A gifted writer's successful poetic publication emboldens his desire to meet his favourite author, Samuel Beckett (Stephen McHattie), and a letter is sent, a reply is crafted, the two meeting thereafter to see if they can keep collegial compatibility in check, incandescentally enacting a enduring competitive discussion throughout, which gradually foments a spry friendship.
A gifted performing artists seeks the rights to stage one of Beckett's plays, the rights belonging to the poet, hoping to modify an aspect which some consider prescribed, her illuminated life-force agilely advocating.
Their dialogues actively overcome an empty silence whose initial poetic flourish debilitatingly became a literal reality (his love of Beckett prevented him from writing for many years).
Meetings with a Young Poet troubled me.
At points its pretensions made me feel ill while at others I was humbly affected to the teardrop, like reading Mr. Dickens, or a poem lacking rhyme and/or rhythm which still vindicates delicate ethereal reminiscences, simultaneously jealous of Paul Susser's (Vincent Hoss-Desmarais) good fortune and cognizant of why Beckett recommended to run from Proust and Joyce, his obvious love for people and the lighter side of life crushing me like waxed ephemeral wicker, two sides of the haughty intellectualized niche contending, one bound to a forlorn pincushion, the other overflowing with grace.
Carole Thomas's (Maria de Medeiros) role, her constantly revitalized cascading flora, this presence generously transmitted to her subjects of desire, thereby simultaneously transferring to them what they need to reboot while obtaining her sought after intention, infuses the film with a bounding effervescence, every bubble's balance beneficially accrued.
Character driven.
Showing posts with label Performances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Performances. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Unfinished Song
Routine.
Rock solid routine.
Never changing, never yielding, always the same cantankerous affect, unless he's spending time with his loving devoted wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave), which is what he does most of the time.
Who sings in a choir.
But when she's diagnosed with terminal cancer and her health begins to rapidly deteriorate, Arthur (Terence Stamp) must simultaneously bat heads with both a crushing sense of helplessness, crippling emotional dynamite, and his rather morose relationship with his only son, James (Christopher Eccleston).
And yes, this guy's a prick.
A loveable curmudgeon he is not, Unfinished Song's script blandly interring a characterless ice age, locked in a cage, a glacial, barricade.
Only the power of music can regenerate his hearty husbandry afterwards, and the film's best feature, the jovial, ebullient, non-traditional choir, lead by the young adventurous Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) with whom Arthur strikes up a somewhat creepy friendship, is positioned to enable some serious, sultry, soul-searching, sentimental metallurgy, reclamatingly extracting a diamond.
Still, Unfinished Song's no As Good as it Gets, too tame and barren to compete with James L. Brooks's noteworthy creation, not that it isn't worth a viewing, for its modest yet surly depiction of marriage, family and friendship.
Bit of a tearjerker.
Rock solid routine.
Never changing, never yielding, always the same cantankerous affect, unless he's spending time with his loving devoted wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave), which is what he does most of the time.
Who sings in a choir.
But when she's diagnosed with terminal cancer and her health begins to rapidly deteriorate, Arthur (Terence Stamp) must simultaneously bat heads with both a crushing sense of helplessness, crippling emotional dynamite, and his rather morose relationship with his only son, James (Christopher Eccleston).
And yes, this guy's a prick.
A loveable curmudgeon he is not, Unfinished Song's script blandly interring a characterless ice age, locked in a cage, a glacial, barricade.
Only the power of music can regenerate his hearty husbandry afterwards, and the film's best feature, the jovial, ebullient, non-traditional choir, lead by the young adventurous Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) with whom Arthur strikes up a somewhat creepy friendship, is positioned to enable some serious, sultry, soul-searching, sentimental metallurgy, reclamatingly extracting a diamond.
Still, Unfinished Song's no As Good as it Gets, too tame and barren to compete with James L. Brooks's noteworthy creation, not that it isn't worth a viewing, for its modest yet surly depiction of marriage, family and friendship.
Bit of a tearjerker.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
A Late Quartet
Love listening to the fiddle or violin.
Would be nice to sit back and listen to a couple of hours of violin or fiddle music with an ample supply of grapes and unpasteurized cheese plus a nice glass of red wine.
