dirac

Not much time to type today, but in brief, "The Day of the Locust" doesn't quite come off for me in either medium, but I prefer the book if only because without West's prose to filter the events and show you what he's trying to get at, the film version may not make too much sense. (I read the book before seeing the movie --years ago in both cases, I should note -- but I can't imagine what I'd make of the movie knowing nothing of the book.) The character of Tod is a bit like Issyvoo -- he's the camera, standing in for West, and it's hard to make a real person out of a camera. (And Tod is idealized in ways Issyvoo is not.) My recollection is that William Atherton made as much out of Tod as could be made, Karen Black gave her Karen Black performance, not my idea of Faye (sorry, papeetepatrick), and Burgess Meredith was swell. I remember being struck by the picturesque, sun drenched quasi-slums that the picture recreated very well. As papeetepatrick notes, it's a good and faithful adaptation. Maybe too much so.

Wasn't that stupefying? Suzman is really shown to poor advantage there. Damned if I could figure out why Nicholas kept calling her 'Sunny.'

I forgot Gavin Lambert's "Inside Daisy Clover."

Thank you so much, sidwich, for mentioning “Chimes at Midnight,” which is Welles’ retelling of the Falstaff story, cutting and pasting from the history plays and Holinshed’s Chronicles. It’s untidy to say the least, largely because of the horrific financial obstacles Welles was facing, but it’s well worth anyone's time. (The first half hour or so is hard to take because of the awful sound, but stay with it.) John Gielgud plays Henry IV, and Keith Baxter is a fine Prince Hal. bart writes: You know, I don’t think of Olivier and Welles as stagey except on bad days. They perform with a high theatricality that can degenerate into ham but isn't quite the same thing.

Mashinka writes: I have heard it said that Callas was a great actress as opposed to a great voice, with the implication that drama covered up for her vocal deficiences, but this is far from the truth. The ghastly vocal decline that set in late in her career (although “late” is a relative term; she began experiencing serious problems around age 35, at a time when many singers are just approaching their peak) has much to do with this, I’m sure. But from the beginning her musicianship was as crucial to her success as her dramatic power; she appealed to connoisseurs as well as casual fans. Was she a great voice as opposed to a great singer? I guess you could debate that. I can understand initial disappointment with her recordings, however. (I gave away the first Callas LP I bought and didn’t see the light until later.) richard53dog writes: I agree mashinka: Zeffirelli followed that line of thought when he was staging the first act, I believe.

True, but I admit I was bothered recurring gag on the initial broadcast of ABT's Corsaire in PBS awhile back. You had Kevin McKenzie and the dancers in interviews trying to explain the plot and failing and giving the general impression that the ballet viewers were about to see was an incomprehensible mess. Okay, it's not Hamlet, but the plot is perfectly clear, and that introduction annoyed me. I don't have the DVD yet but I hope they left that part off.

papeetepatrick writes: The most plausible reconstruction of that episode I’ve come across was the account given in Otis Stuart’s biography of Nureyev, a highly enjoyable read. Evidently Nureyev did not drop, push, kick, or otherwise interfere with Makarova. It was during a performance of “Swan Lake” and Nureyev was becoming increasingly frustrated by his partner’s habit of not keeping with the music. Makarova took a balance at a point where Nureyev did not regard it as absolutely necessary, and rather than gallantly rushing over to lend support he just stayed where he was and she went splat. A definite possibility – as long as they don’t bring back Inge’s original ending, which had Madge being run out of town as a slut, I think. I agree with Joshua Logan on that one. DefJef writes: Ballet dancers tend to be young, and the depiction of young people in love – innocent young love, love fulfilled, love thwarted –is highly danceable. But there are many, many ballets and operas that take different approaches. The ‘cartoonishness’ you mention – the relative simplicity of storyline, the often primal expression of emotion – comes in because of the need to create situations where it is plausible for people to be dancing (and in opera, singing to the limits of human capacity). But within those ostensibly simple stories there is plenty of room for nuances of expression.

Thank you for the report and the link, Mashinka. Quotes from Gheorghiu below: Well, not very diplomatic, and none too accurate IMO, but nothing to get too exercised about. It is a fact that both Callas and Gobbi were past their vocal if not their dramatic peaks by that time. And she's free to have different views about the character. How did Tosca make her entrance in the first act, BTW? What was she wearing? (One of the departures from tradition made by Zeffirelli in that production was to have Callas come in dressed less formally, not the grand lady with a walking stick often seen heretofore).

