I’ve always enjoyed the art of theater and I can bore my friends to tears on things like different director’s approach to the same play, watching the same production in different seats, subtitles in an actor’s performance choices and set design.
There are certain things that I enjoy when a lot of these things are translated into film and it is some of these things that led me to my selection for this week’s double feature.
The first film in my selection was Deathtrap starring Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and Dyan Cannon. It’s an adaptation of the Ira Levin play of the same name. This is a very good example of a play adaptation. I’ve complained in the past of play adaptation and “filmed play“. TO be honest I’m not completely sure I’ve thought out the distinction enough to my satisfaction but I think when I say “filmed play” What I mean is when the director is merely recording the actor’s performance and pretty much ignores the possibilities that film provides. I’ve seen a lot of otherwise good films suffer from this.
I’ve noticed there’s a lot of adaptations of smaller productions that avoid a lot of these problems most likely since a movie audience would quickly get bored by the “drawing room” performances that technically have two scenes and one set. Because of this directors are forced to give these films their own personal spin to keep things interesting.
Anyway, Deathtrap is a good example of this making full use of the renovated windmill house to it’s full potential with a few extra scenes in the beginning and end to flesh things out. The whole thing is wonderfully meta with the Caine and Reeve playing two playwrights who are constantly talking about the anatomy of a thriller while pulling off a mostly perfect crime, and then writing about it. The two have very good chemistry and Reeve is amazing playing against type as a beautiful sociopath. (I also think it would serve as a fantastic double feature with Sleuth)
The next film on my list was a wonderful example of films that are fully theatrical. That toss suspension of disbelief and reality out the window and embrace the fakery of a deliberately theatrical set. I can pretty much count the examples of this on two hands (not counting filmed theatrical productions) and I’m always on the lookout for more examples of this.
Dogville, with Nicole Kidman leading a brilliant cast, sets the bar even higher. it tells a bleak Brechtian story of a town and the girl who enters into this community. It’s completely uncompromising in it’s pessimism and I don’t think I’ve felt less sympathetic for the ultimate fate of a cast of characters since I read Tobacco Road in college.
But if you can survive the story Dogville is fascinating to watch. It’s all filmed in a nearly empty soundstage with a bare minimum of sets (the ultimate example being a caged dog being represented by a picture of a dog drawn on the set’s floor) The director, Lars von Trier say that this is to force the viewer to focus on the actors’ performance and it certainly works. Personally It kept me imagining a much darker version of Our Town.
