The Sea Gull (1968)

Cock! Cock! Cock!

James is lovely.

Simone is inaudible.

Vanessa could have played Ranevsky because she's too majestic to lay the ingenue.

This movie has its problems but it isn't pedestrian, dull and prosaic as that recent version with that American Mrs Beatty in the lead role.

[quote] Based on the classic play by Anton Chekhov

This play must be a hundred years old.

But just what is it about this gab-fest that makes it a 'classic'?

The dead bird is a symbol of something?

R3 Chekhov is regarded as a classic now.

[quote] this gab-fest

You can always pick the pretentious wankers at parties when they start describing these gab-fests as comedies.

[quote] Chekhov is regarded as a classic now

He's been dead for a century but what is your definition of the word 'classic'.

Chekhov himself gave "The Seagull" the subtitle "A Comedy in Four Acts," but there aren't many laughs.

I wish that Sidney Lumet (of whom I'm a great fan) had worked out a cinematic treatment for this material like the one he found for LONG DAY'S JOURNEY, but alas, it was not to be. Still, the movie's well worth seeking out for the performances of Vanessa Redgrave, David Warner and James Mason.

R7

An unfunny 'komediya'

[quote] Chayka: komediya v chetyrekh deystviyakh

I’d rather watch a flock of sparrows devour a pile of cow flop

The 2018 movie version with Seersha Ronan and DL fav Annette Bening was a big flop as well.

Alas, more turgid than Turgenev.

^ It was tedious.

[quote] Sidney Lumet (of whom I'm a great fan)

Lumet hired three stars in this film who were in his previous film the previous year.

It was a very grim, small film.

Simone Signoret and James Mason were replicating the roles of Peggy Ashcroft and Peter Finch in the 1964 production.

Lumet also hired James Mason in The Verdict.

He said Mason was the best film actor of all time.

I concur with him

Any movie with James Mason is worth a watch, even just for him.

I love James despite him marrying that shrew and forcing him to appear in nasty films.

[quote] Lumet also hired James Mason in The Verdict.

They collaborated ten times. It seems James appeared in some of Lumet's early TV films which I daresay are no longer available.

Parts of Louis Malle's "Vanya's on 42nd St." worked well as a bare bones reading of the play, beautifully filmed, but, as with "The Sea Gull," the cast was very uneven, with Wallace Shawn's Vanya a one-note disaster.

[quote]But just what is it about this gab-fest that makes it a 'classic'? The dead bird is a symbol of something?

Well yes, R3, it is. It is an avatar for the ingenue, and the point of the play is that she was a lovely young thing with high hopes, who was destroyed by a bored, successful older man for his amusement.

So, not relevant today at all and I can't think why it would have "classic" status.

How can a cast consisting of Mason, Redgrave, Andrews, Elliott, Warner, and Miss Simone Signoret be uneven?

R7 - maybe Chekov meant "comedy" in this sense:

"For centuries, efforts at defining comedy were to be along the lines set down by Aristotle: the view that tragedy deals with personages of high estate, and comedy deals with lowly types; that tragedy treats of matters of great public import, while comedy is concerned with the private affairs of mundane life; and that the characters and events of tragedy are historic and so, in some sense, true, while the humbler materials of comedy are but feigned."

I watched five minutes of it one time and quickly changed it to Mama’s Family.

R25 why?

R26 Because it's about upper-middle-class people lounging around by the lake in the languid heat.

They aren't tormented by the revolting peasants but by the constant anguish of being unappreciated or misunderstood.

[quote] How can a cast consisting of Mason, Redgrave, Andrews, Elliott, Warner, and Miss Simone Signoret be uneven?

You seem to have omitted someone.

I've saw the film years ago and don't remember a thing about it other than it being a total snore fest.

I've seen Chekhovs done so that they were at least intermittently funny, including Three Sisters. I mean, they got laughs while being very true to the text. The big trick to doing Chekhov very well (apart from having a genuinely intelligent director) is to ensure that everyone on stage is always reacting in character, even during those very long speeches. It's how the Russian companies descended from Stanislavski's still do it. If you do that, you can get some great reactive comedy, as well as disclosing a lot that is not necessarily in the script about both the character who is talking and those who are listening.

I once (well, three times) saw a production of The Seagull where the scene between Masha and Trigorin got so many laughs that every night she got applause and cheers when she exited. When you see it done by almost anyone else, it's hard to imagine how they did that. It was a combination of her hitting Masha's self-pity right on its comic edge, and his reacting not with empathy but with irony to her distress. (This reaction was funny, but also a red flag to the audience that he wasn't going to be nice to Nina.)

Unfortunately, when it comes to straight plays, there are fewer truly gifted directors in the world than any other type of theatre professional.

Was this the sequel to Hitchcock's The Birds?

Tried watching on TCM a few weeks ago. Snzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[quote][R3] Chekhov is regarded as a classic now.

Gurl, puhlease!

Surprisingly boring, and David Warner is totally unappealing, sadly.

I will watch anything with James Mason in it. My very favorite actor. Compelling actor who commands and hold the attention of the viewer.

The flat hard matte version is the BEST.

I will watch anything with James Mason in it. My very favorite actor. Compelling actor who commands and hold the attention of the viewer.

Really? I find him to be SO hammy. I never believe a word he says.

Of course not, r31. It is a prequel.

