monkey wrestles ghost

So foul and fair a play I have not seen

Every time I am exposed to Shakespeare, I am reminded of my limitations as a writer, and am deflated. Like a whoopee cushion, where my own little words are but fart noises when compared to sweet sound of Shakespearean verse.  “We’re not worthy”, as Wayne and Garth would cry out, and the fact that I’m invoking Wayne’s World in a review of Shakespeare shows just how unworthy I am.

Because this *is* a review of Macbeth, albeit not the play but the Broadway production currently underway featuring Jean-Luc . . . er, Patrick Stewart in the title role. That the audience is in store for a violent and horrifying interpretation is apparent early on, from the gunshot that opens the play to the morgue-like set where, in Act I, Scene 2, a blood-soaked soldier renders his report from the battlefield. In most texts, after the soldier has spoken, King Duncan commands “get him surgeons”, and the stage directions indicate “Exit Sergeant, attended”. In this production, the King demands surgeons, but the soldier is euthanized by lethal injection after the King has departed.

Dark material, to be sure.  And for the next three hours the blood flows so freely that one marvels that Lady Macbeth (Kate Fleetwood, amazing performance) only got a small spot on her hands. Together with the spine-tingling but heavy-handed use of video imagery and ominous music and sound effects, it’s as if the producers were trying to make a horror film. When Malcolm and Macduff hunt Macbeth in Dunsinane, you almost expect one to say to the other, “maybe we’ll find him quicker if we split up!”

Indeed, by the end of the play my mind and senses had been so heavily assaulted that I completely missed the portrayal of Macbeth’s death that lies at the heart of the production. In the text, Macbeth meets his death at the hands of Macduff defiantly:

Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries “Hold, enough!” [Exuent, fighting]

In this production, Macbeth’s final moments are transformed from defiance to surrender.  He has Macduff at the brink of death during their single combat, but cannot bring himself to deliver the fatal blow, and in a moment of tragic realization gasps “Enough!” and lets himself be slain by Macduff.

And damn’d be him that first cries “Hold!” [fighting] Enough . . . ! [Macbeth is slain]

It is a provocative, if arguably unfaithful, twist which, if it works at all, works because of Stewart’s nuanced portrayal of Macbeth with tormented Hamlet-like sincerity – a man whose conscience cannot withstand what Coleridge called “the shadowy, turbulent, and unsanctified cravings of the individual will”. Nor is it Stewart alone who shines; strong performances are found throughout.  As for the rest of the production, it is full of sound and fury.

Macbeth is playing at the Lyceum Theatre in New York through May 24.  For some of Patrick Stewart's less serious, but no less brilliant work, check out the video below.

Far from flighty

"The Flight of the Red Balloon" is a beautifully and consciously crafted film that seeks an appreciative audience. Directed by the critically-acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, it is a decidedly foreign film not because of its international cast and crew and Parisian setting, but because it is meant not to be consumed but viewed.

It is obligatory to first note the subject matter of the film – single mother and puppet artist Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), her young son Simon, and the emotional family life they share with Song Fang, a Chinese film student hired to help care for Simon. And care for him she does, in a quietly dignified manner that starkly contrasts with the maternal yet frenzied Suzanne, best described by one critic as “one of those bruised souls for whom every slight contains the threat of a larger drama.” Binoche’s performance is dramatic yet believable, emotional yet disciplined, and a wonder to behold.

Indeed, the whole movie is a wonder to behold, if you’re the type for whom the craft of film can evoke wonderment. The intricately choreographed long takes and breathtaking use of light and reflection alternately made me sigh in pleasure or snort in disbelief at the genius and audacity of Hou’s camerawork. The homage paid to the classic film “Red Balloon,” and a storyline that include the making of a short film and brief studies of puppetry mark Hou as a filmmaker acutely conscious of the practice and history of film as an artistic medium. [In fact, the only other Hou film I have seen, Café Lumiere, was itself a tribute to Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, considered by many critics to be one of the greatest films of all time.]

If it’s not already evident from my use of highly suspect and pretentious phrases like “film as an artistic medium” and “breathtaking use of light and reflection”, "Flight of the Red Balloon" is probably best enjoyed by those who might enjoy discussing the distinction between art and entertainment. And even among those, it’s a film that demands a fair amount of intellectual concentration which, if you can summon it, will be amply rewarded.

“Flight of the Red Balloon” is currently playing in New York.  Who knows where else it might play?  It's a mystery.

A family affair?

"1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

2. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

-- Fundamental Principles of Olympism, Paragraphs 1 and 2

"The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People's Republic of China. Disruption of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited."

-- Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 1

__________________________________________________

I have a neighbor who was once destitute. Against long odds, and through hard work, he clawed himself and his large family out of poverty, and for that he is to be commended. He now lives on a large estate, drives a Cadillac Escalade, and will be hosting the next neighborhood peewee soccer tournament in his own backyard, at great expense. Mr. Neville, who owns the local soda fountain, is sponsoring the event.

For all his success, his family life is difficult, to say the least. Several years ago, he beat one of his unruly and disobedient children to death.  Just last week, he beat his wife so severely it could be heard around the neighborhood. He says the beatings were for their own good.

