Cast * Synopsis * Interesting Facts * Meryl Streep * The bridges of Madison County, Iowa
Cast * Synopsis * Interesting Facts * Meryl Streep * The bridges of Madison County, Iowa
A beautiful story, with wonderful acting, about
simple things, missed opportunities, the real priorities in life and getting
caught in the everyday routine... So many things anyone of us could relate
to, that brings hope and courage!
Directed
by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Robert James Waller (novel)
Music by: Clint Eastwood & Lennie Niehaus
Released on: June 2, 1995
Running Time: 135 minutes
Budget: $22 million
Box-Office: $70.96 million in the U.S., $176 million worldwide
Rentals: $34.863 million in the U.S.
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Francesca Johnson... Meryl Streep
Robert Kincaid... Clint Eastwood
Caroline... Annie Corley
Michael Johnson... Victor Slezak
Richard Johnson... Jim Haynie
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Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca
Johnson, for four days in the 1960s. They fall in love, but she's married
with children.
Guitar-picker,
photographer, ex-business school professor, and author of the best-selling
hardcover of all time--meet Robert James Waller. In 1992 Warner Books published
his first novel, The Bridges of Madison County, which spent almost 150
weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
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In adapting this rather prosaic piece of prose for the screen, Clint Eastwood shrewdly (and graciously) shifted the point of view from Robert Kincaid to Francesca Johnson. Meryl Streep later admitted she didn't care much for the book, which made her very hesitant about accepting this role -that is, until she read Clint's script.
For her role as Francesca, Meryl Streep was nominated at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards. The movie itself was nominated at the Golden Globes and French Césars.
Clint wrote the main musical theme for the film, which was then orchestrated by Lennie Niehaus. His son Kyle Eastwood appears in the film with his band.
Listen as Clint Eastwood expresses his thoughts on this film including the process of making a movie from a best-selling novel and working with Meryl Streep: "It was a challenge to bring this all together in the film... The book wasn't structured at all, like the script would have a lot of scenes with dialogues, and a lot of different endings and so forth, so we had to straighten some of that out, but we tried to stay very true to it. Meryl Streep is one of the finer actresses I believe, and fortunately she liked the project, and wanted to do it. So the moment I offered her the project and she accepted was terrific! Because I knew I had a "top gun" so to speak in there."
Here is another interesting segment in which Clint discusses the music in the film and his past experiences as a musician: "The theme for that picture would have the right melancholy, and I kept on putting it off... And then one day I was up in Carmile and I sat down, and I kind of worked something out."
The Bridges of Madison County was made entirely on location in Madison County, Iowa. A reconstructed farm house provided the key set, with additional sequences shot in the towns of Winterset (the birthplace of John Wayne) and Adel, along with the actual Roseman and Holliwell covered bridges.
Below are some photos taken on location:
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BIOGRAPHY & INTERVIEWS OF MERYL STREEP
Considered by many movie reviewers to be the greatest living film actress,
Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 12
times, and has won it twice. Born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit,
New Jersey, Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera.
She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation
she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance
in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was
nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978).
She went on to win the Academy Award 
for
her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (she left her just-claimed
Oscar on the back of a toilet during the 1979 festivities!), and Sophie's
Choice (1982) in which she gave a heart wrenching portrayal of an inmate
mother in a Nazi death camp.
A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation
for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed peformances
over the next 10 years in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out
of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark
(1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of
her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995
with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges
of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's
Room (1996). Married to Don Gummer since 1978, she has four children
4 children: Henry, Mary Willa, Grace, Louisa. A realist when she talks
about her future years in film, she remarked that "... no matter what happens,
my work will stand..."
"What's been your favorite role?
I have a bunch of favorites. I really loved playing Francesca in Bridges
of Madison County, and I loved doing Postcards From the Edge,
partly because it was a friend of mine who wrote it--Carrie Fisher--and
it was a great shoot. And I loved making Out of Africa, and I loved
the character I played in Ironweed, and A Cry in the Dark
and Sophie's Choice. And Silkwood I liked doing. [ And Kramer
vs. Kramer? ] I loved doing that. But we're going back a hundred and
fifty years ago...!"
In 1999, Meryl Streep tied Katherine Hepburn's record of 12 Academy Award nominations, the most for any person:
"Is it still a thrill to get nominated each time?
It’s appalling, really. Actors must be so sick of me. That’s really
my first reaction. But getting nominated is still really great. I’m mystified
by the whole progression of my career but I’m not kissing the gift horse.
[laughs]
Do you prepare an Oscar acceptance speech?
Oh God, yes, because the time I won for Sophie’s Choice I forgot
to mention the producer and he was really, really mad at me. When he passed
me on the sidewalk, he gave me one of these [putting on a dirty look].
