The Sea Gull

This article is about the 1968 film. For the 1926 film with the same name, see A Woman of the Sea.
The Sea Gull

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Produced by F. Sherwin Green
Sidney Lumet
Written by Anton Chekhov
Moura Budberg
Starring Vanessa Redgrave
Simone Signoret
David Warner
James Mason
Music by Mikis Theodorakis
Cinematography Gerry Fisher
Edited by Alan Heim
Production
company
Sidney Lumet Productions
Warner Brothers/Seven Arts
Distributed by Warner Brothers/Seven Arts (US)
Warner-Pathé (UK)
Release dates
 22 December 1968
Running time
 141 minutes
Country United States
United Kingdom
Greece
Language English

The Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American-Greek drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull.

The Warner Brothers/Seven Arts release was filmed at the Europa Studios in Sundbyberg, Stockholms län, just outside central Stockholm.

Plot synopsis

Set in a rural Russian house, the plot focuses on the romantic and artistic conflicts among an eclectic group of characters. Fading leading lady Irina Arkadina has come to visit her brother Sorin, a retired civil servant in ailing health, with her lover, the successful hack writer Trigorin. Her son, brooding experimental playwright Konstantin Treplev, adores the ingenue Nina, who in turn is mesmerized by Trigorin. Their interactions slowly lead to the moral and spiritual disintegration of each of them and ultimately lead to tragedy.

Principal cast

Principal production credits

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby described the film as "so uneven in style, mood and performance that there are times when you could swear that the movie had shot itself — though not quite fatally . . . Lumet's way with this adaptation by Moura Budberg is implacably straightforward. It plows ahead, scene by scene, act by act, in which there always is first an establishing long shot and then cuts to individual actors as they act and react. This kind of Secret Storm technique inevitably flattens out the nuances and the pauses that give depth to the tangled personal relationships. It also makes too literal the boredom and quiet despair that should hang over the Chekovian characters like an unseen mist. Most of the performances are excellent, but all of the actors seem to be on their own . . . Miss Signoret is simply miscast, if only because of her Frenchness. Her speech rhythms are so jarring that it's often impossible to understand her . . . As a result of the variety of styles, the movie turns into a series of individual confrontations that seem as isolated as specialty acts. Without the single dominating influence that should have been provided by Lumet, the play is fragmented beyond repair." [1]

Time observed, "The paralyzing problem with this film version of Chekhov's first major play is that it is far too dramatic . . . 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 . . . 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 . . . Most disturbing of all, [he] and cinematographer Gerry Fisher have shot the whole film in softly gauzed pastel colors, thereby reducing Chekhov's intricate dramatic tapestry to the sleazy cheapness of a picture postcard." [2]

Variety called it "a sensitive, well-made and abstractly interesting period pic." [3]

According to the Time Out London Film Guide, it is "basically an actors' film . . . sometimes dull and almost always unsatisfactory, despite excellent performances." [4]

References

  1. ↑ New York Times review
  2. ↑ Time review
  3. ↑ Variety review
  4. ↑ Time Out London Film Guide review

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, December 31, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.