The outraged friends of his wife (and of his dead child) are demanding that the soccer tournament be canceled. Emotions are running high. Someone threw eggs at his Escalade as he paraded it through the neighborhood this week.

My neighbor is furious. “What does beating my wife have to do with peewee soccer?” he protests. “Besides, it’s none of your business what happens in my family. And did you see what someone did to my Escalade???”

Mr. Neville came by the neighborhood meeting yesterday. Rumor has it he spent a lot of money on flyers to promote his shop at the tournament.  “Think of the children,” he implored us. “You’re ruining their event.” “Besides,” he added, “don’t you think our mutual friend will be less likely to beat his family if we let him host the tournament?”

After the meeting, everyone fell to arguing. Someone asked me what I thought, and I didn’t answer. I just couldn’t get the picture of the child that had been beaten to death out of my mind.

Blue + round = frustrating

Fans of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai are likely to be disappointed by his latest film, “My Blueberry Nights”, wherein he attempts an American interpretation of the sensuous and disjointed meditations on loss and memory that have characterized his most acclaimed work. The film is mostly unemotional and unbelievable, a distant echo of such previous masterpieces as Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love/2046.

Some may argue that believability is a flawed standard to apply to “romantic” films, as Mr. Wong’s works have been frequently characterized. Romance, after all, is inherently improbable -- it yearns for the uncommonly beautiful or the extraordinarily meaningful. But the most moving works of romantic art (among which I count several of Mr. Wong’s previous films) strike a chord so resonant that they feel true, and therefore believable.

In contrast, “My Blueberry Nights” feels false in almost every respect. Let’s start with the obvious: English pretty-boys named Jeremy (Jude Law, playing a charming cliché) do not operate quaint late-night eateries underneath the subway tracks of the Bronx. Luckily, we quickly leave Mr. Law and his blueberry pie behind, as a heartbroken and betrayed Elizabeth (singer/songwriter Norah Jones, in her first film role) carries the film forward. Unfortunately, Ms. Jones is too appealingly cute and her Elizabeth too immature and pouty to serve as a vessel of true heartbreak, and one wonders how Mr. Wong thought he could achieve with a first-time actress what he previously owed to such titans of Asian cinema as Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li, and Zhang Ziyi.

Elizabeth’s physical and emotional journey takes her from New York to Memphis to Las Vegas, and along the way Mr. Wong throws in a diner, a dive bar, a road trip, and a poker room, as well as a small-town sheriff (David Strathairn, convincingly haunted) and a gambler (Natalie Portman, in a clever twist on the traditional role). But while the film may be adorned with the familiar icons of American culture, it's a portrayal of America that is skin-deep at best, and the overall effect was as jarring as a Hong Kong urbanite in cowboy gear.

All of which might have been somewhat forgivable if I had been given the sublime moments of visual beauty that are Mr. Wong’s specialty. But the film’s inability to evoke meaningful emotion, and its gaudy and oversaturated color palette, ironically produced the most powerful longing I felt the entire movie -– a longing for Mr. Wong’s previous movies.

"My Blueberry Nights" is currently playing in New York, and opens in San Francisco and other selected cities on April 18.

Sex + Money = Romance?

Power may be sexy, as the saying goes, but the truth of the matter is that the exercise of power is ugly. In the opening acts of the French romantic comedy “Priceless”, this ugliness is on full display as professional gold-digger Irene (Audrey Tatou of “Amelie” fame) wields her sexual power without pretense or sentiment over Jean, a lovestruck hotel manservant masquerading as a man of leisure (played with subdued charm by Gad Elmaleh). The hapless and helpless Jean is quickly bankrupted by Irene’s unrelenting lifestyle demands, but she suddenly finds herself in a similar state when their relationship is discovered by her sugar daddy fiancée. Penniless, both Irene and Jean scramble to parlay their youth and sexuality into financial rewards by hustling the old and rich who vacation in the posh resorts of Southern France, all the while developing a camaraderie that inevitably threatens to become something more.

It’s a tribute to the screenplay’s unmistakably French outlook on life that “Priceless” does such a fine job of finding humor in the constant tug of war between the power of money and sex that defines the lives of its two main characters. “It is what it is, let us accept it and laugh at it”, the film says. Instead of recoiling in horror, we are amused when Jean parlays faux sulkiness into a gift of an exorbitantly priced watch, and then proceeds to flaunt his achievement to an appreciative Irene.

In contrast, consider the decidedly American “Pretty Woman”, which treads in the same territory but cannot reach romantic climax until it has absolved Julia Roberts’ virginal whore (no kissing on the mouth???) from the sins of her sexuality and rescued Richard Gere’s corporate raider from the emptiness and corruption of his wealth. The French have always insisted on romance without morality, while we Americans stew in our combustible mix of love, virtue, and sex. Like the gifts showered on Jean and Irene by their benefactors, “Pricelesss” asks only to be appreciated as the delightful bauble that it is.

"Priceless” is currently playing in New York, and is hopefully coming soon to a theatre or Netflix near you.