Английская Википедия:First Reformed

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First Reformed is a 2017 American psychological drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader. It stars Ethan Hawke as a minister of a small congregation in upstate New York who grapples with mounting despair brought on by tragedy, worldly concerns, and a tormented past. Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles, Victoria Hill, and Philip Ettinger appear in supporting roles.

The film had its world premiere at the 74th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on May 18, 2018, by A24. It grossed $4 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Hawke's performance and Schrader's direction and screenplay. It was chosen by both the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2018, while Schrader earned a Best Original Screenplay nomination at the 91st Academy Awards. Hawke was nominated for Best Actor and Schrader won Best Original Screenplay at the 24th Critics' Choice Awards. The film also garnered nominations for Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Screenplay at the 34th Independent Spirit Awards, with Hawke winning Best Male Lead.

Plot

Ernst Toller is the pastor of the First Reformed Church in Snowbridge, New York, who is struggling with a crisis of faith. The film opens with him writing down his thoughts in a journal, which he plans to keep for a year, and then destroy.

The church is a 250-year-old Dutch Reformed Church and was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. It faces dwindling attendance, so the church has moved away from its historical focus on Calvinist theology and now serves mostly as a tourist attraction. Toller, a former military chaplain, is struggling with alcoholism and the death of his son Joseph, who was killed in the Iraq War. Toller seeks a deeper spiritual understanding through reading Roman Catholic writers (G. K. Chesterton and Thomas Merton) and mystical books (The Cloud of Unknowing). This leads him to seek support from Abundant Life, the evangelical megachurch in Albany that owns First Reformed.

He is approached by Mary, who is seeking counseling for Michael, her radical-environmentalist husband. Michael further challenges Toller's beliefs: he wants Mary to get an abortion, because he does not want to bring a child into a world that will be rendered almost uninhabitable by climate change.

Mary finds a suicide vest belonging to her husband in their garage. Toller takes it, promising to counsel Michael about it. They discuss going to the police, but Toller feels it would worsen Michael's state. Just before their next appointment, Michael sends him a text message asking to meet in a local park. Toller arrives to find Michael dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound. In accordance with Michael's will and testament, a service is held at a local toxic-waste dump, where his ashes are scattered.

Meanwhile, plans are underway to celebrate the 250th anniversary of First Reformed with a service attended by the mayor, the governor, and Edward Balq, one of Abundant Life's key financial backers and the owner of a polluting factory. At a meeting in a diner, Balq takes issue with Toller honoring Michael's will, deeming it a political act, and they argue over climate change: Balq dismisses it as "complicated", but Toller sees it as a straightforward matter of Christian stewardship.

Experiencing physical pain, Toller reluctantly sees a doctor, who suspects stomach cancer and schedules some tests. Toller has Michael's laptop computer, which he took after Michael's suicide to prevent the police from discovering his radicalism and making trouble for Mary. He uses it to research Michael's concerns, including the materials on Balq's factory which inspired him to make the explosive vest. One night, Mary visits Toller in the parsonage of the church, and she asks him to play Michael's role in a nonsexual rite of physical intimacy the couple used to perform.

Toller begs Mary not to attend the anniversary service. Preparing for his role in the ceremony, he puts on the explosive vest, and arms it. When he sees her entering the church, he removes the vest and instead wraps himself in barbed wire under his alb. Toller pours a glass full of drain cleaner and is about to drink it when Mary interrupts him. They embrace, kissing passionately before the film abruptly cuts to black.

Cast

• Ethan Hawke as Pastor Ernst Toller, leader of a tiny historic church who is going through several personal crises
• Amanda Seyfried as Mary Mensana, a pregnant widow and parishioner at First Reformed
• Cedric Kyles as Pastor Joel Jeffers, megachurch pastor at the evangelical Abundant Life church
• Victoria Hill as Esther, a worker at Abundant Life who is in love with Toller
• Philip Ettinger as Michael Mensana, a radical environmentalist and anti-natalist struggling with the implications of his wife's pregnancy
• Michael Gaston as Edward Balq, local industrialist and financier of Abundant Life
• Bill Hoag as John Elder, church organist at First Reformed

Production

The film is a return to a restrained style that Schrader first identified in his 1972 book Transcendental Style in Film about the works of Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Th. Dreyer. Elements of the script allude to Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light (1963), and the work of Dreyer, as well as Schrader's own script for Taxi Driver (1976). Schrader said he was inspired by Paweł Pawlikowski's film Ida (2013) to shoot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, saying "It ... drives the vertical lines, so you get more of the human body in the frame." Before approaching Seyfried, Schrader had discussed casting Michelle Williams in the role of Mary.

Principal photography lasted 20 days, with a budget of $3.5 million. The film was shot around Brooklyn and Queens, New York, including the building and grounds of the Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston, Queens.

Release

First Reformed premiered in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2017. It was also screened at the 44th Telluride Film Festival on September 2 and the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2017.

In September 2017, A24 acquired North American distribution rights to the film. It was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 18, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2018. The screenplay was published by Archway Editions on January 31, 2023, with an introduction by Masha Tupitsyn.

Reception

Box office

First Reformed made $100,270 from four theaters in its opening weekend, an average of $25,067 per venue, one of the best of Schrader's career. The film ultimately grossed $3,448,256 in the United States and Canada, and $540,356 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $3,988,612.

Critical response

A. O. Scott of The New York Times stated, "First Reformed wrestles with contemporary reality, but it isn't a work of realism in the way that term is conventionally understood. The dialogue is delivered with formal, almost stiff cadences, and the images are crisp, graceful and plain." Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "a cinephile's delight and a believer's conundrum, an austere American art film with a bracing B-movie soul, and a story in which the cruelest of cosmic punchlines may finally be no different from the most beautiful accession of grace." David Sims of The Atlantic called it "a tale of existential woe [...] an embittered look at our world through the eyes of someone who’s increasingly horrified to be a part of it, and a film that’s one of the most searing cinema experiences of the year." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said, "the sheer Bunyanesque severity of this film is as refreshing as a glass of ice-cold water ... a passionately focused film but not a masterpiece" and noted that Ethan Hawke's character's name was an allusion to the German playwright Ernst Toller. Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune stated that "for such a deliberate exercise in a specific, methodical style, First Reformed is oddly bracing, full of unresolved, contradictory, vital ideas."

Accolades

Шаблон:Main The film received nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Film, and Best Director and Best Screenplay for Schrader while winning the Best Male Lead for Hawke. At the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, the film received two nominations for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, winning in the latter. Schrader and Hawke were awarded Best Screenplay and Best Actor respectively at the Gotham Awards. Both the National Board of Review and American Film Institute listed it as one of the Top 10 Films of 2018, with the former's awarding Schrader the award for Best Original Screenplay. Schrader's screenplay also was nominated for an Academy Award, marking the first Oscar nomination of Schrader's long career.

External links

• Шаблон:Official website
• Шаблон:IMDb title
• Шаблон:AllMovie title