Monday, April 30, 2018
485 - Harold Lloyd in Why Worry?, United States, 1923. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.
Harold Van Pelham belongs to the Country Club. But he is leaving for the tropical island Paradiso to take care of his health.
Harold is perfectly healthy. But try to tell him that. He is convinced he has every disease known to man.
And a few unknown ones.
At least he does not have smallpox.
The man on the stretcher next to him does. That is enough to get Harold to jump from his stretcher and take off running.
Harold has a Nurse who stands loyally beside him. She dutifully gives him the pills he takes that cause a rattling inside his body.
And he has a valet who carries his things. Such as the crate of lemons he brings aboard the ship. Because someone said a lemon can help you with seasickness.
If only he knew what he was getting into.
The tropical island of Paradiso is ripe for revolution. Not because the people inherently want it. But because a millionaire is inciting it in order to profit from it.
And Harold is caught in the crosshairs.
Caught and imprisoned.
With a giant man.
They attempt their escape together.
And mayhem ensues.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
484 - Harold Lloyd in Girl Shy, United States, 1924. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
484 - Harold Lloyd in Girl Shy, United States, 1924. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.
The Poor Boy
The Rich Girl
The Poor Man
The Rich Man
Harold Meadows is girl shy. Whenever he tries to talk to a girl, he stutters. He works for his uncle, a tailor, who gives him a whistle. Harold blows it whenever he stutters.
They live in Little Bend, a town where little things happen. Three little things: morning, noon, and night.
Well, they do pitch horseshoes. And have an evening dance.
Harold stands on the sidewalk outside the tailor's shop, watching the dance from across the street. He gets the steps up in him, up inside him, from his soles of his feet up into his legs. He cannot help himself. He has to dance!
He just never makes it over there to the dance itself. He is girl shy.
Harold is writing a book in secret, The Secret of Making Love. The secret to winning a woman's heart. To help young men around the world woo women. Because he is an expert. Theoretically. Like some experts you may have encountered.
Let us say it is a work of fiction.
We are shown two chapters, two "Love Affairs," with scenarios that portray them.
First, his Love Affair No. 15: The Vampire. To capture the heart of a Vampire, he uses indifference. In the fantasy scene Harold enters the boudoir of a vampirish woman and treats her indifferently. She begs him for attention. He cannot be bothered. She pleads with him, begs him to stay. He checks her off his list.
Back to reality.
Harold sits alone in his bare attic apartment.
Second, his Love Affair No. 16: The Flapper. To capture the heart of a Flapper, he uses the Cave Man method. In this fantasy he enters the room, seizes the woman, and plants a firm kiss on her lips. She likes it. He is strong, decisive, and powerful. He checks her off his list.
Back to reality.
Harold falls asleep alone in his bare attic apartment.
But something is about to happen that will change his life forever.
He will take a train.
Just a rich woman, The Girl, takes the same train, secretly carrying her Pomeranian on board with her. Because rich women carry small dogs in their purses. It happened in 1924.
The rest of the film is quintessential Harold Lloyd.
He helps the girl. He gets into trouble. He wins the girl. They escape the trouble. They get separated. He loses the girl. She is going to marry someone else. He spends the rest of his time trying to find her again, engaging in high-speed chases, stunts, visual puns, and madcap mayhem.
Harold Lloyd is one of the great film stars of all time.
His physicality puts many contemporary physical comedians to shame.
And he maintains his endearing little-guy bravado throughout.
484 - Harold Lloyd in Girl Shy, United States, 1924. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor.
The Poor Boy
The Rich Girl
The Poor Man
The Rich Man
Harold Meadows is girl shy. Whenever he tries to talk to a girl, he stutters. He works for his uncle, a tailor, who gives him a whistle. Harold blows it whenever he stutters.
They live in Little Bend, a town where little things happen. Three little things: morning, noon, and night.
Well, they do pitch horseshoes. And have an evening dance.
Harold stands on the sidewalk outside the tailor's shop, watching the dance from across the street. He gets the steps up in him, up inside him, from his soles of his feet up into his legs. He cannot help himself. He has to dance!
He just never makes it over there to the dance itself. He is girl shy.
Harold is writing a book in secret, The Secret of Making Love. The secret to winning a woman's heart. To help young men around the world woo women. Because he is an expert. Theoretically. Like some experts you may have encountered.
Let us say it is a work of fiction.
We are shown two chapters, two "Love Affairs," with scenarios that portray them.
First, his Love Affair No. 15: The Vampire. To capture the heart of a Vampire, he uses indifference. In the fantasy scene Harold enters the boudoir of a vampirish woman and treats her indifferently. She begs him for attention. He cannot be bothered. She pleads with him, begs him to stay. He checks her off his list.
Back to reality.
Harold sits alone in his bare attic apartment.
Second, his Love Affair No. 16: The Flapper. To capture the heart of a Flapper, he uses the Cave Man method. In this fantasy he enters the room, seizes the woman, and plants a firm kiss on her lips. She likes it. He is strong, decisive, and powerful. He checks her off his list.
Back to reality.
Harold falls asleep alone in his bare attic apartment.
But something is about to happen that will change his life forever.
He will take a train.
Just a rich woman, The Girl, takes the same train, secretly carrying her Pomeranian on board with her. Because rich women carry small dogs in their purses. It happened in 1924.
The rest of the film is quintessential Harold Lloyd.
He helps the girl. He gets into trouble. He wins the girl. They escape the trouble. They get separated. He loses the girl. She is going to marry someone else. He spends the rest of his time trying to find her again, engaging in high-speed chases, stunts, visual puns, and madcap mayhem.
Harold Lloyd is one of the great film stars of all time.
His physicality puts many contemporary physical comedians to shame.
And he maintains his endearing little-guy bravado throughout.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
483 - Harold Lloyd in From Hand to Mouth, United States, 1919. Dir. Alfred J. Goulding.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
483 - Harold Lloyd in From Hand to Mouth, United States, 1919. Dir. Alfred J. Goulding.
The Boy - Harold Lloyd
Hungry enough to eat a turnip and call it turkey.
The Girl - Mildred Davis
So innocent she thinks Yale Locks are made in college.
The Kidnapper - Harry Pollard
For a dollar and a half he would steal St. Louis.
The Waif - Peggy Courtwright
Starved until her heels are hollow.
Titles by H. M. Walker.
There are more Wills than there are croaks in a bullfrog.
Mr. Will Willing the lawyer.
His conscience is as thin as a paper napkin.
Mr. Will Snobbe.
His head would make a fine hat rack.
Mr. Will Shake.
Will it will or will it won't?
The Last Will and Testament of Will Dodge.
The Boy
The only will that worries him is Will he eat?
The Boy looks through the window of Good Eats. The Waif with her dog joins him. The manager runs them off. They sit on the curb.
A man sits on the curb near them with a bag of cookies. The Boy tears open the bottom of the bag and hands one to The Waif and keeps one for himself. The Waif feeds hers to the dog and takes his for herself. She runs off. He chases her.
This begins a madcap series of chase that will keep you laughing.
The Boy chases the Waif.
The police chase The Boy.
The Kidnapper kidnaps The Girl.
The Boy chases The Kidnapper.
The Kidnapper chases The Boy.
The Boy chases the police.
The police chase The Boy.
The Police capture The Kidnapper.
The Boy and The Girl chase the clock.
The Boy gets The Girl.
The Girl gets the fortune.
The Boy and The Girl get The Waif and her dog, and they all live happily ever after.
But it is not about the plot. It is about the stunts, the chases, the visual puns, and the precision with which they are executed.
This film was made 99 years ago.
Is there anything this funny being made today?
Are there any stunts this precise today?
Are there any visual puns this smart today?
Maybe.
But if so, it may take you awhile to find it.
For sheer delightful, light-hearted, witty, romantic, physical, farcical comedy, these films seem as if they are among the very best ever made.
483 - Harold Lloyd in From Hand to Mouth, United States, 1919. Dir. Alfred J. Goulding.
The Boy - Harold Lloyd
Hungry enough to eat a turnip and call it turkey.
The Girl - Mildred Davis
So innocent she thinks Yale Locks are made in college.
The Kidnapper - Harry Pollard
For a dollar and a half he would steal St. Louis.
The Waif - Peggy Courtwright
Starved until her heels are hollow.
Titles by H. M. Walker.
There are more Wills than there are croaks in a bullfrog.
Mr. Will Willing the lawyer.
His conscience is as thin as a paper napkin.
Mr. Will Snobbe.
His head would make a fine hat rack.
Mr. Will Shake.
Will it will or will it won't?
The Last Will and Testament of Will Dodge.
The Boy
The only will that worries him is Will he eat?
The Boy looks through the window of Good Eats. The Waif with her dog joins him. The manager runs them off. They sit on the curb.
A man sits on the curb near them with a bag of cookies. The Boy tears open the bottom of the bag and hands one to The Waif and keeps one for himself. The Waif feeds hers to the dog and takes his for herself. She runs off. He chases her.
This begins a madcap series of chase that will keep you laughing.
The Boy chases the Waif.
The police chase The Boy.
The Kidnapper kidnaps The Girl.
The Boy chases The Kidnapper.
The Kidnapper chases The Boy.
The Boy chases the police.
The police chase The Boy.
The Police capture The Kidnapper.
The Boy and The Girl chase the clock.
The Boy gets The Girl.
The Girl gets the fortune.
The Boy and The Girl get The Waif and her dog, and they all live happily ever after.
But it is not about the plot. It is about the stunts, the chases, the visual puns, and the precision with which they are executed.
This film was made 99 years ago.
Is there anything this funny being made today?
Are there any stunts this precise today?
Are there any visual puns this smart today?
Maybe.
But if so, it may take you awhile to find it.
For sheer delightful, light-hearted, witty, romantic, physical, farcical comedy, these films seem as if they are among the very best ever made.
Friday, April 27, 2018
482 - Harold Lloyd in An Eastern Westerner, United States, 1920. Dir. Hal Roach.
Friday, April 27, 2018
482 - Harold Lloyd in An Eastern Westerner, United States, 1920. Dir. Hal Roach.
No shimmying on the dance floor.
Good luck telling Harold Lloyd that. The Boy cannot seem to help himself. He has some kind of rhythm going on inside him. Sure, he just has to dance. But more than that, he just has to shimmy.
Or as they say in 1920, shimmie.
So of course the Dance Hall Manager, the man whose job it is to stop dancers from shimmying, is keeping a close eye on The Boy.
This is your third warning. Once more and you will be shimmying out the door.
He will do it more than once more, and in creatively hilarious ways. Because he backs into the back of another man, whose body rhythm makes The Boy's body shimmy. Because ice falls down from above and gets down inside the back of his collar. The Boy just cannot help it.
Time for the Dance Hall Manager to grab him by the ear and remove him from the premises.
What a great job for someone to have. To monitor, for a living, the way people are dancing. And not for moral reasons--at least not as it is presented in this story. Not because when stopping sitting by sidling up and stepping, by shinnying up and shimmying, while strutting, spinning, and swaying, might be seeming as some unseemly sinning by doing some silly simmering, steaming, streaming shilly-shallying shimmy sham.
No. Not because of that.
But because it is against the rule printed on the sign hanging on the walls.
And the Dance Hall Manager has been hired to enforce the rule.
Is that an efficient allocation of capital for this business to make?
The Boy sneaks home. Gets caught. Gets sent West. His father has had enough of his shenanigans.
So now he will have to make his way in the wild, wild West. This Easterner.
So he travels from contemporary New York, 1920, to period West, 1880.
And his madcap mayhem continues.
Maybe at least they have dance halls.
482 - Harold Lloyd in An Eastern Westerner, United States, 1920. Dir. Hal Roach.
No shimmying on the dance floor.
Good luck telling Harold Lloyd that. The Boy cannot seem to help himself. He has some kind of rhythm going on inside him. Sure, he just has to dance. But more than that, he just has to shimmy.
Or as they say in 1920, shimmie.
So of course the Dance Hall Manager, the man whose job it is to stop dancers from shimmying, is keeping a close eye on The Boy.
This is your third warning. Once more and you will be shimmying out the door.
He will do it more than once more, and in creatively hilarious ways. Because he backs into the back of another man, whose body rhythm makes The Boy's body shimmy. Because ice falls down from above and gets down inside the back of his collar. The Boy just cannot help it.
Time for the Dance Hall Manager to grab him by the ear and remove him from the premises.
What a great job for someone to have. To monitor, for a living, the way people are dancing. And not for moral reasons--at least not as it is presented in this story. Not because when stopping sitting by sidling up and stepping, by shinnying up and shimmying, while strutting, spinning, and swaying, might be seeming as some unseemly sinning by doing some silly simmering, steaming, streaming shilly-shallying shimmy sham.
No. Not because of that.
But because it is against the rule printed on the sign hanging on the walls.
And the Dance Hall Manager has been hired to enforce the rule.
Is that an efficient allocation of capital for this business to make?
The Boy sneaks home. Gets caught. Gets sent West. His father has had enough of his shenanigans.
So now he will have to make his way in the wild, wild West. This Easterner.
So he travels from contemporary New York, 1920, to period West, 1880.
And his madcap mayhem continues.
Maybe at least they have dance halls.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
481 - Harold Lloyd in Ask Father, United States, 1919. Dir. Robert Israel.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
481 - Harold Lloyd in Ask Father, United States, 1919. Dir. Robert Israel.
The Boy works for The Boss.
The Boy is "head over heels in love and knee-deep in debt."
Why is he knee-deep in debt? Because he buys presents for the girl.
The girl already has two suitors. And they are courting her at the same time, one on each side of the park bench. How will The Boy get her attention?
By buying her lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of flowers and chocolates,
And by sitting on top of another boy in order to sit next to her.
He succeeds in running off the other two boys.
Now he can woo her.
But how can he marry her?
Ask Father.
OK. No problem.
Who is Father?
The girl is The Boss's daughter.
Uh-oh. Now there is a problem.
The Boss never lets anyone get through to see him. He sits in his office with The Corn-Fed Secretary and has a middle office full of men whose only job appears to be to keep others out.
Then there is the Outer Office, which adds yet another layer.
Thankfully, The Boy has The Switchboard Operator on his side. Meaning she will place a pillow on the floor on which he may fall when the men in the middle office throw him out. Literally.
And the great Harold Lloyd, who plays The Boy, does his own stunts, flying through the air, landing on his head and shoulders, and rolling over onto his back on the pillow.
How many takes did it take for them to take him out and take him down?
Harold Lloyd is the Jackie Chan of 1919.
The office next door just happens to be a theatrical costume rental, so The Boy tries to enter dressed as a woman. After all, another woman, the Mannish Office Visitor, just made it all the way through.
Apparently, women have a better chance of seeing The Boss than men do.
Fat chance.
The Boy gets through and then gets the boot. By way of The Boss's conveyor belt. Funny stuff. Hijinks. Physical comedy.
Then the trap door. Oops!
He ends out on the street. Accidentally gets two pistols from a cowboy. Accidentally, traps two gangsters. Accidentally, helps them get arrested.
Then climbs the outside of the building. As we will see again a few years later in Safety Last!, developed to its fullest.
Will he get to The Boss?
Will he get to Ask Father?
Will he get the girl?
We will give you a hint.
The girl is known as The Boy's First Love.
Who's on second?
481 - Harold Lloyd in Ask Father, United States, 1919. Dir. Robert Israel.
The Boy works for The Boss.
The Boy is "head over heels in love and knee-deep in debt."
Why is he knee-deep in debt? Because he buys presents for the girl.
The girl already has two suitors. And they are courting her at the same time, one on each side of the park bench. How will The Boy get her attention?
By buying her lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of flowers and chocolates,
And by sitting on top of another boy in order to sit next to her.
He succeeds in running off the other two boys.
Now he can woo her.
But how can he marry her?
Ask Father.
OK. No problem.
Who is Father?
The girl is The Boss's daughter.
Uh-oh. Now there is a problem.
The Boss never lets anyone get through to see him. He sits in his office with The Corn-Fed Secretary and has a middle office full of men whose only job appears to be to keep others out.
Then there is the Outer Office, which adds yet another layer.
Thankfully, The Boy has The Switchboard Operator on his side. Meaning she will place a pillow on the floor on which he may fall when the men in the middle office throw him out. Literally.
