Word: lumet
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...Under Sidney Lumet's flashbackward direction, the acting proves a match for Gore Vidal's hysteroid script. Coburn emotes in a style that was once the exclusive province of Popeye. Lynn Redgrave, tricked out in a miniskirted bridal gown, looks rather appealingly like a marshmallow on toothpicks. But her accent, a mixture of two Birminghams?Alabama's and England's?must be heard to be disbelieved. Even Hooks ?normally a powerful and discreet actor?is lost in this raucous ménagerie à trois...
Chekhov's narrative is meticulously simple, containing, as he put it, "much talk of literature, little action, and five poods* of love." Director Sidney Lumet, who hammered home The Pawnbroker, pummels away at Chekhov's plot. At the country estate of a retired civil servant named Sorin (Harry Andrews) is assembled a group of people who over the course of two years will quietly destroy one another: Sorin's sister Arkadina (Simone Signoret), an aging actress vacationing in the country with her lover Trigorin (James Mason), a successful author; Arkadina's son Konstantin (David Warner...
Chekhov called The Sea Gull a comedy, but any traces of wit have been pretty well destroyed by Lumet's lumbering technique. The actors perform as if they were all on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Only David Warner as Konstantin and some of the supporting players-notably Harry Andrews, Denholm Elliott, Ronald Radd and Kathleen Widdoes-effectively explore the full dimensions of their roles. Lumet moves his camera incessantly to give the illusion of action, but uses fadeouts to duplicate the curtain falling at the end of an act. He attempts to preserve the tense theatrical effect...
...Early Grave, was a bitter, satirical dissection of Manhattan's middle-class Jewish intellectuals, a book peopled by the kind of quarrelsome critics and lecturers who read Partisan Review for laughs. All things considered, it was not a very promising subject for a movie, but Director Sidney Lumet took a crack at it anyway-jettisoning most of Markfield's literary humor in favor of Jewish situation comedy. The result, called Bye Bye Braverman, has a lot to talk about, and nothing much...
...romantic conception of acting?but then Vanessa is above all a romantic. "She is one of the great romantics of our generation," says her estranged husband, Director Tony Richardson (Tom Jones). "Anything and everything can be romantic to Vanessa. She can believe in everything." Says Director Lumet: "She just plunges off the diving board without bothering to check if there's water in the pool...