[quote] Adapted by the Baroness Moura von Budberg

A very suspicious woman.

I suspect many of the details in this Wiki biography are lies. I'm sceptical about this affair with HG Wells. And I suspect the script for this movie was merely a translation and not an accurate rendering of 'Chekhov's genius'.

R39 I bet they are too

R26 because sea gulls is piss-poor entertainment

It's no Cherry Orchard, that's for damn sure.

R2 contains a mistake.

[quote] uneven?

R24 This cast of Englishmen, Frenchwoman, Irishwoman and one American pretending to be Russians is preferable to this version.

[quote] Chekhov is regarded as a classic now

Chekhov is Dada.

Major events in the plot happen off-stage; characters make ten minute monologues to another character who ignores what they say.

He loves Boredom, Unhappiness, Melancholy and Futility but doesn't love drama.

[quote] I wish that Sidney Lumet (of whom I'm a great fan) had worked out a cinematic treatment for this material like the one he found for LONG DAY'S JOURNEY..

I'm assuming most of 'Long Day' was shot in a studio or on an easily-accessible location where the camera crew could set up good lighting rigs and tracks to do dolly shots.

And I'm assuming the cast were staying in comfortable hotels and had time for rehearsal.

The camera crew for 'The Sea Gull' were filming on an uneven grassy paddock with natural lighting. You can see the camera occasionally shaking.

Almost all of the climatic 15 minute scene is shot in complete darkness; Vanessa and David Warner are heard but are invisible.

I forced myself to watch this worthy film version of this very unsatisfactory play. And the same creepy thought came across me and tainted my enjoyment.

The thought that this unsatisfactory play was the inspiration and justification for those tedious family dramas by the ghastly Allen Konigsberg.

R47 but was the movie good?

R48 It wasn't a movie. The camera barely moved. It was a recorded version of a very unsatisfactory play.

I always thought James Mason was terrible actor. He was the lead in Odd Man Out and he was just awful. The only good scene in this movies is with Robert Newton playing a drunk painter.

Did you ever see My Burning Cunt?

R51 To whom are you speaking?

R50 Go watch:

The Seventh Veil

Julius Caesar

A Star is Born

North by Northwest

read and then watch Lolita

The Pumpkin Eater

Georgy Girl

The Deadly Affair

The Last of Shelia

The Boys from Brazil

Murder by Decree

The Verdict

Evil Under the Sun

The Shooting Party

Then tell me if Mason is a terrible actor.

R50 50. I partly agree with you but I also violently disagree with you.

James Mason was a highly educated, intellectual, beautiful, passive aggressive young Englishman who was asked to play the role of a foolhardy, half-brained tempestuous Irishman.

He couldn't hide his intelligence visible in the tight close-ups.

The film suffers with the high melodrama shot in some rather fake-looking studio settings and it features an unconvincing clingy female, the tedious Fay Compton, plus some other stereotypical Irish hacks.

I suggest you see it on a big screen if it comes to an art house cinema near you.

This “Seagull” was announced with much fanfare and awards hope in late fall of 1968, with a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times, no less! How could it miss with such a cast! But miss it did, and it wasn’t nominated for anything that I recall. After that, it pretty much disappeared.

I didn’t finally see it till years later, on TCM. It just seemed to sit there. Every character has their moment, then we move to the next one. Maybe a music score might have helped. I don’t remember one. Mason does well with his major scene. Redgrave, whose career soared after playing this role on the London stage, seemed as if she was still there. Signoret seemed like she was in a different movie. Kathleen Widdoes made the most of her few moments as Masha.

In 1985, I saw Redgrave onstage in London, this time as Ranevskaya, with her own daughter Natasha Richardson as Nina. Redgrave shone, focusing on her character’s need to be the center of attention. Her third act confrontation with Jonathan Pryce as Trigorin was riveting, like watching a lioness bring down her prey. That scene was worth the price of admission. I don’t remember too much about the rest of it.

[R53]: James Mason is the only actor I ever waited to see at the stage door, to get his autograph, after I saw him, in a very sparsely attended weeknight performance of Brian Friel’s “The Faith Healer.” Fascinating play. Mason was mesmerizing.

I got it. I still have it.

[QUOTE] I got it. I still have it.

Oh my stars. Whatever did you contract from that encounter with James Mason?

MANDINGO, on the other hand, could show you just how dreadful Mason could be when he was as whoring it out.

R55, I'm envious of your live Redgrave/Chekhov experience . . . but you meant Arkadina. (Ranevskaya is CHERRY ORCHARD.)

Yes, R2 and R55.

[R55]: Entirely right. Definitely Arkadina.

[R57]: I got Mason’s autograph in my “Faith Healer “Playbill. He was businesslike.

[quote]Simone Signoret and James Mason were replicating the roles of Peggy Ashcroft and Peter Finch in the 1964 production.

That is much better casting, especially Peter Finch. I didn't think Mason was right at all.

What shitty taste

R63 To whom are you speaking?

R64 pull that stick out of your ass!

[quote] A very suspicious woman.

Yes indeed, R39.

Wiki says 'The English title for the play The Seagull is a potentially misleading translation of the title from its original Russian. Although the words "gull" and "seagull' are similar the people in the play are living on a lake miles away from the sea or any sea gulls..

I adore James and his voice.

A tabloid journo described it as—

[quote] a velvety, sibilant, nasal burr, both wheedling and sinister.