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Post by wmcclain on Jul 6, 2020 11:46:07 GMT
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), directed by William Dieterle. My feelings for this extravaganza are more generous now than previously. Then it seemed like a awkward attempt by non-Shakespearean Hollywood actors, dressed up with glitter and cobwebs as much as they might, to perform material well beyond their range. Now: it's fun to watch and I appreciate their efforts more. Productions of MSND must balance the fantasy and romantic comedy dimensions. If they chose to over-weight the former with ballet and opera staging in this case, the actors just had to cope. It's true that Americans are not natural Shakespeareans, but he belongs to the world now and anyone can take a whack at his plays. You never know what's going to work. For example: young lively James Cagney seemed terribly miscast as Bottom the Weaver, traditionally portrayed as middle-aged, over-weight and balding. But Cagney gives a delightful interpretation, one of the best things about the film. When such experiments fail they are called "miscasting", when they work they are celebrated as "reinvention". The story of the production deserves its own film treatment. Consider: - Warner Brothers, known for blue-collar entertainment, wanted to add a touch of class to their titles.
- They imported the famous theater impresario Max Reinhardt, who staged the play many times, including a well-received version at the Hollywood Bowl in 1934.
- He brought a retinue of other Germans who shouted at each other in that language, costumed in the expected jodhpurs and riding crops.
- He knew very little about filmmaking and the early rushes were much too dark and the dialogue incomprehensible, causing vast unhappiness in the studio offices.
- The original cinematographer was quickly fired (someone had to take the blame!) and Hal Mohr was brought in to wrestle in brighter lights and trim the foliage.
- Caught between his mentor Reinhardt and the studio bosses, diplomatic William Dieterle did the actual directing.
- Most of the music is by Felix Mendelssohn, written for this play starting when he was 17. Another child prodigy, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, did the orchestration, his first Hollywood project. He sat in the bushes and directed the cast's line readings so their cadence would match his music.
- Olivia de Havilland had her film debut at age 19. She had played Puck in a college production and became second understudy to Hermia in the Hollywood Bowl production, advancing to the role itself one week before opening night. Of all the young lovers, Hermia has some of the best lines: "You juggler! you canker-blossom! You thief of love! [...] And are you grown so high in his esteem because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes".
- Dick Powell was looking to get out of boy tenor roles and passed through here on his way to noir and directing. He gets grief for being miscast (and he agreed) but I don't see the problem. He knows he's in a comedy.
- Mickey Rooney, age 14, had also been in the Hollywood Bowl version. Reinhardt was sold by this weird shrieking laugh he developed for Puck. Critics loved it but it is hard to take today. His mocking bits as the young lovers go to sleep are hilarious. Famously, after being warned not to take risks he broke a leg on a toboggan. Jack Warner: "I'll kill him and then break the other leg".
- Again, James Cagney impresses as Bottom. His full ass-head is a little scary.
- When the "rude mechanicals" put on a bad play for the nobles, there is always the risk of self-lampooning the whole production. They skate close to the edge here.
Available on DVD. A humorous commentary by Scott MacQueen gives a vast amount of production detail. He says that the British theater, natural guardians of Shakespeare, never forgave the film for Cagney's Puck. Michael Powell A Matter of Life and Death (1946) lampoons Americans trying to put on the play, a jab at this film. 
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Post by wmcclain on Jul 6, 2020 11:46:20 GMT
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), directed by Michael Hoffman. I remember not liking this version very much, but it has grown on me over the years. I still think the fairy tavern scene near the beginning is a low point of old-TV-style bad comedy, but the jumble of acting styles throughout no longer bothers me. MSND is meant to be a zany kaleidoscope of themes. Any good production must cover these points: - Must be funny, which always requires skill. Comedy is harder than it looks. You can go for cheap laughs, but the superior production finds bittersweet humor in the human condition: love, pride, ambition, etc.
- The language has to be presented to modern audiences. It's customary to cut much of it. This is one of Shakespeare's early plays and we can imagine him with a mythology reference book at his elbow, eager to establish his learning. The text is a bit stiff and the actors have to make us understand its meaning.
- The four young lovers: who ever remembers which is which? They tend to forget themselves during that bewitched night in the woods. The play requires one of the girls to be taller than the other, but that is their only distinguishing feature. All four have to be both attractive and ridiculous. In this film: there is something spitefully funny about dunking beautiful young people in a mud puddle.
