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Mother Night Details

1996 Certificate 15
  • Rated:
  • 60
  • from 210 members

Keith Gordon's darkly comic film version of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s highly original novel stars Nick Nolte as Howard J. Campbell Jr., an unusual antihero with a twisted story to tell. The tale begins in a Israeli prison cell, where Campbell is on trial for WWII war crimes. Campbell is given a typewriter and enough paper to recount .. Read more

Starring Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
Director Keith Gordon
Genres Thriller

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Mother Night cover art

Mother Night

Keith Gordon's darkly comic film version of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s highly original novel stars Nick Nolte as Howard J. Campbell Jr., an unusual antihero with a twisted story to tell. The tale begins in a Israeli prison cell, where Campbell is on trial for WWII war crimes. Campbell is given a typewriter and enough paper to recount his bizarre memoir, which appears as a series of black-and-white and colour scenes that shift between 1940s Germany, 1950s New York, and 1960s Israel. The American Campbell and his parents relocate to Germany between the two world wars and live a happy life. Campbell grows up to be a playwright and marries a beautiful German actress, Helga Noth (Sheryl Lee). On a day like any other, Campbell's life takes a bizarre turn as he is offered a top-secret assignment by a U.S. government official (John Goodman in an unbilled role)--to pose as a Nazi sympathiser while relaying secret American code via the radio. Campbell successfully accomplishes his mission by starting an anti-American, anti-Semitic radio programme that is revered in Nazi Germany and deplored in America. In a strange twist of fate, the unknown American playwright becomes a well-known German celebrity. After the war, Campbell escapes Germany and flees to New York, preferring to remain anonymous in the booming city. Years later, Campbell's life is turned upside down when he is recognised and pursued by Holocaust survivors, eager white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and U.S. law enforcers, leading to his incarceration in the Israeli prison where he awaits his fate. As Campbell, Nolte gives one of the finest performances of his career. A nightmarish maze of one man's misadventures, MOTHER NIGHT is an ironic and deeply stylised tribute to the one-of-a-kind dark humour of Vonnegut's writing.

Starring Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
Director Keith Gordon
Studio ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO
Run time DVD: 1 hr 49 mins
Certificate Certificate 15
Genres Thriller
Language DVD: English
Released DVD: 28 Jun 2004
Production year: 1996
Format DVD

  • Critics' reviews (3) of Mother Night

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  • 3 stars out of 5

    Kurt Vonnegut's source novel about a Nazi war criminal — a sort of Lord Haw-Haw figure — standing trial in Israel, whose memoirs claim he was in fact an American spy, proves a hard nut to crack. It's a diffuse story told in flashback that stretches over five decades and also deals with racism in Harlem in the 1950s. Director Keith Gordon's film is brave and ambitious but not completely successful, though Nick Nolte is excellent in an especially demanding central role, and there is strong support from John Goodman and Alan Arkin.

    • Radio Times
    • Posted 29 Jan 2006
  • 2 stars out of 4

    An engrossing attempt to film a complex novel concerned with moral relativities, although, despite its intelligence, it doesn't quite capture the original's ironic humour.

    • Halliwell's Film Guide
    • Posted 02 Mar 2006

  • Most helpful member's review of Mother Night

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  • 4 out of 5 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 2 stars

    Another failed attempt to bring Vonnegut to the screen

    Here's an exercise; Read a Kurt Vonnegut novel, notice the pathos and poetry, the black humour, the beauty of the language and ultimately the feeling of having become a little wiser about the Human race.

    Now watch this detached, soulless drudgery of set pieces and three act tedium. Nolte destroys any attempt trying to portray the tragedy here, going for a weary and bored peformance. And weary and boring it is, you can see where the money has been spent but not one cent of results in translating Vonnegut's poetry to this medium.

    It's sad to think of the few million dollars that was flushed down the tubes for this inept and insipid waste of film. It's one and only saving grace is a moving glimpse of the author as a passerby, in ten seconds of silent screen time Vonnegut himself packs more pathos and humanity than this turgid effort manages in nearly two hours.

      • Anil Kumar from England
      • Posted 09 Apr 2006 18:43

  • Most recent members' review of Mother Night

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  • Rated - 3 stars

    Watchable on the whole

    Interesting and original story but could see no humour in it . The storyline and the introduction of some of the more weird characters mid way through the film could have been Mel Brooks or Woody Allen inventions, so farcical it became (was that the humour then??). Nolte, a tedious actor at the best of times did not bring much to the story and Sheryl Lee was weak with a 'Carry On' style German accent. I thought Goodman portrayed his part well. Never read Vonnegut or seen any of his work - film and story did not really make me want to find out more. However, theme music and incidental music was hauntingly beautiful.

      • A customer from Surrey
      • Posted 22 Jan 2009 17:40

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Rating breakdown

210 Member ratings
  • 100
14
  • 90
12
  • 80
39
  • 70
35
  • 60
47
  • 50
22
  • 40
14
  • 30
11
  • 20
10
  • 10
6

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      • Keith Gordon's darkly comic film version of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s highly original novel stars Nick Nolte as Howard J. Campbell Jr., an unusual antihero with a twisted story to tell. The tale begins in ...