And the great Harold Lloyd, who plays The Boy, does his own stunts, flying through the air, landing on his head and shoulders, and rolling over onto his back on the pillow.
How many takes did it take for them to take him out and take him down?
Harold Lloyd is the Jackie Chan of 1919.
The office next door just happens to be a theatrical costume rental, so The Boy tries to enter dressed as a woman. After all, another woman, the Mannish Office Visitor, just made it all the way through.
Apparently, women have a better chance of seeing The Boss than men do.
Fat chance.
The Boy gets through and then gets the boot. By way of The Boss's conveyor belt. Funny stuff. Hijinks. Physical comedy.
Then the trap door. Oops!
He ends out on the street. Accidentally gets two pistols from a cowboy. Accidentally, traps two gangsters. Accidentally, helps them get arrested.
Then climbs the outside of the building. As we will see again a few years later in Safety Last!, developed to its fullest.
Will he get to The Boss?
Will he get to Ask Father?
Will he get the girl?
We will give you a hint.
The girl is known as The Boy's First Love.
Who's on second?
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
480 - Tennessee Williams' South, Canada, 1973. Dir. Harry Rasky.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
480 - Tennessee Williams' South, Canada, 1973. Dir. Harry Rasky.
Jesus is earnestly, tenderly calling,
Calling for you and for me.
Patiently Jesus is waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Come home, Come home,
Ye who are willing come home. . . .
- Will L. Thompson (1847-1909) (adapted)
Shall we gather at the river
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever,
Flowing by the throne of God?
- Robert Lowry (1826-1899)
Where do you come from?
Where do you go?
Where do you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?
- traditional
How calmly does the orange branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair.
- Tennessee Williams.
It sometimes seems to me that I inhabit my own country.
- Tennessee Williams.
I was baptized into the Episcopalian Church by my grandfather, whom I loved very much.
All Southerners have a gift for idiom. The title Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for instance, was a favorite phrase of my father's. When he would come home at night, he would say, "Edwina, cut it out. You're making me nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof."
Chekhov - his letters, his journals, and of course his theater. His short stories.
Do you think your locale, the South, is similar to Chekhov's? Very much. Very much.
Life is all memory except that one moment that passes you by so fast that you miss it.
Something has to have created existence. . . . There is a creative force, or we couldn't exist.
To begin with, I am a very angry old man. I regard anger . . . as a clean and pure emotion. . . . Anger never passes for anything but what it is.
Columbus, Mississippi.
They were from Ohio and were born in Ohio. They came South to teach school when they were young.
I have a great deal of affection for him [father] now, yes. And I think he had a tragic life, you know.
Some of the people who have written about you have said that you come from the sad soil of America.
I don't know what they're talking about. I don't find this sad. I'm sure there is misery in the South, as there is everywhere, but for me, this doesn't represent sadness. Romanticism, yes. Romantic melancholy, yes. I was not sad about it. Life was too full of adventure, you know, change.
I write out of love for the South, really, but I can't expect all Southerners to realize that writing about them is an expression of love, and yet it is.
[Re: Blanche Dubois] Not a great intellect, but she had a great sensitivity, I believe. I'm not sure she would even exist today. Because the South has changed so very much. Well, maybe she would. It's hard to say. There are still some Southern ladies with all kids of romantic pretensions. But under Blanche's pretensions was something genuinely sensitive and tender. And so many of the Southern ladies that I meet nowadays with these Garden District airs about them and the plantation niceties of behavior, you find them hard as nails underneath.
I think that Blanche and Stanley Kowalski are the two sides of every human nature. Stanley and Blanche were on a collision course, and one of them had to break, and the one that broke was Blanche.
I feel that I am both Stanley and Blanche.
My childhood was spent in the South, and childhood is always a magic part of life.
All those little towns in Mississippi that I lived in with my grandparents, like Canton and Columbus, were happy. They made a happy background of my sisters and my childhood.
When we lived in Nashville, I remember playing in a park. I remember picking wildflowers in the park. I remember going to kindergarten, a sort of experimental model kindergarten in Nashville.
I was very delighted with the alphabet blocks, the colored crayons, and everything, until Mother slipped out of the room and left me.
480 - Tennessee Williams' South, Canada, 1973. Dir. Harry Rasky.
Jesus is earnestly, tenderly calling,
Calling for you and for me.
Patiently Jesus is waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Come home, Come home,
Ye who are willing come home. . . .
- Will L. Thompson (1847-1909) (adapted)
Shall we gather at the river
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever,
Flowing by the throne of God?
- Robert Lowry (1826-1899)
Where do you go?
Where do you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe?
- traditional
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair.
- Tennessee Williams.
It sometimes seems to me that I inhabit my own country.
- Tennessee Williams.
Tennessee Williams' South is a hybrid film. Part documentary interview. Part staged productions of scenes from his plays.
In the case of Jessica Tandy, it is the only time her role as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the role she originated, was put on film.
You might prefer one over the other. The interviews over the scenes, for example.
Or you might be able to move back and forth between the two.
It is a pleasure to see Tennessee Williams walking the streets of New Orleans and to hear him talking about his life and work. He is an engaging man, full of curiosity and wonder about the world, interested in many things, and willing to share.
He also reads to us from his works. Some poetry. Some plays.
"How calmly does the orange beach."
The Glass Menagerie.
Etc.
When he answers questions, he is thoughtful and open.
If you are a fan of Tennessee Williams, then you will appreciate this film.
* * * * *
I was baptized into the Episcopalian Church by my grandfather, whom I loved very much.
Chekhov - his letters, his journals, and of course his theater. His short stories.
Do you think your locale, the South, is similar to Chekhov's? Very much. Very much.
Something has to have created existence. . . . There is a creative force, or we couldn't exist.
To begin with, I am a very angry old man. I regard anger . . . as a clean and pure emotion. . . . Anger never passes for anything but what it is.
Columbus, Mississippi.
They were from Ohio and were born in Ohio. They came South to teach school when they were young.
I have a great deal of affection for him [father] now, yes. And I think he had a tragic life, you know.
Some of the people who have written about you have said that you come from the sad soil of America.
I don't know what they're talking about. I don't find this sad. I'm sure there is misery in the South, as there is everywhere, but for me, this doesn't represent sadness. Romanticism, yes. Romantic melancholy, yes. I was not sad about it. Life was too full of adventure, you know, change.
I write out of love for the South, really, but I can't expect all Southerners to realize that writing about them is an expression of love, and yet it is.
[Re: Blanche Dubois] Not a great intellect, but she had a great sensitivity, I believe. I'm not sure she would even exist today. Because the South has changed so very much. Well, maybe she would. It's hard to say. There are still some Southern ladies with all kids of romantic pretensions. But under Blanche's pretensions was something genuinely sensitive and tender. And so many of the Southern ladies that I meet nowadays with these Garden District airs about them and the plantation niceties of behavior, you find them hard as nails underneath.
I think that Blanche and Stanley Kowalski are the two sides of every human nature. Stanley and Blanche were on a collision course, and one of them had to break, and the one that broke was Blanche.
I feel that I am both Stanley and Blanche.
My childhood was spent in the South, and childhood is always a magic part of life.
All those little towns in Mississippi that I lived in with my grandparents, like Canton and Columbus, were happy. They made a happy background of my sisters and my childhood.
When we lived in Nashville, I remember playing in a park. I remember picking wildflowers in the park. I remember going to kindergarten, a sort of experimental model kindergarten in Nashville.
I was very delighted with the alphabet blocks, the colored crayons, and everything, until Mother slipped out of the room and left me.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
479 - The Night of the Iguana, United States, 1964. Dir. John Huston.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
479 - The Night of the Iguana, United States, 1964. Dir. John Huston.
The Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon gives Blake's bus tours in and around Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
He has been away from his church in Pleasant Valley, Virginia, for a couple years. He insists he has not been defrocked. He has simply been "locked out" for awhile after having been committed to an asylum due to a nervous breakdown.
There was a reason for that, which he explains in the movie.
Now Rev. Shannon gives "Tours of God's world given by a minister of God." He rides on the bus and points out the sites and attractions, while another man, his colleague Hank, drives the bus. This week it is a group of women from the Baptist Female College who are taking the tour. And they may be more than he can handle.
Charlotte Goodall is on board. She comes on to Shannon. Makes him feel uncomfortable. He tries to resist her but she will not leave him alone.
Her chaperone, Judith Fellowes, is on board as well. Charlotte keeps putting herself into positions in which Judith "catches" her. And Shannon as well. Whether aware of it or not, Charlotte effectively sets up Shannon so that Fellowes will think the worst of him.
Which Miss Fellowes is more than prepared to do
But just as she is about to place a fateful phone call to Texas, Dr. Shannon has an inspired idea.
Take over the bus driving. Pass through Puerto Vallarta without stopping. Go onto Mismaloya. Stop the bus. Take the distributor head. Go up the steep hill. Make the group stay with your old friend, the hotel owner Maxine Faulk.
A woman and her father make their way up the hill.
And all of these people together stay in a pressure cooker that will bring out the worst and best of what lurks within them.
Richard Burton. Ava Gardner. Deborah Kerr.
With Sue Lyon. Grayson Hall. Cyril Delevanti. And Skip Ward.
Another major work by Tennessee Williams.
Another well-acted film.
And direction by none other than John Huston.
If you aspire to become a great film director then watch and study John Huston.
And have some iguana.
It tastes like chicken.
479 - The Night of the Iguana, United States, 1964. Dir. John Huston.
The Reverend Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon gives Blake's bus tours in and around Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
He has been away from his church in Pleasant Valley, Virginia, for a couple years. He insists he has not been defrocked. He has simply been "locked out" for awhile after having been committed to an asylum due to a nervous breakdown.
There was a reason for that, which he explains in the movie.
Now Rev. Shannon gives "Tours of God's world given by a minister of God." He rides on the bus and points out the sites and attractions, while another man, his colleague Hank, drives the bus. This week it is a group of women from the Baptist Female College who are taking the tour. And they may be more than he can handle.
Charlotte Goodall is on board. She comes on to Shannon. Makes him feel uncomfortable. He tries to resist her but she will not leave him alone.
Her chaperone, Judith Fellowes, is on board as well. Charlotte keeps putting herself into positions in which Judith "catches" her. And Shannon as well. Whether aware of it or not, Charlotte effectively sets up Shannon so that Fellowes will think the worst of him.
Which Miss Fellowes is more than prepared to do
But just as she is about to place a fateful phone call to Texas, Dr. Shannon has an inspired idea.
Take over the bus driving. Pass through Puerto Vallarta without stopping. Go onto Mismaloya. Stop the bus. Take the distributor head. Go up the steep hill. Make the group stay with your old friend, the hotel owner Maxine Faulk.
A woman and her father make their way up the hill.
And all of these people together stay in a pressure cooker that will bring out the worst and best of what lurks within them.
Richard Burton. Ava Gardner. Deborah Kerr.
With Sue Lyon. Grayson Hall. Cyril Delevanti. And Skip Ward.
Another major work by Tennessee Williams.
Another well-acted film.
And direction by none other than John Huston.
If you aspire to become a great film director then watch and study John Huston.
And have some iguana.
It tastes like chicken.
Monday, April 23, 2018
478 - Sweet Bird of Youth, United States, 1962. Dir. Richard Brooks.
Monday, April 23, 2018
478 - Sweet Bird of Youth, United States, 1962. Dir. Richard Brooks.
I am shocked! Shocked!
No, this is not Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca (1942), feigning surprise that gambling is going on at Rick's Cafe Americain.
Rather, it is Ed Begley as Boss Finley, trying desperately to fend off the accusation just leveled at him in public, at a public rally no less, which was intended to drum up support for him and usher him into office.
Since he is not shocked to learn that gambling is going on at Rick's, let us see what it is that is shocking him.
"I am shocked! Shocked! To find our state overrun by backstabbing Bolshevikis and Red rabble-rousing. There. Get the governor on the phone."
Hmm. He is shocked that Communists have infiltrated the state government. Which state? Florida. Which city? St. Cloud.
Why is he accusing his accusers of being Communists?
Because someone from the crowd just asked him a question that was a little too personal, and he needs desperately to pivot, as they say.
The question was regarding a certain operation his daughter Heavenly once had at the hands of Doctor George Scudder, the doctor who now holds the cushy position of being the chief at the hospital, responsible for administrative tasks and no actual hands-on work as a physician.
Once the accusation is made, the public turns on Boss Finley.
"Murderer! Baby killer!" he is called.
"An illegal operation, performed in your hospital, aided and abetted by you. And forced on her without her consent."
An illegal operation. Enough to destroy a man with so much power that nothing else and no one has been able to get to him.
How times have changed.
Sweet Bird of Youth premiered as a play on March 10, 1959. The movie came out in 1962. Eleven years before the ruling.
Chance Wayne is, or was, the father of the baby. And he has just found out about it today. Mr. Finley never disclosed or allowed Heavenly to disclose their little secret to Chance. In fact, Chance, who has loved Heavenly for years, has been driven out of town twice by the big Boss.
The first time he gave him a hundred dollars and sent him off to New York to pursue his dream of becoming a famous actor.
The second time, he sent him out West.
Now Chance has come back, this time with a famous but fading movie star in tow, the alcoholic Alexandra Del Lago, aka, The Princess Kosmos, short for The Princess Kosmonopolis, the stage name being used to travel "incognito," or at least to make her believe she still needs to.
Chance and Alexandra take turns using each other, each trying to get the other to help his or her career get a boost. Chance needs Alexandra to put in a word for him so that he can get a break. Alexandra needs Chance to keep her alive and sober long enough to get another gig. And to keep from blackmailing her. He was clever enough to record a conversation secretly, where she admits on tape that she was trafficking in illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, Boss Finley has his own mistress, Miss Lucy, whom he keeps shut up and provided for at the Regal Palms Hotel. The same hotel into which Chance and Alexandra have started staying, managed by Finley lackey Dan Hatcher, and watched over by Finley's son, Thomas J. Finley, Jr.
In the play, things do not turn out so well. It is Tennessee Williams, after all.
In the movie, they turn out a little better. MGM needs a return on its investment.
But the movie is lushly produced and engaging, with Richard Brooks returning with Paul Newman and Madeleine Sherwood from Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958) for another Tennessee Williams adaptation. This time they are joined by Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight, Ed Begley, Rip Torn, and Dub Taylor. A cast of stallwarts, all looking younger and thinner. With the beautiful seaside of Malibu filling in for the Florida coast.
Tennessee Williams was able to keep cranking out the plays.
And Hollywood as well as Broadway, along with the American people, ate them up.
Watching them now, one can see why.
Chance: Whatever I am, I am not part of your luggage.
Alexandra: In a few years, you will be through with your good looks, and I will be through with you.
He may have missed out on Hollywood, but at least he has Heavenly.
478 - Sweet Bird of Youth, United States, 1962. Dir. Richard Brooks.
I am shocked! Shocked!
No, this is not Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca (1942), feigning surprise that gambling is going on at Rick's Cafe Americain.
Rather, it is Ed Begley as Boss Finley, trying desperately to fend off the accusation just leveled at him in public, at a public rally no less, which was intended to drum up support for him and usher him into office.
Since he is not shocked to learn that gambling is going on at Rick's, let us see what it is that is shocking him.
"I am shocked! Shocked! To find our state overrun by backstabbing Bolshevikis and Red rabble-rousing. There. Get the governor on the phone."
Hmm. He is shocked that Communists have infiltrated the state government. Which state? Florida. Which city? St. Cloud.
Why is he accusing his accusers of being Communists?
Because someone from the crowd just asked him a question that was a little too personal, and he needs desperately to pivot, as they say.
The question was regarding a certain operation his daughter Heavenly once had at the hands of Doctor George Scudder, the doctor who now holds the cushy position of being the chief at the hospital, responsible for administrative tasks and no actual hands-on work as a physician.
Once the accusation is made, the public turns on Boss Finley.
"Murderer! Baby killer!" he is called.
"An illegal operation, performed in your hospital, aided and abetted by you. And forced on her without her consent."
An illegal operation. Enough to destroy a man with so much power that nothing else and no one has been able to get to him.
How times have changed.
