Patty Hearst (film)

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Patty Hearst
Film poster
Directed by	Paul Schrader
Produced by	Marvin Worth
Written by	Patricia Hearst, Alvin Moscow, Nicholas Kazan
Starring	Natasha Richardson, William Forsythe, Ving Rhames, Frances Fisher, Jodi Long, Olivia Barash, Dana Delany
Music by	Scott Johnson
Cinematography	Bojan Bazelli
Editing by	Michael R. Miller
Release date(s)	September 23, 1988
Running time	108 min
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

Patty Hearst is a 1988 film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Natasha Richardson as Patricia Campbell Hearst and Ving Rhames as SLA leader Cinque. It is based on Hearst's 1982 autobiography Every Secret Thing (co-written with Alvin Moscow), which was later rereleased as Patty Hearst - Her Own Story.

Schrader has said that he made Patty Hearst on a low budget and for a small salary to recover from the commercial and artistic failure of Light of Day. The film has a very distinctive visual style, not least because it is made almost entirely from Patty Hearst's point of view and therefore the first part is set largely in a dark closet with occasional blinding shafts of light when the kidnappers open the door. The ending, like those of Schrader's American Gigolo and Light Sleeper, echoes that of Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, showing the central character physically imprisoned but beginning to think hopefully about a new phase in her life.