Love & survival in a changing world

In a country torn in two by war, it will take an extraordinary journey for people to come together as one. This journey is at the heart of Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier’s National Book Award-winning novel about love, friendship, nature, survival and the changing of America at the end of the Civil War, now a Buena Vista motion picture directed by Academy Award-winner Anthony Minghella and starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger.

Nominated for eight Golden Globes (with Zellweger winning as Best Supporting Actress), Cold Mountain follows the intertwined paths of three people equally uprooted by war, whose physical and spiritual survival comes to depend entirely on one another. First, there is the Confederate soldier Inman (Law) who, wounded in battle, fights his way home to the woman he loves, crossing a nation at war with itself. As he treks towards his beloved Ada (Kidman), Inman encounters slaves and rebels, fends off soldiers and bounty hunters and finds unexpected friends and dangerous enemies at every turn.

In a parallel journey of faith and newfound bravery, Ada’s road is no easier as this once well-bred, sheltered woman must take on a perilous world alone, bereft of companionship or knowledge of the outside world, and protect her father’s farm from ruin and attack. Rescue arrives for Ada in the unlikely form of a feisty drifter named Ruby (Zell-weger), who becomes an equal part of the story as she teaches Ada about strength, self-reliance and an astonishing natural world Ada has never known.

Now, as they come ever closer to one another, Inman, Ada and Ruby weave a story about the longing for home after being in the wilderness, the longing for peace after the brutality of war, and the longing for love and family at the heart of the American experience.

When Charles Frazier’s debut novel Cold Mountain was first published in 1997, his story of a soldier’s search for home and love in the last days of the Civil War quickly received rhapsodic acclaim. Critics hailed the arrival of a major new voice in American literature, one that not only had mastered the art of compelling story-telling, but opened up an original view of America’s most transforming period in history, drawing a portrait of a society in chaos, and of a man and a woman yearning for a return to peace.

When director Anthony Minghella read Cold Mountain, he found the mythic story filled with both heartbreak and revelation–and his intense, personal reaction surprised the director. "The book appears to be a story about the Civil War, and I don’t necessarily have an interest in war stories. But I quickly realized it’s about so much more," he says. "It’s about the return from war and the effects of war’s brutality and chaos on the world away from the battlefield, in the realm of families and friendships. I understood I was in territory that was very compelling–and utterly fresh."

He continues: "Charles Frazier had refashioned Homer’s The Odyssey with a story about a man who needs to get home yet every conceivable obstacle is placed in his way. The character of Inman, whose name is not unlike Everyman, is put through a series of tests: he’s tested by hubris, by courage, by vanity, by romantic love, by his coarse desires and by his loyalty. Inman is on a physically extraordinary adventure, but he is also on spiritual journey.

"And then there is another journey: the journey of Ada, the woman waiting at home for him. It is equally profound," says Minghella. "Ada, a person of great privilege who knows nothing about how to survive in the real world, must in the course of the film learn to take care of herself, survive during wartime and become wise in the ways of nature. I would say that much as I identify with Inman, or that I project onto Inman what it would be like to be a warrior returning home, I also identify with Ada because of her transformation, through her friendship with Ruby, from an exclusively inner life to an outer life and becoming part of the land."

Minghella immediately envisioned Frazier’s epic tale as a motion picture. "The book itself makes an irresistible case for adaptation to the screen," he notes. "It has an honorable hero, a journey, a purpose, a series of obstacles, a woman waiting with forbearance, and Cold Mountain itself, which stands in for a time and way of life that have been lost. At its heart the book has an intriguing, enduring question: Is it better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all?"

In adapting the screenplay, Minghella knew he would have to set out on his own unique journey and bring his own personal vision to this classic story. He also knew there are many dangers associated with adapting a widely beloved novel. He had done it before with another book so rich with language many thought it could not be translated to the screen: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, and surprised audiences and critics alike with his uniquely cinematic evocation of the novel’s sweeping themes.

Minghella’s screenplay concen-trated on the intertwined survival of Inman, Ada and Ruby–each driven to unexpected courage and strength by their love, friendship and longing for peace. The script ultimately earned the blessing of Charles Frazier, which was essential to the director.

Sums up Frazier: "I think Cold Mountain is a meditation on what we fear and what we desire, on how we react to violence on a personal level and how we move away from violence towards peace. Inman’s trek is a journey towards his personal vision of peace, home and the life that you yearn for. These are not particularly time-bound things. The Civil War gave me a very concrete background for this story, but these things are always with us."

Cold Mountain opens in Metro Manila theaters on February 18.