Eye of the Needle [Region 2]
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![Eye of the Needle [Region 2]](/pictures/Eye-Needle-t.jpg) |
Features
• Anamorphic
• NTSC
In Theaters : 24 July, 1981 |
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Eye of the Needle [Region 2] description
Eye of the Needle is a superbly effective World War II spy thriller from the Ken Follett bestseller of the same name. Donald Sutherland is "the Needle," a German spy in England bearing critical information on Allied invasion plans that he must deliver personally to the Führer. He's so named because of his preferred method of assassination, the stiletto. As played by Sutherland, he's a coldly calculating psychopath, emotionlessly focused on the task at hand, whether the task is to signal a U-boat or to gut a witness to avoid exposure. On his way back to Germany, a fierce storm strands him on an island, occupied only by a woman (Kate Nelligan), her disabled husband, and the lighthouse keeper. A romance of sorts develops between the woman and the spy, due to an estrangement of affections between the woman and her husband, whose accident has rendered him emotionally crippled as well. Much of the suspense of the latter half of the movie has to do with this romance, and the way it begins to reveal the Needle's motivations and whether there's a sympathetic personality buried somewhere inside him, though he remains by-and-large tantalizingly enigmatic. Early on, we discover that he may not enjoy the hand life has dealt him. When a courier asks him about the way he lives, and "What else can one do?" the Needle answers, "One can just stop." But as the film makes amply clear in its final third, one doesn't stop, does one? The direction by Richard Marquand (known primarily for thrillers such as this one and Jagged Edge, although he also did Return of the Jedi) is crisply done, boasting numerous suspenseful episodes, including a deadly encounter between Sutherland and the disabled husband, which is jaw-droppingly surprising. --Jim Gay |
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Eye of the Needle [Region 2] Customer Reviews
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Diagnosing Sutherland's character, the Needle
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I watched this movie for the first time recently on cable and found it so engrossing that I watched it a second time a week later -- and now I'm on amazon reading the reviews and considering whether to purchase it. I decided to comment on Sutherland's character, the Needle, because as a relatively new psychotherapist I found myself wondering during the first half of the film whether this man was sociopathic (I have to disagree with another reviewer who said he was "psychotic") or whether he was turning off whatever feelings he might have about killing because it was what he had to do in wartime. In other words, would this man have the capacity to kill were there no war? Arguably, he might not have killed Kate Nelligan's husband had he not confronted him about the camera film of the airplanes and not killed the lighthouse keeper if he had been able to use the wireless without being discovered. He did not harm Kate Nelligan or her son, even when she chopped off part of his hand and fried the wireless (and he looked at her burnt fingers with a subtle compassion). This tells me he was capable of caring, if not love. We have hints to his adult personality, as influenced by his chiildhood, from comments he made about parents essentially using children for their needs and not really loving them (we assume he was talking about himself). But he said it in a way that felt like he had an understanding of his childhood as opposed to a person who was simply acting out from repressed rage. What do others think? Is he sociopathic (anti-social personality disorder would be the diagnosis according to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-IV TR), does he have some sociopathy but not rigidified enough to call him personality disordered, or a normal guy capable of handling complex and highly stressful situations in wartime (and following through on what others need him to do, as socialized to do by his parents)? I don't think a person suffering from unresolved childhood trauma (the fight, flight, or freeze response) would be able to hold it together and think as clearly as he was able to over an extended period of time either. Thoughts?
One more question: a couple of reviewers mentioned that this DVD was an edited version of the film. Is this true? If so, where can one get an unedited version? |
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Eye of the Needle [Region 2] dvd movie.