Hamlet film review

 Number 544 on the top 1000 films of all time is Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh) is the crown prince of 19th-century Denmark. But when his father is murdered by his evil Uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi,) Hamlet swears revenge. The huge ensemble cast includes Jack Lemmon, Julie Christie, Robin Williams and Kate Winslet.

There is a reason that film-reviewing will always remain my hobby rather than my profession. There so many films that are objectively-enjoyable, but I have no interest in. Hamlet is one of them. Most of that is down to how I have no interest in Shakespeare, but also in relation to Kenneth Branagah's direction.

Branagh's adaptation is the first un-abridged version with all the dialogue coming straight from Shakespeare's original folios. It has been transcribed verbatim. This means that there is a monologue every five minutes where characters would speak for whole paragraphs, but say very little. Some of the dialogue was needless exposition whereas others were purple prose. I'm sure I am sounding ignorant, but I had very little idea what they were talking about. And Hamlet was four-hours long. If the monologues were cut down, the run-time could have been easily reduced to one hundred and twenty minutes.

But also Brannagh made extensive use of extended long shots, having the camera rest on a focal object for much longer than necessary. This really killed off any narrative pace. It made the film feel much longer than four hours.

Although Kenneth Branagh has won an Oscar, it was for writing Belfast and not acting. Having seen Hamlet, I understand why. I was not impressed by his performance. It was so over-the-top.

I'm sure if you're a Shakespeare lover, you would love Hamlet, but I hated it. 

A Streetcar named Desire review

 Number 276 on the top 1000 films of all time is Elia Kazan's 1951 drama 'A Streetcar named Desire.'

Based on Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer prize winning play of the same name, A Streetcar Named Desire (Streetcar) follows the fading southern belle Blanche Dubois (Vivian Leigh) who due to misfortune has come to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella (Kim Hunter) and her Polish-American boyfriend Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando.) However, the prim and proper Blanche soon starts to clash with the often drunk, rough-and-ready Stanley Kowalski.

This is the second Tennessee Williams' film I have seen recently after Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. While I was critical of CHTR for its perceived lack of subtext, I think Streetcar was far more nuanced. It was a rapt, often distressing collision of two different worlds. You have the old-fashioned, mentally unstable Blanche who is desperately clinging onto the morals of a long-dead world, and then you have the crude and animalistic Stanley who has been worn down by many years of institutionalised and personal racism. Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando were very capable in the lead roles. They gave us an often uncomfortable, but necessary window into the American experience.

But also two very different American experiences. Due to Stanley's Polish background, he has had to fight for everything he's ever had, leading to plenty of smouldering resentment. Contrast this to Blanche who is living on the wealth of a bygone generation. Or trying to live, I should say. And poor Stella is caught between this warring couple.

This was also a scary film. Far scarier than it had any right to be. At times Brando was very relatable as the beaten-down Stanley, but he was also terrifying when he entered a fit of rage. It was similarly upsetting watching Blanche lose her sanity. The final few scenes where she is rendered to a near-catatonic state due to Stanley's actions, and is being taken away to a psychiatric institution, are disturbing to watch.

I enjoyed Streetcar more than I thought I would. I thought it would be dark and hard-going, which it most certainly was, but this darkness was underlined by a powerful subtext. I just don't think I will be watching it again in a hurry.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof review

 Number 235 on the top 1000 films of all time is Richard Brook's drama 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.'

Based on Tennessee Williams' play of the same name, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof focusses on the dynamics of the self-destructive Pollitt family in Eastern Mississippi. Brick (Paul Newman) is a drunk, former high-school athlete who hurts himself trying to recapture his glory days. His long-suffering wife is Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) who is still deeply in love with him, but there is still plenty of tension between the pair. There is also Harvey "Big Daddy" who is the ageing patriarch of the family. In ill-health, his other son Cooper "Gooper" (Jack Carson) and his wife Mae "Sister Woman" (Madelaine Sherwood) are desperate to be written into his will.

I am not particularly familiar with Tennessee Williams' source material. but I am given to understand that Brooks did not make a faithful adaptation. Within the original play, there was a strong homosexual subtext including an implied romantic attraction between Brick and his unseen friend Skipper who committed suicide a few years before. Due to production codes, this was largely admitted. And by production codes, I, of course, mean institutionalised homophobia. And that's ironic as that subtext was supposed to be a critique of homophobia.

But I do think that the film suffered from the omission of this subtext. Without it, everything felt very superficial and bland. And it wasn't just this subtext, but it felt like there was little behind the curtain. Being based on a stage-play, it is a small and intimate film. There is a tiny cast, although with two massive names - Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman - and the film is largely limited to the one set of the Pollitt family mansion. Obviously, I wasn't expecting a major spectacle or massive explosions, but everything still felt very lacking.

Much of the play was everybody shouting at each other, which all became rather tedious after a while. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which also starred Elizabeth Taylor, was similar, yet it still had an apparent but subtle subtext. And so there was a point to all the yelling. But there was no discernible point here. It's a shame, because it sounds like Tennessee Williams was making a great point about the homophobia of the time, yet Richard Brooks wasn't able to convey the same ideas in his adaptation, whatever the reason might be. And this ultimately diluted the potency of the film.

