August is a 1996 British drama film directed by and starring Anthony Hopkins as Ieuan (IPA:j/əɨ/a/n) Davies, and featuring Rhys Ifans in a small role in one of his earliest films, as Griffiths. It is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's 1899 play "Uncle Vanya", with the character Ieuan Davies taking over the title role.
The film was Hopkins's first feature film with a full cast (he had previously directed the one-man-performance of "Dylan Thomas: Return Journey" in 1990). It would be over a decade before his next directorial effort, "Slipstream" in 2007, which he also wrote and for which he also composed the score.
During an interview on the podcast, "The Ghost of Hollywood", cinematographer, Robin Vidgeon, stated that working with Anthony Hopkins on "August" was the highlight of his career.
Adaptation and issues.
The film adapts "Uncle Vanya" to a turn-of-the-century Welsh setting, emphasizing the hardships of Welsh industrial life in the slate quarries and Welsh-English turmoil as an English professor upsets normal Welsh life when he arrives at the Welsh estate which acts as his vacation home (at one point Ieuan states that he feels that he has been cheated by the Prof. Blathwaite, just as "the English have always cheated the Welsh").
Language.
It is primarily in English, with a few lines in Welsh here or there - such as "diolch yn fawr iawn" ("thank you very much"), "cariad" (a term of endearment, meaning "love"), and "iechyd da" ("cheers").
References.
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