- Published by Applause Books 80 Pages
- The Play by Martin Sherman
- Author: Martin Sherman
Renowned British stage director Sean Mathias directs Martin Sherman's "powerful and provocative" (The New York Times) screenplay about one man's struggle to maintain his dignity while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. Featuring exceptional performances by Lothaire Bluteau (Black Robe), Clive Owen (Gosford Park), Brian Webber, Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings: TheFellowship of the Ring) and Mick Jagger, Bent will "grab filmgoers by the heart" (Rex Reed)! Max (Owen) is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Pursued and captured, Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewishbecause in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a forbidden relationship with an openly! gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.
Bent debuted onstage in 1979 with Ian McKellen starring in the London production and Richard Gere in its later Broadway version. The film version is adapted by the playwright, Martin Sherman, and closely follows his play's story of two gay concentration camp victims who are sent to Dachau and who fall in love, using their relationship as an emotional crutch in their efforts to rebuff the horror of the Holocaust. Max (Clive Owen), would rather wear a yellow star and proclaim himself a Jew than be lanced with the pink triangle that designates homosexuality. Horst, (Lothaire Bluteau) chastises him for his homophobia. Later the tables turn on Max, who finds--through Horst--the strength both to keep alive indefinitely and to ultimately embrace his sexual identity.
Initially set in a war-ravaged Berlin, Bent is directed by Sean Mathias, who first directed Jude Law in Indiscretions, and he has crafted a film that reminds on! e of Ian McKellen's Richard III with its spare, stylized, and stark world bombed into rubble and chic theatrical disarray. There are many poignant as well as harrowing scenes, and the result is a somber work that stands as a reminder that intolerance cannot overtake individualism and love. While Bent received an NC-17 rating for depicting Berlin's decadent, anything-goes-for-a-price nightlife, MGM opted not to edit out the tone-setting prelude and pushed to preserve the film's integrity despite a rating that is itself a kind of death for any film that bears it. --Paula NechakSpecial two CD edition of the Electronic outfit's 'best of' includes a bonus CD containing eight rare and previously unreleased tracks. This collection is a celebration of their first 10 years and serves as a reminder to every one of what Bent has achieved and how they helped shape the Electronic '00's. Bent has a huge fanbase, including strong support from the press, and everyone agr! ees that Bent's downbeat, emotional Electronica is irresistible. In 1999, they released their debut album Program For Love and since then, the band have gone on to produce a further three albums (Everlasting Blink, Ariels and Intercept), selling over 350,000 copies. Their music has appeared on adverts for Vodafone, Carleberg, Volkswagen, Nissan, Absolute and the Inland Revenue. They also have celebrity fans as diverse as Elton John, Michael Caine and Nicole Kidman. 22 tracks. 2009.Martin Sherman's worldwide hit play Bent took London by storm in 1979 when it was first performed by the Royal Court Theatre, with Ian McKellen as Max (a character written with the actor in mind). The play itself caused an uproar. "It educated the world," Sherman explains. "People knew about how the Third Reich treated Jews and, to some extent, gypsies and political prisoners. But very little had come out about their treatment of homosexuals." Gays were arrested and interned at work camps prior to! the genocide of Jews, gypsies, and handicapped, and continued! to be i mprisoned even after the fall of the Third Reich and liberation of the camps. The play Bent highlights the reason why - a largely ignored German law, Paragraph 175, making homosexuality a criminal offense, which Hitler reactivated and strengthened during his rise to power.
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