Exclusive: Jamie Bell is set to star in World War II thriller Dynamite Room from the producers of Beast and Under The Shadow.
Fresh off acclaimed performances in Toronto drama Skin and Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool and ahead of a key role in Elton John biopic Rocketman, Bell will star in the Olly Blackburn-directed feature, which Altitude will launch for the Cannes Marché.
Set during July 1940, the story opens with 12-year-old evacuee Lydia walking through a village in rural England on a baking hot day. She is wearing a gas mask. The shops and houses are empty, windows boarded up and the village seemingly deserted. Leaving it behind, she arrives at a large house by the marshes – the house she grew up in. Lydia finds it empty too and her family gone.
Late that night comes Heiden (Bell), a soldier, gun in hand and heralding a full-blown German invasion.
Fresh off acclaimed performances in Toronto drama Skin and Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool and ahead of a key role in Elton John biopic Rocketman, Bell will star in the Olly Blackburn-directed feature, which Altitude will launch for the Cannes Marché.
Set during July 1940, the story opens with 12-year-old evacuee Lydia walking through a village in rural England on a baking hot day. She is wearing a gas mask. The shops and houses are empty, windows boarded up and the village seemingly deserted. Leaving it behind, she arrives at a large house by the marshes – the house she grew up in. Lydia finds it empty too and her family gone.
Late that night comes Heiden (Bell), a soldier, gun in hand and heralding a full-blown German invasion.
- 5/7/2019
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Battle in Seattle is a dramatic freeze-frame of five days in 1999 when tens of thousands of activists took to the streets of Seattle and virtually shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in protest of globalization and environmental damage by multinational conglomerates and powerful governments. The film is something of a rarity for an American political film. While it makes no bones about where its sympathies lie, these fictional stories show a genuine fascination with the role politics plays on both sides of such confrontations and how things can spin out of control with no single person to blame.
Naturally, the film was made by a foreigner, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, who makes a remarkably confident writing and directorial debut. Political movies are always iffy at the boxoffice, but the time may be ripe this film: Mainstream concern over these issues today has caught up with the 1999 protest. And the weave of multiple storylines with an ensemble cast, not unlike Bobby or Crash, gives the film an immediacy that could attract concerned adult audiences.
Indeed the Hollywood shorthand for Battle in Seattle could be Bobby meets Medium Cool. Townsend and his team smoothly integrate archival news footage into stories of protestors, police, government officials, innocent bystanders and news people who experience five rough days in the final moments of the millennium.
First the activists come into focus. An amusing and prophetic opening sequence introduces one leader, Jay (Martin Henderson), as he rescues attractive tough girl Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), as the two dangle perilously from a crane to hang an anti-WTO sign. Soon everyone will be performing a high-wire act.
Jay and his good friend Django (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast) have spent months preparing for this conference to insure the protest is peaceful and successful in shutting down the conference.
Mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta) -- a fictional stand-in for Paul Schell who was mayor at the time -- is equally concerned with the first goal. A former Vietnam protestor himself, Tobin wants to give a legitimate arena to free speech so long as no one gets hurt. But his police chief is wary.
Among the police on duty, Dale (Woody Harrelson) is preoccupied with the pregnancy of wife Ella (Charlize Theron). He barely notices the rah-rah bloodlust of fellow cops such as the hardhead Johnson (Channing Tatum).
On Day One, organizers outsmart Seattle's containment plan. Protestors, some dressed as endangered animals, jammed key intersections downtown, trapping delegates in hotel rooms and causing the cancellation of opening ceremonies. Then anarchists take over, destroying property and hijacking the protest from its peaceful organizers.
On the second day, calls from the police chief, White House and an impatient governor overrule the mayor's best judgment. Police in riot gear respond to crowds with tear gas, pepper spray and brutal tactics. Later, the National Guard is called in, forcing news reporter Jean Asbury (Connie Nielsen) to switch from covering key issues such as delegate Dr. Maric's (Rade Sherbedzija) campaign for low-cost medicine in developing countries to covering what is essentially a police riot.
