"The English Patient" was gay

[operafan]

Not only was he gay, but he didn't die from horrible burns as depicted in the book and the movie.

Letters have surfaced in Germany proving that the World War Two spy who inspired the hero the the Oscar-winning film The English Patient was no womaniser but a gay man in love with a young soldier called Hans Entholt.


The corresopondence also indicate the Hungarian-born adventurer Count Laszlo de Almásy did not die of a morphine overdose after suffering terrible burns and dreaming of the woman he loved, the fate the befell the fictional hero played by Ralph Fiennes in the film.

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient. Letters newly unearthed reveal that the real-life inspiration for Fiennes' character was gay​

Instead Almásy succumbed to amoebic dysentry in 1951 never having once slept with a woman.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hero-gay-love-Nazi-soldier.html#ixzz0kE4WbEXN

 

[gsdx]

Talk about poetic license!

 

[braex27]

Whatever licence may have been taken, "The English Patient" remains one of the great films of the 90s.

 

[Críostóir]

Richard III wasn't a vicious murdering scumbag either, but Shakespeare's play is a great play, and the character is one of the great villains of literature.

The problem is that too many people mistake the film for history.

Troy and 300 are similarly crap history,* but with no redeeming social importance.
____
*Well, Troy was crap literature, since Homer's version isn't exactly history per se. We know there was a real Troy, but exactly what happened there...not so much. Patroklos was Achilles' boyfriend, not his dippy cousin.

 

[BearBoi]

Mother fuckin' breeders stealing our history for their own...

(j/k... sort'a.)

 

[Críostóir]

Fiction has always taken great liberties with history ... just think of the Bible for example.

The Bible is not fiction. Fiction is writing of things that never happened, acknowledged to be such by the author, and understood to be such by readers. For a work to be fiction, there must be cooperation between the writers and readers; they agree that a series of unreal events will be presented for entertainment purposes (except for modern "literary" fiction). Often fiction also presents a thematic argument for some philosophical, political, or social point, but entertainment is paramount; if it's not entertaining, it fails as fiction (and IMO "literary" fiction almost always does).

The Bible is also not history. It's also not lies (intended to deceive readers about what really happened). I'm told by scholars that it's a form called a "royal narrative" that is no longer practiced, and that's what leads to some people thinking it's history, and others thinking it's lies (or fiction).

 

[Críostóir]

^
Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff ...but I couldn't let trivial facts get in the way of a pithy little soundbite post now could I?

Actually you could have.

 

[RationalLunacy]

Don't ask, don't tell.