Sweet Bird of Youth premiered as a play on March 10, 1959. The movie came out in 1962. Eleven years before the ruling.
Chance Wayne is, or was, the father of the baby. And he has just found out about it today. Mr. Finley never disclosed or allowed Heavenly to disclose their little secret to Chance. In fact, Chance, who has loved Heavenly for years, has been driven out of town twice by the big Boss.
The first time he gave him a hundred dollars and sent him off to New York to pursue his dream of becoming a famous actor.
The second time, he sent him out West.
Now Chance has come back, this time with a famous but fading movie star in tow, the alcoholic Alexandra Del Lago, aka, The Princess Kosmos, short for The Princess Kosmonopolis, the stage name being used to travel "incognito," or at least to make her believe she still needs to.
Chance and Alexandra take turns using each other, each trying to get the other to help his or her career get a boost. Chance needs Alexandra to put in a word for him so that he can get a break. Alexandra needs Chance to keep her alive and sober long enough to get another gig. And to keep from blackmailing her. He was clever enough to record a conversation secretly, where she admits on tape that she was trafficking in illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, Boss Finley has his own mistress, Miss Lucy, whom he keeps shut up and provided for at the Regal Palms Hotel. The same hotel into which Chance and Alexandra have started staying, managed by Finley lackey Dan Hatcher, and watched over by Finley's son, Thomas J. Finley, Jr.
In the play, things do not turn out so well. It is Tennessee Williams, after all.
In the movie, they turn out a little better. MGM needs a return on its investment.
But the movie is lushly produced and engaging, with Richard Brooks returning with Paul Newman and Madeleine Sherwood from Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958) for another Tennessee Williams adaptation. This time they are joined by Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight, Ed Begley, Rip Torn, and Dub Taylor. A cast of stallwarts, all looking younger and thinner. With the beautiful seaside of Malibu filling in for the Florida coast.
Tennessee Williams was able to keep cranking out the plays.
And Hollywood as well as Broadway, along with the American people, ate them up.
Watching them now, one can see why.
Chance: Whatever I am, I am not part of your luggage.
Alexandra: In a few years, you will be through with your good looks, and I will be through with you.
He may have missed out on Hollywood, but at least he has Heavenly.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
477 - The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, United States, 1961. Dir. Jose Quintero.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
477 - The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, United States, 1961. Dir. Jose Quintero.
Karen Stone is a great American stage actress. She has had a great life, with a good career, and a loving husband, and loyal fans.
But she is getting older. And she is trying Shakespeare, As You Like It, for the first time since school. And she is allowing herself to be filled with self-doubt.
Fear. One can be free from it, but so often people are not. They give in. They yield. After all, it is a part of life, right?
So Mrs. Stone does more than flinch. She stops the run of the show. Her husband, after all, is a co-producer and has the power to pull the plug. And he loves her, so he agrees to take her on a vacation to Rome, where they can get away and rest and recover.
The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Stone is portrayed as loving and stable and good. For twenty years.
So when he dies suddenly on board the plane above the Atlantic Ocean, Mrs. Stone is heartbroken. And the viewer is heartbroken for her.
And quite frankly, relieved.
Because we have seen Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty on the cover and in the opening credits, we already suspect that there will be an affair between them. And we do not wish her to cheat on her husband. Not this woman. Not with this husband. They are too good and true to one another. So if this had turned out to be that kind of movie, then we would have been disappointed and unmoved.
So for her to be a widow and heartbroken and lonely, it makes more sense.
And then we watch as it plays out.
Here is a story by Tennessee Williams. Not a play but a novella. Dealing with the struggles of fame and money and and aging and talent and doubt.
Here is a film directed by Jose Quintero, a stage director, directing the only film he would ever make.
Here is Warren Beatty, up and coming, having now filmed his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), but as it has not yet been released, he has never yet been seen by the movie-going public. He struggles with his Italian accent, but he otherwise embodies the kind of Lothario that his character, the gigolo Paolo di Leo, was intended to be.
Here is Lotte Lenya, two years before she pulls a stiletto from her stiletto, or rather, a knife from her shoe, as Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love (1963), now as the female pimp Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales pushing Paolo onto Mrs. Stone in order to extract money from her.
Here is Jill St. John, who herself would play in a Bond film, as Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), acting as the young American movie star, in the beginning stages of usurping Mrs. Stone's place in the American consciousness, as Eve would do Margo in All About Eve (1950), though without intent or malice.
And here is Vivien Leigh. One of the great ones. Gone with the Wind (1939). Waterloo Bridge (1940). Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Anna Karenina (1948). A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Ship of Fools (1965).
Twenty years married to Lawrence Olivier. Many roles live on stage.
Her marriage now dissolving. Her health in decline. Her own death just a few years away. Standing as elegantly and self-possessed as ever. Playing the layers of nuance in the role.
This is a poignant film. It is a steadily paced and quiet. It takes its time. It addresses serious themes.
Its production design is majestic. The steps and statues and fountains of Rome. Magnificent interiors. Wall paper. Drapes. Paintings. Furniture. Carpets.
And clothing.
We spend time just watching Mrs. Stone, so graceful, so refined, walking the streets of Rome, working through her grief, dealing with her loneliness. She has lost her two loves--her husband and the theater--and she is finding her new life.
We think of Ingrid Bergman in Naples in Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy (1954).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/05/150-journey-to-italy-1954-italyfrance.html
We think of Katharine Hepburn in Venice in David Lean's Summertime (1965).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/10/280-summertime-united-kingdom-1955-dir.html
All three movies about intelligent and cultured women travelling to Italy and undergoing inner development while looking at the sites. We watch them watch things. And people.
But they are also all different.
And in this one, if you are patient, and if you pay attention, you will experience what Tennessee Williams is sharing with others. From his heart to yours.
The lonely soul. The fading heart. A great life now on the wane. In need of love.
Allow it to takes its time with you.
And see that Vivien Leigh, towards the end of her life, was as great as she had ever been.
477 - The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, United States, 1961. Dir. Jose Quintero.
Karen Stone is a great American stage actress. She has had a great life, with a good career, and a loving husband, and loyal fans.
But she is getting older. And she is trying Shakespeare, As You Like It, for the first time since school. And she is allowing herself to be filled with self-doubt.
Fear. One can be free from it, but so often people are not. They give in. They yield. After all, it is a part of life, right?
So Mrs. Stone does more than flinch. She stops the run of the show. Her husband, after all, is a co-producer and has the power to pull the plug. And he loves her, so he agrees to take her on a vacation to Rome, where they can get away and rest and recover.
The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Stone is portrayed as loving and stable and good. For twenty years.
So when he dies suddenly on board the plane above the Atlantic Ocean, Mrs. Stone is heartbroken. And the viewer is heartbroken for her.
And quite frankly, relieved.
Because we have seen Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty on the cover and in the opening credits, we already suspect that there will be an affair between them. And we do not wish her to cheat on her husband. Not this woman. Not with this husband. They are too good and true to one another. So if this had turned out to be that kind of movie, then we would have been disappointed and unmoved.
So for her to be a widow and heartbroken and lonely, it makes more sense.
And then we watch as it plays out.
Here is a story by Tennessee Williams. Not a play but a novella. Dealing with the struggles of fame and money and and aging and talent and doubt.
Here is a film directed by Jose Quintero, a stage director, directing the only film he would ever make.
Here is Warren Beatty, up and coming, having now filmed his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), but as it has not yet been released, he has never yet been seen by the movie-going public. He struggles with his Italian accent, but he otherwise embodies the kind of Lothario that his character, the gigolo Paolo di Leo, was intended to be.
Here is Lotte Lenya, two years before she pulls a stiletto from her stiletto, or rather, a knife from her shoe, as Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love (1963), now as the female pimp Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales pushing Paolo onto Mrs. Stone in order to extract money from her.
Here is Jill St. John, who herself would play in a Bond film, as Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), acting as the young American movie star, in the beginning stages of usurping Mrs. Stone's place in the American consciousness, as Eve would do Margo in All About Eve (1950), though without intent or malice.
And here is Vivien Leigh. One of the great ones. Gone with the Wind (1939). Waterloo Bridge (1940). Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Anna Karenina (1948). A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Ship of Fools (1965).
Twenty years married to Lawrence Olivier. Many roles live on stage.
Her marriage now dissolving. Her health in decline. Her own death just a few years away. Standing as elegantly and self-possessed as ever. Playing the layers of nuance in the role.
This is a poignant film. It is a steadily paced and quiet. It takes its time. It addresses serious themes.
Its production design is majestic. The steps and statues and fountains of Rome. Magnificent interiors. Wall paper. Drapes. Paintings. Furniture. Carpets.
And clothing.
We spend time just watching Mrs. Stone, so graceful, so refined, walking the streets of Rome, working through her grief, dealing with her loneliness. She has lost her two loves--her husband and the theater--and she is finding her new life.
We think of Ingrid Bergman in Naples in Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy (1954).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/05/150-journey-to-italy-1954-italyfrance.html
We think of Katharine Hepburn in Venice in David Lean's Summertime (1965).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/10/280-summertime-united-kingdom-1955-dir.html
All three movies about intelligent and cultured women travelling to Italy and undergoing inner development while looking at the sites. We watch them watch things. And people.
But they are also all different.
And in this one, if you are patient, and if you pay attention, you will experience what Tennessee Williams is sharing with others. From his heart to yours.
The lonely soul. The fading heart. A great life now on the wane. In need of love.
Allow it to takes its time with you.
And see that Vivien Leigh, towards the end of her life, was as great as she had ever been.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
476 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, United States, 1958. Dir. Richard Brooks.
Saturday, April 21, 2018
476 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, United States, 1958. Dir. Richard Brooks.
Big Daddy Pollitt owns 28,000 acres of the richest land this side of the Nile Valley. And $10 million in cash. Which is the equivalent of $93.5 million in cash today.
His older son, Gooper Pollitt, has done everything Big Daddy asked him to do. He became a lawyer--in this case, a "corporation lawyer," or what we would call a corporate lawyer. He got married. He had children. Five children in fact, with a sixth on the way. He moved to Memphis. He opened a law office there.
Gooper is the firstborn. He is responsible. He is proliferating. It is important not to be impotent. He is perpetuating the pedigree by propagating and thereby providing the the patriarch with progeny.
And he and his wife Mae have already drawn up their plans for how they will run the corporation once Big Daddy dies and they take over.
How thoughtful.
The younger son, Brick, was a track and football star. We know because he started the movie trying to run hurdles on the field of the local stadium, drunk at three o'clock in the morning. He broke his foot and he now has a crutch.
Brick has lots of crutches.
1) The wooden crutch upon which he hobbles and which he uses to justify his staying upstairs in the big house. 2) Football. Or the memories of it. And the regret of never achieving his potential. 3) The mechanical clicks he needs to hear in his head in order to feel peace inside. 4) Alcohol. Or namely, the whiskey he drinks that leads him to hear those mechanical clicks. 5) His best friend Skipper. 6) And the guilt in which he indulges over Skipper's death and what led to it.
"Skipper is the only thing that I've got left to believe in."
"I could lean on him, in school and out of it."
Skipper and Brick used to be inseparable. Even Brick's father Big Daddy is jealous of their friendship.
"If you wanted someone to lean on, why Skipper? Why not me? I'm your father."
Brick and Skipper played football together, and Brick believed Skipper was good enough to turn pro. And when you are the son of Big Daddy Pullitt, then you have the ability to start your own pro team. The Dixie Stars. They never made money. But Maggie, Brick's loving and long-suffering wife, believes Brick did not do it for the money anyway. He already had Daddy's money. No, he did it for the cheers, those glorious cheers, and in order to make his friend Skipper into a professional football player.
The only problem was that Skipper was not good enough. "He fumbled and stumbled and fell apart. On offensive he was useless. On defensive he was a coward."
Maggie makes it clear to Brick. "Without you, Skipper was nothing."
And as it turns out, Skipper knew it too. He loved Brick. Brick did not love him back. Not like that. Not the way Gooper understands it.
"Gooper said that Skipper was . . ."
And that night that Skipper told Brick how he felt about him, Brick hung up on him. And crushed him. And has felt guilty about it ever since.
He also wonders if Skipper and Maggie ever did anything. After all, she was in the hotel room in Chicago that night. That portentous night. That night he fell, or jumped, or somehow ended up out the window. Falling. And . . .
He cannot think of it. And yet he does nothing but think of it. And drink. And drink. And drink. And punish Maggie for it.
She asks him, "How long does this have to go on, this punishment? Haven't I served my term? Can I get a pardon?"
Because of his guilt, and his resentment, and his alcoholism, Brick refuses to sleep with his wife. And they have no children. She has been to the gynecologist. She has been declared healthy. She can have children any time. And as many as she wants.
But in the Pollitt family being childless is a curse, with Old Testament implications. Like Sarah before Isaac. Like Rachel watching Leah. Like Hannah.
So Big Momma begins to resent Maggie, this daughter-in-law, this non-blood-member, this person who has failed to give her a grandbaby.
And Mae Pollitt, Gooper's wife, herself an in-law but who with children acts like blood, reminds Maggie of their differences in status every chance she can get. Maggie has no children. Mae has five. And a sixth on the way. Maggie's husband is a wash-up alcoholic. He has lost his job as a sports announcer. He no longer works. He does not provide. While Mae's husband, the elder son, the good son, does everything right. And has put himself in position to inherit the land. All of it. And all the wealth. To manage it. And to cut out Brick and Maggie. Once and for all.
Unless Big Daddy has something to say about it. Brick just might be his favored son. And Big Daddy might actually not be dying so soon. It might not be a tumor after all. It might be merely a spastic colon. Nothing more. At least that is what the doctor has told him. And it makes all the difference in the world. With this new report, Big Daddy feels as strong as a bison. And he says he will outlive his own children. And that will solve the inheritance debate.
"I'll outlive you. I'll bury you. I'll buy your coffin."
That is the kind of trash talk the Pollitt family dishes out. To those they love.
And speaking of love, everyone in this family longs for love. Not just desires it. But longs for it.
Big Daddy longed to be loved by his boxcar hobo tramp daddy.
Big Momma longs to be loved by her husband Big Daddy.
Gooper longs to be loved by his father Big Daddy. And he feels slighted by his younger brother Brick.
Brick longs to be loved by his father Big Daddy. And he feels slighted by his father's money.
Skipper longed to be loved by his best friend Brick.
Maggie longs to be loved by her husband Brick.
Brick pretends not to care about his wife Maggie. And he says so. And dares her to leave him.
But he only pretends because he loved his friend. And is punishing himself for his friend's death.
And if you watch closely enough, you will see that Brick loves his wife Maggie as well. Loves her deeply. He just has not gotten over that guilt which he indulges. Or the suspicion which he nurtures.
After one of their arguments. One of those times she pleads with him to love her. To show her love. And he pretends not to. He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. And clings to her nightgown hanging on the backside of the door. And buries his face in it. And holds it to himself. And caresses it. And weeps. As if to say, "I love you so much. If only I were worthy of you. If only you were faithful to me. If only, if only, if only."
If only he knew he could be free of all this self-indulgent flapdoodle with the simple act of forgiveness.
Forgiveness.
Forgive others. Forgive yourself.
And heal.
Maybe he will. One day.
Meanwhile, there are speeches to make.
And pain to feel.
And alcohol to drink to try to drown out that pain.
So what is a cat on a hot tin roof?
Maggie comes up with the term when she tries to explain to Brick how she is feeling.
"You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof."
Her situation seems impossible. She can neither jump nor stand. If she jumps, she will fall off. If she stands, she will burn her feet.
Brick encourages jumping.
"Then jump off the roof, Maggie. Cats jump off roofs and land uninjured. Do it. Jump."
What does he mean by that?
"Take a lover."
But she cannot.
"I can't see any man but you. Even with my eyes closed, I just see you. . . . I'm more determined than you think. I'll win all right."
"Win what? What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?"
"Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can."
And somehow, with Elizabeth Taylor delivering those lines while standing there, and with the determined look of love in her eyes, one believes her. She is the truth in a family full of "lies and liars."
Through all of it, she remains true.
In a world of mendacity, a family full of mendacity, a play replete with the word mendacity--a word used in the film fourteen times--Maggie remains true.
