Apt Pupil is a 1998 American thriller film directed by Bryan Singer and starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. It is based on the 1982 novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King. In the 1980s in southern California, high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers fugitive Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander (McKellen) living in his neighborhood under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and acts of the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them.
The novella was first published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons. Producer Richard Kobritz sought to adapt the novella into a film during the 1980s, but two actors he invited to play Dussander died. When filming began in 1987, a loss of financing led to the production being shut down. Forty minutes of usable footage existed, but production was never revived. In 1995, when rights to the novella returned to King, Bryan Singer petitioned King for an opportunity to adapt the novella. With King's support, Singer filmed Apt Pupil with McKellen and Renfro in Altadena, California, in 1997. Singer shortened the novella's storyline, reduced its violence, and changed the ending. Singer called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty" with Nazism only serving as a vehicle for the capacity of evil.
During the $14 million production, a lawsuit was filed by several extras, including some underage who alleged that they were told to strip naked during a shower scene. There was no cause to file criminal charges, and a civil-case lawsuit was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The film was released in the United States and Canada on October 23, 1998 by Sony Pictures Releasing to mixed reviews and made $8.9 million against a $14 million budget. The main actors won several minor awards for their performances.
Plot In 1984 Southern California, 16-year-old high school student Todd Bowden discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is actually Kurt Dussander—a former Nazi concentration camp commandant, who is now a fugitive war criminal. Todd, fascinated with Nazi atrocities perpetrated during World War II, blackmails Dussander, forcing him to share disturbing stories of what it was like working at Nazi extermination camps and how it felt to participate in genocide.
Todd purchases an SS uniform from a costume shop and forces Dussander to wear it. As he spends more time with Dussander, his schoolwork suffers, he loses interest in his girlfriend, and he conceals his bad grades from his parents. Dussander begins blackmailing Todd in return, forcing him to work to restore his grades by threatening to expose the subterfuge and his dalliance with Nazism to his parents. Dussander even poses as Todd's grandfather and goes to an appointment with Todd's school counselor Edward French. Talking about the war crimes affects both the old man and the young boy. An intoxicated Dussander tries and fails to kill a cat with his gas oven. Dussander also takes pride in Todd's remarkable turnaround, going from near-dropout to straight-A student in a matter of weeks.
One night, Dussander tries to kill a homeless person who earlier had seen him in the uniform. When Dussander has a heart attack, he calls Todd, who finishes the killing, cleans up, and calls an ambulance for Dussander. At the hospital, Dussander is recognized by a death camp survivor sharing his room. He is arrested and an extradition to Israel is arranged. Todd graduates as valedictorian and gives a speech about Icarus, saying, "All great achievements arose from dissatisfaction. It is the desire to do better, to dig deeper, that propels civilization to greatness." The scene is juxtaposed in a montage with Dussander's home being searched and the corpse being found in the basement.
Todd is questioned about his relationship with Dussander and he convinces the police that he knew nothing of the man's true identity. A group of Neo-Nazis demonstrates outside the hospital; realizing his situation is hopeless, Dussander commits suicide by giving himself an air embolism. When French learns that the man who met Todd at school was not Todd's grandfather but a war criminal, he confronts Todd, who then blackmails French into silence by threatening to accuse him of making inappropriate sexual advances.
Cast Actor Role Ian McKellen... Kurt Dussander /Arthur Denker Brad Renfro... Todd Bowden David Schwimmer... Edward French Bruce Davison... Richard Bowden Ann Dowd... Monica Bowden James Karen... Victor Bowden Elias Koteas... Archie Joe Morton... Dan Richler Jan Tříska... Isaac Weiskopf Michael Byrne... Ben Kramer Heather McComb... Becky Trask Joshua Jackson... Joey
Ian McKellen stars as Kurt Dussander, a Nazi war criminal who hides in America under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Screenwriter Brandon Boyce described Dussander as being "a composite of these ghosts of World War II" but not based on any real-life individual. McKellen was attracted to the role because he was impressed with Singer's The Usual Suspects and saw the role of Dussander as "a nice, meaty part and difficult". (Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times.) Singer, who enjoyed McKellen in John Schlesinger's 1995 film Cold Comfort Farm, invited the actor to take the role. The character's language was written originally for "a very stoic German", but Singer felt that McKellen's "complex" personality could contribute to the character. The director said of choosing McKellen, "I felt if I could combine his complexity, his colorfulness, to the stoic German character it would create a character that, although evil, would garner more sympathy and would be more enjoyable for the audience to watch."