This is not the film's only terrible irony. The most horrific moment comes this second day when Ella gets caught in the riot and one of her husband's fellow officers throws a contemptuous baton into her stomach, causing a bloody miscarriage. This triggers a fierce reaction by Dale the next day against a taunting protestor, who is Jay.
Hundreds swept from the streets wind up in jail, creating a dilemma for the mayor, who understands that worldwide news coverage and the sheer impossibility of sending each and every case to court have tied his hands. There is no way to save face.
The personal stories -- Jay and Lou's romance that falters on the barricades, Dale and Ella's tragedy, the mayor's predicament and Jay's own dicey legal status when he lands in jail -- are caught only in snatches and suffer from occasional contrivances. Yet they do humanize the conflict and raise the stakes all around. The film may not have the knockout energy of Paul Greengrass' docudrama Bloody Sunday, but it doesn't have the superficiality of Bobby either.
Townsend has a good grasp of what happened in Seattle and how to convey these events in personal stories. He catches people under enormous stress that brings out the best and sometime the worst in them. Tempers flare, belligerence rules and physical and emotional pain ensues.
The 1999 issues on display have not gone away. If anything, things are much worse. Another Seattle may not happen because governments have learned how to better prepare. But public anger, corporate greed and worldwide unrest continue unabated. Battle in Seattle catches the opening skirmish.
BATTLE IN SEATTLE
A Hyde Park Films presentation of an Insight Studios/Remstar production in association with Proud Mary Entertainment and Redwood Palm Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Stuart Townsend
Producers: Mary Aloe, Kirk Shaw, Maxime Remillard, Stuart Townsend
Executive producers: Julien Remillard, Ashok Amritraj, Vanessa Pereira
Director of photography: Barry Ackroyd
Production designer: Chris August
Costume designer: Andrea Des Roches
Music: One Point Six
Editor: Fernando Villena
Cast:
Ella: Charlize Theron
Dale: Woody Harrelson
Mayor Jim Tobin: Ray Liotta
Jay: Martin Henderson
Lou: Michelle Rodriguez
Dr. Maric: Rade Sherbedzija
Django: Andre Benjamin
Jean: Connie Nielsen
Abasi: Isaach de Bankole
Johnson: Channing Tatum
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
TORONTO -- Battle in Seattle is a dramatic freeze-frame of five days in 1999 when tens of thousands of activists took to the streets of Seattle and virtually shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in protest of globalization and environmental damage by multinational conglomerates and powerful governments. The film is something of a rarity for an American political film. While it makes no bones about where its sympathies lie, these fictional stories show a genuine fascination with the role politics plays on both sides of such confrontations and how things can spin out of control with no single person to blame.
Naturally, the film was made by a foreigner, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, who makes a remarkably confident writing and directorial debut. Political movies are always iffy at the boxoffice, but the time may be ripe this film: Mainstream concern over these issues today has caught up with the 1999 protest. And the weave of multiple storylines with an ensemble cast, not unlike Bobby or Crash, gives the film an immediacy that could attract concerned adult audiences.
Indeed the Hollywood shorthand for Battle in Seattle could be Bobby meets Medium Cool. Townsend and his team smoothly integrate archival news footage into stories of protestors, police, government officials, innocent bystanders and news people who experience five rough days in the final moments of the millennium.
First the activists come into focus. An amusing and prophetic opening sequence introduces one leader, Jay (Martin Henderson), as he rescues attractive tough girl Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), as the two dangle perilously from a crane to hang an anti-WTO sign. Soon everyone will be performing a high-wire act.
Jay and his good friend Django (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast) have spent months preparing for this conference to insure the protest is peaceful and successful in shutting down the conference.
