Ishtar (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Ishtar |
| Original title | Ishtar |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1987 |
| length | 107 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Elaine May |
| script | Elaine May |
| production | Warren Beatty |
| music | Dave Grusin |
| camera | Vittorio Storaro |
| cut |
Richard P. Cirincione , William H. Reynolds , Stephen A. Rotter |
| occupation | |
| |
Ishtar is an American adventure film starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman from 1987 that turned out to be flop of the year in the United States .
action
The unsuccessful songwriters Lyle and Chuck dream of following in the footsteps of Simon & Garfunkel as a singing duo . Agent Marty Freed is supposed to help them. After a failed performance in a New York nightclub, however, an engagement in Morocco is the only thing Marty can offer the talented musicians. Lyle, who was recently left by his wife, and Chuck, who wanted to kill himself after breaking up with his girlfriend Carol, would not have stopped him from deciding to accept the offer despite the low salary. On their way to Morocco, Lyle and Chuck have to stop over in Ishtar, a small desert state. At the airport, a local named Shirra, disguised as a man, approaches Chuck and asks for help. Her life is in danger and she has to exchange her identity with him in order to get to Marrakech safely . Impressed by her beauty, Chuck gives her his passport and swaps his things with her. Chuck hopes to be able to apply for a new passport at the local US embassy, but this is currently not possible, as Ishtar is on the brink of civil war. While Lyle travels to Morocco alone, Chuck meets the CIA agent Jim Harrison, who hires him as an agent for appropriate payment.
Finally, Chuck arrives in Morocco and joins his partner on stage at the Chez Casablanca hotel, where he and Lyle were booked. Instead of their own songs, they sing evergreens like Strangers in the Night , and the audience is thrilled. The following night, Shirra sneaks into her hotel room and tries to steal Chuck's suitcase. However, Lyle lunges at her and knocks her to the ground. Shirra tries to explain the circumstances to him. In order to overthrow the tyrannical Emir of Ishtar, she needed the contents of the suitcase. Lyle refuses to give her the suitcase, but he lets himself be persuaded to locate a camel dealer and deliver him an encrypted message.
Meanwhile, CIA man Harrison Chuck believes that Shirra is an underground communist fighter who is endangering the stability in Ishtar with an ominous map. The next day, Lyle and Chuck are followed in a bazaar by agents from various secret services who all want to get hold of the map. In an exchange of fire and the ensuing commotion, Lyle and Chuck manage to escape their captors thanks to the young trader Abdul. Abdul then takes her to the camel market, where Lyle buys a blind camel. Meanwhile, Shirra seeks out Chuck and asks him for the card, which must be among the things she swapped with him at the airport. Chuck hadn't found a card, however. Then both Shirra and Harrison can convince Lyle and Chuck that they have to flee to the desert for their own protection and should only return at night. Shortly afterwards, in good faith as they are, Lyle and Chuck wander around the desert with the blind camel. When they threatened to run out of water, they met traders who wanted to sell weapons to nomads but had problems communicating. Chuck pretends to be a translator. When a helicopter of the CIA, which supports the emir and relies on his retention of power, locates the two songwriters using tracking devices and heads for their whereabouts, the traders and nomads flee and leave Lyle and Chuck behind with a few weapons. While they are wandering through the desert with their camel again, Lyle discovers Shirra's card, which is sewn into the lining of a jacket that Chuck has tied around his head as protection from the sun.
Suddenly the CIA helicopter shows up and takes them under fire. Lyle and Chuck, who had hoped to finally be saved, take up arms and return fire. The helicopter turns and returns a little later in a military helicopter. Unexpectedly, Shirra and Abdul arrive at their place in a jeep and fire at the helicopters with their weapons, whereupon they withdraw again. Marty then negotiates with the CIA from New York. To prevent the map, which shows the way to dissident underground fighters, from falling into the wrong hands and the CIA from being embroiled in a scandal, Harrison agrees to release a live album with Lyles and Chuck's songs and to promote the necessary advertising to care. Social reforms are also to be initiated in Ishtar. When Lyle and Chuck have their songs recorded live at Chez Casablanca, Shirra is also in the audience, who is enthusiastic about her songs. The rest of the audience, mostly made up of soldiers, is instructed by an officer to clap after each song.
background
Warren Beatty proposed the project to Columbia Pictures in early 1985, in which he and Dustin Hoffman would play the lead roles for a fee of $ 5.5 million each. Cast against his type, Beatty, who also appeared as a producer, got the role of the fool, while Hoffman slipped into Beatty's usual role of the womanizer. They hired Elaine May , who wrote the script and who was considered difficult in Hollywood due to her perfectionism, to direct . A project of this magnitude had never been entrusted to a woman before. "A venture that brings together three notorious and stubborn perfectionists like May, Beatty and Hoffman can only destroy itself in the battle of relentless egos," Newsweek predicted before filming began. Shooting began on October 21, 1985 in Morocco, where May had locals level two and a half square kilometers of dunes to create an artificial desert and sometimes had a scene repeated up to 50 times before she was satisfied with the footage. The shooting in North Africa lasted more than two months. They continued in New York City until April 1986, after which the editing of the film dragged on for a year. Originally the cost of production was estimated at $ 28 million, but the project ended up being about $ 55 million. Another eight million dollars are said to have been invested by Columbia in advertising and rentals.
When Ishtar first opened in US cinemas on May 15, 1987, the film grossed just $ 4.3 million on the opening weekend. Despite some benevolent reviews, the film turned out to be a big flop with gross revenues of around $ 14 million in the United States. The film was released in Germany on January 14, 1988. In the German version, Warren Beatty was dubbed by Christian Brückner and Dustin Hoffman by Michael Brennicke . The film was released on video in October 1988.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films described Ishtar as "[a] elaborate adventure comedy with a star cast, which, however, achieves only a few successful comic effects despite strenuous efforts". The “fun fell by the wayside”, was also the opinion of Cinema . The conclusion was: "With a star cast in the sand."
Awards
In 1988 the film was nominated for the Golden Raspberry in the categories of Worst Film , Worst Screenplay and Worst Director . The negative award ultimately went to director Elaine May, who received it together with Norman Mailer (for tough men don't dance ).
Web links
- Ishtar in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Ishtar at rotten tomatoes (English)
- Pictures of the film on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Through the desert . In: Der Spiegel , July 13, 1987.
- ↑ Quotation from Through the Desert . In: Der Spiegel , July 13, 1987.
- ↑ a b cf. boxofficemojo.com
- ↑ Ishtar. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Ishtar. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ cf. cinema.de