Shadowlands
Short description
Shadowlands is a British drama based on the life of C. S. Lewis, the Oxford literature professor and author of the Chronicles of Narnia books. Lewis, known to those close to him as Jack, lives a quiet bachelor existence in Oxford with his brother Warnie, largely cut off from emotional life outside his teaching and writing. That routine is disrupted when Joy Gresham, an American poet and divorced mother who admires his work, travels to England with her son and seeks him out. What begins as an unlikely acquaintance develops into friendship and then into a marriage, initially arranged so that Joy can remain in the country, which deepens into a genuine and short-lived union.
The film was directed by Richard Attenborough, the tenth of the twelve features he directed between 1969 and 2007, arriving after Chaplin and before In Love and War. William Nicholson wrote the screenplay, adapting his own stage play, and Attenborough produced alongside Brian Eastman. Anthony Hopkins plays Lewis and Debra Winger plays Joy, with Edward Hardwicke as Warnie Lewis and supporting turns from John Wood, Michael Denison and Peter Firth among a credited cast of 46.
Made for a budget of 22 million dollars, Shadowlands took about 26 million dollars worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 22,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.9 from around 317 votes, showing a wider and warmer response among the larger IMDb audience. A critics' rating of 8.3 from 28 reviews places it noticeably above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Students and faculty of Magdalen College, Oxford, objected to restrictions on movement around the campus in April and May 1993, particularly as the imposition of these restrictions coincided with end-of-year exams. To prevent the students from disrupting filming, a meet-and-greet evening with the film's creative team was arranged for them at a local bar, attended by Attenborough, Hopkins, and Michael Denison (1915-1998).
- Sir Anthony Hopkins preferred to learn his lines independently, while Debra Winger required rehearsals on set for this purpose. The film's producer and director, Richard Attenborough (1923-2014), rehearsed with Winger, reading Hopkins' lines from a script.
- Scenes of traditional May Day celebrations in Oxford were genuinely filmed on the night of April 30th to May 1st and early in the morning of May 1st, 1993. A real choir was filmed on the tower (although not in full strength, as space was also needed for several crew members and filming equipment). The long shots of people below and on boats on the river were spoiled by descending fog, so the extras had to be called back for reshoots a week later.
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