Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture

THE HUMAN STAIN

byStaff writers
21 March 2004
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris
Director: Robert Benton
Rated: MA15+

There are many interesting themes in The Human Stain but whether it dramatises them all effectively, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Novelist Philip Roth is best known for such novels as Goodbye Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint, both filmed with a young Richard Benjamin in 1969 and 1973.

The Human Stain was written in the late 1990s, at the time of the scandal of President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky (to which there are many references and questions about truth, society and government). In fact, the basic theme of the film is truth.

Coleman Silk went to university in the early 1940s, a young man from a black family who not only passed for white but chose to separate himself from his family and pass for Jewish.

Wentworth Miller is very good as the young Silk. The older Silk is played by Anthony Hopkins with a mixture of anger, resentment and wistfulness. The film intercuts between the 1990s and the 1940s.

Silk has become the victim of academic ‘political correctness’ applied rigidly, but he also becomes the victim of his emotions as he begins an affair with a strange young woman, a janitor at the university who has a history of family abuse. They begin to depend on each other, with fatal consequences.

The woman is not immediately recognisable as Nicole Kidman (except for her height).

Criticised as too glamorous for Cold Mountain, she is not criticised as not being credible as a janitor. However, she does given an interesting performance.

In the background are Ed Harris as Kidman’s insane husband and Gary Sinise as the sympathetic novelist whom Hopkins befriends. It is he who tells the story.

Related Stories

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

The story is one of hopes and disappointments, masks and lies, of a chance at a last love.

Christians may think of original sin as the human stain. Roth, whose background is Jewish, is quoted as agreeing with this.

Everyone puts their mark on the world, and each in their own way, adds a human stain.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS

Next Post

Papal audience for archbishop

Staff writers

Related Posts

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village
News

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village
News

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022
Next Post

Papal audience for archbishop

Network of support for visa seekers

Anti-abortion stand praised

Popular News

  • From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Catholic environmentalist says Australia has failed as God’s caretakers of earth following interim report

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

by Mark Bowling
24 May 2022
0

BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge has used the feast day of Our Lady, Help of Christians to call...

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022
Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

23 May 2022

From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

23 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping