Shadowlands

"Shadowlands" is a 1985 television film, written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales about Oxford don and children's book author, C. S. Lewis; it has subsequently been adapted by Nicholson as a stage play and then as a cinema film. The film began life as a script entitled "I Call it Joy" written for Thames Television by Brian Sibley and Norman Stone. Sibley was credited on the BBC film as 'consultant' and went on to write the book, "Shadowlands: The True Story of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman".

Production history

The original TV film starred Joss Ackland as Lewis, with Claire Bloom as his lover and wife Joy Gresham. It won BAFTA Awards in 1986 for Best Play and Best Actress (Bloom).

It was subsequently adapted for the stage, opening at the Queen's Theatre in London on 23 October 1989, running until 8 September 1990. The production was directed by Elijah Moshinsky and starred Nigel Hawthorne as Lewis with Jane Lapotaire as Joy. It won Best Play in the Evening Standard Awards for 1990.

Hawthorne successfully took the role of Lewis to Broadway, playing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre from November 1990 to April 1991 and again directed by Moshinsky. Hawthorne, co-starred in New York with Jane Alexander as Joy who was now given her maiden name of Joy Davidman. Hawthorne won a 1991 Tony award for Best Actor, while Nicholson picked up a nomination for Best Play.

In 1993, the play was adapted into a film of the same name directed by Richard Attenborough with a screenplay by Nicholson, co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, winning Oscar nominations for both Nicholson and Winger.

The first major revival of the play, starring Charles Dance as Lewis and Janie Dee as Joy, premiered at Cambridge Arts Theatre on 5 September 2007 before touring the UK. The production, directed by Michael Barker-Carven, transferred to the Wyndham's Theatre on 3 October 2007 for an eleven-week season before transferring to the Novello Theatre where it ran from 21 December 2007 to 23 February 2008.

Synopsis

The story follows Lewis as he meets an American fan, Joy Gresham, whom he befriends and eventually marries. The story also deals with his struggle with personal pain and grief: Lewis preaches that one should endure suffering with patience, but finds that the simple answers he had preached no longer apply when Joy becomes afflicted with cancer and eventually dies.

Factual inaccuracies

* According to his biographers, the development of Lewis's personality was more complex than the story suggests. He knew passion before meeting his wife, and some think that he had a love affair with an older woman when he was in his twenties.
* C. S. Lewis could not drive, yet his drive to Herefordshire is an important moment in the film.
* The film covers events between 1952 and 1960 and shows Lewis teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. However, this is a simplification of reality: in 1954, Lewis accepted a Professorship in Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge and thus discontinued his teaching at Oxford. He did so, however, on the condition that he would be able to return to his home in Oxford for vacations and long weekends during the university term.
* Joy Gresham broke her leg when answering a telephone call from Kathleen Farrer in her home in Oxford. In the film she breaks her leg answering a call from C. S. Lewis in her house in London.
* Joy Gresham was treated in hospital in Oxford, not in London.
* Joy Gresham actually had two sons, Douglas and David.

Quotes

C. S. Lewis as the film concludes:

"Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."

Joy in the stage version:

"See yourself in the mirror, you're separate from yourself. See the world in the mirror, you're separate from the world. I don't want that separation anymore."

See also

* "A Grief Observed" — Lewis's own chronicle of his reactions following Joy Gresham's death
* "Shadowlands" — Lewis's biography by Brian Sibley
* "Shadowlands: The True Story of C S Lewis and Joy Davidman" by Brian Sibley, Hodder & Stoughton (new edition 2005) ISBN 9780340908655
* "Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis" by Douglas Gresham, Macmillan (USA 1988) ISBN 0025455702

External links

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