In a desolate, destroyed landscape - bearing now irrelevant traces of technological society - a man and a boy try to find their way under a fierce sun.

In ''Short Letter, Long Farewell,'' a German playwright is pursued by his wife, an actress, who wants to kill him. They scramble across the United States - Providence, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tucson, northern Oregon - to California, where they meet the director John Ford, who utters sage advice that enables them to part in peace. The novel is full of vivid snapshots of American characters and scenes, and the idiosyncratic mixture of narrative, interior monologue, natural description and cultural themes and cliches is a brilliant concoction.

A young electrical engineer, engaged to his boss's daughter and on the way to a secure existence, breaks out of his usual life when he meets a childhood friend.

影片根据著名奥地利画家埃贡席勒（马修·加里瑞 Mathieu Carrière 饰）的生平改编。1912年对于席勒来说并不是一个好年，这一年他邂逅了名为塔特亚娜的十三岁女孩，这个女孩成为了他艺术灵感的来源，可同样的，席勒因为这个女儿，而背上了诱拐未成年少女的罪名，甚至因此遭到了逮捕。 虽然他的模特女友瓦莉（简·伯金 Jane Birkin 饰）一直为了席勒能够重获自由而奔波操劳，但最后席勒还是被判决罪名成立，他的作品也被付之一炬。出狱后的席勒并没有吸取之前的教训，而是依旧我行我素，虽然他的画渐渐的有了销路，名气也越来越大，但他和瓦莉之间的关系却日益冷淡。