Mayor Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta) -- a fictional stand-in for Paul Schell who was mayor at the time -- is equally concerned with the first goal. A former Vietnam protestor himself, Tobin wants to give a legitimate arena to free speech so long as no one gets hurt. But his police chief is wary.
Among the police on duty, Dale (Woody Harrelson) is preoccupied with the pregnancy of wife Ella (Charlize Theron). He barely notices the rah-rah bloodlust of fellow cops such as the hardhead Johnson (Channing Tatum).
On Day One, organizers outsmart Seattle's containment plan. Protestors, some dressed as endangered animals, jammed key intersections downtown, trapping delegates in hotel rooms and causing the cancellation of opening ceremonies. Then anarchists take over, destroying property and hijacking the protest from its peaceful organizers.
On the second day, calls from the police chief, White House and an impatient governor overrule the mayor's best judgment. Police in riot gear respond to crowds with tear gas, pepper spray and brutal tactics. Later, the National Guard is called in, forcing news reporter Jean Asbury (Connie Nielsen) to switch from covering key issues such as delegate Dr. Maric's (Rade Sherbedzija) campaign for low-cost medicine in developing countries to covering what is essentially a police riot.
This is not the film's only terrible irony. The most horrific moment comes this second day when Ella gets caught in the riot and one of her husband's fellow officers throws a contemptuous baton into her stomach, causing a bloody miscarriage. This triggers a fierce reaction by Dale the next day against a taunting protestor, who is Jay.
Hundreds swept from the streets wind up in jail, creating a dilemma for the mayor, who understands that worldwide news coverage and the sheer impossibility of sending each and every case to court have tied his hands. There is no way to save face.
The personal stories -- Jay and Lou's romance that falters on the barricades, Dale and Ella's tragedy, the mayor's predicament and Jay's own dicey legal status when he lands in jail -- are caught only in snatches and suffer from occasional contrivances. Yet they do humanize the conflict and raise the stakes all around. The film may not have the knockout energy of Paul Greengrass' docudrama Bloody Sunday, but it doesn't have the superficiality of Bobby either.
Townsend has a good grasp of what happened in Seattle and how to convey these events in personal stories. He catches people under enormous stress that brings out the best and sometime the worst in them. Tempers flare, belligerence rules and physical and emotional pain ensues.
The 1999 issues on display have not gone away. If anything, things are much worse. Another Seattle may not happen because governments have learned how to better prepare. But public anger, corporate greed and worldwide unrest continue unabated. Battle in Seattle catches the opening skirmish.
BATTLE IN SEATTLE
A Hyde Park Films presentation of an Insight Studios/Remstar production in association with Proud Mary Entertainment and Redwood Palm Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Stuart Townsend
Producers: Mary Aloe, Kirk Shaw, Maxime Remillard, Stuart Townsend
Executive producers: Julien Remillard, Ashok Amritraj, Vanessa Pereira
Director of photography: Barry Ackroyd
Production designer: Chris August
Costume designer: Andrea Des Roches
Music: One Point Six
Editor: Fernando Villena
Cast:
Ella: Charlize Theron
Dale: Woody Harrelson
Mayor Jim Tobin: Ray Liotta
Jay: Martin Henderson
Lou: Michelle Rodriguez
Dr. Maric: Rade Sherbedzija
Django: Andre Benjamin
Jean: Connie Nielsen
Abasi: Isaach de Bankole
Johnson: Channing Tatum
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/14/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Those who favor conspiracy theories will rejoice in Gramercy's "Elizabeth", a raucous and full-throated depiction of the byzantine dangers that faced England's queen who ascended the throne in 1558 after beating the executioner's blade.
Roiled with behind-the-scenes intrigue and featuring a well-chosen cast, "Elizabeth"'s sweep is extensive but its schematic girth hobbles its thematic, seams-showing undergarments -- the championing of a 1990-style, own-woman heroine. Capped with technical finery and Cate Blanchett's steely lead performance, "Elizabeth" will win some enthusiastic select-site admirers and mixed critical acclaim.
