Meryl Streep - Making of "Sophie's Choice" - Part 1 of 2 

Meryl's Sophie was straight up the best performance by an actress EVER.

I am Polish.Our language is one of the hardest to learn due to complex grammar, inflections, declensions,complex word order and consonants, not too mention the proununciation! I must say Meryl Streep really did an outstanding job learning it!

In the child selection scene, I couldn`t imagine such horror like that, watching your child being taken to it`s death and the screams fading away into the distance. That scene still stays with me to this day. The worse part is that those atrocities really did happen. Those German Nazis were sadistic psychos, pure evil. Hope they are now suffering eternal torment in hell.

This film is so good that i can't watch it a second time. The acting and film making makes it feel so real. And incredibly sad.

Kevin Kline was brilliant in this film. He WAS Nathan. Just a masterpiece!

I watched this film when it came out with a friend. We could not speak after watching this incredible movie. Meryl Streep and the cast were amazing. ❤❤

I watched the film first and then I read the book. Nothing will ever come close to the experience of reading this particular book. You can never grasp and absorb this level of horror and every time you pick it up again (movie or book) it's a whole new process of grieving. The book has a soul of its own, something I haven't found in another book yet. It's like it casts a spell on you, and , just as mentioned in this video, forces you - no, makes you want - to be a part of its reality. One minute you're Stingo, then you're Nathan, and when you find yourself in the imagined possibility of being Sophie, you can never recover from the book's effect, ever. It's always just there, in the back of your mind. I'll dare to say, you carry it through the rest of your life. Just as Sophie carried the Choice.

Meryl Streep has always been an enchanting woman, but in this film particularly she is just gorgeous. I don't know why that happens only in the specific movie, but you really can't get your eyes off her... Especially at the part when she looks at the window and her eyes are watery and shiny... Have you noticed that? Other than that, I believe that was the greatest performance she has given in her entire life, even though it would be hard to just pick one. Amazing film, so overwhelming. It has marked me forever, I guess.

Watched this movie as a reference from Gilmore Girls then fell in love with it. This movie is art. Salute to the great Meryl Streep.

I went to see the movie when it was originally released, as I was leaving for the theatre my Mother, who read the book, said, "wait until you see what her choice is." Watching the movie I thought it was going to be her choice between Stingo and Nathan, I am still surprised.

The first time I saw this film, I feel in love with Meryl Streep. Not just her great beauty, which is clearly there, but the indescribable talent I saw. All these years later I find myself rewatching the film about once a year and still amazed by this film. The writing, direction and acting was perfect. I just don't see a way it could have been done better. The sad and powerful story is a classic. I just can't imagine this film being made without the chosen actors.

I watched this film 10 years ago and I was truly shocked and haunted by it. A film once seen cannot be forgotten

Meryl Streep should have won a Nobel prize for artistic excellence in what she did here - it's just incredible !

One of the greatest performances in the history of cinema, and Kevin and Peter are right there with her. Accept No Streepstitutes.

Meryl said she couldn't do more than one take of the selection scene. She told them ahead of time that she would only do it once.

Yes, Kevin is unstoppable in this role. Truly a thrilling, powerful & unique performance. I adore Meryl too, but Sophie's choice is for me a Kevin Kline - film. He is the engine of this film, an astonishing, primitive force. You can't help but stare at him in every scene he is. Brilliant.

This story has haunted me all of my life. It is the one book I simply could not finish. I keep hovering at the edges of the movie, listening to the soundtrack, watching snip it’s at a time, but I can’t take in the whole movie again. It’s simply too tragic. I can’t walk into it again, but neither can I let it go.

"...[P]erverse search for the same horror that you're escaping from in order to punish yourself for the guilt you feel." What a fantastic assessment of her character! This is, hands down, the best performance ever put on screen. Bar none, no contest for me.

The performances of a lifetime. Indelible. It was an honour to produce the original soundtrack recording for this film.

The scene that everybody talks about, the scene in the movie where she makes that choice, is the most powerful scene in any movie ever. And it beats the rest by a lot. How they pulled it off was sheer brilliance and horror at the same time. The little girl to me is afraid for real, in other words she is truly scared and if that was the case one has to wonder was it worth it. I say yes because one has to respect the art of it, and they could quickly console her, I am talking of the little girl. And maybe it needed to be done. The whole movie was very good, and a great performance by Streep.

