Thread Retread

Do you think the film makers of the world are bored? No, really. Are they bored? Because I know it cannot be that there is a lack of new material being written. There are movies being made, every year, that are completely new ideas. Remember ADAPTATION? How about BEING JOHN MALCOVICH? There is always STRANGER THAN FICTION. LOVE, ACTUALLY was a film written to be a film--and it is a most original piece of storytelling. People ARE writing new stories and scripts for movies. And when they aren't busy trying to come up with completely new ideas, they are searching for existing works to turn into movies. Since they have turned all of Stephen King's novels into films, they have dipped into his short story collection. They are turning Broadway musicals into musical movies. We have novels like RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and films based on old, old writings like when they turned the Maugham book THEATER into a beautiful movie called BEING JULIA. There are people writing, out there, for the screen.

So why the propensity for taking properties that have already been preserved on film.. And to perfection or near perfection.. and remaking them?

I had heard that they were doing a remake of THE LION IN WINTER. It was announced a couple or three years back that Showtime was doing the James Goldman piece with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. Mmm Hmm. That's what I thought when I heard the news. Mmm Hmm. I love me some Glenn Close. She is one of my absolute favourites. I can rattle off the movies on my favourites list that she has been in but, instead, I should just direct you to the IMDB site. I've worked with the star that they call Glennie and I have declared her to be one of the most generous and loving and beautiful people I have encountered in my travels. And as far as Patrick Stewart goes, I have only two things to say. Well, three things: 1--the man is one of our great actors, unquestionably. 2--Thank you, Patrick Stewart, for making men without hair sexy and allowing me a chance to be considered attractive. 3--Woof. Ok? The man is movie star handsome. Good thing he is not just a damned fine actor but a damned fine movie star. I had great hopes for the new THE LION IN WINTER.

Oh, did I mention that THE LION IN WINTER is my favourite play? How about THE LION IN WINTER is my favourite movie? I mean, I know everyone knows that Katharine Hepburn is my favourite actress but did everyone know about me and THE LION IN WINTER?

I loved the piece even before I knew what the heck was going on in it. I saw the film on Channel 11 in 1984. I had my very first vcr and I taped it on a Kodak videotape (back when they were heavy and sturdy and came in the heavy cardboard black and yellow box) and watched it over and over again, trying to memorize the crackling dialogue so that I could talk like that in my real life, impressing people with my sharp wit and educated mind. Never mind that I didn't understand all the political jargon and machinations (I was never very good at hisory or social studies in school), I worshipped the filmmaking, the camera angles, the art direction (the realism of those rustic sets!), the music (this film introduced me to my first strains of John Barry music and made him into my favourite film composer, for the rest of my life), the acting. Every piece of the puzzle was in place. I have spent my adult life watching this movie and learning new things, seeing new moments (just two nights ago I turned on my dvd and Pat and I both saw something we had never seen before -- in the scene where Eleanor says 'I'll scratch a will on this!'), having new revelations.

I was lucky enough to see Stockard Channing and Laurence Fishburn do the revival on Broadway. I had never seen THE LION IN WINTER onstage before and I had a good/terrible time doing so. Naturally, there are preconcieved ideas and I tried, valiantly, to throw them out. I managed to get behind the production values for the production. I had to do no work, whatsoever, to support the great Miss Channing and Mr Fishburn. The children, though, ...
Well, the less time spent talking about that, the better. Especially miscast, misdirected and downright bad was the actor who played Philip Capet.

