A single man

Movie
German title	A single man
Original title	A single man
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	2009
length	99 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12 ; JMK 14
Rod
Director	Tom Ford
script	Tom Ford, ; David Scearce
production	Tom Ford, ; Andrew Miano , ; Robert Salerno , ; Chris Weitz
music	Shigeru Umebayashi , ; Abel Korzeniowski
camera	Eduard Grau
cut	Joan Sobel
occupation
	Colin Firth : George Falconer; Julianne Moore : Charley; Nicholas Hoult : Kenny; Matthew Goode : Jim; Jon Kortajarena : Carlos; Paulette Lamori : Alva, cleaning lady; Ryan Simpkins : Jennifer Strunk; Ginnifer Goodwin : Mrs. Strunk; Teddy Sears : Mr. Strunk; Paul Butler : Christopher Strunk; Aaron Sanders : Tom Strunk; Lee Pace : Grant Lefanu, lecturer; Keri Lynn Pratt : Falconer's secretary; Aline Weber : Lois, Kenny's friend;
synchronization

A Single Man (translated A single man ) is an award-winning American film drama of Tom Ford from the year 2009 . It is the directorial debut of the fashion designer who fulfilled a lifelong dream with the project, wrote the script together with David Scearsce and co-produced the film with the help of the specially founded company Fade to Black. The feature film is the film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's original novel of the same name The Loner (1964).

The English college professor George Falconer, who lived in Los Angeles in 1962, is slipping away from the sudden death of his long-time partner Jim with such force that after eight months of loneliness and growing depression, he wants to take his own life. On his last day, which defines the plot of the film, he makes thorough preparations for his departure and, knowing about the “last time”, suddenly begins to perceive his surroundings and fellow human beings in a new, very intense way. The day is filled with sadness and beauty and the memory of his happy life with Jim despite all odds. The lead roles are played by Colin Firth CBE and Julianne Moore . The film opened in German cinemas on April 8, 2010 .

action

Set on a single day, November 30, 1962, the film is about George Falconer, an aging British professor of literature who teaches at a university in Los Angeles, where he keeps his homosexuality a secret. Falconer has lived alone since his life partner Jim was killed in a car accident eight months ago . Both were a couple for 16 years. George has had nightmares since death.

This morning, George gets up as usual and gets ready. A flashback depicts the situation in which he learned of his partner's death. His cousin called George and told him about the misfortune. During the phone call, he learns that Jim's parents do not want to inform him about the death and that George is also not allowed to attend the funeral, as it takes place "exclusively in the family circle". The flashback shows how Falconer ran to his best friend Charley and collapsed there.

Continuing with the plot, Falconer puts a revolver in his briefcase, thanks his housekeeper, and drives to work. He is preparing to commit suicide . In his lecture he digresses from the topic of the book review and gives a lecture on the discrimination against minorities that is a consequence of fear. One of his students, Kenny, follows him and talks to him about the lecture. Kenny previously asked a Falconer employee for the address of his professor.

Because of his planned suicide, Falconer later clears his office and takes a long last look at his workplace. In the parking lot he meets Kenny again, who expresses further interest in his professor by making an appointment to have a coffee with him. Falconer does not accept this invitation. Instead, he drives to the bank to get all the papers, money and his mother's wedding ring from his locker. There is also a photo showing his long-time partner lying naked on the beach. Another black and white flashback follows , in which you see him and his friend lying by the sea and talking. The viewer learns that Falconer and his best friend Charley had sex many years ago, whereas Jim only had relationships with men.

Still in the presence of the plot, George meets the neighbor girl Jennifer in the foyer of the bank. This tells him about her scorpion and how she and her brother feed it. Her father once said that Mr. Falconer could also be thrown in because he was a "warm brother". The mother comes and invites George to dinner, but George declines the invitation.

Back home, George tries different ways of holding the gun while shooting without getting anything dirty. He is interrupted by a call from his friend Charley. Charley and George meet at Charley's house. They eat, dance, smoke and drink gin. When drunk, they both share their suffering. Charley sees herself as a divorced housewife whose only daughter is already grown up. She loves George and says his life partner Jim was just a "replacement", which hurts George deeply. She then admits that what she said was based on the fact that she was jealous.

George later meets Kenny in the bar, where he met Jim, as the previous flashback showed. He wanted to buy liquor and cigarettes to go, but changes his plan when he sees Kenny.