I got the message. So now I have a list and I read it. Your brain leaves
your body as you walk to the stage. You’re still sitting back in your seat
with your husband and someone’s up there babbling on and on. [laughs] The
year I won a British Academy Award for The French Lieutenant’s Woman
I forgot to thank Jeremy Irons. He was pretty mad as well, but funny. He
ragged me about it for twelve years. They shouldn’t leave me in charge
of these things. [laughs]"
During an interview to promote Marvin's Room in 1996, host show Oprah Winfrey could not resist asking Meryl about The Bridges of Madison County.
(Oprah Winfrey) I was beside myself with Bridges of Madison County. Did you get my fan letter? Meryl's favorite scene is in the movie is when Clint Eastwood as Robert Kincaid cracks her up with his story about a gorilla attack. I love this scene so much because--I remember writing you afterwards saying, 'Was it scripted that you throw your legs up or did you just automatically throw your head back or did the director say, "OK, throw it back a little farther, Meryl"? Anyway, this is one of my favorites. Is that what it is? Well, it's one of those scenes where you start to laugh because you're looking at you laugh. But you were really laughing because...
Yeah. I was really laughing because he couldn't remember any of his lines ever. And I never knew what was going to happen in this story, you know, with this gorilla.
Really?
I--sometimes
he remembered the gorilla. But a lot of times...
And sometimes he didn't.
Yeah.
So the throwing up your heels was just...
Oh, I was laughing at him. Yeah.
You--you were laughing at him?
Yeah, I was.
I loved another scene, too. Didn't you love the scene where she's holding on to the car door? And were you then--I wrote Meryl a fan letter and saying that I think I needed a lobotomy at that time to be removed from the theater, that moment where--there's not a word spoken. When your emotional thing jumps the gun and you need to go back and get the emotional thing, can you always go back and get it?
No.
No?
No. Sometimes I have to go in a corner and be by myself...
Mm--hmm.
... and remember how much money they're paying me or something!
THE
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, IOWA
Why are these bridges covered?
Wooden bridges are built with a roof and walls to protect the main structure from the elements, rain, snow, sun and wind. Snow and rain will soak in and cause the timber to rot. Sun and wind will dry the surface of the beams and cause them to become fragile and useless. Wind also carries dust and pollutants which can attack and erode wood fairly fast.
Bridges
were also built covered to facilitate the passage of horse-drawn vehicules
without causing the animal to be distracted or spooked by fast moving waters
below.
Covered bridges also became a refuge to travellers caught in downpours and storms.
Wooden covered bridges did also bring young folks looking for a secluded spot but this hardly qualifies as a reason for building them that way. To most parents, the covering on the bridge was not a good thing for it created one more place where teens would get in trouble!
Covered bridges also represented a great spot to advertise for the local
traffic had to go through it at one time or another. It is also true that
many covered bridges became town halls until better offices were built.
When has the first covered bridges built?
As this point, it is easy to confuse 101 uses for a covered bridge with the reason why they got built that way. Suffice to say that a concern for longivity by the authorities in charge created the covered wooden span probably thousands of years ago for old text state the presence of such structures as far back as the Babylonians!
Great covered bridges are said to have existed in medieval cities like what is now Paris, Dusseldorf and Stockholm to name just a few. The oldest known surviving covered bridge is in the town of Erfurt in Germany. It is reputed to have been erected in 1325! Its deck was widened in 1426 and dwellings were added.
The
second oldest is the famous Kapellbrücke in Luzern, Switzerland. It
was built in 1333 and measures 656 feet. It was restored in 1567, 1729,
1870, 1923 and finally almost enterily rebuilt in 1993 after an arson attempt.
The town of Luzern also has another veteran of the covered bridge world.
The Spreuerbrücke is 262 feet and was erected in 1568! The Bern Canton
in Switzerland still has 9 covered bridges dating from before 1800 of which
4 are dated from before 1600. The oldest one there is in Bern-Neubrügg
over the Aare river and was built in 1535 — a 463 year old covered bridge
still in use today.
The border between Switzerland and Germany is populated by some large survivors. Between Stein and Sackingen, the huge 673 foot long Rheinbrucke still crosses the Rhine and was finally bypassed just a few years ago. It was erected in 1803. Franz-Joseph Haydn was still alive!
Some Roman and Greek texts do mention some huge spans all over the place. Historians are just starting to give us an glimpse of what may have existed eons ago. Here in north America, it is likely that the Europeans did bring the covered bridge concept with them, but, it has been mentioned before that the civilizations of central America may well have used this type of bridges way before their decline.
In Asia, covered have also been built for centuries at least. From the
ornated temple bridges of Japan to the rather rude cantilever-covered spans
of Bhutan through China and Indonesia, covered bridges are well documented
to have existed as far back as 1200 years ago.