Read the novel many years after seeing the movie...still remember the opening words... "In those days..."

Some 38 years after watching Sophie's Choice and now just watching again the film clip of the pivotal scene where Sophie is forced to decide between her son and daughter ,one being surrendered to virtual immediate death, still brought tears. Superb script and acting of course contributed to my heartbreak, but so to the fact that mankind has a proven history of being so totally ruthless unto the gentlest of souls.

Sophie's Choice is my favorite all-time movie due to the talented author, William Styron. The book was brought to the big screen by stellar performances by Styron's characters, Stingo, Nathan, and Sophie.

Kevin Kline is phenomenal is this film. It was his first movie and he was perfect.

A masterpiece.. and Meryl Streep, what a treasure for Hollywood. Thank you so much for posting this. Oh.. Peter Macnicol used to be so cute, he turned weird.. lol

It is particularly painful for me to watch this film because I produced the sound track album and was associated with the film makers. As brilliant a film as might be imagined. Meryl's performance is nothing short of astounding. And, of course, the late Marvin Hamlisch, who composed the score.

This is beyond incredible, In my lifetime to be able to read the book, watch the movie and be alive during this Brilliant Authors Life! What a Honor! Oh how I would have loved to have met the Great William Styron! 🙌🙏 #ReadingIsEssential 📚📖

the music of this film is perfect....Marvin, you were a genius...Rest in Peace loved this movie...so moving and so poignant in it's relating such raw feelings....Meryl might have been put here for this role...

This is an amazing film that I still remember. I have just finished the book and if you loved the movie please read the book.

I've never seen this movie but now I really do want to! It seems like an amazing movie.

Such a master of her art. I love her.

Certainly one of the greatest films ever

Fantastic film x

Was always surprised Kevin Kline never really took off in the movies after this?...he always seemed to play an also-ran part in other stuff, and he's an excellent actor!!

5:30 ",,, that sort of perverse search for the same horror that you're escaping from, in order to punish yourself for the guilt you feel." Meryl is an observant and deeply empathetic actor.

To everyone who has seen the movie please read the book as it is just as incredible.

Meryl Streep is an excellent actress.

It is indeed a great shame this film was not included among the nominees for Best Picture (if there is such a thing). I remember it was greeted with a great deal of critical applause, but somehow (it's dark, painful subject matter?) it was not a financial success in any respect - and I think this tends to influence the Academy from time to time. Now 30 yrs on its depth and high concentration of talent esteem it somewhat above other, more celebrated films of '82.

I think this is one of the best films ever made and full of powerful performances but I have trouble making myself watch it because its so painful...It puts me in a mood for weeks and I can tell myself its fiction but it stays with me because the characters were so real to me.....Does anyone else feel that way? I have the same issue with "Chinatown" and I always stop the DVD before the scene where Evelyn gets shot by her father...

that little girl was 5 years old for REAL! How do you get a performance of shear 5 year old terror out of a 5 year old without it seeming like real terror to the child's mind. I am disturbed with this movie and the questions it raises in myself on the treatment of children in movies!

@unika542 I couldn't agree more - he was fantastic in it! He was nominated for BAFTA and Golden Globe for best newcomer/debut, but didn't win. It was actually the second film he made; he came to Sophie's Choice straight from filming "Pirates of Penzance", but the latter took so long to be released, Sophie's Choice came out first.

Real footage of real suffering victims should not have been used in this video. About the film. It's very powerful. Meryl Streep is amazing in it. I can't watch it again. The ending is too horrific. Too upsetting. The evil in human beings is also echoed, depressingly, in some of the comments on RU-vid.

Never seen this movie but would like to but its not available here in Australia not too sure why, Will buy on dvd

The saddest parts of this film, for me, are not the ones back in Auschwitz, but all the times Sophie smiles through her pain, like she's trying to overcome her traumas, but they are so strong that they show up on her face effortlessly.

I haven't felt this shattered by a movie in a long long long time... this is the worst thing that can ever happen to a person. Unfortunately these sorts of things really happened in the German death camps... they really did. Oh God no

IMHO Streep gave the greatest acting performance. She even solved the problem of a Pole speaking English. Incredible.

Their thoughts are so profound that they're almost trippy.

