Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortunes of a handful of characters who are among the first to be stricken and centers around a doctor and his wife, several of the doctor’s patients, and assorted others, thrown together by chance. This group bands together in a family-like unit to survive by their wits and by the unexplained good fortune that the doctor’s wife has escaped the blindness. The sudden onset and unexplained origin and nature of the blindness cause widespread panic, and the social order rapidly unravels as the government attempts to contain the apparent contagion and keep order via increasingly repressive and inept measures.

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• Blindness Interview

From the Gallery

Promoting the Movie

Trivia & Facts

• Producer Niv Fichman became interested in the project back in 1999 when he and Don McKellar, who would write the script, flew to the Canary Islands to talk to the Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago about giving them the film rights to his book. One of Saramago’s conditions was that the film must not be set in any recognizable countries.
• In addition to cutting it, Julianne Moore dyed her signature red hair blonde for the film. This made her very uncomfortable because people were giving the new color so much attention.
•To prepare for the film, the actors, extras and crew participated in “blind camps.” They were blindfolded, taken in a car to an unknown location, and left in the middle of the street. However, there were always somebody there to guide them. Despite this, the director claimed that someone would always breakdown.

Quotes: Character

The only thing more terrifying than blindness is being the only one who can see.

King of Ward 3: I will not forget your voice!
Doctor’s Wife: And I won’t forget your face!

Quotes: Julianne

” I got a phone call saying “Hey, Fernando Meirelles is offering you his next movie” and I’m such a fan of his that I would have done anything. I loved City of God and The Constant Gardener and thought he was so incredibly talented. I had no idea it was this and I didn’t know the book. A lot of people knew the book. So I read it and I thought this material is insane. It’s great. So I just got kind of doubly lucky that it was him and he came with this material. And oddly, my son’s guitar teacher had come back from vacation saying he had just read a book and thought I’d be perfect. He said, “I read this book and you’re going to be perfect in this part.” And I was like, “Jeff, you’re not going to believe this. I just got offered that part.” Isn’t that weird.”
About how did she come to the movie

“This is not a film where there’s a hero that saves the day or something. This is a film about behavior within catastrophe and how do we react. The ability to kill someone, I don’t know if that’s a characteristic that you want to have and that’s explored. That’s absolutely explored in that. ”

Awards

Best Motion Picture at Catalonian International Film Festival

Box Office

Budget
$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend
BRL 1,223,734 (Brazil) (14 September 2008) (95 Screens)

Gross
$3,073,392 (USA) (12 October 2008)

Weekend Gross
$486,726 (USA) (12 October 2008) (1,605 Screens)