Falconer and Kenny talk about aging and death and the meaning of life as a result. You come to the conclusion that you should live “in the moment”. Then both swim together naked in the sea, with Falconer injured in the head. Both then go to Falconer's home. Kenny accidentally finds the nude photo of the late Jim. Kenny and Falconer get drunk and fall asleep. When Falconer later wakes up, he finds Kenny sleeping on the sofa. Falconer also discovers his revolver next to Kenny, which Kenny had probably found earlier. When he sees that the boy was apparently worried about him and therefore took the revolver, his suicide plans evaporate and he burns his suicide notes. For the first time since the death of his partner, he regains his courage to face life and feels a deep satisfaction, which the viewer experiences from the off through George's voice . When he wants to go back to bed, he suddenly feels a severe pain in his chest and falls to the floor. He has a heart attack and dies.

production

Pre-production

Director Tom Ford at the 66th Venice Film Festival

In an interview with the British film website LoveFilm.com at the 2009 London Film Festival , director Tom Ford stated that he read Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel at a young age but did not want to turn it into a film at the time. More than 20 years later, after actually making a career as a successful fashion designer , Ford was determined to make a film. He immediately thought of A Single Man , the book he had read in the 80s . He described the project as a dream come true. He prefers a clear distinction between the fashion world, which he describes as powerful but fleeting and very commercial, and filmmaking, which he sees primarily as a form of artistic expression and poetry. From planning to post-production, he invested several years in this single project.

Adaptation

Since Isherwood's book fully reproduces the inner monologue of the main character from a kind of meta-level and in that sense has no action that can be portrayed on film, the film is a very free interpretation of the prose work - in close consultation with Don Bachardy , the life partner and administrator of the author, who died in 1986. Ford mixed the autobiographical traits of the novel with parts of his own biography, created additional characters and storylines as well as a new ending. Portions of Julianne Moore's character Charly are modeled on Ford's grandmother, for example the pink cigarettes. In the dialogue between George and the neighboring daughter Jennifer, the allusion to Tom's family becomes clear (with regard to the siblings Tom and Jennifer, but also the mother). Regarding the scene at George's house a week before Jim's departure, which isn't in Isherwood's book, Ford said:

"This scene, which was not in the book, is a scene right out of my own life. When Christopher Isherwood wrote this book in 1964, set in 1962, it was a landmark book because it depicted a same sex relationship in an absolutely matter-of-fact way. And I wanted to show George's life with Jim in a very simple, straight-forward way. Occasionally to this day I still have friends who will say something to me about my lifestyle . And I think: what does that mean? I have lived with the same person for the last 23 years, we read books, we walk our dogs, we argue sometimes, we go on vacation, we cook dinner. Well, we have a life very much like it is depicted here with George and Jim. "

The circumstances and meticulous planning of his suicide by George are based on an (actually carried out) suicide in Ford's family. In that case, as shown in the film, the young man had perfectly arranged all his clothing, including cufflinks, valuables and everyday items, bought a firearm the afternoon before the crime, wrote detailed letters including details about his funeral, paid all bills and took further precautions so as not to make the situation more difficult for his wife than it already would be. Still, Ford wanted to try to find and portray a certain sense of humor in the situation. The portrayal of dying at the end of the film was particularly important. It is a moment of absolute peace. Not planned, not controlled, but perhaps precisely because of this the right time to leave. And Jim is there to pick him up. Ford tried with the sequence (and various others in the course of the film) a scenic implementation of the deep spirituality and reflection that Isherwood devoted himself to, especially in his later years. The last monologue is also another reflection of Ford on his own life.

"And the last line of the voice-over is something that George referred to at the beginning of the film: 'And, just like that, it came. [The moment of death.] 'This is the end of all of our movies, by the way. The end of your movie, the end of my movie. And I think if we can realize that and if we can always be aware that the end does come, it helps us appreciate all the small things in our lives that happen every day. "

actor

Colin Firth was originally unable to play the role of George due to time constraints. The shooting schedules were then adjusted and postponed until Firth could still play. In an interview, Tom Ford said that the role of student Kenny was originally intended to be played by Jamie Bell . However, he did not appear for the costume rehearsal five days before filming began. Ford finally chose Nicholas Hoult . Also Model Victoria Silvstedt auditioned for a role, but came away empty.

Cameo appearances in the film have Christopher Isherwood's significant other (1953 until his death in 1986) Don Bachardy and Tom Ford's husband Richard Buckley (at the two ends of a sofa in the staff room of the College). Before and during production, Ford obtained Bachardy's consent and repeated comments with regard to the autobiographical parts of the work (beyond personal reference, Bachardy is also the sole heir to the book rights and is therefore involved in every adaptation). The Fox Terriers seen in the film, Angus and India, belong to Tom Ford and his partner Buckley.

The American Julianne Moore plays a British woman who moved to the United States with George and speaks with an excellent English accent. The two Englishmen Matthew Goode (Jim) and Nicholas Hoult (Kenny) on the other hand play or speak their American characters just as convincingly.

In the original English version, Jon Hamm speaks the telephone voice at the beginning of the film, which informs Falconer about the death of his partner. Hamm is particularly known for his portrayal of the advertising maker Don Draper, the main character in the television series Mad Men . Ford asked Hamm to participate in the film project because he thought his voice was appropriate. It was only later that he realized that the caller might seem too much like Don Draper, since both stories are set in the United States in 1962. Apart from the obvious spatial and especially temporal parallels, Draper's main customer - the cigarette company Lucky Strike - is the brand of choice for George.