Kevin Kline was fabulous

Amazing movie and acting by Meryl but I could only watch it once, too heartbreaking.

when the ads play I just turn the sound off.

Well my family wasn't particularly exposed to Aushwitz but we are Polish and this whole horror of war touched us for many many generations , it's in our blood. Also I'm a mother ...and I have a boy and a girl :/

Ample make this bed, make this bed with awe...

Maybe she is perfect for the role, but somehow I don't get warm with her. Sigourney Weaver once said she could not like Meryl play a "Single Parent with Cancer. Meryl is best and most authentic when she plays bad or evil roles." Totally agree. And the Director wanted Liv Ullmann for the part, would have been a great Choice, if you pardon the pun. She comes very close to me with her way.

I didn't like this book , BUT the character of SOPHIE should be remembered throughout history !

best action ever

People say its too sad to watch it again.bt I dunno how I can watch ds flick n no of times and cry every time like a mess.myb M nt scared to cry😏 P.S:Meryl Streep is love❤❤❤❤❤

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Those who survived were meant too so they could tell the world what happened

I had a genetic test done and it shows ancestry and M. Streep and I share a "haplo group" which is her Jewish ancestry...I am not and did not know that I had any Jewish blood until a genetic mutation that causes cancer reared its head in our extended family and that gene,the BRCA mutation, has been traced to the Askenazi Jews from Northern Russia...I wonder if Meryl knows that she may have also inherited that risk...

The movies like these make my self preservation kick in thinking how could anyone be that evil 😔

😢😢😢😢

Thank you so much for sharing with me an infamous fragment of the Hitler's Nazi horrendous regimen, via the film. It must have been a painful odyssey it is to recollect such memories and to recount them. The crimes and cruelties committed against my sons and daughters, my fathers and mothers, my brothers and sisters hurt me deeply, regardless their ethnicity and nationality. In Isaiah 2: 4, Jehovah God, the Creator and Source of life, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, promises: "He will be judge among the nations and will settle matters in relation to many peoples. They will turn their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. The nations will no longer raise their swords against each other and learn no more to wage war." My immediate neighbors are Jews and I am a Jehovah's Witness. Their hearts are superior than pure gold by far. They are extremely kind. The gentleman takes care of my trash can every Wednesday without my asking him to do so. They are lovely human beings, and they are not in need of the smallest improvement.

Actually SelinaMadel her Dutch ancestors where Jewish they arived in the American colonies in the 17th century.

Stingo was on 24 in Season 6!

God bless

I've never seen this movie

Knowing well this movie once was known in Boston a man who after an automobile accident and himself to blame and injured had to make a decison between saving the life of his wife or his unborn child. He did, months later living with that choice he came to another decision he had made the wrong choice and the choice so one could live also died. He could not live with that decision and he himself committed suicide. An entire family lost. Pray thee well you never have to make that kind of decision.

This has too many meaningß for me.My name is Sophie & so much more........ This film was amazing, but i was to hurt to watch until recently. 😪😪😪

actually she IS part Jewish and I was informed that she is a distant cousin to me.Jews view each other as family,that's why.So there.

I knew a man who had a tattoo on his arm, I ask him about it and he told me he and his mother were sent to Auschwitz. I wish I could have talked to him more but...it was not the right time.

@unika542 Yep, too true!

Meryl Streep is of Jewish ancestry in real life.

Too bad she didn’t meet Stingo first

Hollywood Needs To Make A Movie On America's MORGANTHAU PLAN." Tell Both Sides Of The Story. Not Just One Side Of The Story.

you are so wrong seniorita! it's like saying Spanish is only a language! The DNA company told her that she is part Jewish and they told me I am related to her,and I am 100% Jewish.So there.

the book is so much better than the movie. the only thing that came out good with the movie is meryl streep's performance. other than that the movie as a whole is ok.

Not easy for her that choice

I honestly can not understand what you are saying. Why can't you spell, capitalise or punctuate?

I totally agree. He was robbed.

Pure Propaganda

Judaism a race?? One of the 3 biggest religions. And im being ignorant!!! My god what is wrong with this picture.

Maryl Streep was born in 1949 - this is nonsense!

Great actress but lousy political choices.

I used to really like her until I started seeing arrogance , much like what Julia Roberts has.

This movie was too depressing

This movie is so disturbing!