With its historic backdrop and speechifying, it's likely to win Golden Globe recognition from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. as well, but its plodding bombastics will settle less well with other sophisticated viewers. Its boxoffice reign will be fraught with variation, owing to its narrative and thematic ambitions -- an uneven mix of grand-scale visuals and soliloquy-style exposition will surely benumb as many viewers as it bedazzles.
An often canny mix of pomp, plummery and philosophy (both political and personal), "Elizabeth" is, in its beginnings, smartly distilled to human dimensions -- a story of family intrigue (the family happens to be the royals) and geopolitical warring. Screenwriter Michael Hirst has sagely set the historical backdrop with the mid-1550s calamities in England under Queen Mary I's iron-fisted rule. As per tradition in those isles, it's the same old story, Catholic vs. Protestant, as Mary feverishly instigates her policy of repression against Protestants, especially half-sister Elizabeth who, she fears, will ascend the throne and cause England to forsake the papacy. Indeed, "Elizabeth" blazes with the respective turmoils of the day: England is bankrupt and without an army -- a perilous state given the threats from abroad. Spanish and French armies are poised to strike when Elizabeth ascends the throne.
Detailing the historical conflicts with brevity and general clarity, the film nevertheless suffers from the combination of its honed-down, personal narrative to emblematize the big picture, while director Shekhar Kapur's ("Bandits") cinematic pomposity, in terms of visual composition and the samesong rhythms of plot exposition. Throughout, expositional scenes are turgidly overdressed with pageantry -- boat trips, royal dinners and other over-stitched fineries that, although historically accurate, tend to reduce the story line to a paradelike display of flotillas and grandstanding.
Unlike the superbly restrained "A Man for All Seasons", "Elizabeth" is, by nature of its indelicate thematic trumpetings, much less powerful in theme and drama. Admittedly, the filmmakers' task is somewhat akin to writing a Cliff Notes distillation of one of history's most explosive times. Although its girth and shrill deportment would seem to preclude it from reaching wide mainstream dimension, "Elizabeth" does certainly given one an overall appreciation for the tumultuous battles and cross-alliances that jarred all of Europe during the 16th century and how these internecine warrings have fashioned in many ways today's society and governments.
The crown point of "Elizabeth" is Blanchett's vigorously shaped performance as a woman who, under the most strenuous duress, is able to focus her will and energies from powers within. Blanchett embodies the kind of survivalist power that Queen Elizabeth possessed: the sagacity to recognize what advice to take and what to disregard and the savagery to protect and extend her own flanks.
Geoffrey Rush also deserves a knighthood for his sinister-stirred performance as a dark force about court, while Richard Attenborough's cherubic countenance, glazed with a ferocious resolve, is perfect in his role as Elizabeth's cunning chief adviser. Similarly, John Gielgud does a short but stunning turn as the addled and elderly Pope. Not surprisingly, in a dramatic sweep as far-stepping as "Elizabeth", some characters suffer from stereotypical condensation, most aggrievedly the Duc d'Anjou (Vincent Cassel), an epicene fop who is used as a romantic inducement to bring Elizabeth into the French fold.
Throughout, Shekhar Kapur's direction is overwrought, from high-angled visuals to showy compositions. It tends to dull the edge of the narrative's many provocative excellencies. Indeed, Kapur has rounded everything off to showiest dimension and, in the process, has diluted the richness of the storyline. Still, there is much to praise, including costume designer Alexandra Byrne's historical fittings and production designer John Myhre's packed-with-danger trimmings.