I played Philip. Twice. In college I was asked to do the tapestry scene. I wanted to play Philip and Ann Gerity asked me to play Philip. Pat was playing Henry. He was too young for the part but I was just right for mine. In a college situation, in a directing class, age did not matter--only talent. And Pat Dwyer has always been my favourite actor, he has always had a talent that captured me, heart and soul. Playing that scene with him is the most fulfilled I have ever been, onstage. The second time I played the part was at the Grand Prairie Community Theater. Laura Wells was playing Alais, Scott Latham was playing Geoffrey and I do not remember the names of the other actors. In my personal life, I loved our director. Professionally, I had to work at trusting his judgement and respecting his wishes. The production was fraught with difficulties and unhappinesses, not the least of which was the substandard talents of our king and queen (he, more than she). Each day, Laura would pick me up and we would make the drive from Dallas to Grand Prairie, in virtual silence. To break up the impending doom we felt, as we approached the theater, we might gossip about life or we might kvetch about the production. We were elated to be together, even if we only shared the stage, briefly, for a few moments; we were, further, excited to be working with her paramour, Scott, who was a wonderfully fun and exciting actor with whom to share a stage. However, to balance out the misery of getting to say those glorious lines in a sinking ship of a production, I had to watch at least ten minutes of the film, each day, to remind myself of why I was doing it: to get to say those glorious lines. Even in a bad production of THE LION IN WINTER, happiness can be found.

And the new film version of THE LION IN WINTER is a bad one.

Go ahead. Jump all over me. I will defend my opinion to the death.

I will start by re iterating that I love Mr Stewart and Miss Close. I will even say that I have enormous floods of respect and admiration for Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who played Philip). I know nothing and care to know nothing about the other actors who appear in this movie because they bored me out of my mind. I don't think I could sit through another movie by the man who directed this film because I, simply, cannot invest the time or the respect. It's important that I be clear about this film: I hated it. Oh, I know that it was nominated for a bunch of awards. I also know that it won a couple. I don't care. I don't care if everyone in the world says that it was the best movie they ever saw. I will continue to maintain that it was lumbering, plodding, boring and ham fisted.

THE LION IN WINTER is a comedy! Did everyone forget that? I know, I know... It's hard to remember that it is a comedy with so much plotting and fighting and drama turning up all over the place. I understand everyone's confusion. I always thought that THE SEAGULL was a boring melodrama--until I saw Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline and (sigh) Natalie Portman in it. It's a comedy. Somebody dies and it is STILL a comedy. It's like life--laughter and tears in the same breath. Some years ago I awoke irritated because I knew I was seeing HEDDA GABLER that night. I was loathe to see another production of that boring-ass melodrama but I was going because I adore .. wait.. ADORE .. there, that's better Kate Burton. Well now I really adore her because she FINALLY made me see why I hated HEDDA. I hated HEDDA because every production I had ever seen of it made it a plodding drama (albeit, one time, a riveting plodding drama). Only after seeing La Burton play Hedda did I realize that IT is a comedy TOO!!!

If you watch the Anthony Harvey film version of THE LION IN WINTER, you will laugh. You will laugh out loud. You will laugh at crackling dialogue and humourous performances. You will laugh at absurd situations where people who love each other hate each other; they are a family and trying to hurt each other. The are playing a game--and games are meant to amuse. Oh, and how we are amused. The pace snaps along and the characters say things straight out and quickly because there isn't enough time to waste with pregnant pause. They have 24 hours to outwit, outsmart and outlast; they don't have a month to get it right-it's now or never. The actors understood this and the director drove the cart properly. That was in 1968.