The words "true," "truth," and "trust" together appear thirty-six times in the film. Clearly it is an important theme.
Maybe truth will win.
Maybe love will win.
Maybe forgiveness will win.
Sarah and Rachel and Hannah were barren.
But were they always?
Or did something change?
The story will have a climax. And climax leads to life.
476 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, United States, 1958. Dir. Richard Brooks.
Big Daddy Pollitt owns 28,000 acres of the richest land this side of the Nile Valley. And $10 million in cash. Which is the equivalent of $93.5 million in cash today.
His older son, Gooper Pollitt, has done everything Big Daddy asked him to do. He became a lawyer--in this case, a "corporation lawyer," or what we would call a corporate lawyer. He got married. He had children. Five children in fact, with a sixth on the way. He moved to Memphis. He opened a law office there.
Gooper is the firstborn. He is responsible. He is proliferating. It is important not to be impotent. He is perpetuating the pedigree by propagating and thereby providing the the patriarch with progeny.
And he and his wife Mae have already drawn up their plans for how they will run the corporation once Big Daddy dies and they take over.
How thoughtful.
The younger son, Brick, was a track and football star. We know because he started the movie trying to run hurdles on the field of the local stadium, drunk at three o'clock in the morning. He broke his foot and he now has a crutch.
Brick has lots of crutches.
1) The wooden crutch upon which he hobbles and which he uses to justify his staying upstairs in the big house. 2) Football. Or the memories of it. And the regret of never achieving his potential. 3) The mechanical clicks he needs to hear in his head in order to feel peace inside. 4) Alcohol. Or namely, the whiskey he drinks that leads him to hear those mechanical clicks. 5) His best friend Skipper. 6) And the guilt in which he indulges over Skipper's death and what led to it.
"Skipper is the only thing that I've got left to believe in."
"I could lean on him, in school and out of it."
Skipper and Brick used to be inseparable. Even Brick's father Big Daddy is jealous of their friendship.
"If you wanted someone to lean on, why Skipper? Why not me? I'm your father."
Brick and Skipper played football together, and Brick believed Skipper was good enough to turn pro. And when you are the son of Big Daddy Pullitt, then you have the ability to start your own pro team. The Dixie Stars. They never made money. But Maggie, Brick's loving and long-suffering wife, believes Brick did not do it for the money anyway. He already had Daddy's money. No, he did it for the cheers, those glorious cheers, and in order to make his friend Skipper into a professional football player.
The only problem was that Skipper was not good enough. "He fumbled and stumbled and fell apart. On offensive he was useless. On defensive he was a coward."
Maggie makes it clear to Brick. "Without you, Skipper was nothing."
And as it turns out, Skipper knew it too. He loved Brick. Brick did not love him back. Not like that. Not the way Gooper understands it.
"Gooper said that Skipper was . . ."
And that night that Skipper told Brick how he felt about him, Brick hung up on him. And crushed him. And has felt guilty about it ever since.
He also wonders if Skipper and Maggie ever did anything. After all, she was in the hotel room in Chicago that night. That portentous night. That night he fell, or jumped, or somehow ended up out the window. Falling. And . . .
He cannot think of it. And yet he does nothing but think of it. And drink. And drink. And drink. And punish Maggie for it.
She asks him, "How long does this have to go on, this punishment? Haven't I served my term? Can I get a pardon?"
Because of his guilt, and his resentment, and his alcoholism, Brick refuses to sleep with his wife. And they have no children. She has been to the gynecologist. She has been declared healthy. She can have children any time. And as many as she wants.
But in the Pollitt family being childless is a curse, with Old Testament implications. Like Sarah before Isaac. Like Rachel watching Leah. Like Hannah.
So Big Momma begins to resent Maggie, this daughter-in-law, this non-blood-member, this person who has failed to give her a grandbaby.
And Mae Pollitt, Gooper's wife, herself an in-law but who with children acts like blood, reminds Maggie of their differences in status every chance she can get. Maggie has no children. Mae has five. And a sixth on the way. Maggie's husband is a wash-up alcoholic. He has lost his job as a sports announcer. He no longer works. He does not provide. While Mae's husband, the elder son, the good son, does everything right. And has put himself in position to inherit the land. All of it. And all the wealth. To manage it. And to cut out Brick and Maggie. Once and for all.
Unless Big Daddy has something to say about it. Brick just might be his favored son. And Big Daddy might actually not be dying so soon. It might not be a tumor after all. It might be merely a spastic colon. Nothing more. At least that is what the doctor has told him. And it makes all the difference in the world. With this new report, Big Daddy feels as strong as a bison. And he says he will outlive his own children. And that will solve the inheritance debate.
"I'll outlive you. I'll bury you. I'll buy your coffin."
That is the kind of trash talk the Pollitt family dishes out. To those they love.
And speaking of love, everyone in this family longs for love. Not just desires it. But longs for it.
Big Daddy longed to be loved by his boxcar hobo tramp daddy.
Big Momma longs to be loved by her husband Big Daddy.
Gooper longs to be loved by his father Big Daddy. And he feels slighted by his younger brother Brick.
Brick longs to be loved by his father Big Daddy. And he feels slighted by his father's money.
Skipper longed to be loved by his best friend Brick.
Maggie longs to be loved by her husband Brick.
Brick pretends not to care about his wife Maggie. And he says so. And dares her to leave him.
But he only pretends because he loved his friend. And is punishing himself for his friend's death.
And if you watch closely enough, you will see that Brick loves his wife Maggie as well. Loves her deeply. He just has not gotten over that guilt which he indulges. Or the suspicion which he nurtures.
After one of their arguments. One of those times she pleads with him to love her. To show her love. And he pretends not to. He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. And clings to her nightgown hanging on the backside of the door. And buries his face in it. And holds it to himself. And caresses it. And weeps. As if to say, "I love you so much. If only I were worthy of you. If only you were faithful to me. If only, if only, if only."
If only he knew he could be free of all this self-indulgent flapdoodle with the simple act of forgiveness.
Forgiveness.
Forgive others. Forgive yourself.
And heal.
Maybe he will. One day.
Meanwhile, there are speeches to make.
And pain to feel.
And alcohol to drink to try to drown out that pain.
So what is a cat on a hot tin roof?
Maggie comes up with the term when she tries to explain to Brick how she is feeling.
"You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof."
Her situation seems impossible. She can neither jump nor stand. If she jumps, she will fall off. If she stands, she will burn her feet.
Brick encourages jumping.
"Then jump off the roof, Maggie. Cats jump off roofs and land uninjured. Do it. Jump."
What does he mean by that?
"Take a lover."
But she cannot.
"I can't see any man but you. Even with my eyes closed, I just see you. . . . I'm more determined than you think. I'll win all right."
"Win what? What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?"
"Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can."
And somehow, with Elizabeth Taylor delivering those lines while standing there, and with the determined look of love in her eyes, one believes her. She is the truth in a family full of "lies and liars."
Through all of it, she remains true.
In a world of mendacity, a family full of mendacity, a play replete with the word mendacity--a word used in the film fourteen times--Maggie remains true.
The words "true," "truth," and "trust" together appear thirty-six times in the film. Clearly it is an important theme.
Maybe truth will win.
Maybe love will win.
Maybe forgiveness will win.
Sarah and Rachel and Hannah were barren.
But were they always?
Or did something change?
The story will have a climax. And climax leads to life.
Friday, April 20, 2018
475 - Baby Doll, United States, 1956. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Friday, April 19, 2018
475 - Baby Doll, United States, 1956. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Elia Kazan is one of the greatest directors of screen and stage that we have ever known.
He also made this film.
It is frustrating to come off watching the masterpiece that is A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and then see Baby Doll.
Elia Kazan + Tennessee Williams should = magic, right?
Unfortunately, in this case, no.
What happened?
On one level there is nothing wrong with it. It is a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it has some drama to it. Perfect for a TV movie-of-the-week. But not a theatrical-release feature.
One could also argue that it is unfair to ask it to live up to the expectations cast upon it by the greatness of Streetcar.
But on another level it is a disappointment.
If you are a Southerner, then you will be frustrated. Here is yet another film made by northerners who do not understand the culture they are trying to portray. How many hundreds of those are there?
They filmed it in Benoit, Mississippi, and they promised not to make fun of the locals. OK. Thanks for that at least. If only they had made a better attempt to understand them.
And if you know Tennessee Williams, you will also be frustrated. This film does not come across as his work at all.
It is ostensibly based on two Tennessee Williams one-act plays--27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper--but the plots have all been changed.
27 Wagons is a seething, sizzling play, and this film removes all the juice from it. It shows what should have been implied, and it leaves out the hottest scene. Then it switches the positions of the two males; it removes the bond between the husband and wife; it changes a rape to a consensual act; it makes the female complicit in the foreigner's crime; it turns her against her husband; and it makes her smarter, removing the very reason she is called "Baby Doll" in the first place, reducing the nickname to the fact that she sleeps in a crib.
Then the casting is poor.
Karl Malden as Archie Lee Meighan? What! If anything, if Kazan had to insist upon using his own stock actors, he should have cast Marlon Brando in the role. Archie Lee is supposed to be a physically pulsating man, visceral and instinct-driven, much more like Stanley Kowalski than Mitch Mitchell. What in the world is Karl Malden doing here? He is a fine actor, but this is not his casting by any stretch of the imagination. But even if Kazan had cast Brando, it still would have been off, because while Brando would have gotten the raw animal instinct right, he would not have captured his Southern essence nor his natural thinness.
Likewise, Carroll Baker misses the essence that a Southern actress would have supplied. Yes, she moved to Florida when she was 18, but she is from Pennsylvania and one can tell. Her acting is strong--no complaints there. She is giving herself to the role. But she does not possess that natural essence which only someone of a place can capture. Unless your name is Vivien Leigh. Not that I am suggesting Vivien Leigh for the role, but that she is one of the few actors in history who is not from the South but has somehow been able to get its essence inside her bones. This role would also require someone more visceral than the mannered roles she played.
Again, I am not criticizing the acting. Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, and Eli Wallach each delivers as good a performance as he can with the material he is given and the body he inhabits. We just need better material and different bodies.
So then you look at the credits and see that Tennessee Williams wrote the screenplay.
What?
Why did he butcher his own material so badly?
Until you dig a little more deeply and discover that Elia Kazan himself actually wrote most of the script and gave Williams the credit for it. For some reason, Tennessee Williams went MIA on this project. Literally. After filming started, he left town and abandoned the movie.
Then Kazan let the actors improvise frequently. There are entire scenes in the movie that are not even in Kazan's script, let alone in Williams' plays. Ugh.
I love the Group Theatre as much as anyone--at least the idea of it as it is reported to us. And I teach improvisation every week and use it in my own acting--when it is appropriate. But this is not the place for improvisation. When you are doing a Tennessee Williams play, then you should be doing a Tennessee Williams play. Exercise a little discipline here, please.
And as you keep digging, you also discover that Kazan did in fact offer the role of Archie Lee to Marlon Brando, but Marlon Brando turned it down. Too bad. It would have been so much better.
Oh, well.
This movie is not terrible. It is just not what I wish it were. Perhaps if you watch it without my expectations attached to it, then you will enjoy it better than I did. But if you do, do not read Tennessee Williams. Because this movie is not Tennessee Williams.
And as for the kerfuffle we are told attended it upon its release, well, we are sorry about that. The film is quite innocent by today's standards. And frankly, it is not steamy enough with respect to the way the play was written. I am not talking about skin. I am talking about the relationship between the husband and wife--which, frankly, was portrayed effectively with Stanley and Stella in Streetcar--so the irony, here, is that with this film people got upset about something about which the filmmakers had actually toned down.
So, then, here is the final equation:
Tennessee Williams + Elia Kazan - Tennessee Williams = something less than Kazan.
Maybe Williams took something of Kazan with him when he left town.
Meanwhile, I would like someone to make a movie adaptation of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton some day.
Because so far it has never yet been done.
* * * * *
Kazan directed his first film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in 1945, based on the Betty Smith novel. He directed five more films, all technically excellent--and already with 15 nominations and 5 wins--and then hit his legendary streak in the 1950s, beginning with A Streetcar Named Desire.
By the time of Baby Doll, Elia Kazan movies had garnered 48 nominations and 19 wins. Baby Doll would receive 4 more nominations, and after that Kazan films would receive 2 more nominations and 1 win. In all, Kazan films received 54 Oscar nominations and 20 Oscar wins.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1945 - drama, Betty Smith novel - 2 nominations, 1 win (Best Supporting Actor, James Dunn)
Boomerang!, 1947 - crime drama, Fulton Oursler Reader's Digest, article - 1 nomination
The Sea of Grass, 1947 - drama, Conrad Richter novel, Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn
Gentleman's Agreement, 1947 - drama, Laura Z. Hobson novel - 8 nominations, 3 wins
Pinky, 1949 - drama, Cid Ricketts Sumner novel - 3 nominations
Panic in the Streets, 1950 - crime drama/film noir, Edward & Edna Anhalt story - 1 nomination, 1 win
A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951 - drama, Tennessee Williams play - 12 nominations, 4 wins
Viva Zapata!, 1952 - biography, John Steinbeck book and screenplay - 5 nominations, 1 win
Man on a Tightrope, 1953 - thriller, Neil Paterson story -
On the Waterfront, 1954 - drama, Malcolm Johnson articles, Budd Schulberg story - 12 nominations, 8 wins
East of Eden, 1955 - drama, John Steinbeck novel - 4 nominations, 1 win
Baby Doll, 1956 - drama, Tennessee Williams play and screenplay - 4 nominations
A Face in the Crowd, 1957 - Budd Schulberg story
Wild River, 1960 - William Bradford Huie and Bordon Deal novels
Splendor in the Grass, 1961 - William Inge play and screenplay - 1 nomination, 1 win
The Arrangement, 1969 - Elia Kazan novel
The Visitors, 1972 - Chris Kazan screenplay
The Last Tycoon, 1976 - F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, Harold Pinter screenplay - 1 nomination
Look who was in this one together! Robert De Niro, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Tony Curtis, Dana Andrews, Jeanne Moreau, Donald Pleasance, Ray Milland, Anjelica Huston. Amazing.
475 - Baby Doll, United States, 1956. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Elia Kazan is one of the greatest directors of screen and stage that we have ever known.
He also made this film.
It is frustrating to come off watching the masterpiece that is A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and then see Baby Doll.
Elia Kazan + Tennessee Williams should = magic, right?
Unfortunately, in this case, no.
What happened?
On one level there is nothing wrong with it. It is a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it has some drama to it. Perfect for a TV movie-of-the-week. But not a theatrical-release feature.
One could also argue that it is unfair to ask it to live up to the expectations cast upon it by the greatness of Streetcar.
But on another level it is a disappointment.
If you are a Southerner, then you will be frustrated. Here is yet another film made by northerners who do not understand the culture they are trying to portray. How many hundreds of those are there?
They filmed it in Benoit, Mississippi, and they promised not to make fun of the locals. OK. Thanks for that at least. If only they had made a better attempt to understand them.
And if you know Tennessee Williams, you will also be frustrated. This film does not come across as his work at all.
It is ostensibly based on two Tennessee Williams one-act plays--27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper--but the plots have all been changed.
27 Wagons is a seething, sizzling play, and this film removes all the juice from it. It shows what should have been implied, and it leaves out the hottest scene. Then it switches the positions of the two males; it removes the bond between the husband and wife; it changes a rape to a consensual act; it makes the female complicit in the foreigner's crime; it turns her against her husband; and it makes her smarter, removing the very reason she is called "Baby Doll" in the first place, reducing the nickname to the fact that she sleeps in a crib.
Then the casting is poor.
Karl Malden as Archie Lee Meighan? What! If anything, if Kazan had to insist upon using his own stock actors, he should have cast Marlon Brando in the role. Archie Lee is supposed to be a physically pulsating man, visceral and instinct-driven, much more like Stanley Kowalski than Mitch Mitchell. What in the world is Karl Malden doing here? He is a fine actor, but this is not his casting by any stretch of the imagination. But even if Kazan had cast Brando, it still would have been off, because while Brando would have gotten the raw animal instinct right, he would not have captured his Southern essence nor his natural thinness.