ELIZABETH
Gramercy Pictures
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment presents
In association with Channel Four Films
A Working Title production
A film by Shekhar Kapur
Producers: Alison Owen, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Screenwriter: Michael Hirst
Director of photography: Remi Adefarasin
Production designer: John Myhre
Editor: Jill Bilcock
Costume designer: Alexandra Byrne
Music: David Hirschfelder
Casting: Vanessa Pereira, Simone Ireland
Line producer: Mary Richards
Co-producers: Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elizabeth I: Cate Blanchett
Sir Francis Walsingham: Geoffrey Rush
Duke of Norfolk: Christopher Eccleston
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Joseph Fiennes
Sir William Cecil: Richard Attenborough
Earl of Sussex: Jamie Foreman
Alvaro de la Quadra: James Frain
Kat Ashley: Emily Mortimer
Isabel Knollys: Kelly MacDonald
Earl of Arundel: Edward Hardwicke
Mary of Guise: Fanny Ardant
Queen Mary Tudor: Kathy Burke
Duc d'Anjou: Vincent Cassel
Pope: John Gielgud
Running time -- 124 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Roiled with behind-the-scenes intrigue and featuring a well-chosen cast, "Elizabeth"'s sweep is extensive but its schematic girth hobbles its thematic, seams-showing undergarments -- the championing of a 1990-style, own-woman heroine. Capped with technical finery and Cate Blanchett's steely lead performance, "Elizabeth" will win some enthusiastic select-site admirers and mixed critical acclaim.
With its historic backdrop and speechifying, it's likely to win Golden Globe recognition from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. as well, but its plodding bombastics will settle less well with other sophisticated viewers. Its boxoffice reign will be fraught with variation, owing to its narrative and thematic ambitions -- an uneven mix of grand-scale visuals and soliloquy-style exposition will surely benumb as many viewers as it bedazzles.
An often canny mix of pomp, plummery and philosophy (both political and personal), "Elizabeth" is, in its beginnings, smartly distilled to human dimensions -- a story of family intrigue (the family happens to be the royals) and geopolitical warring. Screenwriter Michael Hirst has sagely set the historical backdrop with the mid-1550s calamities in England under Queen Mary I's iron-fisted rule. As per tradition in those isles, it's the same old story, Catholic vs. Protestant, as Mary feverishly instigates her policy of repression against Protestants, especially half-sister Elizabeth who, she fears, will ascend the throne and cause England to forsake the papacy. Indeed, "Elizabeth" blazes with the respective turmoils of the day: England is bankrupt and without an army -- a perilous state given the threats from abroad. Spanish and French armies are poised to strike when Elizabeth ascends the throne.
Detailing the historical conflicts with brevity and general clarity, the film nevertheless suffers from the combination of its honed-down, personal narrative to emblematize the big picture, while director Shekhar Kapur's ("Bandits") cinematic pomposity, in terms of visual composition and the samesong rhythms of plot exposition. Throughout, expositional scenes are turgidly overdressed with pageantry -- boat trips, royal dinners and other over-stitched fineries that, although historically accurate, tend to reduce the story line to a paradelike display of flotillas and grandstanding.
Unlike the superbly restrained "A Man for All Seasons", "Elizabeth" is, by nature of its indelicate thematic trumpetings, much less powerful in theme and drama. Admittedly, the filmmakers' task is somewhat akin to writing a Cliff Notes distillation of one of history's most explosive times. Although its girth and shrill deportment would seem to preclude it from reaching wide mainstream dimension, "Elizabeth" does certainly given one an overall appreciation for the tumultuous battles and cross-alliances that jarred all of Europe during the 16th century and how these internecine warrings have fashioned in many ways today's society and governments.
The crown point of "Elizabeth" is Blanchett's vigorously shaped performance as a woman who, under the most strenuous duress, is able to focus her will and energies from powers within. Blanchett embodies the kind of survivalist power that Queen Elizabeth possessed: the sagacity to recognize what advice to take and what to disregard and the savagery to protect and extend her own flanks.