Thank you, atm711. I first noticed Nixon when she played Michael Murphy’s daughter on “Tanner ‘88” but she dropped off my radar until “Sex and the City.” The other women were good in their way, but she was the only one who suggested genuine range as an actress. I saw her again when they televised the recent revival of “The Women” in which she played the old Shearer role, and thought she was good, if miscast. (I also recall a Mizrahi frock that showed off her beautiful swanlike neck and elegant shoulders. She looked lovely.) What did you think of "Awake and Sing"? I know Odets has dated, but his language has such vitality even if he is inclined to rhetorical overkill.

FauxPas writes: Thank you, FauxPas, for your excellent posts. Wolfit was indeed an actor-manager (as I’m sure you know, the role played by Albert Finney in “The Dresser” – the actor who tirelessly tours the provinces -- was modeled on Wolfit), but he wouldn’t qualify as a nineteenth-century one. As you note correctly, however, the actor-manager ideal hung on among actors who moved into directing well into the 20th century. This didn't necessarily result in the hiring of nonentities by any means, but these men did often seem to operate from a belief that, finally, their own performances were enough.

rg writes: PBS is currently showing an excellent documentary, “Broadway: the Golden Age” on various channels. It’s pledge drive season, but the pledge breaks include good interviews with the filmmaker, Rick McKay, and Jane Powell, so they’re not too painful, and the show itself is wonderful. (It’s also available on DVD.) McKay appears to have talked to just about everybody who was alive to talk. The show focuses on Broadway in the mid-century and one of the things that’s mentioned is that at one time it was actually cheaper to see a play than a movie. Those were definitely the days. Anthony_NYC writes: That was another thing the old-timers remarked on in the documentary.

Bumping this up, in case anyone saw it. (Or any of the plays noted at the Tonys last night!)

Correct, sidwich. You can see a very young Jacobi in Olivier's Othello, playing Cassio.

bart writes: All too true. But the trimming isn’t always voluntary. Olivier was told by the moneymen to cut “Hamlet” drastically or else, and the financial travails of Orson Welles’ later productions are well known, as FauxPas notes. On the other hand, some things need to be cut for the screen. Shakespeare uses words for the scene setting and action that the movies can show us – do you keep or cut, and if so, how? On stage, the verse comes first, but on the screen images cannot help imposing themselves on the viewer – how do you keep the verse from being overpowered while avoiding a static film? canbelto writes: Shearer was not a particularly good actress, but she was a great star in her day – as big as Garbo and Crawford – and today she retains presence and authority even when she’s getting on your nerves. She was a charming ingenue in the very early days and rather terrific in her Sinful Woman phase of the early thirties. Her name is known primarily to buffs today not so much because of her acting skills or lack thereof but because she made very few classic films – “The Women” is the only one that’s regularly revived today. ( In that one, even though her part is sappy and the supporting actresses have all the great lines, she carries the picture. That’s a star.) bart writes: It should be borne in mind that the Olivier version of Othello is basically an unvarnished shooting of the stage production with nothing, including the acting, toned down for the camera. Olivier spent hours perfecting his makeup before every performance – no slathering involved, I assure you.

Rooney is an awesome Puck. The 1936 R&J isn't good, but it's watchable. You just can't watch it expecting anything like what we expect from a Shakespeare production today. The leads are too old but that was par for the course at the time. Howard's not so bad and Shearer -- well, she could be worse, and she looks lovely in the Messel costumes. No MGM prestige production of the time was complete without a Barrymore, so John shows up as a paunchy Mercutio. It's profoundly studio-bound, however, without a hint of actual life in it. Norma was fond of a very pale foundation, which makes her very glowing and everyone around her rather dark, and it's quite noticeable here.

Thank you for stopping by this forum, papeetepatrick. I’d recommend, however, that we limit ourselves to fiction, for now. There’s so much non-fiction about the movies that it’s simply casting the net too wide -- we can try that on some other thread some time. Off the top of my head, my own picks: Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge Peter Viertel, White Hunter, Black Heart David Freeman, It’s All True The Little Sister is not one of Chandler’s stronger efforts but I like Chandler and I like the book. I worship Myra as only goddesses should be worshipped. White Hunter, Black Heart is not a Hollywood novel per se but a very good roman-a-clef about John Huston. I agree with you about Bruce Wagner, Fitzgerald, West, et al. Hollywood novels I didn’t like as much as I thought I would: Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays. Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One. Flabby effort, not worthy of him. Trash-O-Rama: Tom Tryon, Crowned Heads. (It'll make you a bit queasy in spots.) Jackie Collins, Hollywood Wives. The Sinatra bits from The Godfather.

