Kirpianuscus
It seems the perfect film. it has all to be perfect. the story, the director, the magnificent cast. and the need, time by time, to see it. again. because it is the perfect mix of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. because a couple like Hepburn O Toole is fabulous. because it is the convincing story about power, hate and love, appearences, parenthood and compromises. because it is a fresco. huge. large, profound. embroidery of illusions and shadows. a film who seems be more convincing than the historical facts. because all is familiar. and a walk on ice bridge. because it is one of films who, behind masks, gives the real image and verdicts about near reality. a masterpiece ? off course. but, more significant, a gem. who gives brilliant dialogues and the force of acting of unique actors.
lasttimeisaw
This famous screen adaptation of James Goldman's play is mostly remembered for Katharine Hepburn's historic third win of Oscar's BEST LEADING ACTRESS in 1969 (yet she would further cement her unrivalled record with her fourth win for ON GOLDEN POND, 1981, 8/10), most interestingly, it is the one and only case where it is a tie for leading actress, she shares the honour with Barbara Streisand in FUNNY GIRL (1968). Directed by Anthony Harvey with Goldman as the screenwriter, headlined by O'Toole and Hepburn, well, contrary to my expectation, it comes out as a rather enervating and mind-numbing non- starter. So it all happens during Christmas 1183, King Henry II of England (O'Toole), convenes Queen Eleanor (Hepburn), whom he has imprisoned for months in a castle, and their three sons, Richard (Hopkins), Geoffrey (Castle) and John (Terry) to Chinon, Anjou for a family reunion and to discuss the issue of heir-ship, with King Philip II of France (Dalton) as their guest, and also presented is Alais (Merrow), Henry's mistress and Philip's sister, who is betrothed to Richard. That being so, it forges a cobweb of stakes around them while all the three princes contend to be crowned the future king, Richard is championed by Eleanor and John is Henry's favourite, while Geoffrey has his own calculations.Yet all the relations cannot be simply divided by love or hate, being a sterling dramaturge, Goldman maps out an intricate love-and-hate struggle between almost any two random characters, at first, it is relishing to enjoy these top players mount their mélange of feelings through their eloquent oration and wordplay, but being a different art form from a dialogue- driven play confined in a simple locale, the film version tries to duplicate the same pathos using the same method, soon the narrative steers towards excesses, there is no time for audience to ruminate the bombard of colloquies, in the next scene, the same power struggle/psychological game repeats itself between other characters, at the end of day, after all the labouring bickering, the status quo remains unseated, from choosing the right heir, to threatening of dethroning Eleanor from the title, to the extreme of murdering all his sons for the sake of marrying Alais and they can start life anew, the script is overwhelmingly rich for its 134 minutes running time, nonetheless the final upshot proves all above is merely lip service, no exciting changeover presented, all we know is for medieval people, their mouth never match their heart, it is a rather exhausting anticlimax and doesn't sharpen the process of character building. Hardly one can blame it on the cast, all is busting their asses to construct the atmosphere of dramatic intensity, even for Hopkins, Dalton and Terry (who just passed away earlier this year at a quite young age of 69), in their screen debut. Hopkins possesses a wide-eyed earnestness which is very rare in his staple phenotypes. Dalton is fiercely wet behind the ears in front of Hepburn and O'Toole, alas their undercurrent of homosexuality only superficially touched on. Terry is deliberately grotesque, Castle preserves a distinctive but untapped inscrutability and the Golden Globe nominated Merrow cannot remotely match two top-billers' expertise. Hepburn's magnificent spirit is perpetually something to shout about, so is O'Toole's frenzied outbursts, for whom we all have a soft spot considering his ill-fated Oscar journey (8 nominations with zero win), alas, neither her nor him can hold the top spot in my book for this lines-laden period elaboration. Reckoning its higher rating elsewhere and an extolled reputation, this is another specimen where a dissonance existing between one's personal view and the accepted general opinion, being a non-radical and rational film reviewer, not so often this occurs to me, so although being slightly disappointed, personally I feel delightful to retain one's own differences once in a while.
grantss
Interesting but slow, overwrought and overshouted. This movie covers a reasonably interesting period of history: the reign of Henry II of England and the potential succession of one of his sons. However, what should be a relatively simple exercise is turned into an overly complex exercise in Machiavellian manipulation, lies and deceit. Nothing is simple, and just when you think an issue is resolved, it unravels.Initially all this politics is intriguing, but it wears thin fairly quickly. It soon resembles intrigue and politics for the sake of it, and serves only to pad the movie.The ending is also quite lacklustre and anticlimactic after all the twists that went before.Powerful performance by Peter O'Toole in the lead role. Too powerful, in that almost all his dialogue is shouted. It gets quite irritating, quite quickly. In fact his whole performance seemed a touch too over-the-top.Solid effort by Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine. The performance got her a Best Actress Oscar. Interesting also to see Anthony Hopkins in an early-career role: this was his second big-screen movie.Even more fresh-faced was Timothy Dalton as King Philip II of France. This was Dalton's big screen debut.
