Spoilers herein.
12th Century England provides an excuse for mythic distance via Chekhov-like situation disguised as a costume drama combined with modern self-reference.
This is a play. That is manifestly clear in the dramatic artificiality of everything but especially that 60's British Stage effect that seems so goofy now. This is a play about plays - about how each character strives to be the playwright. None of what they claim matters, not love, crown, power, vengeance - because they do not live in any real world, but a deliberately acknowledged world of the stage where everyone is either a writer or a player.
All the players act like players. That's why we have such teapot acting, especially from Kate. So overwrought that if the situation didn't border on farce (complete with bedroom and multiple hidden schemers ), we would see her as an aged Barberella. Being a mere actor in this world is equivalent to death.
What is interesting is the experiment of having EVERYONE strive to be the author of the play with control over the others except poor Alais, whose role is ambiguous. Each character uses a different strategy, each strategy reflecting one of the few philosophies a writer can take in relation to his work, The two excellent precedents for this sort of character-as-writer structure are `Alice in Wonderland' and `King Lear,' both of which are overtly acknowledged.
The lines that deal with this striving are expertly crafted. I know of no better in the sense that terrific shifts from controller to controlled occur seamlessly. Other projects hide all this behind emotional noise, noise which is absent in this abstract project. There is some bluster, but it is all accompanied by reasoned dialog. Everything is explained: nothing is hidden. There is no reliance on mere emotion.
It is, in other words, terrific writing, the sort that deliberately sets out to make actors look bad by appearing to make them look good. Check towards the end when king and queen talk about the eyes: eyes in the dark that see them: us watchers, but which are seen by - by whom? The writer.
Harvey and Goldman next collaborated on a project with somewhat identical aspirations, but without the joke on the actors. I much prefer it (`They Might Be Giants') because it comes the other way: actors as writers. We can actually work with the actors. It that film, the actors create reality by merely taking on the roles.
Here, with `Lion,' it feels a little dirty. Either you are privy to the intellectual joke, in which case you are goofing on all the people who take this at face value. Or you take it at face value. Don't know which is worse.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
12th Century England provides an excuse for mythic distance via Chekhov-like situation disguised as a costume drama combined with modern self-reference.
This is a play. That is manifestly clear in the dramatic artificiality of everything but especially that 60's British Stage effect that seems so goofy now. This is a play about plays - about how each character strives to be the playwright. None of what they claim matters, not love, crown, power, vengeance - because they do not live in any real world, but a deliberately acknowledged world of the stage where everyone is either a writer or a player.
All the players act like players. That's why we have such teapot acting, especially from Kate. So overwrought that if the situation didn't border on farce (complete with bedroom and multiple hidden schemers ), we would see her as an aged Barberella. Being a mere actor in this world is equivalent to death.
What is interesting is the experiment of having EVERYONE strive to be the author of the play with control over the others except poor Alais, whose role is ambiguous. Each character uses a different strategy, each strategy reflecting one of the few philosophies a writer can take in relation to his work, The two excellent precedents for this sort of character-as-writer structure are `Alice in Wonderland' and `King Lear,' both of which are overtly acknowledged.
The lines that deal with this striving are expertly crafted. I know of no better in the sense that terrific shifts from controller to controlled occur seamlessly. Other projects hide all this behind emotional noise, noise which is absent in this abstract project. There is some bluster, but it is all accompanied by reasoned dialog. Everything is explained: nothing is hidden. There is no reliance on mere emotion.
It is, in other words, terrific writing, the sort that deliberately sets out to make actors look bad by appearing to make them look good. Check towards the end when king and queen talk about the eyes: eyes in the dark that see them: us watchers, but which are seen by - by whom? The writer.
Harvey and Goldman next collaborated on a project with somewhat identical aspirations, but without the joke on the actors. I much prefer it (`They Might Be Giants') because it comes the other way: actors as writers. We can actually work with the actors. It that film, the actors create reality by merely taking on the roles.
Here, with `Lion,' it feels a little dirty. Either you are privy to the intellectual joke, in which case you are goofing on all the people who take this at face value. Or you take it at face value. Don't know which is worse.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.