I think the Branagh Henry V is superior overall, as well. Branagh isn't up to Olivier, but he has better support. The score by Patrick Doyle is indeed very fine. (Also, the groundbreaking quality of Olivier's work has faded a bit with the passage of time, perhaps.) I think changing the place and time of “Much Ado” is trickier than it looks. I remember liking the Waterston version, but thought it odd that these nice turn of the century couples were trading sexy Elizabethan quips and double entendres. Branagh handles that aspect of the play very well.

I don’t think Villella was making a larger point about the role of the muse in general. He seems to be suggesting, and Jacobs seems to be endorsing, the view that Farrell did not follow the pattern of the younger woman who marries an aging artist, sees him through his declining years, and guards his legacy zealously after death (cf. T.S. and Valerie Eliot) but is now inhabiting that role now that he is gone. (Or in other words, it sounds as if he was saying she needed to ease up a bit.) It's really not for us to say or comment on.

It is indeed very faithful. Maybe a little stiff, but a worthy effort. I thought Mason wasn't quite up to Brutus, but Gielgud was perfect. Brando is fascinating to watch even when his performance wobbles.

I thought Branagh’s “Much Ado” got off to a wonderful start and then went downhill. Emma Thompson was delicious and just right for Beatrice, but the casting was distinctly off in other respects, IMO. Denzel Washington was beautiful and dignified but not at ease, Keanu Reeves tried manfully but couldn’t quite shake the Valley Boy speech, and Michael Keaton almost sank the picture singlehandedly. I, too, tired of the aggressive frolicsomeness after awhile, but the film is indeed lovely to look at and a good job overall. Branagh speaks verse with beauty and acuteness, but unfortunately Nature did not cast him in the mold of a romantic/heroic lead, and his lack of physical glamour and force hurts him on the screen. (I can’t speak to his stage work.) He was a splendid Iago in the Fishburne Othello, and his reading of “Put money in thy purse” was textbook. The Olivier Hamlet looks better and better with the years, IMO, despite the drastic cutting. canbelto writes: Must disagree here. Gibson did a fine job with the prose and a respectable one with the verse, IMO. But then I’ve always liked his acting. Close gave a very odd performance. The Oedipal interpretation was put front and center, and she kept going over to Mel and kissing him and fondling him something terrible. Okay, okay. My own problem with Shakespeare on the screen, no matter how conscientous the adaptation, is that the camera takes on work that the author crafted the verse to do, and it never quite comes off. As with ballet, however, it’s better than nothing, if only for the sake of the performers. At least we have some idea of how Olivier played Richard III, even though observers at the time felt he didn’t touch what he’d done at the New Theatre in 1944.

It’s a studied performance, yes, but Masina’s a quick study. I love her reactions when Quinn makes it clear that sex is part of the deal, and she’s very touching when she mourns Basehart. It gave me quite a turn to hear this gruff Italian voice coming out of Farley Granger in “Senso.”

sidwich writes: I don't think MGM ever quite knew what to do with Eleanor Powell, either. She didn't fit into the Lana Turner/glamour girl mold, and all they seemed to be able to come up with is to set her tap-dancing on battle ships and toss her in the air. Thank you, sidwich. I meant to comment on this earlier but I fear I am already yakking too much as it is. Powell was a little like Esther (‘Wet she’s a star, dry she ain’t’) Williams in that she was great when she was dancing but a wee bit dull everywhere else, and not withal a romantic dancer – a soloist, not a partner. This made her harder to cast and appropriate vehicles less easy to come by, perhaps. You can cast a male dancing star opposite a partner who’s not also a co-star, but this is less easy with a woman. Also, Powell’s dancing was wonderful, but maybe a little monochromatic. Rogers is nowhere near as good a tap dancer as Powell, but her tapping manages to be energetic, charming, and feminine all at once; a neat hat trick and not one that Powell could manage. Speaking of tap dancers, Ann Miller’s name hasn’t come up yet, so I mention her for the record, as she danced with Astaire in “Easter Parade,” playing the ambitious star who drops Astaire for solo fame, thus making room for Judy Garland.

Today’s WSJ had a review of American Ballet Theatre in Kudelka’s “Cinderella” in the “Personal Journal” section, on the last page, D10. A quote: The Playbill article by Robert Sandla cited in Greskovic’s review: http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/4612.html

He called them "Dancers Without Category," I think. Sounded to me as if he was throwing up his hands. The classifications are sometimes odd, but I also have a copy of this book and like it very much. Wonderful photographs, commentary opinionated but also instructive. At the time I acquired it many years ago there were several dancers in it I'd not heard of or knew little about, so it was very useful.

Thank you, BW, for the heads up. American Masters is an invaluable series.