In an unstable South American country, capable Nostromo, a person of trust and a legend among his shipmates, is ordered to secure a shipment of gold and stop any revolutionaries who might try to take it. But even the bravest can be foolish. This television mini-series is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s epic story Nostromo of political upheaval, greed and romance in turn-of-the-20th-century South America.
One of the greatest novels of our time comes to Masterpiece Theatre in a lavish international production capturing the love, honor, obsession and greed of a mythical South American country in the 1890s in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. Shot entirely on location in Cartegena de Indias, Colombia, Nostromo stars Colin Firth, Albert Finney and Claudia Cardinale, along with an international cast featuring Italian film star Claudio Amendola in the title role. In the imaginary republic of Costaguana, where the Andes plunge down to a tropical paradise, there are fortunes to be made. Englishman Charles Gould (Colin Firth) has arrived with his wife (Serena Scott Thomas) to take over the family’s closed silver mine, which may yet yield great wealth. Gould’s obsession to make the mine productive works on the people of Costaguana like a dangerous drug, energizing them and plunging them into a morass of corruption, betrayal and revolution as the shining bullion mounts up. Throughout it all, there is only one man who is reliable beyond question: Nostromo, the proud leader of the local dockworkers, whose name means “our man.” To him falls the duty of saving the mine and its treasure when civil war engulfs the country. Critics have hailed the original novel, published in 1904, as indisputably one of the greatest of the 20th century — a South American War and Peace that probes the actions, emotions and destinies of people who are caught in epic forces beyond their control.
Starring Claudio Amendola, Paul Brooke, Lothaire Bluteau, Claudia Cardinale, Joaquim de Almeida, Colin Firth.
Shown on PBS Masterpiece Theatre.
Note: Appears to only be available on VHS at the time of writing.