Circle of Two
1980 film by Jules Dassin
Circle of Two is a 1981 Canadian drama film starring Richard Burton and Tatum O'Neal. It was the last film directed by acclaimed film noir director Jules Dassin. O'Neal - fifteen at the time of filming - appears topless in one scene.
Plot
A 60-year-old artist, who has lost his inspiration when his muse left him 10 years previously, regains it when he falls in love with a sixteen-year-old.
Cast
Richard Burton - Ashley St. Clair
Tatum O'Neal - Sarah Norton
Nuala Fitzgerald - Claudia Aldrich
Robin Gammell - Mr. Norton
Patricia Collins - Mrs. Norton
Kate Reid - Dr. Reed
Michael Wincott - Paul
Production
570 shares in the film were sold at $10,000 to 426 people to finance its $5.7 million budget. Merrill Lynch earned $456,000 off of the commissions for the investment sales.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Circle of Two” is 1980 film by Jules Dassin. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Circle, film and Jules, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1980 film by Jules Dassin” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5121489. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Circle of Two” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.