I Am Sam

I Am Sam (2001)

Timing: 2:12 (132 min)

7.563/10
2475

7.997/10
78480

7.6/10
162000

All about film

Video 3

Photo 23

Actors and characters

Release date

2001-12-28

Country

United States

Production

New Line Cinema, Bedford Falls Productions, Red Fish, Blue Fish Films

Genre

Drama

Budget

$22 000 000

Revenue

$92 542 418

Website

Director

Jessie Nelson

Actors

Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianne Wiest, Dakota Fanning, Richard Schiff, Loretta Devine, Marin Hinkle, Laura Dern, Brad Silverman, Joseph Rosenberg
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Richard Solomon, Jessie Nelson, Michael De Luca, Claire Rudnick Polstein, David Scott Rubin

Operator

Elliot Davis

Composer

John Powell

Artist

Audition

Mary Gail Artz, Barbara Cohen

Editing

Richard Chew
All team (55)

• New Line Cinema struggled for a long time to decide on a title for this film. Ultimately, they settled on "I Am Sam," which references Dr. Seuss's book "Green Eggs and Ham."
• Since the main character is a big fan of The Beatles, the soundtrack consists of songs by the Liverpool quartet performed by today's musical stars, such as Nick Cave, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Eddie Vedder, "The Wallflowers," and others.
• Three people with developmental disabilities played themselves in the film: Endri Stanley, Joseph Rosenberg, and Brian Bialik. They are members of an organization called L.A. GOAL (Los Angeles Goal), which works with people with developmental disabilities.
• Dakota Fanning's character is named Lucy Diamond after The Beatles' song ("Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"). Michelle Pfeiffer's character is named Rita Harrison (the name is a combination of the name from The Beatles' song "Lovely Rita" and the surname of George Harrison). Sam, Lucy, and Sam's friends cross the street holding balloons, which is a reference to the cover of The Beatles' album "Abbey Road" (1969). Sean Penn even wanted the entire film soundtrack to consist only of Beatles songs, but this did not happen due to the position of the copyright holders. Therefore, Penn turned to various performers with a request to do covers of these songs. All the covers were performed and recorded at the same tempo as the originals.
• New Line Cinema struggled for a long time to decide on a title for this film. Eventually, they settled on “I Am Sam,” which references Dr. Seuss’s book “Green Eggs and Ham.”
• Since the main character is a big fan of The Beatles, the soundtrack consists of songs by the Liverpool Four performed by today's musical stars, such as Nick Cave, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Eddie Vedder, “The Wallflowers,” and others.