I can only speculate that the fault of this film lies with the actual studio or film industry itself rather than with the film makers and actors - Paul Newman was brilliant as was Taylor - perhaps if they were given a chance, they could have made a very faithful adaptation of the American classic that is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Awakenings Review

 Number 575 on the top 1000 films of all time is Penny Marshall's 1990 drama 'Awakenings.'

Dr Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) is a researcher at a hospital in the Bronx. He has a whole contingent of catatonic patients including Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro.) Dr Sayer begins treating Leonard and the others with an experimental drug. While the results are initially promising, things start to quickly go wrong.

I've seen Robert De Niro in a number of roles from taxi driver to gangster to boxer to cross-dressing pirate, but Leonard has to be his best role. Leonard is a character who has been catatonic for the last thirty years. Upon his awakening, he has to relearn how to walk, speak and function as everybody else does. He even becomes a Randle McMurphy character when he tries to gain more rights and freedoms for he and his fellow patients. In some sense, he almost acts as their Messiah.

Leonard is an empowering character and, despite his many disabilities, is never one to be pitied. And all of this is down to De Niro's excellent portrayal. He brought humanity and vulnerability to a role that could have been little more than a gross caricature. But he was also brave enough to show the severity of Leonard's Parkinson's. Rather than shy away, he embraced the role. And he forced the audience to realise how badly people like Leonard suffer. 

It took courage to play a character like Leonard. Penny Marshall was equally courageous to direct such a film. I work with the mentally ill and I know how terrifying they can seem for some people. They function as an uncomfortable reminder of our own mortality. It is all too tempting to lock these people away. Out of sight. Out of mind.

Speaking of courage, we have to talk about Robin Williams as the brave Dr Sayer who never gave up on his patients. For a comedic actor, he does drama damn well. He deserves just as much praise as De Niro. In fact, I was surprised that only De Niro received an Oscar nod. They surely both deserved Oscar nominations.

Nevertheless, this was a triumphant film that tells a very brave story. Just because somebody has a mental illness doesn't mean they should be treated as any less of a person.

Blue Valentine review

 Number 881 on the top 1000 films of all time is Derek Cianfrance's 2010 romantic drama 'Blue Valentine.'

Blue Valentine tells the relationship between under-achieving slacker Dean (Ryan Gosling) and his over-worked nurse wife Cindy (Michelle Williams.) The film flashes back and forth between the start of their relationship and their eventual breakdown and divorce.

I've watched a few Ryan Gosling films and while I think he is a versatile and charismatic actor, I have never liked the films themselves. They're either too sentimental or too dark or in the case of Blue Valentine too bleak. And bleak is putting it lightly. This isn't a film that will have you leaving the cinema with a warm, fuzzy feeling, but rather the saddest frown on your face. I imagine this was Cianfrance's intention, so in that sense, he succeeded in making one of the most depressing films since the Pianist.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with unremittently bleak films, but there has to be something more than the unremittent bleakness. True, there are the flashbacks to the happy start of Dean and Cindy's relationship - while these scenes were cute especially the tap dancing/ukulele scene, but they always played second fiddle to the present timeline where their marriage falls apart. Any warm, fuzzy feeling was replaced with a sinking stomach, as I saw this once happy couple scream at each other.

And due to the unrelenting bleakness you know it's only going to end in one way. These characters are never going to rediscover their love for one another and live happily ever after. There is nothing wrong with knowing how a film is going to end, but it does kill the narrative tension.

Cianfrance was inspired by his parent's divorce and the pain that caused him as a young man. And he wanted to create a film that charted the beginning and end of a relationship. In that sense, he succeeded. But did he have to make it so damn depressing? I do like Ryan Gosling as an actor, I'm just waiting to see a Ryan Gosling film that I actually like.

Dial M for Murder review

 Number 178 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's murder mystery Dial M for Murder.

Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) suspects his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) is having an affair with American Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings.) When his suspicions prove true, he plots to have her killed so he can inherit her fortune.

Hitchcock was famously known as the 'Master of Suspense,' and his skills came to the fore in this delightful movie. This is a deceptively simple film with a limited cast and only one or two sets, yet the tension is always high. Mr Wendice is a devious character evidenced by how he blackmails Captain Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) into murdering his wife. And Ray Milland did well to make such a despicable character interesting and charismatic. Although one could argue that the film leant into an excess of exposition at times, the overly talky scenes still brimmed with tension.

However, I think the film's greatest strength was also its greatest weakness. Perhaps it was too simple. Maybe I've been spoiled by all of today's complicated crime dramas, but I was expecting more from the police investigation. Sure there was a great dramatic irony in us knowing that Wendice was plotting to kill his wife while the police were clueless, but maybe that's because the police didn't do the most thorough of investigations. Wendice may have wiped clean most of his fingerprints with his encounter with Lesgate, but he still touched the silk stockings that he used as planted evidence with his bare hands. Maybe I'm being overly critical. Fingerprinting might not have had the importance it does now.

But what did puzzle me was the final act. After Margot is sentenced for Lesgate's murder, Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) returns to the crime scene to conduct his own investigation. He then listens to Wendice and Halliday suggest their own theories. And I don't believe that any chief inspector would even consider entertaining such crazy ideas.

Finally, the backdrops for the exterior shots in Maida Vale were so obviously backdrops. I know this was the fifties, but come on.

Overall, I did enjoy this film. Sure it wasn't always the most believable, but it had a delicious dramatic irony that kept me engrossed throughout.