I don't know that much about classical music but I have a couple of favourite texts (Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. 2) and enjoy tuning into classical radio stations when I find myself moving from one place to another in an automobile. I usually find that there are moments within many works that induce compelling impressions and others that patiently/quizzically/reflectively/demonstratively/emotively set the scene. The relationship between these elements interpreted through my subjective pluralisis can create a narrative of sorts, a story, an idiom. The same thing happens when I listen to jazz or pop music, The Rolling Stones's Let it Bleed lodged in my memory as the first album to which I suddenly applied this universal transition.
That's obvious enough.
The structural elements within Yaron Zilberman's A Late Quartet resemble a classical piece of music, as can every film I suppose depending on the relative position of its viewer and their own transsemantic didactic verisimilitude.
The film humanizes the performance of classical music with a subtle piquant plasticity which is simultaneously confident, energetically atonal, and furtively self-critical, perhaps theorizing/applying a classical perception of the postmodern, except when it comes to the production of the music itself.
The daring contends with the quartet's format within and the consequent side affects necessitate an harmonious etherealization (in terms of its performance).
I was more concerned with Christopher Walken's (Peter Mitchell) internal posture. It's classic Christopher Walken. One scene precociously pastiches his role in Pulp Fiction and his lines are delivered with the same characteristic bright, perspicacious, concerned yet uncommitted comfortably chilling dexterity that has made him a cinematic icon.
But he's not playing a gangster and/or someone with underlying violent explosivities, steeping, ready to erupt.
He's probably had lots of roles where he doesn't play such characters in films I unfortunately haven't seen.
But in A Late Quartet he plays the friendly, wise, avuncular rock that collegially holds a prominent sophisticated classical music quartet together.
There's one scene where he's sitting back thinking about the death of his wife after some heated social interaction. There's no dialogue, but tears are produced, and, when it's situated within the context of the film, while bearing in mind his traditional roles, which A Late Quartet seems to be doing, it transforms the classical perception of his expressions into something equally affective yet much less threatening.
As if the goal is the reconceptualization of volatility.
His performance isn't the only one that stands out.
Original music by Angelo Badalamenti, cinematography by Frederick Elmes.
Would be nice to sit back and listen to a couple of hours of violin or fiddle music with an ample supply of grapes and unpasteurized cheese plus a nice glass of red wine.
I don't know that much about classical music but I have a couple of favourite texts (Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. 2) and enjoy tuning into classical radio stations when I find myself moving from one place to another in an automobile. I usually find that there are moments within many works that induce compelling impressions and others that patiently/quizzically/reflectively/demonstratively/emotively set the scene. The relationship between these elements interpreted through my subjective pluralisis can create a narrative of sorts, a story, an idiom. The same thing happens when I listen to jazz or pop music, The Rolling Stones's Let it Bleed lodged in my memory as the first album to which I suddenly applied this universal transition.
That's obvious enough.
The structural elements within Yaron Zilberman's A Late Quartet resemble a classical piece of music, as can every film I suppose depending on the relative position of its viewer and their own transsemantic didactic verisimilitude.
The film humanizes the performance of classical music with a subtle piquant plasticity which is simultaneously confident, energetically atonal, and furtively self-critical, perhaps theorizing/applying a classical perception of the postmodern, except when it comes to the production of the music itself.
The daring contends with the quartet's format within and the consequent side affects necessitate an harmonious etherealization (in terms of its performance).
I was more concerned with Christopher Walken's (Peter Mitchell) internal posture. It's classic Christopher Walken. One scene precociously pastiches his role in Pulp Fiction and his lines are delivered with the same characteristic bright, perspicacious, concerned yet uncommitted comfortably chilling dexterity that has made him a cinematic icon.
But he's not playing a gangster and/or someone with underlying violent explosivities, steeping, ready to erupt.
He's probably had lots of roles where he doesn't play such characters in films I unfortunately haven't seen.
But in A Late Quartet he plays the friendly, wise, avuncular rock that collegially holds a prominent sophisticated classical music quartet together.
There's one scene where he's sitting back thinking about the death of his wife after some heated social interaction. There's no dialogue, but tears are produced, and, when it's situated within the context of the film, while bearing in mind his traditional roles, which A Late Quartet seems to be doing, it transforms the classical perception of his expressions into something equally affective yet much less threatening.
As if the goal is the reconceptualization of volatility.
His performance isn't the only one that stands out.
Original music by Angelo Badalamenti, cinematography by Frederick Elmes.
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