Word: courtiers
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...mists of memory. Much of the movie consequently looks fogbound, as if it were photographed during a close night on the Grand Bank. Harvey requires Ullmann to run through fields to demonstrate exuberance, slouch in doorways to show anxiety and uncertainty, and practically pant after a handsome young courtier whose love she fears. "I want to be loved!" Christina complains to a wily minister (Cyril Cusack). "The people love you,"the minister answers. Christina replies: "Send them to my bedroom" -a crack that qualifies her as a sort of 17th century Ann Sheridan...
Such airs, though, are drunken sport for Sir Toby Belch and company as they plot to entangle the most self-righteous courtier ever created. "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" thunders Sir Toby to puritanical Malvolio, who, for his pains, ends up locked up and abused as a madman...
...though a lack of attention to details detracts from several performances. (Slouched posture and excessive foot stamping do not contribute to the majesty of the two kings.) Jeremiah Riemer as the rogue Autolycus is a particularly entertaining miscreant and Robert Cohen is deft in the role of a faithful courtier. Other actors's readings are often engaging and effective--Charles Genrich's rustic Clearius and Eleni Constantine's dewy-eyed Perdita add sparkle to the humorous second portion of the play...
...monumental size, but the smaller objects, dug out of the rubble of Tell el Amarna and now on exhibition in Brooklyn, testify dramatically to the marked change in style and approach that the young Sun King instigated. It was a new particularity - a King with a paunch, a courtier with a sullen mouth, a sensuous Queen. Even the beasts of the field were liberated from the frozen rhythmic frieze of an earlier time. The result was an art vivid as yesterday, eternal as tomorrow...
...overwhelmed with calculation. In this setting we meet Alceste, the misanthrope, who is repelled by all the vanity and hypocrisy he sees around him and doggedly asserts his own righteousness. He is, however, madly in love with Celimene, an incorrigably trivial coquette who likes to play her string of courtier suitors off against each other by deceiving each one into thinking that he is her true love. The plot thickens into a series of brilliant verbal battles and intrigues between the suitors and between Celimene and her lady rivals. She is finally exposed, and the courtiers, including Alceste, go their...