Don Juan De Marco
About the Film
A young man in a cape and mask climbs onto a billboard, threatening to leap to his death over a lost love, and announces that he is Don Juan, the greatest lover who ever lived. Talked down by veteran psychiatrist Dr. Jack Mickler — who plays along by pretending to be a Spanish nobleman — the young man is committed for a ten-day evaluation before a decision is made about his future.
Over those ten days “Don Juan” recounts a life of impossibly romantic adventures, and the soon-to-retire Mickler finds himself enchanted rather than convinced, his own faded marriage reawakening under the spell of the young man’s philosophy of love. Whether the patient is truly deluded or simply sees the world more vividly than everyone around him becomes the film’s gentle, romantic question.
Plot synopsis by johnny-depp.org.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp plays John Arnold DeMarco, a lovelorn young man who believes wholeheartedly that he is Don Juan, history’s greatest lover. Complete with cape, mask and a lush Castilian accent, Depp gives him a disarming sincerity and old-world gallantry that make his “delusion” irresistible — a wide-eyed romantic whose faith in love proves more infectious, and more healing, than the psychiatry meant to cure him. The role paired him with screen legend Marlon Brando.
Cast & Crew
Cast
Don Juan / John Arnold DeMarcoJohnny Depp
Dr. Jack MicklerMarlon Brando
Marilyn MicklerFaye Dunaway
Doña InezRachel Ticotin
Dr. Paul ShowalterBob Dishy
Doña AnaGéraldine Pailhas
Crew
Director / WriterJeremy Leven
MusicMichael Kamen
CinematographyRalf D. Bode
ProducersFrancis Ford Coppola, Fred Fuchs, Patrick Palmer
StudioNew Line Cinema / American Zoetrope
“There are only four questions of value in life … What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love.”
— Don Juan, Don Juan DeMarco
More about this film
Trivia
- It was Marlon Brando’s final leading role in a theatrical film.
- Bryan Adams’s song “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”, written for the film, earned Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy nominations.
- Francis Ford Coppola produced the film through his American Zoetrope company.
- It was one of Depp’s first outright romantic leads, released the same year as Ed Wood was still in cinemas abroad.
Awards
- 1996 Academy Award — Best Original Song (“Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”), nominated
- 1996 Golden Globe — Best Original Song, nominated
