Wednesday, June 07, 2006
PERIOD PIECE
We have heard about Great Britain’s angry young men. They produced a batch of plays post-War.
I suppose that in their time, the collapse of the class system, lack of jobs, the trauma of war and all that molded their anger.
It is hard to see that from today’s film
We have Richard Burton, Mary Ure, Claire Bloom and Dame Edith Evans grinding their acting chops very hard but it is hard to see how they got the way they are and why they stay together at all.
Burton is a bit of an anomaly as he is acting in the theatrical style where the others are more realistic. It will be interesting to see if this is how he did his bit with Liz Taylor in Wolfe.
Perhaps, as John suggested, he is a Johnny one-note.
But, he is angry. Boy is he angry. His erudite anger is covered by his having been to university but still, no one gets that poetically pissed.
Or do they?
The production is rather good. It is Tony Richardson’s first film direction and he does pull out the stops a bit.
It is still a nasty bit of business.
I will give it a 2 out of Netflix5.
I am sure that the people at the NYTimes Best Film List picked this one because of Burton (he left little film actually before his early death) and because of Richardson and John Osborne whose play the film is based on.
With that much caché, it must be good, right?
Wrong.
It is nice, incidentally, to see Donald Pleasance hone his skills at playing a weasel in this one.
Burton died of booze and a career gone awry. We know which came first of course. Look at that picture of him young and unspoiled. Welsh. They have a talent for self destruction.