- Must have a tone of magical weirdness, not serious but neither easily discounted. Our waking minds don't believe in the fairies, but who knows what images the sleeping self and subconscious entertain? Both characters and audience are disoriented.
- The audience can mock the performance of "Pyramus and Thisby" but by the end they must be brought around and become a little misty. Duke Theseus has advice for critics: "The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them."
- Bottom the Weaver is the heart of the story. This film does something I don't remember seeing before: even before the magic, his friends watch him and seem concerned for his mental state. At the end, and for the rest of his life, he will have vague memories and fragmentary dreams of the night he was loved by Titania, queen of the fairies.
- Bottom is used for some gentle jibing at human aspirations. Youthful desires tend toward the excessive -- just look at heavy metal lyrics. We dream of omnipotence and immortality. Having discovered sex we yearn for better sex, for ever more exultant encounters.
In folklore the fairies can deliver all of that, but it is perilous to accept their gifts because they are full of tricks. And yet: Bottom spends a whole night with them without coming to harm because he brings no harm with him. The Fairy Queen intends seduction, but he's more interested in chatting with her minions.
"Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream". Our desire for the excessive makes us asses. - Finally, the play-within-a-play is often used by Shakespeare, but here at the end Puck suggests yet another level, that the whole thing has been a dream: "If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended, / That you have but slumb'red here / While these visions did appear. / And this weak and idle theme, / No more yielding but a dream..."
Rich casting, although some -- like Sophie Marceau -- are rather wasted and given little to do. The young folk are fine, with the exception of a strangely wooden Christian Bale. Rupert Everett and Michelle Pfeiffer are the warring fairy royalty; I think I have to give him points for erotic potency. Kevin Kline gives his all for Bottom and does a good job, making him both funny and endearing, which is the whole point. Good use of Italian opera themes in the score. The Mendelssohn hearkens back to Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). Available on DVD, 4:3 letterboxed in the US, which is the source of my thumbnails. Needs an upgrade. Anamorphic PAL editions are available. 
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Post by mikef6 on Jul 6, 2020 19:12:59 GMT
wmcclain “It's true that Americans are not natural Shakespeareans” I could not, respectfully, disagree more. Shakespeare is blooming all over the U.S. and Canada (at least until the pandemic shut everything down) with professional festivals in small cities becoming international Shakespeare destinations (Stratford, Ont. – Boulder, CO – Ashland, OR – for examples. I (until this year – I will assume this qualifier from now on) have attended plays from the superb International Shakespeare Center with excellent professional American actors in Santa Fe that perform in a Black Box Theatre now, but have ambitions for the future joining these cities as a destination. Also, Santa Fe has a school for the arts where I saw a “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and an acting company, The Upstart Crows, which produce uncut Shakespeare with actors from ages 10 to 18. In the Shakespeare Center’s production of King Lear they cast a 13-year-old actress from the Crows to portray Cordelia. She was excellent and an inspiration. Shakespeare comes just a naturally to an North American actor as to an English. I love hearing Shakespeare spoken in North American accents and rhythms and from Method actors (I don’t think there is any other kind now). It is natural sounding and, more to the point, much more understandable than traditional British acting that sometimes harks back to a 19th century declamatory style – at least until recent times. Although it took a while for it to catch hold, the most noticeable break with traditional recitation style came in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ 1953 movie of “Julius Caesar.” He spent most of their payroll budget on two British actors (James Mason and John Gielgud), so, to save money, filled the cast with mainly MGM contract players, each of whom shone: Edmond O’Brien (himself classically trained), New Yorker Louis Calhern as Caesar, Michael Pate, Tom Powers, John Hoyt, John Douchette, and others, all amazing. But of course, the gamechanger was Marlon Brando in only his fourth film role as Marc Antony. He needed to show that he had range to tackle a classical text but also that the still controversial style of role prep called The Method could also be employed in Shakespeare. His performance is a landmark. In the 21st century, even British and other British trained Shakespearean actors strive for modern speech patterns and mostly succeed. As for the 1935 Warner prestige picture, I agree with you about Dick Powell. I know he felt out-of-place and miscast, but he does great. His line deliveries are natural and sound spontaneous. Of course, Lysander’s lines – as with all the other movie stars’ parts – were carefully pared down into easily managed sections. James Cagney is another stand-out as Bottom. Cagney manages to show his range outside of his stereotypical gangster roles long before “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The one movie star who you might think had the voice for Shakespeare, Victor Jory as Oberon, and who speaks it like an old hand at the game, had actually never acted Shakespeare before. Frank McHugh surprises as Peter Quince. If I ruled the world, or at least Hollywood, I would risk desecrating a classic by excising all but maybe two of Rooney’s head splitting laughs. The fairy ballet alternates with me between Grand and High Camp. A must-see, even recognizing the missteps.
