Sunday 4 December 2011

Deep Blue Sea

We braved the awful noise and flashing lights of the adverts at Manchester's Corner House Cinema to see The Deep Blue Sea, a film based on the play of the same name by Terrene Rattigan.  A beautifully acted film with time given to the performers to think and feel their way through the intricacies of a marriage gone wrong.  When not actively engaged in dialogue we thought that holding on to 'well posed images' was a little too long.  The tongue in cheek claim made by Terrence that there were only three playwrights - Shakespeare, Chekhov and himself began to smack of the truth.  I think the bits not in the original script were unnecessary - especially the one in the underground with the referances to Anna Korenina and the wife in Brief Encounter dragged in.   To my mind the Barber concerto is too powerfully to be quiet right for the piece, but this is a quibble – it certainly has the loneliness.  We both felt that the last shots of opening the window to a bright future, and the world of others toddling along as per usual must have been done for the sentimental American audiences - in the original, the wife folds up the scarf of her departed lover - much more telling - and for those who like references, think ‘the mobbled queen’, in Hamlet!  My fussy carping apart Do see it if you can.  

I am still trying to understand Hamlet.  Every time I get an idea, I am led on to another. It grows like Hampton Court maze on nitrogen

Shall we have a quiet winter season, think you? I do hope so....