In 2003 the director and actors seem to have been so determined to make it into some lush melodrama (complete with sets by Ikea--that is the cleanest G-D castle the middle ages ever saw!) filled with facial mugging worthy of THE PERILS OF PAULINE. Every thought, every emotion is so telegraphed that even people who haven't seen the piece could guess what the character will say or do next. I don't think the director trusted his audience (and maybe rightly so; people today are so dumbed down by reality tv, talk shows and game shows that they cannot formulate an intelligent thought of their own. We need closed captioining to be able to follow along with even Roma Torre, the most inept of tv newscasters), so he had to hammer every thought and activity into our heads with the sledgehammer at the county fair that one uses to hit the bell and win a prize. The actors are trying so hard to NOT be Peter O'Tool, Katharine Hepburn and (especially) Anthony Hopkins that they have turned in performances that make a person (alright, THIS person) roll their eyes impatiently, waiting for the next sentence. Mr Stewart DOES fare the best--this language is like cutting an ice cream cake with a hot knife for this great actor--but even he could move it along. Out of respect for the great Glenn Close, whom I admire as an artist and like as a person, I won't go into detail with regards to my thoughts about her performance because I believe the director is at fault! Glenn Close is not only a great American actress, she is one of the greatest actresses in this world. I have been, openly, pissed off that the Academy has never given her an Oscar and been elated when the theater community gave her four Tony awards -- oh, wait, it is only three Tonys but it feels like she should have four, five, six, seven! I MUST be clear on this point: I love this woman and her talent. I also hate her performance in THE LION IN WINTER, with respect for the enormity of her talent. It is not her fault. The director seems to guide every actor in this movie to a style that demands that they act like an elephant making its way back to the pen after doing four shows with the Ringling Brothers. You could drive a convoy of 18 wheelers through each and every pause between lines.

Oh. And, briefly: Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I adored him as ELVIS. I believe in his talent and cannot wait to see all he does. As Philip, though: what a faggot. Timothy Dalton didn't play him like a Chelsea Femme Boy. I doubt Christopher Walken did it in the original Broadway production either. I won't speak of my own performance because it isn't important enough to mention. But when you are put on film, it's out there for everyone to see. They shoulda had him playing Quentin Crisp. Tch Tch Tch.

Am I being harsh? Yes. So I should stop picking on the 2003 remake of THE LION IN WINTER and go watch the 1968 version (which, by the way, clocked in at 134 minutes, according to IMDB, while the recent version is 153--what does THAT tell you about pacing?). Nobody is going to like everything. You can't please everyone and, this time, you certainly can't please me. It's too important to me; too close to home. So, sorry THE LION IN WINTER 2003, you will have to get some love somewhere else. This road, as Eleanor of Aquitaine would say, is closed.

Pat says to me that remaking a great film is a chance for a new filmmaker and new actors to attempt the work of art from THEIR point of view. It is a chance to see it through new eyes, to take a new approach at something. People do it in the theater, all the time. Revivals of plays turn up in regional theaters and on Broadway. The canon of great operas and musicals is repeated so that people of today's society can see what CARMEN and OKLAHOMA are like onstage. It is a chance for people to experience something new. I can understand that, where the stage is concerned. It is live theater and there will always be an element of the unexpected at a live performance, a unique and individual thrill--even in the concert world. People still pay to hear Betty Buckley sing in person, when they could listen to a cd of her doing MEMORY. It is a thrill to see or hear a performer live. There is no thrill in watching a TV movie of the week version of a great film. When do expect they will remake CITIZEN KANE? How about GONE WITH THE WIND? CASABLANCA? We've already suffered through (both film and tv) remakes of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, ON GOLDEN POND and PSYCHO. On television they have upset musical lovers with remakes of BYE BYE BIRDIE, MUSIC MAN and GYPSY, all of which had perfectly lovely film versions, while leaving us stuck with bad versions of MAME, A CHORUS LINE and MAN OF LAMANCHA. IF filmmakers insist on doing remakes, why can they not remake the movies that were bad the first time, instead of tampering with the perfected ones?

I know. After all, I wanted to say those glorious lines onstage. Someone else wanted a shot at THE LION IN WINTER. I don't blame them. I blame them for doing it badly. If they had done it well, this story might never have been written. After all, I happen to like the remake of SABRINA (and I am a die hard Audrey Hepburn fan). And my other favourite actress, Lee Remick, did a tv remake of the Bette Davis classic THE LETTER. And there have been countless remakes of MIRACLE ON 34th STREET. No one will ever stop them from doing remakes, I guess. It's a fact of life and one with which we must live.

Just don't let them near THE WIZARD OF OZ or THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!