Geoffrey Rush also deserves a knighthood for his sinister-stirred performance as a dark force about court, while Richard Attenborough's cherubic countenance, glazed with a ferocious resolve, is perfect in his role as Elizabeth's cunning chief adviser. Similarly, John Gielgud does a short but stunning turn as the addled and elderly Pope. Not surprisingly, in a dramatic sweep as far-stepping as "Elizabeth", some characters suffer from stereotypical condensation, most aggrievedly the Duc d'Anjou (Vincent Cassel), an epicene fop who is used as a romantic inducement to bring Elizabeth into the French fold.
Throughout, Shekhar Kapur's direction is overwrought, from high-angled visuals to showy compositions. It tends to dull the edge of the narrative's many provocative excellencies. Indeed, Kapur has rounded everything off to showiest dimension and, in the process, has diluted the richness of the storyline. Still, there is much to praise, including costume designer Alexandra Byrne's historical fittings and production designer John Myhre's packed-with-danger trimmings.
ELIZABETH
Gramercy Pictures
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment presents
In association with Channel Four Films
A Working Title production
A film by Shekhar Kapur
Producers: Alison Owen, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Screenwriter: Michael Hirst
Director of photography: Remi Adefarasin
Production designer: John Myhre
Editor: Jill Bilcock
Costume designer: Alexandra Byrne
Music: David Hirschfelder
Casting: Vanessa Pereira, Simone Ireland
Line producer: Mary Richards
Co-producers: Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin
Color/stereo
Cast:
Elizabeth I: Cate Blanchett
Sir Francis Walsingham: Geoffrey Rush
Duke of Norfolk: Christopher Eccleston
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Joseph Fiennes
Sir William Cecil: Richard Attenborough
Earl of Sussex: Jamie Foreman
Alvaro de la Quadra: James Frain
Kat Ashley: Emily Mortimer
Isabel Knollys: Kelly MacDonald
Earl of Arundel: Edward Hardwicke
Mary of Guise: Fanny Ardant
Queen Mary Tudor: Kathy Burke
Duc d'Anjou: Vincent Cassel
Pope: John Gielgud
Running time -- 124 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 11/5/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With a 70mm format as his extended proscenium arch, filmmaker Kenneth Branagh has boldly invigorated William Shakespeare's most celebrated play to a towering visual dimension that captures the tumultuous tragedy of "Hamlet" as no stage or filmic version has.
It's a stunning and invigorating distillation, and this 238-minute version will enthrall select-site audiences whose aesthetic sensibilities and gluteal muscles are up to the demands of the production.
Multiple Oscar nominations seem in order, and the film is certain to be a favorite among critics groups. Down the line, this Castle Rock masterwork will be released in a two-hour, 35mm version to sync up with 20th-century attention spans.
Certain to be trumpeted in many quarters as the film of the year, Branagh's "Hamlet" is a vigorous and forceful interpretation, roiling with passions and energies that have been too often lost in deferential, more timid renditions.
Opulently colored and ripe with the earthy sensibilities and undercurrents of Shakespeare's writing, this brassy and sweeping entertainment captures the breadth of the Bard's storytelling and the eloquence of his poetry.
Transformed to the 19th century from its medieval timetable and set in England's imposing Blenheim Castle, which serves as Elsinore, "Hamlet" transports Shakespeare's play to a court that he in his lifetime never encountered but one that is altogether fitting and proper for the rich veins of his dramaturgy. It is truly a time "out of joint," and this tempestuous telling taps the tale's murderously dark dimensions.
As Hamlet, Branagh has fittingly forsaken the usual coffeehouse ennui that unfortunately all too often colors the performances of black-tighted lads who undertake this grandest and most delicate role.
Branagh's Hamlet might be melancholy, but he is no mope, genuflecting before his ultimate question: "To be or not to be?" Rogue, peasant slave and prince all at once, Branagh has conveyed not only the method of Hamlet's madness but the marrow of his wisdom.