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Post by marshamae on Jul 6, 2020 19:39:33 GMT
Puck almost must be played by a very mature child like Quinn Cummings or Anna Kendrick
The four young folks could be any shiny pretty actors that can read Shakespeare.
The Fairy Couple a pair with real substance - Branagh and Thompson, Firth and BONHAM Carter
There are so many great comic actors around but I would enjoy Lin Manuel Miranda as Bottom, leading a motley crew of James Corden, Billy Porter, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane,
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Jul 6, 2020 19:46:28 GMT
I have seen the 1999 one, and i liked it
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Post by wmcclain on Jul 6, 2020 20:13:30 GMT
I could not, respectfully, disagree more. Ok, that's allowed. It's been a long time but I thought he was enacting a block of wood. Well, time changes us and I'll have another look when I can. Thanks for your thoughts. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 6, 2020 20:41:17 GMT
In the 1935 film, I think Victor Jory was the stand out in the males. I watched him in Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell the other night and I smiled thinking of this film since it's not really that far removed as a fantasy from his spiritual guru role in Devil Dog.
Other than the acting of Olivia de Havilland and the faerie queen gal, I found this tedious to sit through--and Rooney's laugh was just so awful. Less is more Mickey.
James Cagney in Shakespeare--well, he it's a bit jarring although he is more palatable than Rooney and especially Joe E Brown.
There's a big picture of the ass-headed Cagney in the Warner Bros. Story. Made me curious to see it.
The loss of classical training in acting is terrible! I cannot stand modern acting styles. The voices are so weak and bland.
Why is strength a bad thing in art?
I read the Uk has faced a crisis where working class folk no longer have access to acting schools.
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Post by claudius on Jul 6, 2020 22:07:30 GMT
I seem to also recall aside from being one of Hollywood's financially failed attempts with Shakespeare (MGM's ROMEO AND JULIET the other one), it was also seen as another failure in making Live-action fantasy (1933's ALICE IN WONDERLAND being the other). While ALICE was a Holy Grail for me, taking almost two decades to see, I got to see MIDSUMMER very sooner than that, in June 1992 as part of a TNT Network month-long marathon of James Cagney ("No one does- insert Cagney punch line "Why you little..."- like TNT!'). The pros I get from it are deHavilland, Cagney, Jory, ballerina Nini Theilade, Korngold's compositions of Mendelsohn, and the visual imagery- the introduction to the faeries walking the moonbeams, the coming of dawn as Oberon's dark faeries move the others to the netherworld (especially the climax of faerie Theilade being seduced by a dark faerie) and Oberon & Titania's departing flight. Yes, to quote Leonard Maltin, Rooney gets a little too much.
This film inspired THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, with the original plan to use much of the same cast (Cagney as Robin, Powell as Will Scarlet), but aside from deHavilland and Ian Hunter, that didn't quite work out.
Ever see the 1968 TV film? That one starred Helen Mirren as Hermia, David Warner as Lysander, Diana Rigg as Helena, Michael Jayston as Demetrius, Ian Richardson as Oberon, Judi Dench as a topless (with pasties) Titania and Ian Holm as Puck.
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Post by london777 on Jul 6, 2020 22:36:12 GMT
Not tempted to watch either version. Thoroughly enjoyed Mac's informative reviews and that will have to do for me.
As you may have noticed, I am a Powell and Pressburger fanboy. I have never once thought that the portrayal of US servicemen mounting a Shakespearean play in "a Matter of Life and Death" was intended as a lampoon. It is realistic in that it shows the immense difficulties faced in those circumstances, but has always struck me as affectionate. After all, the film was made to bring Americans and Brits together and stress what they had in common.
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