Likewise, Carroll Baker misses the essence that a Southern actress would have supplied. Yes, she moved to Florida when she was 18, but she is from Pennsylvania and one can tell. Her acting is strong--no complaints there. She is giving herself to the role. But she does not possess that natural essence which only someone of a place can capture. Unless your name is Vivien Leigh. Not that I am suggesting Vivien Leigh for the role, but that she is one of the few actors in history who is not from the South but has somehow been able to get its essence inside her bones. This role would also require someone more visceral than the mannered roles she played.
Again, I am not criticizing the acting. Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, and Eli Wallach each delivers as good a performance as he can with the material he is given and the body he inhabits. We just need better material and different bodies.
So then you look at the credits and see that Tennessee Williams wrote the screenplay.
What?
Why did he butcher his own material so badly?
Until you dig a little more deeply and discover that Elia Kazan himself actually wrote most of the script and gave Williams the credit for it. For some reason, Tennessee Williams went MIA on this project. Literally. After filming started, he left town and abandoned the movie.
Then Kazan let the actors improvise frequently. There are entire scenes in the movie that are not even in Kazan's script, let alone in Williams' plays. Ugh.
I love the Group Theatre as much as anyone--at least the idea of it as it is reported to us. And I teach improvisation every week and use it in my own acting--when it is appropriate. But this is not the place for improvisation. When you are doing a Tennessee Williams play, then you should be doing a Tennessee Williams play. Exercise a little discipline here, please.
And as you keep digging, you also discover that Kazan did in fact offer the role of Archie Lee to Marlon Brando, but Marlon Brando turned it down. Too bad. It would have been so much better.
Oh, well.
This movie is not terrible. It is just not what I wish it were. Perhaps if you watch it without my expectations attached to it, then you will enjoy it better than I did. But if you do, do not read Tennessee Williams. Because this movie is not Tennessee Williams.
And as for the kerfuffle we are told attended it upon its release, well, we are sorry about that. The film is quite innocent by today's standards. And frankly, it is not steamy enough with respect to the way the play was written. I am not talking about skin. I am talking about the relationship between the husband and wife--which, frankly, was portrayed effectively with Stanley and Stella in Streetcar--so the irony, here, is that with this film people got upset about something about which the filmmakers had actually toned down.
So, then, here is the final equation:
Tennessee Williams + Elia Kazan - Tennessee Williams = something less than Kazan.
Maybe Williams took something of Kazan with him when he left town.
Meanwhile, I would like someone to make a movie adaptation of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton some day.
Because so far it has never yet been done.
* * * * *
Kazan directed his first film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in 1945, based on the Betty Smith novel. He directed five more films, all technically excellent--and already with 15 nominations and 5 wins--and then hit his legendary streak in the 1950s, beginning with A Streetcar Named Desire.
By the time of Baby Doll, Elia Kazan movies had garnered 48 nominations and 19 wins. Baby Doll would receive 4 more nominations, and after that Kazan films would receive 2 more nominations and 1 win. In all, Kazan films received 54 Oscar nominations and 20 Oscar wins.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1945 - drama, Betty Smith novel - 2 nominations, 1 win (Best Supporting Actor, James Dunn)
Boomerang!, 1947 - crime drama, Fulton Oursler Reader's Digest, article - 1 nomination
The Sea of Grass, 1947 - drama, Conrad Richter novel, Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn
Gentleman's Agreement, 1947 - drama, Laura Z. Hobson novel - 8 nominations, 3 wins
Pinky, 1949 - drama, Cid Ricketts Sumner novel - 3 nominations
Panic in the Streets, 1950 - crime drama/film noir, Edward & Edna Anhalt story - 1 nomination, 1 win
A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951 - drama, Tennessee Williams play - 12 nominations, 4 wins
Viva Zapata!, 1952 - biography, John Steinbeck book and screenplay - 5 nominations, 1 win
Man on a Tightrope, 1953 - thriller, Neil Paterson story -
On the Waterfront, 1954 - drama, Malcolm Johnson articles, Budd Schulberg story - 12 nominations, 8 wins
East of Eden, 1955 - drama, John Steinbeck novel - 4 nominations, 1 win
Baby Doll, 1956 - drama, Tennessee Williams play and screenplay - 4 nominations
A Face in the Crowd, 1957 - Budd Schulberg story
Wild River, 1960 - William Bradford Huie and Bordon Deal novels
Splendor in the Grass, 1961 - William Inge play and screenplay - 1 nomination, 1 win
The Arrangement, 1969 - Elia Kazan novel
The Visitors, 1972 - Chris Kazan screenplay
The Last Tycoon, 1976 - F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, Harold Pinter screenplay - 1 nomination
Look who was in this one together! Robert De Niro, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Tony Curtis, Dana Andrews, Jeanne Moreau, Donald Pleasance, Ray Milland, Anjelica Huston. Amazing.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
474 - A Streetcar Named Desire, United States, 1951. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Thursday, April , 2018
474 - A Streetcar Named Desire, United States, 1951. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Blanche Dubois emerges, like Anna Karenina, from the steam in the train station.
The bad news is that she will not be returning. The good news is that she will not be throwing herself in front of a train. The bad news is that her fate will not prove to be too much better.
Belle Reve is lost.
Not sold. Lost.
And there is nothing worse in a great civilization than losing the land. It represents everything that ties a family together.
The old ideals. Culture. Manners. A way of life.
Plus all those secrets concealed by that way of life.
We do not wish to lose those either.
Blanche walks through the throng.
A sailor asks, "Can I help you, Ma'am?"
Blanche answers. "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields."
They are real names of real streetcars that really rode past Tennessee Williams' home on Royal Street. Having stopped at Desire Street, it returned down Royal from France Street to Canal Street.
The Desire streetcar line began in 1920. The play was published in 1947. And the bureaucrats in all their wisdom discontinued the line in 1948, one year after it became famous, so that tourists for decades to come would look for the streetcar named Desire and not find it.
Blanche's opening line sums up the struggle going on inside her.
Take Desire. Transfer to Cemeteries. Get off at Elysian Fields.
Later she will connect desire and cemeteries again when she states, "Death. The opposite of desire."
She is travelling to New Orleans to visit her sister Stella. Stella Kowalski. Stella left Belle Reve to make her own way in the world. And to marry that man Stanley. That man who seems to Blanche to be more of an animal.
Blanche stayed behind when her sister left. When she moved to New Orleans. To the French Quarter. The Elysian Fields.
The Elysian Fields is the section where Stella lives in the French Quarter. But the Elysian Fields is the place in mythology where the blessed go after death.
Might it at least give Blanche some comfort that they are blessed? No. No, that death thing spooks her. She has some memory of death that still haunts her. That sends her off into another place. A place of dread. A place of regret. So that when the flower woman stops by to offer her flowers for the dead, it triggers something in the depths of Blanche's psyche, that rewires the synapses in her cerebrum.
As far as Blanche is concerned, Stella may have already gone to the Elysian Fields. It is death to her.
But while Stella married and moved, Blanche stayed behind and fought to keep the land.
"I stayed and struggled. You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself. I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together. . . . The burden fell on my shoulders."
The burden that was too hard to bear. How are you going to maintain once wealthy estate on a schoolteacher's salary?
Especially when you are a schoolteacher with . . . secrets.
After Blanche arrives and Stanley picks up her trunk, he goes through her things while she is taking a bath. A hot bath. A scalding bath. The kind of bath after which she feels so good and cool and rested.
He refers to something called the Napoleonic Law. Which means, he says, that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband. And apparently, according to his logic, what belongs to the wife's sister therefore belongs to the husband. So he plunges into her faux fox furs and her rhinestone costume jewelry looking for something to pawn.
And the deeds to her land. If she really lost it, he wants her to prove it. She has the papers, all right, and she gladly gives them to him. All of them. What good are they to her?
"There are thousands of papers stretching back over hundreds of years affecting Belle Reve, as piece by piece our improvident grandfathers exchanged the land for the epic debauches. To put it mildly."
Well, at least they had a good time.
One of Blanche's secrets is that she is not coming from Belle Reve. She does not live there. It has already been lost, before now. She is coming from Auriol. A town that exists in real life in France, and exists in the play in Louisiana.
A town where more secrets were made.
And Stanley is determined to find out what they are.
His workmate, bowling buddy, poker buddy Mitch has a thing for Blanche, but Stanley will be sure to ruin that by making insinuations.
The apartment is cramped. Barely big enough for two people. It makes the perfect cage for the animal Stanley. Yet somehow they squeeze as many as nine people in there at one time.
Although it is even more crowded when Blanche is alone with Mitch. Or alone with Stanley.
When you think of A Streetcar Named Desire, you may think of Marlon Brando screaming from the pavement up to the second floor, "Stella!" But this is Blanche's story. It is told through the eyes of Vivien Leigh.
Vivien Leigh. The British actress who won two Oscars for playing Southern belles.
One for Scarlett O'Hara. The brunette. At age 25.
One for Blanche DuBois. The blonde. At age 38.
As if losing Tara twelve years ago was not bad enough, it is now time to lose Belle Reve.
Fiddle-dee-dee.
Oh, Stella, for star.
After all, tomorrow is another day.
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
It is also an ensemble piece. Vivien Leigh is fantastic. Kim Hunter is fantastic. Marlon Brando is fantastic. Karl Malden is fantastic. Peg Hillias is fantastic. Wright King is fantastic.
Marlon Brando, from this film and the stage play that came before it, changed the vision of what acting could be for generations of actors to come.
The film begins in the script. This is one of the finest plays ever written in English. In fact, one could make the case that Tennessee Williams' best play is better than some of William Shakespeare's worst.
As Karl Malden himself observed, it tells the truth about the human condition but does so poetically.
Then the film is so incredibly shot. It is a Warner Bros. picture and follows the house style. With cinematography by Harry Stradlin. On a beautiful set with sophisticated lighting and shadows.
Quite sophisticated.
With fine direction by the great director Elia Kazan.
And like other great art, it stays with you.
* * * * *
I'm terrified.
Nothing to be scared of. They're crazy about each other.
He's common. . . . Surely you can't have forgotten that much of our upbringing, Stella, that you just suppose there's any part of a gentleman and his nature
He's like an animal. Has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age. Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you, you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you. That's if kisses have been discovered yet.
His "poker night," as you call it. His party of apes. Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella, my sister, there's been some progress since then. Such things as art, as poetry, as music. In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning that we have got make grow and to cling to, as our flag in this dark march towards whatever it is we're approaching.
Don't hang back. Don't hang back with the brutes.
Soft people have got to court the favor of hard ones.
I'm fading now.
Honey, a shot never did a Coke any harm.
I have to admit, I love to be waited on.
I can go away from here and not be anyone's problem.
Look who's here.
My Rosenkavalier.
I'm looking for the Pleiades. The Seven Sisters.
A single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions, or she'll be lost.
I guess I have old-fashioned ideals.
Such as a lady with old-fashioned values who has privately worked
474 - A Streetcar Named Desire, United States, 1951. Dir. Elia Kazan.
Blanche Dubois emerges, like Anna Karenina, from the steam in the train station.
The bad news is that she will not be returning. The good news is that she will not be throwing herself in front of a train. The bad news is that her fate will not prove to be too much better.
Belle Reve is lost.
Not sold. Lost.
And there is nothing worse in a great civilization than losing the land. It represents everything that ties a family together.
The old ideals. Culture. Manners. A way of life.
Plus all those secrets concealed by that way of life.
We do not wish to lose those either.
Blanche walks through the throng.
Blanche answers. "They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields."
They are real names of real streetcars that really rode past Tennessee Williams' home on Royal Street. Having stopped at Desire Street, it returned down Royal from France Street to Canal Street.
The Desire streetcar line began in 1920. The play was published in 1947. And the bureaucrats in all their wisdom discontinued the line in 1948, one year after it became famous, so that tourists for decades to come would look for the streetcar named Desire and not find it.
Blanche's opening line sums up the struggle going on inside her.
Take Desire. Transfer to Cemeteries. Get off at Elysian Fields.
Later she will connect desire and cemeteries again when she states, "Death. The opposite of desire."
She is travelling to New Orleans to visit her sister Stella. Stella Kowalski. Stella left Belle Reve to make her own way in the world. And to marry that man Stanley. That man who seems to Blanche to be more of an animal.
Blanche stayed behind when her sister left. When she moved to New Orleans. To the French Quarter. The Elysian Fields.
The Elysian Fields is the section where Stella lives in the French Quarter. But the Elysian Fields is the place in mythology where the blessed go after death.
Might it at least give Blanche some comfort that they are blessed? No. No, that death thing spooks her. She has some memory of death that still haunts her. That sends her off into another place. A place of dread. A place of regret. So that when the flower woman stops by to offer her flowers for the dead, it triggers something in the depths of Blanche's psyche, that rewires the synapses in her cerebrum.
As far as Blanche is concerned, Stella may have already gone to the Elysian Fields. It is death to her.
But while Stella married and moved, Blanche stayed behind and fought to keep the land.
"I stayed and struggled. You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself. I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together. . . . The burden fell on my shoulders."
The burden that was too hard to bear. How are you going to maintain once wealthy estate on a schoolteacher's salary?
Especially when you are a schoolteacher with . . . secrets.
After Blanche arrives and Stanley picks up her trunk, he goes through her things while she is taking a bath. A hot bath. A scalding bath. The kind of bath after which she feels so good and cool and rested.
He refers to something called the Napoleonic Law. Which means, he says, that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband. And apparently, according to his logic, what belongs to the wife's sister therefore belongs to the husband. So he plunges into her faux fox furs and her rhinestone costume jewelry looking for something to pawn.
And the deeds to her land. If she really lost it, he wants her to prove it. She has the papers, all right, and she gladly gives them to him. All of them. What good are they to her?
"There are thousands of papers stretching back over hundreds of years affecting Belle Reve, as piece by piece our improvident grandfathers exchanged the land for the epic debauches. To put it mildly."
Well, at least they had a good time.
One of Blanche's secrets is that she is not coming from Belle Reve. She does not live there. It has already been lost, before now. She is coming from Auriol. A town that exists in real life in France, and exists in the play in Louisiana.
A town where more secrets were made.
And Stanley is determined to find out what they are.
His workmate, bowling buddy, poker buddy Mitch has a thing for Blanche, but Stanley will be sure to ruin that by making insinuations.
The apartment is cramped. Barely big enough for two people. It makes the perfect cage for the animal Stanley. Yet somehow they squeeze as many as nine people in there at one time.
Although it is even more crowded when Blanche is alone with Mitch. Or alone with Stanley.
When you think of A Streetcar Named Desire, you may think of Marlon Brando screaming from the pavement up to the second floor, "Stella!" But this is Blanche's story. It is told through the eyes of Vivien Leigh.
Vivien Leigh. The British actress who won two Oscars for playing Southern belles.
One for Scarlett O'Hara. The brunette. At age 25.
One for Blanche DuBois. The blonde. At age 38.
As if losing Tara twelve years ago was not bad enough, it is now time to lose Belle Reve.
Fiddle-dee-dee.
Oh, Stella, for star.
After all, tomorrow is another day.
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
It is also an ensemble piece. Vivien Leigh is fantastic. Kim Hunter is fantastic. Marlon Brando is fantastic. Karl Malden is fantastic. Peg Hillias is fantastic. Wright King is fantastic.
Marlon Brando, from this film and the stage play that came before it, changed the vision of what acting could be for generations of actors to come.
The film begins in the script. This is one of the finest plays ever written in English. In fact, one could make the case that Tennessee Williams' best play is better than some of William Shakespeare's worst.
As Karl Malden himself observed, it tells the truth about the human condition but does so poetically.
Then the film is so incredibly shot. It is a Warner Bros. picture and follows the house style. With cinematography by Harry Stradlin. On a beautiful set with sophisticated lighting and shadows.
Quite sophisticated.
With fine direction by the great director Elia Kazan.
And like other great art, it stays with you.
* * * * *
I'm terrified.
Nothing to be scared of. They're crazy about each other.
He's common. . . . Surely you can't have forgotten that much of our upbringing, Stella, that you just suppose there's any part of a gentleman and his nature
He's like an animal. Has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age. Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you, you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you. That's if kisses have been discovered yet.