As played by Branagh, Hamlet is a considered man, surely "cursed" to "set things right," but, unlike many conventional interpretations, this Hamlet is no effete coward, grasping for a way out. He is more a man of action who equivocates not out of cowardice or fear but because he truly understands what agonies his actions will bring.
For those viewers who only know the "fair prince" through the constrictive presentations of college-town stage presentations and have only experienced the wispy warblings of coffeehouse-styled soliloquies, Branagh's blood-boiling performance is sure to be both an eye- and ear-opener.
The supporting cast also juices the play with flesh-and-blood interpretations. It's a well-chosen lot. As Queen Gertrude, Julie Christie's performance is a well-wrought weave -- hedonistic, regal and frail all at once. Derek Jacobi's cunning, sharp portrayal of Claudius fittingly shows the mettle of a man with no morals but great survival powers. Richard Briers as the obsequious Polonius and Kate Winslet as the mad Ophelia get inside the skins of their characters, clueing us to the agonies of those caught in this rotten state of affairs. Cameo players include Charlton Heston and Robin Williams.
In this mold-breaking work, the castle itself is not done up in the usual dull, gloomy hues.
Rather, Elsinore is a kingly hall, a gleaming and imposing palace and fortress, alive with passions, intrigues and appetites. Rimmed by mirrors, it reflects slants and cracked visages that expose nerve endings as well as moral voids; all the while its reflective scope catapaults the splendor and the tumult of the story to full, catastrophic dimension. Throughout, production designer Tim Harvey's designs are succinctly brilliant.
The visual embroidery is also eloquently conveyed by costume designer Alex Byrne. No bare-bones, threadbare finery here; again, this "Hamlet" is a richly passionate, kaleidoscopic evocation of the text's eruptive powers.
The technical crowning point is cinematographer Alex Thomson's glorious scopings. Thomson's compositions are majestically framed and smartly punctuated by editor Neil Farrell's sharp-swathed cuttings. Topping off the technical excellencies, Patrick Doyle's music, with its brassy salvos and whirling undercurrents, tolls bravissimo.
HAMLET
Sony Pictures Releasing
Columbia Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment
Producer David Barron
Screenwriter-director Kenneth Branagh
Adapted from play by William Shakespeare
Director of photography Alex Thomson
Production design Tim Harvey
Editor Neil Farrell
Costume design Alex Byrne
Music Patrick Doyle
Music producers Patrick Doyle, Maggie Redford
Casting Vanessa Pereira, Simone Ireland
Sound mixer Peter Glossop
Miniatures, digital and film opticals
The Magic Camera Co.
Visual effects producer Antony Hunt
Color/stereo
Cast:
Hamlet Kenneth Branagh
Polonius: Richard Briers
Gertrude Julie Christie
Ghost Brian Blessed
Claudius Derek Jacobi
Reynaldo Gerard Depardieu
Player king Charlton Heston
English ambassador Richard Attenborough
First gravedigger Billy Crystal
Old Norway John Mills
Marcellus Jack Lemmon
Fortinbras Rufus Sewell
Ophelia Kate Winslet
Osric Robin Williams
Running time -- 238 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
It's a stunning and invigorating distillation, and this 238-minute version will enthrall select-site audiences whose aesthetic sensibilities and gluteal muscles are up to the demands of the production.
Multiple Oscar nominations seem in order, and the film is certain to be a favorite among critics groups. Down the line, this Castle Rock masterwork will be released in a two-hour, 35mm version to sync up with 20th-century attention spans.
Certain to be trumpeted in many quarters as the film of the year, Branagh's "Hamlet" is a vigorous and forceful interpretation, roiling with passions and energies that have been too often lost in deferential, more timid renditions.
Opulently colored and ripe with the earthy sensibilities and undercurrents of Shakespeare's writing, this brassy and sweeping entertainment captures the breadth of the Bard's storytelling and the eloquence of his poetry.
