Mountains of the Moon

Director: Bob Rafelson

1990 / 136min / 35mm

William Harrison’s 1982 historical novel about 19th-century explorers Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke and their rival expeditions to discover the source of the Nile River received a suitably epic treatment from Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces, The Postman Always Rings Twice), whose beautifully detailed dual-portrait character study follows the two men, played by Patrick Bergin and Iain Glen, from London drawing rooms and lecture halls to the perilous wilds of Central Africa. “Completely absorbing. It tells its story soberly and intelligently, and with quiet style. It doesn’t manufacture false thrills or phony excitement… [A film] about the unquenchable compulsion of some men to see what is beyond the horizon, and about the hunger for glory.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Distributor: Rialto Pictures

Part of When Carolco Was King