His "poker night," as you call it. His party of apes. Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella, my sister, there's been some progress since then. Such things as art, as poetry, as music. In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning that we have got make grow and to cling to, as our flag in this dark march towards whatever it is we're approaching.
Don't hang back. Don't hang back with the brutes.
Soft people have got to court the favor of hard ones.
I'm fading now.
Honey, a shot never did a Coke any harm.
I have to admit, I love to be waited on.
I can go away from here and not be anyone's problem.
Look who's here.
My Rosenkavalier.
I'm looking for the Pleiades. The Seven Sisters.
A single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions, or she'll be lost.
I guess I have old-fashioned ideals.
Such as a lady with old-fashioned values who has privately worked
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
473 - A Midsummer Night's Dream, UK/Italy/US, 1999. Dir. Michael Hoffman.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
473 - A Midsummer Night's Dream, UK/Italy/US, 1999. Dir. Michael Hoffman.
William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream is a magical, mystical, enchanting, spellbinding, lighthearted, whimsical, delightful romp through the mysterious forests of romantic love.
Unfortunately, this movie is not.
When you watch it, you find yourself wondering where the chemistry went. Perhaps director Michael Hoffman left it back in his high school chem lab.
Or maybe he just skipped chemistry class altogether.
The movie has moments. But it takes effort to watch it. It is maddeningly uneven, and it gets off to an inauspicious start from the opening title cards.
It begins with an epigraph consisting of two paragraphs.
"The village of Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the 19th century. Necklines are high. Parents are rigid. Marriage is seldom a matter of love."
Not great writing. And not really the point of the play. Here we learn that Hoffman has moved the setting from Athens to a fictional Monte Athena in Tuscany. And he changes the time period to the 19th century, a couple hundred years after Shakespeare. Why? We do not know. Sometimes directors change a Shakespearean setting and it works out well. Here it seems arbitrary. It does not make any difference.
But the second statement--
"The good news: The bustle is in its decline, allowing for the meteoric rise of that newfangled creation, the bicycle."
What?
What does that mean and why insert it at the beginning of a Shakespearean comedy? What is a bustle? Commotion and hubbub? That would be the opposite of the statement. A framework in the back of a dress? That makes more sense. Women can ride now. But what does that have to do with anything?
But before we understand the fuss over the bicycle, Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream crescendos to a climax as the sun rises over the landscape and the title bursts onto the screen, built by fireflies and exploding into butterflies.
Wait. Why is our heart supposed to be enraptured? We are still scratching our heads over the odd statements thrust upon us. Are we supposed to be that excited about a bustle and a bicycle?
Before we can figure it out, we immediately cut to some awkward camera movements featuring extras at work preparing for what we will learn is a wedding. And it all feels very staged--like going to a play where the director is proud of pageantry and wants to show off how much clutter he can put in front of you. No one seems to be preparing for a wedding. They just seem to be doing busy work for the camera.
And it is done with bullet points.
Table cloths. Check.
Awnings. Check.
Chairs. Check.
Leeks. Check.
Flowers. Check.
Tomatoes. Check.
Radishes. Check.
Pheasants. Check.
That extra slapping knife blades together as if he is sharpening them, but he does not really know how to sharpen them and is not really trying to. Check.
Let us pour some sauce over some meat roasting over a fire. Check.
Look! A swan! We might just eat that. Check.
Little people putting the silver into a potato sack to steal it. Check.
Kneading dough. Check.
Two men carrying a boiling pot with steam coming out through the lid. Check.
One of the little people carrying the cornucopia horn--or is that a Victrola speaker?--to the cart to steal with the silver. Right out in the open because everyone is too busy to notice. Check.
And then that moment at the fountain. When one of the extras thinks that this is his chance to make his feature film debut. Four men are cleaning the fountain and a fifth walks by. Well, actually, they are not really cleaning the fountain. They are just moving long-pole scoops up and down without purpose. As extras sometimes do. Two men are standing in the fountain; one is on the far side; and one on the near side. The one on the near side has decided that he is engaged in an argument with the others. Only he has neglected to send them the memo. He gestures with his right arm, arguing with the other extras, who do not notice him. He gets bigger and bigger. Finally, the man at the far end notices him and reacts. Our man, who looks like an older, heavyset Robert Duvall (and before you say, "Older?" remember this is 1999) turns and does that thing where he pinches his fingertips to his thumb, points them back at his face, and flips his hand at the wrist so that we will all know that he is Italian. Then he walks out of frame with great importance. Except for the split second where he breaks character to look down to see where he is going. All the while there is nothing to be frustrated by. They are just cleaning the fountain. Or at least poking it with their long-pole scoops.
But wait. You are not off the hook yet. We are not finished with the opening credits, so we have more montage to go.
Hors d'oeuvres on a pair of tiered serving stands. Check.
A tracking shot across the length of the long table. Check.
A shot of David Straithern as Theseus looking out over his estate and beholding its glory. But not really in character yet. Check.
An overhead shot of the gardens with about a dozen servants bustling about. (Are you sure the bustle is in its decline?) Check.
Foley of bird sounds. Mendelssohn still playing. Check.
Cut back to Straithern having a thought, tapping his fingers, looking behind him, deciding something, and picking up a light-enough-pink-to-be-cream rose from a conveniently placed flower pot on the parapet next to him. But NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE. Check.
Sophie Marceau as Hippolyta picking at her fingernails and pining as she starts a record on the Victrola. Oh, look. There is the Victrola speaker. Still in its place on the record player. I guess that was the cornucopia horn that the little person stole after all. Check.
Tilt up to her face. She too is NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE. Straithern surprises her with the rose. She stands. Smiles. He awkwardly puts his left arm around her as if they only had enough time for one quick blocking rehearsal before shooting--and one wonders if they had even met each other before shooting--and a maid walks by just as he begins to recite his lines. We jib back, dolly over, track behind some orange trees as he walks her over to a spot where they can be alone. He tries to kiss her as he says lines that mean that he is so in love with her that can hardly stand it any more, but he stands there saying it as if someone is holding a gun to his lower back and demanding that he recite some Shakespeare or lose his life. Check.
She pulls back from the kiss and argues that their wedding is only four days away, and he can wait. She ends the last line on an up pitch as if she is asking a question, as if she is unsure of whether she means it or not--or whether she even knows what the words mean in the first place. Or not. Check.
Would it have killed them to understand their lines first? And developed some sort of love between them?
We start to agree with him. The two hours ahead of us already feel as if they are going to be an eternity. Let alone the four days he has to wait until their wedding.
Maybe we should eat the swan.
Or steal the silver.
Or walk out of the theater pretending we are Italian.
With all the feeling that these two pieces of cardboard feel for each other, why even bother to have the wedding in the first place?
Alfred Hitchcock claims that an actor once asked him what his motivation should be, and Hitch said, "Your paycheck."
Unfortunately, as you watch this scene, you believe that the paycheck was exactly the motivation driving these two actors in these roles. Action. Cut. Check.
Finally the "Directed by" credit passes, and we can get on with the movie. If we are still here.
This is too bad, because I really like David Straithern. In his first film as a young man, a directed by his college friend John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus Seven (a movie given its title apparently for the purpose of discouraging people from seeing it), he shows that he has talent and the potential to be a star. A few of the other actors went on to have careers but many of them did not. But he distinguished himself so clearly from the rest of the group that he set himself up for a great career.
Sometimes he is asked to play a self-important, self-righteous bore (partly because he has the potential for gravitas). But when he is given character work to do, he can really shine. Watch him as Tom Cruise's brother Ray McDeere in The Firm (1993) or as that great character Pierce Patchett in that fabulous movie L. A. Confidential (1997), and you will love him. Oh, wow. He is so good. And he has a long string of great roles on his resume.
Did you know that David Straithern studied at the Ringling Bros. Clown College in Sarasota, Florida? If only he had put some of that into this role. After all, this is Shakespeare's most lighthearted of comedies. He could trip on his feet as he trips from his tongue.
But despite all this, we at least believe that Straithern has the intelligence, the capacity, and the stamina to play Shakespeare. We just do not believe he was ready. The film feels rushed. It seems as though the director filmed the film before the actors had time to fully develop their characters. As if he came in from another project and started filming without finding this one first.
But there are other actors here who seem completely out of their league. Over their heads. Drowning. As though they cannot even get the words out of their mouths, let alone understand them. As if all the time in the world is not going to help them get any better.
But have no fear. Stanley Tucci and Kevin Cline are here. And they keep the film from collapsing.
Tucci makes the perfect Puck. Reclining in his well-designed make-up and prosthetics, looking so comfortable in his own skin, so sure of himself, so in charge of the minions over whom he presides. He has played so many great characters in so many great movies. From Secondo in the cooking film Big Night (1996) (co-directing himself) to Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) to Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games series. Has there ever been anyone more confident and relaxed?
And Kevin Kline does what Kevin Kline does. He embodies Nick Bottom, wanting to play all the roles. And he tries. And he does. And he makes you laugh.
When the film moves from the town to the woods it gets better.
One could easily watch it and be entertained by it. Especially late at night after a couple of drinks.
And I have hope that I will like it again when I see it again.
After all, Stanley Tucci himself has asked me to.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
Wile these visions did appear. . . .
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend.
Yes, Puck, I have slumbered here. For sure. But I will pardon so that you may mend.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
OK, Puck. Here is my hand. We are friends. I trust you will restore amends. When I see it again, I will write an amended blog.
* * * * *
Hey, this is fun. Look at the magical characters in the cast.
Fairies. Nymphs. Dwarves. Furies. Female Monster. Janus Figures. Fawns. Satyrs. Sphinxes. Winged Men. Forge Man. Medusa. Goat-Headed Creature. Wedding Musicians.
Can you distinguish among all those creatures?
And if you are a wedding musician, well, apparently this is the company you keep!
473 - A Midsummer Night's Dream, UK/Italy/US, 1999. Dir. Michael Hoffman.
William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream is a magical, mystical, enchanting, spellbinding, lighthearted, whimsical, delightful romp through the mysterious forests of romantic love.
Unfortunately, this movie is not.
When you watch it, you find yourself wondering where the chemistry went. Perhaps director Michael Hoffman left it back in his high school chem lab.
Or maybe he just skipped chemistry class altogether.
The movie has moments. But it takes effort to watch it. It is maddeningly uneven, and it gets off to an inauspicious start from the opening title cards.
It begins with an epigraph consisting of two paragraphs.
"The village of Monte Athena in Italy at the turn of the 19th century. Necklines are high. Parents are rigid. Marriage is seldom a matter of love."
Not great writing. And not really the point of the play. Here we learn that Hoffman has moved the setting from Athens to a fictional Monte Athena in Tuscany. And he changes the time period to the 19th century, a couple hundred years after Shakespeare. Why? We do not know. Sometimes directors change a Shakespearean setting and it works out well. Here it seems arbitrary. It does not make any difference.
But the second statement--
"The good news: The bustle is in its decline, allowing for the meteoric rise of that newfangled creation, the bicycle."
What?
What does that mean and why insert it at the beginning of a Shakespearean comedy? What is a bustle? Commotion and hubbub? That would be the opposite of the statement. A framework in the back of a dress? That makes more sense. Women can ride now. But what does that have to do with anything?
But before we understand the fuss over the bicycle, Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream crescendos to a climax as the sun rises over the landscape and the title bursts onto the screen, built by fireflies and exploding into butterflies.
Wait. Why is our heart supposed to be enraptured? We are still scratching our heads over the odd statements thrust upon us. Are we supposed to be that excited about a bustle and a bicycle?
Before we can figure it out, we immediately cut to some awkward camera movements featuring extras at work preparing for what we will learn is a wedding. And it all feels very staged--like going to a play where the director is proud of pageantry and wants to show off how much clutter he can put in front of you. No one seems to be preparing for a wedding. They just seem to be doing busy work for the camera.
And it is done with bullet points.
Table cloths. Check.
Awnings. Check.
Chairs. Check.
Leeks. Check.
Flowers. Check.
Tomatoes. Check.
Radishes. Check.
Pheasants. Check.
That extra slapping knife blades together as if he is sharpening them, but he does not really know how to sharpen them and is not really trying to. Check.
Let us pour some sauce over some meat roasting over a fire. Check.
Look! A swan! We might just eat that. Check.
Little people putting the silver into a potato sack to steal it. Check.
Kneading dough. Check.
Two men carrying a boiling pot with steam coming out through the lid. Check.
One of the little people carrying the cornucopia horn--or is that a Victrola speaker?--to the cart to steal with the silver. Right out in the open because everyone is too busy to notice. Check.
And then that moment at the fountain. When one of the extras thinks that this is his chance to make his feature film debut. Four men are cleaning the fountain and a fifth walks by. Well, actually, they are not really cleaning the fountain. They are just moving long-pole scoops up and down without purpose. As extras sometimes do. Two men are standing in the fountain; one is on the far side; and one on the near side. The one on the near side has decided that he is engaged in an argument with the others. Only he has neglected to send them the memo. He gestures with his right arm, arguing with the other extras, who do not notice him. He gets bigger and bigger. Finally, the man at the far end notices him and reacts. Our man, who looks like an older, heavyset Robert Duvall (and before you say, "Older?" remember this is 1999) turns and does that thing where he pinches his fingertips to his thumb, points them back at his face, and flips his hand at the wrist so that we will all know that he is Italian. Then he walks out of frame with great importance. Except for the split second where he breaks character to look down to see where he is going. All the while there is nothing to be frustrated by. They are just cleaning the fountain. Or at least poking it with their long-pole scoops.
But wait. You are not off the hook yet. We are not finished with the opening credits, so we have more montage to go.
Hors d'oeuvres on a pair of tiered serving stands. Check.
A tracking shot across the length of the long table. Check.
A shot of David Straithern as Theseus looking out over his estate and beholding its glory. But not really in character yet. Check.
An overhead shot of the gardens with about a dozen servants bustling about. (Are you sure the bustle is in its decline?) Check.
Foley of bird sounds. Mendelssohn still playing. Check.
Cut back to Straithern having a thought, tapping his fingers, looking behind him, deciding something, and picking up a light-enough-pink-to-be-cream rose from a conveniently placed flower pot on the parapet next to him. But NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE. Check.
Sophie Marceau as Hippolyta picking at her fingernails and pining as she starts a record on the Victrola. Oh, look. There is the Victrola speaker. Still in its place on the record player. I guess that was the cornucopia horn that the little person stole after all. Check.
Tilt up to her face. She too is NOT ACTUALLY IN LOVE. Straithern surprises her with the rose. She stands. Smiles. He awkwardly puts his left arm around her as if they only had enough time for one quick blocking rehearsal before shooting--and one wonders if they had even met each other before shooting--and a maid walks by just as he begins to recite his lines. We jib back, dolly over, track behind some orange trees as he walks her over to a spot where they can be alone. He tries to kiss her as he says lines that mean that he is so in love with her that can hardly stand it any more, but he stands there saying it as if someone is holding a gun to his lower back and demanding that he recite some Shakespeare or lose his life. Check.
She pulls back from the kiss and argues that their wedding is only four days away, and he can wait. She ends the last line on an up pitch as if she is asking a question, as if she is unsure of whether she means it or not--or whether she even knows what the words mean in the first place. Or not. Check.
Would it have killed them to understand their lines first? And developed some sort of love between them?
We start to agree with him. The two hours ahead of us already feel as if they are going to be an eternity. Let alone the four days he has to wait until their wedding.
Maybe we should eat the swan.
Or steal the silver.
Or walk out of the theater pretending we are Italian.
With all the feeling that these two pieces of cardboard feel for each other, why even bother to have the wedding in the first place?
Alfred Hitchcock claims that an actor once asked him what his motivation should be, and Hitch said, "Your paycheck."
Unfortunately, as you watch this scene, you believe that the paycheck was exactly the motivation driving these two actors in these roles. Action. Cut. Check.
Finally the "Directed by" credit passes, and we can get on with the movie. If we are still here.
This is too bad, because I really like David Straithern. In his first film as a young man, a directed by his college friend John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus Seven (a movie given its title apparently for the purpose of discouraging people from seeing it), he shows that he has talent and the potential to be a star. A few of the other actors went on to have careers but many of them did not. But he distinguished himself so clearly from the rest of the group that he set himself up for a great career.
