Word: buffoons
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...more complex, a creator of delicious surprises and subtle tonal shifts. Romano, the ebullient loser he plays in Nikita Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes, is a virtual anthology of Marcello males, and the actor finds vibrant life in each of them. In his rich wife's mansion Romano is the buffoon philanderer, tiptoeing toward domestic calamity. At the spa he is the exuberant courtier, wading into a mud bath to retrieve a woman's hat. On business in Russia he is the dapper salesman, mainly of himself. And years later, reminiscing with a stranger, he is the old seducer whose spirit...
...beauty, and the people snicker that Ollie North might have been doing a little hanky-panky with his secretary. Ollie North has been loyal to his wife since the day he married her." When he asked his "best friend" Betsy about the purchase, she told him, "You old buffoon, you went there to buy leotards for our two little girls...
Ironically, the most unflattering portrayal in the picture is not of murderer Halliwell or the perverse Orton, but of Lahr himself. Played annoyingly by Wallace Shawn, Lahr comes across as a block-headed buffoon with hardly a grasp of the events he is retelling. His interviews with Peggy Ramsay (Vanessa Redgrave), Orton's literary agent, point out the distance between artist and audience; it's as if Ramsay, representing Orton, is leading Lahr around on a string...
...ensues has only been matched these days by the best of Blake Edwards' movies. Sagal takes considerable liberties with the script, further fleshing out Moliere's humor. Scenes take on a cartoon-like quality in the spirit of Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes. At times, Oleson becomes an Elmer Fudd buffoon. He stumbles over tree stumps and brings out an armory of weapons to battle his imagined enemies, looking ridiculously anachronistic in a World War I helmet...
...beating, even the famous waltz proves resistible. Te Kanawa displays her shimmering voice to some advantage in the first act, then fades away. As the bubbly chambermaid Adele, Soprano Judith Blegen is unsure of pitch and unsteady of tone, while Baritone Hakan Hagegard inappropriately plays Eisenstein as a staggering buffoon...