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Monthly culture: February 2021
Thursday, March 4th, 2021 08:05 am04FEB21: All is True (Netflix)
'Based on a true story,' this features Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh) in the autumn of his life, re-learning to live with his family -- especially his wife Anne, played by Judi Dench. There's a visit from the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen) where the subtext of the sonnets very nearly becomes text; there's a subplot about dead Hamnet and his sister Judith, who is illiterate; there's the eldest daughter Susanna and her marriage to a Puritan. Excellent script by Ben Elton: a melancholy film but often very funny.
06FEB21: The Winter's Tale - Shakespeare (Cheek by Jowl)
Weird, alienating camera work, not focussing on the person speaking: I had no sense of where the actors are in relation to one another. Some of the text was cut, too. The second half, with shepherds and folk singers and jollity, was more cheerful.
11FEB21: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Netflix)
Set in 1927 and based on a stage play which was produced in 1984, this is very much dialogue-driven. Chadwick Boseman is intense as a jazz trumpeter with ambitions and hidden damage: his last role, for which he's just won a deserved Golden Globe. Viola Davis is also amazing as the titular Ma Rainey -- a shrewd businesswoman, not just a unique voice. The scenes set in the South, pre-fame, were really evocative of black life.
18FEB21: The Dig (Netflix)
A dramatised version of the 1938/9 Sutton Hoo excavation(s), based on the novel by John Preston (my review of which is here). Those big skies and evening cloudscapes reminded me of where I grew up. Basil Brown, excavator (played by Ralph Fiennes) has a thick Suffolk accent and a very solid, down-to-earth presence. I could have done with Ethel Pretty (in her early fifties at the time of the excavation) being played by an actress somewhat older than Carey Mulligan.
One co-viewer (on WhatsApp) was very critical of all the dramatic license -- an 'unnecessary' romantic sub-plot, two summers' work compressed into a few short weeks, Peggy being depicted as a beginner rather than the experienced archaeologist she was. But I felt that all those inventions made the on-screen story stronger.
20FEB21: Doctor Faustus -- Marlowe (Globe Theatre)
This version had Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles, very good, very precise, and master of the eye-roll at Faust's more idiotic remarks. We got the sense that his story was a tragedy, not merely arrogance brought low per Faust. Lucifer, too, was genuinely tragic, a war veteran in his angel's breastplate, crippled by his fall.
Some lines skipped, bah. Some legitimately scary effects (demons!) and some very impressive stagecraft (dragons!). Faust still has the sense of humour of an undergraduate, and he became quite tiresome.
25FEB21: Early Man (Netflix)
A film about football. Okay, an Aardman film about football. Often v funny but I did not get more than half of the jokes, because football. Great soundtrack.
27FEB21: Angels in America: Millennium Approaching -- Kushner (NT At Home)
I had tickets for this revival (National Theatre, 2017) but it didn't work out: and maybe watching in the comfort of one's own home is better for a two-part play, each part over 3 hours long.
Not nearly as depressing as its subject matter (homosexuality and AIDS in New York in the early 1980s) might suggest. Complex staging well-filmed, some stupendous sound and lighting effects, and Andrew Garfield on fire as Prior Walter. (Not that the rest of the cast were at all lacking, but I could not look away from Garfield.) I had expected to find this hard going but I'm now eagerly anticipating watching the second half in a fortnight.
'Based on a true story,' this features Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh) in the autumn of his life, re-learning to live with his family -- especially his wife Anne, played by Judi Dench. There's a visit from the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen) where the subtext of the sonnets very nearly becomes text; there's a subplot about dead Hamnet and his sister Judith, who is illiterate; there's the eldest daughter Susanna and her marriage to a Puritan. Excellent script by Ben Elton: a melancholy film but often very funny.
06FEB21: The Winter's Tale - Shakespeare (Cheek by Jowl)
Weird, alienating camera work, not focussing on the person speaking: I had no sense of where the actors are in relation to one another. Some of the text was cut, too. The second half, with shepherds and folk singers and jollity, was more cheerful.
11FEB21: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Netflix)
Set in 1927 and based on a stage play which was produced in 1984, this is very much dialogue-driven. Chadwick Boseman is intense as a jazz trumpeter with ambitions and hidden damage: his last role, for which he's just won a deserved Golden Globe. Viola Davis is also amazing as the titular Ma Rainey -- a shrewd businesswoman, not just a unique voice. The scenes set in the South, pre-fame, were really evocative of black life.
18FEB21: The Dig (Netflix)
A dramatised version of the 1938/9 Sutton Hoo excavation(s), based on the novel by John Preston (my review of which is here). Those big skies and evening cloudscapes reminded me of where I grew up. Basil Brown, excavator (played by Ralph Fiennes) has a thick Suffolk accent and a very solid, down-to-earth presence. I could have done with Ethel Pretty (in her early fifties at the time of the excavation) being played by an actress somewhat older than Carey Mulligan.
One co-viewer (on WhatsApp) was very critical of all the dramatic license -- an 'unnecessary' romantic sub-plot, two summers' work compressed into a few short weeks, Peggy being depicted as a beginner rather than the experienced archaeologist she was. But I felt that all those inventions made the on-screen story stronger.
20FEB21: Doctor Faustus -- Marlowe (Globe Theatre)
This version had Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles, very good, very precise, and master of the eye-roll at Faust's more idiotic remarks. We got the sense that his story was a tragedy, not merely arrogance brought low per Faust. Lucifer, too, was genuinely tragic, a war veteran in his angel's breastplate, crippled by his fall.
Some lines skipped, bah. Some legitimately scary effects (demons!) and some very impressive stagecraft (dragons!). Faust still has the sense of humour of an undergraduate, and he became quite tiresome.
25FEB21: Early Man (Netflix)
A film about football. Okay, an Aardman film about football. Often v funny but I did not get more than half of the jokes, because football. Great soundtrack.
27FEB21: Angels in America: Millennium Approaching -- Kushner (NT At Home)
I had tickets for this revival (National Theatre, 2017) but it didn't work out: and maybe watching in the comfort of one's own home is better for a two-part play, each part over 3 hours long.
Not nearly as depressing as its subject matter (homosexuality and AIDS in New York in the early 1980s) might suggest. Complex staging well-filmed, some stupendous sound and lighting effects, and Andrew Garfield on fire as Prior Walter. (Not that the rest of the cast were at all lacking, but I could not look away from Garfield.) I had expected to find this hard going but I'm now eagerly anticipating watching the second half in a fortnight.
