Plot
The young Lillian and the young Julia, daughter of a wealthy family being brought up by her grandparents in the U.S., enjoy a childhood together and an extremely close relationship in late adolescence. Later, while medical-student/physician Julia (Vanessa Redgrave) attends Oxford and the University of Vienna and studies with such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Lillian (Jane Fonda) suffers through revisions of her play with her mentor and sometime lover, famed author Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards) at a beachhouse.
After becoming a celebrated playwright, Lillian is invited to a writers' conference in Russia. Julia, having taken on the battle against Nazism, enlists Lillian en route to smuggle money through Nazi Germany which will assist in the anti-Nazi cause. It is a dangerous mission, especially for a Jewish intellectual on her way to Russia.
During a brief meeting with Julia on this trip, Lillian learns that her friend has a child named Lily, living with a baker in Alsace. Shortly after her return to the United States, Lillian is informed of Julia's murder. The details of her death are shrouded in secrecy. Lillian unsuccessfully looks for Julia's daughter in Alsace and also discovers that Julia's family wants nothing to do with the child, if she exists. They even pretend not to remember Lillian, clearly wanting to excise the embarrassment of Julia from their lives.
Read more about this topic: Julia (1977 film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)