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Music Box Movie Poster
Plot, Details & Awards

Music Box

(1989)
In Theaters 12/25/1989 , 126min.
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Plot & Details

Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government, Lange handles Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research, Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier Z, Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in The Music Box (nor does screenwriter Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective.
  • Genre(s): Crime and Mystery,Drama,Thriller
  • Run Time: 126min.
  • Theatrical Release Date: 12/25/1989
  • DVD Release Date: 05/20/2003
  • Distributor(s): Tri-Star Pictures
  • Director(s): Costa-Gavras
  • Starring: Jessica Lange , Armin Mueller-Stahl , Frederic Forrest , Donald Moffat , Lukas Haas
  • Themes: Double Life,Fathers and Daughters
  • Tone: Downbeat,Bleak,Confrontational,Earnest,Tense
  • Keywords: Nazi,blackmail,daughter,father,lawyer,trial [courtroom],war-crimes
  • Country of Origin: USA (12-25-1989)
  • Language: English

Awards

Academy Awards

Year Award CategoryCast & Crew Result
1989 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Actress Jessica Lange Nominated

Golden Globes

Year Award CategoryCast & Crew Result
1989 Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama Jessica Lange Nominated
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