Sometimes he is asked to play a self-important, self-righteous bore (partly because he has the potential for gravitas). But when he is given character work to do, he can really shine. Watch him as Tom Cruise's brother Ray McDeere in The Firm (1993) or as that great character Pierce Patchett in that fabulous movie L. A. Confidential (1997), and you will love him. Oh, wow. He is so good. And he has a long string of great roles on his resume.
Did you know that David Straithern studied at the Ringling Bros. Clown College in Sarasota, Florida? If only he had put some of that into this role. After all, this is Shakespeare's most lighthearted of comedies. He could trip on his feet as he trips from his tongue.
But despite all this, we at least believe that Straithern has the intelligence, the capacity, and the stamina to play Shakespeare. We just do not believe he was ready. The film feels rushed. It seems as though the director filmed the film before the actors had time to fully develop their characters. As if he came in from another project and started filming without finding this one first.
But there are other actors here who seem completely out of their league. Over their heads. Drowning. As though they cannot even get the words out of their mouths, let alone understand them. As if all the time in the world is not going to help them get any better.
But have no fear. Stanley Tucci and Kevin Cline are here. And they keep the film from collapsing.
Tucci makes the perfect Puck. Reclining in his well-designed make-up and prosthetics, looking so comfortable in his own skin, so sure of himself, so in charge of the minions over whom he presides. He has played so many great characters in so many great movies. From Secondo in the cooking film Big Night (1996) (co-directing himself) to Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) to Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games series. Has there ever been anyone more confident and relaxed?
And Kevin Kline does what Kevin Kline does. He embodies Nick Bottom, wanting to play all the roles. And he tries. And he does. And he makes you laugh.
When the film moves from the town to the woods it gets better.
One could easily watch it and be entertained by it. Especially late at night after a couple of drinks.
And I have hope that I will like it again when I see it again.
After all, Stanley Tucci himself has asked me to.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
Wile these visions did appear. . . .
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend.
Yes, Puck, I have slumbered here. For sure. But I will pardon so that you may mend.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
OK, Puck. Here is my hand. We are friends. I trust you will restore amends. When I see it again, I will write an amended blog.
* * * * *
Hey, this is fun. Look at the magical characters in the cast.
Fairies. Nymphs. Dwarves. Furies. Female Monster. Janus Figures. Fawns. Satyrs. Sphinxes. Winged Men. Forge Man. Medusa. Goat-Headed Creature. Wedding Musicians.
Can you distinguish among all those creatures?
And if you are a wedding musician, well, apparently this is the company you keep!
Monday, April 16, 2018
472 - The Taming of the Shrew, Italy/US, 1967. Dir. Franco Zefferelli.
Tuesday, April 16, 2018
472 - The Taming of the Shrew, Italy/US, 1967. Dir. Franco Zefferelli.
Kiss me, Kate.
So says Petruchio to Katherina. With an a.
But then, Henry V also says it to Katharine, the Queen of France. With an e.
So whether your are Katherina with an a or Katharine with an e, someone calling you Kate wants you to kiss him.
It is a good thing Petruchio has come along too, because without him, no one else could get kissed.
Why is that?
Because everybody wants Bianca. All the suitors are suiting her, but their suits are unsuitable, as they do not suit her father.
Why is that?
Because Katherina, with an a, is the older sister. Bianca, with an a, is the younger sister. And Baptista Minola of Padua, with three a's, the father, decrees that the older must be married before the younger.
Like Jacob wanting Rachel but having to marry Leah first. Because Laban said so. Because Laban follows custom. And Baptista Minola likewise follows custom.
So all these men who want to fight each other over Bianca must wait for Katherina to be married first.
The only problem is that no one wants Katherina.
She never gives them a chance. She has this tendency to turn off people. She has a bit of a temper. A sharp tongue. A short fuse. A strong will.
She is a shrew.
A nag, a harpy, a termagant, a biddy, a carper, a harridan, a hellion, a hussy, a madcap, an ogress, a porcupine, a crone, a strumpet, a spitfire, a tigress, a virago, a vixen, a wench.
A scold.
But none of that deters Petruchio. He is unfazed. He has what it takes to win her over.
Will power.
Tenacity.
Resolution.
Will he win her? Will she marry him?
He knows the secret of speaking what he wants as though it already were.
The two leads are played respectively by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Who only have to play themselves. As the movie reflects much of their real-life chemistry with one another.
With them in it, it might have been called The Tempest.
One might say their relationship was a bit fiery.
Consider Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. They loved each other for 25 years, until his death, and made 9 movies together. They never married.
Meanwhile, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were together 22 years, until his death, and made 11 movies together. And they did marry. Twice. And divorced. Twice.
Is that all?
But you do not have to watch this movie just to see the drama. Whether on- or off-screen. You may watch it for Franco Zefferelli's brilliant production. The sets. The costumes. The colors. The music.
The more we watch these Shakespeare films, the more we realize how creative clothing used to be. And how our most fashionable threads in comparison look like paper sacks.
The film also offers the contented repose of familiarity. Like comfort food. Outdoor scenes shot indoors on a sound stage. With planted greenery, tricked-out perspective, and matte paintings. And piped-in rain. What people used to think of as the movies. Before directors discovered the satisfying-in-a-different-way grittiness of location shooting.
The film, like the play, gives insights into relationships and will power. Watch it in the spirit in which it was intended.
It follows similar themes to a movie we saw last year, on April 12. Roger Vadim's . . . And God Created Woman (1956).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/102-and-god-created-woman-1956-france.html
The man who wants it most wins.
And being a winner, God give you good night.
472 - The Taming of the Shrew, Italy/US, 1967. Dir. Franco Zefferelli.
Kiss me, Kate.
So says Petruchio to Katherina. With an a.
But then, Henry V also says it to Katharine, the Queen of France. With an e.
So whether your are Katherina with an a or Katharine with an e, someone calling you Kate wants you to kiss him.
It is a good thing Petruchio has come along too, because without him, no one else could get kissed.
Why is that?
Because everybody wants Bianca. All the suitors are suiting her, but their suits are unsuitable, as they do not suit her father.
Why is that?
Because Katherina, with an a, is the older sister. Bianca, with an a, is the younger sister. And Baptista Minola of Padua, with three a's, the father, decrees that the older must be married before the younger.
Like Jacob wanting Rachel but having to marry Leah first. Because Laban said so. Because Laban follows custom. And Baptista Minola likewise follows custom.
So all these men who want to fight each other over Bianca must wait for Katherina to be married first.
The only problem is that no one wants Katherina.
She never gives them a chance. She has this tendency to turn off people. She has a bit of a temper. A sharp tongue. A short fuse. A strong will.
She is a shrew.
A nag, a harpy, a termagant, a biddy, a carper, a harridan, a hellion, a hussy, a madcap, an ogress, a porcupine, a crone, a strumpet, a spitfire, a tigress, a virago, a vixen, a wench.
A scold.
But none of that deters Petruchio. He is unfazed. He has what it takes to win her over.
Will power.
Tenacity.
Resolution.
Will he win her? Will she marry him?
He knows the secret of speaking what he wants as though it already were.
The two leads are played respectively by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Who only have to play themselves. As the movie reflects much of their real-life chemistry with one another.
With them in it, it might have been called The Tempest.
One might say their relationship was a bit fiery.
Consider Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. They loved each other for 25 years, until his death, and made 9 movies together. They never married.
Meanwhile, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were together 22 years, until his death, and made 11 movies together. And they did marry. Twice. And divorced. Twice.
Is that all?
But you do not have to watch this movie just to see the drama. Whether on- or off-screen. You may watch it for Franco Zefferelli's brilliant production. The sets. The costumes. The colors. The music.
The more we watch these Shakespeare films, the more we realize how creative clothing used to be. And how our most fashionable threads in comparison look like paper sacks.
The film also offers the contented repose of familiarity. Like comfort food. Outdoor scenes shot indoors on a sound stage. With planted greenery, tricked-out perspective, and matte paintings. And piped-in rain. What people used to think of as the movies. Before directors discovered the satisfying-in-a-different-way grittiness of location shooting.
The film, like the play, gives insights into relationships and will power. Watch it in the spirit in which it was intended.
It follows similar themes to a movie we saw last year, on April 12. Roger Vadim's . . . And God Created Woman (1956).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/102-and-god-created-woman-1956-france.html
The man who wants it most wins.
And being a winner, God give you good night.
471 - Love's Labour's Lost, UK/France/US, 2000. Dir. Kenneth Branagh.
Monday, April 16, 2018
471 - Love's Labour's Lost, UK/France/US, 2000. Dir. Kenneth Branagh.
A Proclamation: No Women.
Time to study.
The King of Navarre and his three amigos--Berowne, Longaville, and Dumaine--have dedicated themselves to three years of schooling without distraction. Meaning without romance.
How long do you think that will last?
We will give it a day or two.
It just so happens that the Princess of France and her three amigas--Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine--are at court
The King and his men are attended by two other men, Armado and Costard. The Princess is attended by a man named Boyet.
Costard is the first to fall. He goes for Jaquenetta. So Armado arrests him. It just so happens Armado is in love with her himself.
Armado lets Costard go free on the condition that he deliver a letter to Jaquenetta.
Berowne charges Costard to deliver a letter to Rosaline.
And because this is Shakespeare, the letters end up in the hands of the wrong women. Confusion ensues.
Each of the four men privately proclaims his love for a woman, only to be overheard by each of the three other men.
A proclamation: Annul the Proclamation. Follow love. Relinquish study. Pursue the women.
Disguised as Russians.
Because apparently one must be disguised to woo women.
The women, however, have the upper hand. Boyet tips them off. They exchange identities. The men woo the wrong women. The women tease them in turn.
The group pauses for entertainment and the women prepare to leave. The men insist their love is true. The women give them a year's worth of tasks to prove their love.
All's well that ends well. Wait, no, that is another play.
But this, being a Shakespearean comedy, ends well as well.
Did we mention it is a musical?
What?
Yes. A musical with professional actors and amateur singers and dancers. In the vein of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. And it plays like a very expensive production of local community theatre.
Interspersed with newsreels.
What?
Yes, newsreels. What is this, Citizen Kane? News On the March!
Never mind the story. Watch the song-and-dance routines.
* * * * *
Love's Labour's Lost, Patrick Doyle
I'd Rather Charleston with You, George Gershwin
Arrival of the Princess, Patrick Doyle
I Won't Dance, Jerome Kern
I Get a Kick Out of You, Cole Porter
With that Face / No Strings (I'm Fancy Free), Irving Berlin, Patrick Doyle
The Way You Look Tonight, Jerome Kern
I've Got a Crush on You, George Gershwin
Beauty of a Woman's Face, Patrick Doyle
Cheek to Cheek, Irving Berlin
Let's Face the Music and Dance, Irving Berlin
Trim Gallants, Patrick Doyle
There's No Business Like Show Business, Irving Berlin
Twelve Months a Day, Patrick Doyle
They Can't Take That Away from Me, George Gerswhin
You That Way, We This Way, Patrick Doyle
Cinetone News, Patrick Doyle
Victory, Patrick Doyle
Time to study.
The King of Navarre and his three amigos--Berowne, Longaville, and Dumaine--have dedicated themselves to three years of schooling without distraction. Meaning without romance.
How long do you think that will last?
We will give it a day or two.
It just so happens that the Princess of France and her three amigas--Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine--are at court
The King and his men are attended by two other men, Armado and Costard. The Princess is attended by a man named Boyet.
Costard is the first to fall. He goes for Jaquenetta. So Armado arrests him. It just so happens Armado is in love with her himself.
Armado lets Costard go free on the condition that he deliver a letter to Jaquenetta.
Berowne charges Costard to deliver a letter to Rosaline.
And because this is Shakespeare, the letters end up in the hands of the wrong women. Confusion ensues.
Each of the four men privately proclaims his love for a woman, only to be overheard by each of the three other men.
A proclamation: Annul the Proclamation. Follow love. Relinquish study. Pursue the women.
Disguised as Russians.
Because apparently one must be disguised to woo women.
The women, however, have the upper hand. Boyet tips them off. They exchange identities. The men woo the wrong women. The women tease them in turn.
The group pauses for entertainment and the women prepare to leave. The men insist their love is true. The women give them a year's worth of tasks to prove their love.
All's well that ends well. Wait, no, that is another play.
But this, being a Shakespearean comedy, ends well as well.
Did we mention it is a musical?
What?
Yes. A musical with professional actors and amateur singers and dancers. In the vein of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. And it plays like a very expensive production of local community theatre.
Interspersed with newsreels.
What?
Yes, newsreels. What is this, Citizen Kane? News On the March!
Never mind the story. Watch the song-and-dance routines.
* * * * *
Love's Labour's Lost, Patrick Doyle
I'd Rather Charleston with You, George Gershwin
Arrival of the Princess, Patrick Doyle
I Won't Dance, Jerome Kern
I Get a Kick Out of You, Cole Porter
With that Face / No Strings (I'm Fancy Free), Irving Berlin, Patrick Doyle
The Way You Look Tonight, Jerome Kern
I've Got a Crush on You, George Gershwin
Beauty of a Woman's Face, Patrick Doyle
Cheek to Cheek, Irving Berlin
Let's Face the Music and Dance, Irving Berlin
Trim Gallants, Patrick Doyle
There's No Business Like Show Business, Irving Berlin
Twelve Months a Day, Patrick Doyle
They Can't Take That Away from Me, George Gerswhin
You That Way, We This Way, Patrick Doyle
Cinetone News, Patrick Doyle
Victory, Patrick Doyle
Sunday, April 15, 2018
470 - Hamlet, UK/US, 1996. Dir. Kenneth Branagh.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
470 - Hamlet, UK/US, 1996. Dir. Kenneth Branagh.
In 1976 Derek Jacobi played the role of Hamlet on the stage in England.
A 15-year-old boy sat in the theatre. He had not yet decided what he wanted to do with his life. Among other things, he was considering becoming a footballer--what we would call a soccer player--or a journalist.
As he watched Jacobi play the role his body began to shake. He felt he was watching a thriller. He became transfixed by what was happening before him. He was transfixed to be transformed.
He thought about it on the way home on the train. He thought about it for days afterward.
He now knew what he wanted to do with his life.
He would be an actor.
In 1979 Derek Jacobi played the role again, this time at The Old Vic. While there he received a letter from a young man, now at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, asking if he could come and interview him.
He agreed.
The young man came to The Old Vic and was allowed into Jacobi's dressing room. They sat and talked. He asked him questions. He wanted to know everything he could about being an actor. And about this role. And about this play. He told Jacobi he wanted to play the role himself while at drama school.
But first the young man had to give a soliloquy. At RADA. Before the president himself. Sir John Gielgud.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.
He says he did poorly. Quaking. From shaking to quaking. What a development. And that Sir Gielgud came up to him and gave him a fierce critique.
The next year he would perform the soliloquy before the Queen.
The young man played in Another Country in the West End. Derek Jacobi went to see it, and he recognized him as the young man who had come to interview him in his dressing room.
In 1980 Sir Gielgud was playing the Master of Trinity in the epic film Chariots of Fire, and his student, the young man, got on as an extra, in the crowd.
And by 1988, at age 27, the young man was playing Hamlet himself, for his own theatre company, one which he himself had founded.
In 1989 he directed his first movie, William Shakespeare's Henry V, in which he played King Henry V, and cast his idol Derek Jacobi as the Chorus.
By 1992, he was playing Hamlet again, at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Also in 1992 he made a radio version of Hamlet, starring himself. And Sir John Gielgud. And Derek Jacobi.
The men who were once his mentors had become his colleagues.
And his friends.
He made another Shakespeare movie, Much Ado About Nothing, in 1993, and he played Iago in Othello in 1995. Then he made a comedy about a group of churchgoers who decide to stage Hamlet at the church, A Midwinter's Tale (or In the Bleak Midwinter) in 1995. He would go on to make Love's Labour's Lost in 2000, As You Like It in 2006, and Macbeth in 2013. And the world would come to know him as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, as a director of big-budget Hollywood movies (Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), as Commander Bolton in Dunkirk (2017), and as the new Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Death on the Nile (2019).
But in 1996 this young man achieved his lifelong dream.
His obsession.
