, carrying his little jars on a yoke around his neck, emerging from the heat waves while the jars jingle."
The film has two locations, Tuscany and the desert, and the latter scenes are being shot now. Johnson estimates The English Patient will be released in late fall.
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