AFFLICTION – Nick Nolte – d: Paul Schrader

Affliction (1998)
Direction: Paul Schrader
Screenplay: Paul Schrader, from Russell Banks’ novel
Cast: Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Mary Beth Hurt, Jim True, Marian Seldes
 

 

Set in a snowy New England town, Affliction could have been an excellent study of a dysfunctional family’s cycle of violence at a time of rapid socioeconomic changes. Unfortunately, Paul Schrader’s film doesn’t quite reach those heights. Based on a novel by Russell Banks (who also penned the equally snowy The Sweet Hereafter), Schrader’s film adaptation relies on a realistic wintry atmosphere (courtesy of cinematographer Paul Sarossy) to convey the deadness inside the heart of the story’s protagonist, the angst-ridden, small-town sheriff Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte). The middle-aged Wade is intent on [...]

by Andre Soares | October 19, 2004   
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