Transformed to the 19th century from its medieval timetable and set in England's imposing Blenheim Castle, which serves as Elsinore, "Hamlet" transports Shakespeare's play to a court that he in his lifetime never encountered but one that is altogether fitting and proper for the rich veins of his dramaturgy. It is truly a time "out of joint," and this tempestuous telling taps the tale's murderously dark dimensions.
As Hamlet, Branagh has fittingly forsaken the usual coffeehouse ennui that unfortunately all too often colors the performances of black-tighted lads who undertake this grandest and most delicate role.
Branagh's Hamlet might be melancholy, but he is no mope, genuflecting before his ultimate question: "To be or not to be?" Rogue, peasant slave and prince all at once, Branagh has conveyed not only the method of Hamlet's madness but the marrow of his wisdom.
As played by Branagh, Hamlet is a considered man, surely "cursed" to "set things right," but, unlike many conventional interpretations, this Hamlet is no effete coward, grasping for a way out. He is more a man of action who equivocates not out of cowardice or fear but because he truly understands what agonies his actions will bring.
For those viewers who only know the "fair prince" through the constrictive presentations of college-town stage presentations and have only experienced the wispy warblings of coffeehouse-styled soliloquies, Branagh's blood-boiling performance is sure to be both an eye- and ear-opener.
The supporting cast also juices the play with flesh-and-blood interpretations. It's a well-chosen lot. As Queen Gertrude, Julie Christie's performance is a well-wrought weave -- hedonistic, regal and frail all at once. Derek Jacobi's cunning, sharp portrayal of Claudius fittingly shows the mettle of a man with no morals but great survival powers. Richard Briers as the obsequious Polonius and Kate Winslet as the mad Ophelia get inside the skins of their characters, clueing us to the agonies of those caught in this rotten state of affairs. Cameo players include Charlton Heston and Robin Williams.
In this mold-breaking work, the castle itself is not done up in the usual dull, gloomy hues.
Rather, Elsinore is a kingly hall, a gleaming and imposing palace and fortress, alive with passions, intrigues and appetites. Rimmed by mirrors, it reflects slants and cracked visages that expose nerve endings as well as moral voids; all the while its reflective scope catapaults the splendor and the tumult of the story to full, catastrophic dimension. Throughout, production designer Tim Harvey's designs are succinctly brilliant.
The visual embroidery is also eloquently conveyed by costume designer Alex Byrne. No bare-bones, threadbare finery here; again, this "Hamlet" is a richly passionate, kaleidoscopic evocation of the text's eruptive powers.
The technical crowning point is cinematographer Alex Thomson's glorious scopings. Thomson's compositions are majestically framed and smartly punctuated by editor Neil Farrell's sharp-swathed cuttings. Topping off the technical excellencies, Patrick Doyle's music, with its brassy salvos and whirling undercurrents, tolls bravissimo.
HAMLET
Sony Pictures Releasing
Columbia Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment
Producer David Barron
Screenwriter-director Kenneth Branagh
Adapted from play by William Shakespeare
Director of photography Alex Thomson
Production design Tim Harvey
Editor Neil Farrell
Costume design Alex Byrne
Music Patrick Doyle
Music producers Patrick Doyle, Maggie Redford
Casting Vanessa Pereira, Simone Ireland
Sound mixer Peter Glossop
Miniatures, digital and film opticals
The Magic Camera Co.
Visual effects producer Antony Hunt
Color/stereo
Cast:
Hamlet Kenneth Branagh
Polonius: Richard Briers
Gertrude Julie Christie
Ghost Brian Blessed
Claudius Derek Jacobi
Reynaldo Gerard Depardieu
Player king Charlton Heston
English ambassador Richard Attenborough
First gravedigger Billy Crystal
Old Norway John Mills
Marcellus Jack Lemmon
Fortinbras Rufus Sewell
Ophelia Kate Winslet
Osric Robin Williams
Running time -- 238 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 12/8/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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