The Reader - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[bryan]

Run Boy Run 2013

Run Boy Run is the true story of Jurek an eight-year-old boy who escapes from the Warsaw ghetto then manages to survive in the woods and working as a farmhand disguising himself as a Polish orphan. He encounters people who will betray him for a ...

Run Boy Run features touching, captivating, bleak, serious and gloomy style.

[kenzi]

Europa Europa 1990

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a war hero and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth. Although improbabilities and happenstance are ...

Europa Europa features epic, realistic, emotional, disturbing and contemplative style.

[JoshuaHaict]

Judgment at Nuremberg 1961

In 1947 four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his ...

Judgment at Nuremberg features disturbing, emotional, suspenseful, sincere and talky style.

[Michaelderne 0]

Defiance 2008

Based on a true story during World War II four Jewish brothers escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis. The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1200 Jews still trapped in ...

Defiance features emotional, epic, sincere, realistic and intense style.

[jesus]

Stalingrad 1993

quotStalingradquot follows the progress of a German Platoon through the brutal fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad. After having half their number wiped out and after being placed under the command of a sadistic Captain the Lieutenant of the ...

Stalingrad features epic, rough, realistic, suspenseful and serious style.

[TalkWithStranger]

Rio 2011

Captured by smugglers when he was just a hatchling a macaw named Blu never learned to fly and lives a happily domesticated life in Minnesota with his human friend Linda. Blu is thought to be the last of his kind but when word comes that Jewel a ...

Rio features touching, exciting, humorous, colourful and entertaining style.

[dustin]

The Wild 2006

An adolescent lion is accidentally shipped from the New York Zoo to Africa. Now running free his zoo pals must put aside their differences to help bring him back.

The Wild features humorous, feel good, light, captivating and exciting style.

[kenneth]

Bee Movie 2007

Barry B. Benson a bee who has just graduated from college is disillusioned at his lone career choice making honey. On a special trip outside the hive Barrys life is saved by Vanessa a florist in New York City. As their relationship ...

Bee Movie features humorous, feel good, entertaining, light and absurd style.

[christina]

Michael Berg reads 'Emilia Galotti' by Lessing. Volker Bruch (a seminar student in this film) and Burghart Klaußner (the judge} also starred in Young Goethe in Love (2010), with Volker as the friend of Goethe and Burghart as the father of Lotte. Lotte's favorite book is Emilia Galotti.

[lonnie]

When selling the rights to his novel, Bernhard Schlink insisted that the film be shot in English.

[kyle]

Stephen Daldry's first choice for the lead role was Kate Winslet, who originally turned down the offer due to a scheduling conflict with Revolutionary Road (2008). When Nicole Kidman accepted the role, the producers built in a hiatus in order to allow her to finish filming Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008). However, by the time Kidman was set to begin her scenes on the film, she withdrew because of her pregnancy, vacating the role. Winslet, who was now available, agreed to replace Kidman.

[carl]

When Hanna commits suicide by hanging in her prison cell, she uses the books that Michael read to her ('The Odyssey,' 'War and Peace,' etc.) as a platform.

[sophie]

Three composers were considered to compose the original music - Nico Muhly, Ozren K. Glaser and Alberto Iglesias.

[linda]

Production designer Brigitte Broch emigrated from her native Germany in the early 1990s, mainly out of protest at the atrocities that her previous generation committed or tolerated during World War II, settling in Mexico. The Reader (2008) marks the first time she returned to Germany.

[gabriel]

Ralph Fiennes was always first choice to play the adult Michael.

[phyllis]

The Reader is the first English speaking role of German actor David Kross although he had previously played lead roles in German movies such as Tough Enough (2006) and Krabat and the Legend of the Satanic Mill (2008).

[duane]

Anthony Minghella snapped up the film rights before the novel was published with the intention of writing and directing the film himself. David Hare was very keen to adapt the novel but Minghella refused. Eight years later Minghella went to Hare and asked him to write the screenplay as he simply couldn't find the time to do it himself. Ironically, Minghella died prematurely following an operation during the film's production.

[kristina]

In the book, Michael asked Hanna's name on their 6th or 7th tryst; in the movie Michael said "I've been here 3 times".

[terry]

To avoid legal consequences, the crew delayed the filming of sexually explicit scenes until after actor David Kross' 18th birthday on July 4 2008.

[nina]

Stephen Daldry read the book in one sitting on a train journey.