Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

Timing: 2:0 (120 min)

7.034/10
276

7.533/10
2328

7.3/10
19000

All about film

Video 3

Photo 11

Actors and characters

Release date

1985-07-26

Country

Brazil, United States

Production

HB Filmes

Genre

Drama

Budget

$1 250 000

Revenue

$17 005 229

Website

Director

Héctor Babenco

Actors

William Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Sônia Braga, José Lewgoy, Miriam Pires, Milton Gonçalves, Patricio Bisso, Nuno Leal Maia, Denise Dumont, Herson Capri
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

David Weisman, Francisco Ramalho Jr.

Operator

Rodolfo Sánchez

Composer

Nando Cordeiro

Artist

Audition

Editing

Mauro Alice
All team (35)

• The first independent film nominated for an “Oscar” in the “Best Picture” category.
• During filming, Sonia Braga did not speak English, so she memorized her lines without understanding their meaning.
• William Hurt's “Oscar” for “Best Actor” was the first awarded for a role portraying an openly gay character.
• Interior scenes were filmed in a closed prison, exterior scenes – in São Paulo.
• After filming wrapped, William Hurt and Raúl Juliá (1940-1994) spent another five weeks doing voice work. This allowed the screenwriter, Leonard Schrader, to rewrite their dialogue to shift the emphasis in line with his original intentions. Work on the film concluded with the end of the post-production period, which lasted 14 months.
• Almost the entire film budget went to filming, so there was a catastrophic lack of money for post-production. Moreover, the producers planned to finish everything in two months, but editing took almost a year.
• The interiors of the cells were filmed at 'Vera Cruz Studios' near São Paulo. For ease of filming, they were constructed so that the height of the walls could be changed.
• The film was created and released nine years after the first publication of the identically titled novel by Argentine writer Manuel Puig (1932-1990) in 1976. The writer himself adapted the book for the stage, and the play was staged in 1985. In 1993, the novel was made into a musical.
• The main "film within a film" was called "Her True Glory." It was claimed that it was filmed by the Nazis in Germany during World War II, and that it is both a wartime romance and a piece of propaganda.
• Sonia Braga appears in the film itself, and in both "films within a film," playing a total of three roles – Leni, Martha, and the Spider Woman.