To film the complete Hamlet. Every line from the play. To the point of going to the Folios and Quartos and lifting the lines that were unique to each one of them.
With a breathtaking production. The grandest of palaces. The hall of mirrors. The most spectacular of clothes. A sweeping camera. A grand score.
Filmed in 65 mm. Printed on 70 mm.
On film that ran 6,893 meters.
In 20 reels.
With a runtime of 4 hours, 2 minutes.
And one of the most prestigious casts ever assembled.
Including Sir John Gielgud.
And Derek Jacobi.
His mentors. His friends.
This is Kenneth Branagh.
This is Hamlet.
If nothing else, you will want to watch this film for what you see on the screen. The richness. The colors. The textures. The architecture. The wardrobe. And cinematographer Alex Thomson's dazzling camera work. Swooping and sweeping. Keeping in frame. Keeping in focus. Wracking the focus from near to far without drawing attention to it. Today's cinematographers are so clumsy in their wracking. And they are proud of it. They want to draw attention to it. Ugh. Thomson works with finesse.
If nothing else, you will want to watch this film for what you hear from the speakers. Patrick Doyle's score. And the speakers speaking the speech, I pray you, trippingly from their tongues. Billy Crystal, for example, as the First Gravedigger. Do not flinch when you see his name in the credits. He knows what he is doing. And he is good. And then to see Kenneth Branagh setting up Charlton Heston and then handing the baton to him. And Charlton Heston, whom up to now you may have thought was there to fill space in a cameo of lifetime respect, then takes the baton and takes over and delivers a powerful, long, majestic narrative from the booming depths of the earth.
But beyond what you see and hear on the screen and in the speakers, you will want to see this film to see the whole story told. The whole story told. To fill in the missing pieces, and to understand it better than ever.
When was the last time you read Hamlet?
If you are like most people, you read it once or twice, maybe thrice, while you were in school. But as an adult your exposure to Shakespeare now comes only when you see it performed. So you remember the scenes you have seen performed. And you forget the ones you once read but have never seen.
You are at the mercy of those who trim the plays, who cut them down to size, who excise them.
So when you see this version, you are amazed at what else is in there. Entire scenes you forgot existed. Other scenes which prove to be longer than you remembered. Story lines. Characters. Information that helps the overall story tremendously.
More about Horatio's and Hamlet's friendship.
More about Fortinbras' attack on Denmark. Not just from Norway. But coming through Poland. And Denmark's being warned by the British.
More about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and why they are sent to their doom.
The camaraderie between Hamlet and the Player King and their acting out together, first by Hamlet and then by the Player King of Aeneas' tale to Dido of Priam and Hecuba.
Hamlet's setting up of the play of The Murder of Gonzago with The Mousetrap to trap his uncle.
The character of Reynaldo.
Claudius' entire prayer when Hamlet sneaks up on him.
Gertrude's private speech.
Ophelia's madness fully played out.
Gertrude's full description of Ophelia's drowning.
All these beautiful details added back in.
And then, Branagh does something extraordinary. He shows the stories and the flashbacks actually happening.
He shows Hamlet and Ophelia together when they were happy, as it is being described. He shows the story of Priam and Hecuba--giving Sir John Gielgud and Judi Dench their roles--as it is being told. He shows flashbacks and dreams throughout, so that they are not only spoken but also shown.
Brilliant.
And among other virtues this version shows the weight of Shakespeare's mind, philosophically and theologically. He was a great thinker, and he thought deeply about that about which he wrote.
Watch Derek Jacobi sitting in his own private confessional, in the palace, after having moved from the priest's side to the confessor's, working through profound questions of what it means to repent. Jacobi handles the language with such ease, with the facility of a lifelong speaker of it, with such a tremendous understanding of what he is saying.
O, my offense is rank.
It smells to heaven. . . .
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? . . .
That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
I have quoted the entire speech at the bottom. Does it appear in its entirety in another film version?
This is one of the great films. It should be in the upper ranks of people's lists.
The following statement sums up my response to watching it: At the end of four hours, what I wanted most to do next was to start at the beginning and watch it again.
* * * * *
We have just seen Michael Maloney three times. As Rosencrantz in Hamlet (1990). As Roderigo in Othello (1995). And as Laertes in Hamlet (1996). He appeared in both Franco Zefferelli's and Kenneth Branagh's versions.
Jack Lemmon as Marcellus. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
That we would do
We should do when we would; for this "would" changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.
A mob coming in and shouting, "Laertes shall be king." Do you remember that?
"To be or not to be" said before a mirror. Literally talking to himself.
Oh that this too, too solid flesh . . .
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in our philosophy.
God have mercy on his soul.
And of all Christian souls. Pray God.
God by you. - Ophelia.
* * * * *
O, my offense is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon it. A brother's murder.
Pray can I not.
Though inclination be as sharp as will my strong guilt defeats my strong intent.
And like a man to double busines bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin and both neglect.
What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood.
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?
Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestalled ere we come to fall or pardoned being down?
Then I'll look up.
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul murder"?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world, offense's gilded hand may shove by justice and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.
But 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling. There the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves are compelled even to the teeth and forehead of our faults to give it evidence.
What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state, O bosom black as death. O limed soul that struggling to be free art more engaged.
Help, angels.
Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees.
And heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.
Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying.
And now I'll do it. And so he goes to Heaven, and so am I revenged.
That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.
And how his audit stands, who now save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of though 'tis heavy with him.
And am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.
Kenneth Branagh says--
What I wanted to do with this great cast was to let it be spoken as clearly as possible, as naturally as possible.
One of the things I wanted to do was to reserve the right for the Hamlet to be as alive and in the moment, moment to moment, during the course of this film as it possibly could be, and that had to happen. Otherwise, it was simply a dull record of what I might have done in some other medium. I didn't want that. I wanted to react in the moment to what these other actors were doing and surprising me with, and let Hamlet play you. Let the part play you.
* * * * *
Process 1 - Arri 765.
Camera 1 - Arriflex 765. Zeiss 765 lenses.
Process 2 - Panavision Super 70.
Camera 2 - Panavision Panaflex System 65 Studio. Panavision System 65 Lenses.
Aspect Ratio - 2.20:1 on 70 mm prints. 2.39:1 on 35 mm prints.
Technicolor.
Sound Mix - 70 mm 6-track on 70 mm prints. Dolby Digital on 35 mm prints.
Richard Attenborough. David Blair. Brian Blessed. Kenneth Branagh. Richard Briers. Julie Christie. Billy Crystal. Judi Dench. Gerard Depardieu. Nicholas Farrell. John Gielgud. Rosemary Harris. Charlton Heston. Derek Jacobi. Rowena King. Jack Lemmon. Ian McElhinney. Michael Maloney. Rufus Sewell. Timothy Spall. Robin Williams. Kate Winslet.
Epic.
470 - Hamlet, UK/US, 1996. Dir. Kenneth Branagh.
In 1976 Derek Jacobi played the role of Hamlet on the stage in England.
A 15-year-old boy sat in the theatre. He had not yet decided what he wanted to do with his life. Among other things, he was considering becoming a footballer--what we would call a soccer player--or a journalist.
As he watched Jacobi play the role his body began to shake. He felt he was watching a thriller. He became transfixed by what was happening before him. He was transfixed to be transformed.
He thought about it on the way home on the train. He thought about it for days afterward.
He now knew what he wanted to do with his life.
He would be an actor.
In 1979 Derek Jacobi played the role again, this time at The Old Vic. While there he received a letter from a young man, now at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, asking if he could come and interview him.
He agreed.
The young man came to The Old Vic and was allowed into Jacobi's dressing room. They sat and talked. He asked him questions. He wanted to know everything he could about being an actor. And about this role. And about this play. He told Jacobi he wanted to play the role himself while at drama school.
But first the young man had to give a soliloquy. At RADA. Before the president himself. Sir John Gielgud.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.
He says he did poorly. Quaking. From shaking to quaking. What a development. And that Sir Gielgud came up to him and gave him a fierce critique.
The next year he would perform the soliloquy before the Queen.
The young man played in Another Country in the West End. Derek Jacobi went to see it, and he recognized him as the young man who had come to interview him in his dressing room.
In 1980 Sir Gielgud was playing the Master of Trinity in the epic film Chariots of Fire, and his student, the young man, got on as an extra, in the crowd.
And by 1988, at age 27, the young man was playing Hamlet himself, for his own theatre company, one which he himself had founded.
In 1989 he directed his first movie, William Shakespeare's Henry V, in which he played King Henry V, and cast his idol Derek Jacobi as the Chorus.
By 1992, he was playing Hamlet again, at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Also in 1992 he made a radio version of Hamlet, starring himself. And Sir John Gielgud. And Derek Jacobi.
The men who were once his mentors had become his colleagues.
And his friends.
He made another Shakespeare movie, Much Ado About Nothing, in 1993, and he played Iago in Othello in 1995. Then he made a comedy about a group of churchgoers who decide to stage Hamlet at the church, A Midwinter's Tale (or In the Bleak Midwinter) in 1995. He would go on to make Love's Labour's Lost in 2000, As You Like It in 2006, and Macbeth in 2013. And the world would come to know him as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, as a director of big-budget Hollywood movies (Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), as Commander Bolton in Dunkirk (2017), and as the new Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Death on the Nile (2019).
But in 1996 this young man achieved his lifelong dream.
His obsession.
To film the complete Hamlet. Every line from the play. To the point of going to the Folios and Quartos and lifting the lines that were unique to each one of them.
With a breathtaking production. The grandest of palaces. The hall of mirrors. The most spectacular of clothes. A sweeping camera. A grand score.
Filmed in 65 mm. Printed on 70 mm.
On film that ran 6,893 meters.
In 20 reels.
With a runtime of 4 hours, 2 minutes.
And one of the most prestigious casts ever assembled.
Including Sir John Gielgud.
And Derek Jacobi.
His mentors. His friends.
This is Kenneth Branagh.
This is Hamlet.
If nothing else, you will want to watch this film for what you see on the screen. The richness. The colors. The textures. The architecture. The wardrobe. And cinematographer Alex Thomson's dazzling camera work. Swooping and sweeping. Keeping in frame. Keeping in focus. Wracking the focus from near to far without drawing attention to it. Today's cinematographers are so clumsy in their wracking. And they are proud of it. They want to draw attention to it. Ugh. Thomson works with finesse.
If nothing else, you will want to watch this film for what you hear from the speakers. Patrick Doyle's score. And the speakers speaking the speech, I pray you, trippingly from their tongues. Billy Crystal, for example, as the First Gravedigger. Do not flinch when you see his name in the credits. He knows what he is doing. And he is good. And then to see Kenneth Branagh setting up Charlton Heston and then handing the baton to him. And Charlton Heston, whom up to now you may have thought was there to fill space in a cameo of lifetime respect, then takes the baton and takes over and delivers a powerful, long, majestic narrative from the booming depths of the earth.
But beyond what you see and hear on the screen and in the speakers, you will want to see this film to see the whole story told. The whole story told. To fill in the missing pieces, and to understand it better than ever.
When was the last time you read Hamlet?
If you are like most people, you read it once or twice, maybe thrice, while you were in school. But as an adult your exposure to Shakespeare now comes only when you see it performed. So you remember the scenes you have seen performed. And you forget the ones you once read but have never seen.
You are at the mercy of those who trim the plays, who cut them down to size, who excise them.
So when you see this version, you are amazed at what else is in there. Entire scenes you forgot existed. Other scenes which prove to be longer than you remembered. Story lines. Characters. Information that helps the overall story tremendously.
More about Horatio's and Hamlet's friendship.
More about Fortinbras' attack on Denmark. Not just from Norway. But coming through Poland. And Denmark's being warned by the British.
More about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and why they are sent to their doom.
The camaraderie between Hamlet and the Player King and their acting out together, first by Hamlet and then by the Player King of Aeneas' tale to Dido of Priam and Hecuba.
Hamlet's setting up of the play of The Murder of Gonzago with The Mousetrap to trap his uncle.
The character of Reynaldo.
Claudius' entire prayer when Hamlet sneaks up on him.
Gertrude's private speech.
Ophelia's madness fully played out.
Gertrude's full description of Ophelia's drowning.
Horatio's and Hamlet's watching of the Gravedigger before the funeral ceremony.
The Priest's opinion about the ceremony.
Claudius' conspiring with Laertes to trap Hamlet.
The character of Osric and his setting up of the swordfight.
The full swordfight.
The attack by Fortinbras.
And then, Branagh does something extraordinary. He shows the stories and the flashbacks actually happening.
He shows Hamlet and Ophelia together when they were happy, as it is being described. He shows the story of Priam and Hecuba--giving Sir John Gielgud and Judi Dench their roles--as it is being told. He shows flashbacks and dreams throughout, so that they are not only spoken but also shown.
Brilliant.
And among other virtues this version shows the weight of Shakespeare's mind, philosophically and theologically. He was a great thinker, and he thought deeply about that about which he wrote.
Watch Derek Jacobi sitting in his own private confessional, in the palace, after having moved from the priest's side to the confessor's, working through profound questions of what it means to repent. Jacobi handles the language with such ease, with the facility of a lifelong speaker of it, with such a tremendous understanding of what he is saying.
O, my offense is rank.
It smells to heaven. . . .
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? . . .
That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
This is one of the great films. It should be in the upper ranks of people's lists.
The following statement sums up my response to watching it: At the end of four hours, what I wanted most to do next was to start at the beginning and watch it again.
* * * * *
We have just seen Michael Maloney three times. As Rosencrantz in Hamlet (1990). As Roderigo in Othello (1995). And as Laertes in Hamlet (1996). He appeared in both Franco Zefferelli's and Kenneth Branagh's versions.
Jack Lemmon as Marcellus. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
That we would do
We should do when we would; for this "would" changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.
A mob coming in and shouting, "Laertes shall be king." Do you remember that?
"To be or not to be" said before a mirror. Literally talking to himself.
Oh that this too, too solid flesh . . .
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in our philosophy.
God have mercy on his soul.
And of all Christian souls. Pray God.
God by you. - Ophelia.
* * * * *
O, my offense is rank.
It smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon it. A brother's murder.
Pray can I not.
Though inclination be as sharp as will my strong guilt defeats my strong intent.
And like a man to double busines bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin and both neglect.
What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood.
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?
Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force, to be forestalled ere we come to fall or pardoned being down?
Then I'll look up.
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn?
"Forgive me my foul murder"?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world, offense's gilded hand may shove by justice and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.
But 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling. There the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves are compelled even to the teeth and forehead of our faults to give it evidence.
What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state, O bosom black as death. O limed soul that struggling to be free art more engaged.
Help, angels.
Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees.
And heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.
Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying.
And now I'll do it. And so he goes to Heaven, and so am I revenged.
That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.
And how his audit stands, who now save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of though 'tis heavy with him.
And am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.
* * * * *
Kenneth Branagh says--
What I wanted to do with this great cast was to let it be spoken as clearly as possible, as naturally as possible.
One of the things I wanted to do was to reserve the right for the Hamlet to be as alive and in the moment, moment to moment, during the course of this film as it possibly could be, and that had to happen. Otherwise, it was simply a dull record of what I might have done in some other medium. I didn't want that. I wanted to react in the moment to what these other actors were doing and surprising me with, and let Hamlet play you. Let the part play you.
* * * * *
Process 1 - Arri 765.
Camera 1 - Arriflex 765. Zeiss 765 lenses.
Process 2 - Panavision Super 70.
Camera 2 - Panavision Panaflex System 65 Studio. Panavision System 65 Lenses.
Aspect Ratio - 2.20:1 on 70 mm prints. 2.39:1 on 35 mm prints.
Technicolor.
Sound Mix - 70 mm 6-track on 70 mm prints. Dolby Digital on 35 mm prints.
Richard Attenborough. David Blair. Brian Blessed. Kenneth Branagh. Richard Briers. Julie Christie. Billy Crystal. Judi Dench. Gerard Depardieu. Nicholas Farrell. John Gielgud. Rosemary Harris. Charlton Heston. Derek Jacobi. Rowena King. Jack Lemmon. Ian McElhinney. Michael Maloney. Rufus Sewell. Timothy Spall. Robin Williams. Kate Winslet.
Epic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)