Brad Renfro stars alongside McKellen as Todd Bowden, a 16-year-old who discovers Denker's criminal past. Singer auditioned a couple of hundred young men and chose 14-year-old Renfro, saying of him, "Brad was the brightest, the most intense and the most real. Not only could he have the intensity when we wanted, there was a hollowness that he could convey, and by the end of the picture he had to become this empty vessel." Portraying a manipulative character temporarily influenced Renfro, who said that people around him were worried about his state of mind. Renfro said of his performance, "It's a trip I have to take. People just kind of have to leave me alone when I'm doing it. It's my job." He described Todd as a "very articulate boy" who unveils himself as a "monster", which also signified a departure from his previous roles as the "rebel" or the "oversensitive bad boy". Singer described his impression of the character:
David Schwimmer plays Edward French, Todd Bowden's high school guidance counselor. Before Schwimmer, Kevin Pollak was attached to the role. While Schwimmer was known for his comedic role on the television show Friends, Singer was impressed by the actor's performance in a Los Angeles stage production and decided to cast him as the counselor.
Production Under the studio Sony Pictures Entertainment, Apt Pupil was directed by Bryan Singer based on a screenplay by Brandon Boyce that adapted the 1982 novella Apt Pupil by Stephen King. The production was "a Sony Pictures Entertainment release from TriStar Pictures of a Phoenix Pictures presentation of a Bad Hat Harry production".
Previous production attempt When Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil was published as part of his collection Different Seasons in 1982, producer Richard Kobritz optioned feature film rights to the novella. Kobritz met with actor James Mason to play the novella's war criminal Kurt Dussander, but Mason died in July 1984 before production as a result of a heart attack. The producer also approached Richard Burton for the role, but Burton also died in August that same year. By 1987 production on the film began with Nicol Williamson cast as Kurt Dussander, and 17-year-old Rick Schroder was cast as Todd Bowden. In that year, Alan Bridges began direction of the film with a script co-written by Ken Wheat and his brother Jim Wheat. After ten weeks of filming, the production suffered from a lack of funds from its production company Granat Releasing, and the film had to be placed on hold. Kobritz sought to revive production, but when the opportunity came a year later, Schroder had aged too considerably for the film to work. Forty minutes of usable footage was abandoned.
Direction under Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer first read Apt Pupil when he was 19 years old, and when he became a director, he wanted to adapt the novella into a film. In 1995, Singer asked his friend and screenwriter Brandon Boyce to write a spec script adapting the novella. Boyce recalled the writing process, "I thought it was a great stageplay, actually ... two people, pretty much in a house talking. My script was completely on spec, so, if it didn't work out, at least I'd have a writing sample." When the original option to the novella expired in 1995, Stephen King sued to get the rights back. Singer and Boyce then provided to King a first draft of their script and a copy of Singer's film The Usual Suspects (1995), which had yet to be publicly released. Impressed with Singer, King optioned the rights to the director for $1, arranging to be compensated when the film was released. (Reprinted from the Los Angeles Times.) Singer said of King's ultimate response to the film, despite some changes made to the source material, "Stephen loved it. He seemed to think I captured the mood of the piece." The director appreciated being able to make a Stephen King horror film but with less supernatural terror and more character-driven terror. Singer spoke of his goal, "There have been a lot of fun horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. But I miss movies like The Shining, The Exorcist, and The Innocents by Jack Clayton, so this is a movie sort of in the spirit of the real horror movie."
Singer described Apt Pupils premise as a "study in cruelty". He prepared for the film by reading books like the 1996 history book Hitler's Willing Executioners, which confirmed his beliefs that Nazi war criminals felt "guiltless and matter-of-fact about what they did". He referred to how young Todd Bowden's interactions with Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander start to affect him, "I liked the idea of the infectious nature of evil ... The notion that anybody has the capacity within them to be cruel if motivated properly is, I think, a scary concept." The director also perceived the film as not about the Holocaust, believing that the Nazi war criminal could have been replaced by one of Pol Pot's executioners or a mass murderer from Russia. "It wasn't about fascism or National Socialism. It was about cruelty and the ability to do awful deeds, to live with them and be empowered by them," Singer said. To this end, the director sought to avoid overt use of swastikas and other Nazi symbols. He was also attracted to the film as "[an] idea that the collective awfulness of this terrible thing that happened decades ago in Europe had somehow crept up across the ocean and through time, like a golem, into this beautiful Southern California suburban neighborhood".