Filming

The film was shot in Los Angeles and Pasadena, both California . A Single Man was produced by Artina Films, Depth of Field and Fade to Black. Fade to Black was founded by Tom Ford especially for his first film. A Single Man is the first feature film that co-producer Chris Weitz produced without his brother Paul . The German rental company is The Weinstein Company .

The house in which George lives was filmed in such a small hut that all recordings were made in just one room, which was redecorated into a living room or bathroom for the respective scenes. A total of 900 meters of film were used for the telephone conversation (three complete rolls of film). Everyone present was so spellbound by Firthe's ever-changing expressive face that Ford couldn't bring himself to end the scene. The footage was ultimately cut into a still long scene. Ford painted the painting over Charly's fireplace the evening before the shoot. Other pictures, furniture and decorative objects come from his private collection.

Ford enjoyed the post-production of the film, especially the coloring, so much that he sometimes spent days editing individual sequences, occasionally just adding a lipstick, and changing the whole scene elsewhere. Conversely, Nicholas Hoult's eyes have such an intense blue that he only had to leave out the young actor's iris in all the scenes whose hue was intensified.

Main composer Shigeru Umebayashi was only able to compose a few key pieces for the film due to lack of time, so Ford brought in Abel Korzeniowski , a second composer, for the required film music.

Cast and dubbing

The film was dubbed at Hermes Synchron in Potsdam, directed by Clemens Frohmann .


role	actor	Voice actor
George Falconer	Colin Firth	Tom Vogt
Charley	Julianne Moore	Petra Barthel
Kenny	Nicholas Hoult	Ricardo Richter
Jim	Matthew Goode	Norman Matt
Carlos	Jon Kortajarena	Marcel Collé
Mrs. Strunk	Ginnifer Goodwin	Ulrike Stürzbecher
Grant	Lee Pace	Peter Flechtner
Bank clerk	Erin Daniels	Antje von der Ahe
secretary	Keri Lynn Pratt	Julia Stoepel
Voice of Hank, Jim's cousin	Jon Hamm	Thomas Nero Wolff

reception

source	rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

Opinions differed on the reviews of A Single Man , but Colin Firth's acting is almost always praised.

Kino.de writes that at first the pictures appear “like a lifestyle catalog, cool and arranged”, but “emotions simmer beneath the smooth surface.”

On OutNow-CH you can read that A Single Man is “meticulously planned” and that the film therefore seems “a little flat”. Colin Firth, however, shines in the role of the homosexual professor.

The critic of Film-Zeit.de is bothered by the fact that in sad moments “everything is kept simple in brown, gray and white”, in the happy moments, however, “everything becomes a bit more colorful, livelier”. In addition, some flashbacks reminded him of "an earlier Campari advertisement".

The Rolling Stone writes that pervade "a sad beauty every setting" by Tom Ford's debut. A Single Man was "breathtakingly visualized" and Colin Firth "showed the performance of his career".

In the FAZ one can read that "the precision of the director in every detail" can be seen. What we felt in addition to the grief, "is an intimacy between Falconer and his friend that we have not been able to find in love stories between men and women for a long time".

Awards

Venice International Film Festival 2009

The cast of A Single Man: Matthew Goode , Tom Ford , Julianne Moore , Colin Firth , Nicholas Hoult and Jon Kortajarena (from left)

Coppa Volpi : Best Actor (Colin Firth) - Won
Queer Lion : Best Homosexual Feature Film - Won
Golden Lion : Best Film - Nominated

Academy Awards 2010

Oscar : Best Actor (Colin Firth) - nominated

British Academy Film Awards 2010

BAFTA Award : Best Actor (Colin Firth) - Won

Golden Globe Awards 2010

Golden Globe : Best Actor - Drama (Colin Firth) - nominated
Golden Globe: Best Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore) - nominated
Golden Globe: Best Score ( Abel Korzeniowski ) - nominated

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2010

BFCA Award: Best Actor (Colin Firth) - nominated
BFCA Award: Best Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore) - nominated
BFCA Award: Best Adapted Screenplay (Tom Ford and David Scearce) - nominated

Satellite Awards 2009

Satellite Award : Best Production Design - Won
Satellite Award : Best Actor - Drama (Colin Firth) - nominated

Screen Actors Guild Awards 2010

SAG Award: Best Actor (Colin Firth) - nominated

literature

Christopher Isherwood : A Single Man ( A Single Man ). Translated by Axel Kaun. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp 2009. ISBN 3-518-46122-2
Christopher Isherwood: A Single Man . Translated by Thomas Melle. Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe 2014. ISBN 978-3-455-40501-9