Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: one of Jessica Lange’s finest roles in an award-winning film in Berlin.
Ann Talbot, a brilliant lawyer from Chicago, is called upon to defend her father, who is being prosecuted for war crimes. After forty-five years of peaceful and honest life, Michael Laszlo, who fled Hungary at the end of the Second World War and took refuge in the United States, is summoned by the Special Investigations Office. Overwhelming evidence was gathered against him and many witnesses recognized him as a Nazi torturer. For Ann, it’s about dismantling a political trap, but the investigation she undertakes will prove more complex than expected.
A Golden Bear and a big Jessica Lange
This exciting pitch is that of thriller judicial Music Box, directed by Costa-Gavras, who reunites for the occasion with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) in the wake of thriller The Right Hand of the Devil. Released in theaters in 1990, this complex and ambiguous political-family melodrama, winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, allowed Jessica Lange, nominated for the Oscars and the Golden Globes for the occasion, to obtain the one of the best roles of his career.
Very well received by critics but went relatively unnoticed in theaters despite a rather decent box office (760,000 admissions in France), the poignant Music Box is endowed with a psychological suspense that will definitely hook you. And proves that Costa-Gavras is definitely second to none when it comes to telling powerful political stories.
A real magistrate in the credits
-It should be noted that Costa-Gavras enlisted the talents of Philippe Sarde to compose the music for the film, a man he found notably on La Petite Apocalypse (1993) and Mad City (1997). Finally, let us point out that the character of Judge Silver, played by JS Block, is not an actor but a real magistrate who was practicing at the time in Chicago. In addition to appearing on screen, he served as a technical advisor to make the story of Music Box more relevant and close to reality.
Tonight on Arte at 9 p.m.
published on January 20, Clément Cuyer, Allociné
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