FILM
PREVIEW
INDEX 18: LISTINGS 22
:— g Target 5 practice ;
Glengarry Glen Ross is the ; star-studded film version of David l Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play ' about struggling real estate ;
salesmen . DIFCCIOI‘ J ames Foley Glengarry Glen Ross: ‘a trenchantand tragi-comic report on the current state otthe American Dream' passes on a few tips to Trevor g the. first to reach the management’s sales targets. ; monitors then went back to it.‘ Johnston. 5 This particular month though, their ogre-like boss 1 Expressed in the pulsating surge of hyper-real ; (Alec Baldwm) has upped the ante by declaring ‘ slanginess that’s become the Mamet trademark,
It’s quite possibly the best Mamet movie to date, that whoever finishes last in the ratings will forfeit the nub of the drama is essentially similar to but David Mamet himself hasn‘t directed it. his job, placing the ageing Levene and his long i Arthur Miller’s Death ofa Salesman in its Adapted and slightly opened out by the author suffering co-workers (Ed Harris and Alan Arkin portrayal of the hapless individual caught amidst from his 1984 drama, the screen version of fill out an outstanding cast) under severe pressure : the imperatives of late capitalism at their most Glengarry Glen Ross, a trenchant and tragi-comic to deliver the goods. All concerned undertake l cravenly disreputable. Foley’s dynamic report on the current state of the American extreme measures to make sure they‘re still going visualisation certainly brings out the impact of this Dream, is the most recent offering from h to be in the running for the commission when the 3 demanding work, but he‘s full of praise for his underrated filmmaker James Foley. Over the past legendary Glengarry development goes up for l high-powered cast: ‘It was getting Al Pacino and few years. with the likes of the domestic saga At l sale. I Jack Lemmon to commit to the project that made Close Range and the searing film noir After Dark ’I didn’t want it to look like some piece of public it a financeable proposition, for the whole thing My Sweet, Foley has been building up an imposing ; television,’ reflects Foley, the unlikely hand has taken several years and several directors to get body ofwork without ever quite getting the 1 behind Madonna‘s Live To Tell and Papa Don’t to the screen. I think from Al’s performance you recognition he deserves. ‘Well, Mamet likes it, I‘m i Preach videos, ‘which is always the danger when can see the history he has going back with Mamet, glad to say,‘ beams the bearded New Yorker. ‘He 2 you transfer a theatre piece to the screen. The for he really does know how to perform those called it “a perfect jewel of a film” and I‘m not one most important thing for me is to find a way of words. Ifanything though, I find Jack‘s to argue with that.’ { representing the material that feels intuitively performance even more affecting, because it‘s not
Largely set in a seedy real estate office, I right and makes the camera work for the meaning only Shelly Levene we‘re seeing out there fighting Glengarry Glen Ross the movie follows the I you’re trying to get over. I don’t come on set with for his life. The whole role ofthis tragic old man fortunes of fast-pitching salesmen Al Pacino‘s 3 any preconceived ideas, so I try to work out the kinda segues in with what we all feel about Jack Ricky Roma and Jack Lemmon’s Shelly Levene as j movement with the actors and catch it all on the Lemmon as an actor. And a legend.’ they compete with each other to fob off plots of wing. Some of the best stuff in the movie I picked Glengarry Glen Ross opens in Central Scotland on land onto unsuspecting investors and so become ; up just out of the corner of my eye on the video Friday 13 November.
The Moor’s : return
Forty years on irom its lirst release and i - . barely In circulation in the intervening i ‘. period, the newly restored version at ' Orson Welles’s 1952 Othello is a classic reissue worthy oi the name. Atterthe disastrous reception at his :
i the soundtrack has been completely onlookers increases the sense at I re-recorded tor the new issue — but it humiliation and the impressive I l enlorced numerous breaks in the settings tower over the late-tossed ~‘ g l process at shooting. ‘We constantly characters. Although the verse is
s ‘ ‘ 5 had to go oil and do other things tor treated more than a little cavalierly,
l ilnanclal reasons,’ recalls Suzanne it’s a more inherently cinematic take on ; Cloutier, the Canadian-born actress the bard than Ollvier’s work irom the who played Desdemona to Welles’s same period, even It critical reception Moor. ‘Orson did, we all did, but atthe time was to be lairly mixed. ‘We
7 everyone was so dedicated to the ; won the main prize at Cannes in 1952,’ project we did whatever lttook to make ; remembers Cloutier, one at the tew ' it possible wheneverthe money ran surviving cast members, “but Orson ‘ out. We were doing Shakespeare with ; wasn’t really in tavour at that time in Orson Welles, so what else was there Hollywood, so it didn’t do so well in
hampered the film’s technical polish — ‘ where the ubiquitous array at l l l
gg‘gfi's sbharspzafla" 029"“; II“; r r to do?’ g America. He really ielt at the time that I Ho" acd'etB m‘a ‘e onna s gels" no or Balancing Welles’s typically v it was going to be his passport back i St dY'WllOw 8" fine "38 d it’ll"E 0 expansive Othello against Cloutier’s ; there, but Othello was the last leading l '1’ 03’ '9 93 93 ,9 0" #rlfii L a .. ; rather decorous Desdemona (‘He role he ever played on lllm. I suppose ; l; 8'8 VdaLIOItlS fulfill llllllSm:l The N ldk 0mm: .1. 6mm mm“ , wanted herto be a woman, a princess 1 it’s just the misiortune cl genius never , R::eae"nabl:::'fa ‘99 “3 ° ° 3° “my mm mm, and an Innocent spirit unschooled in ; to be quite understood.’ (Trevor l m °lusmh°umnanc° i the ways oi the world') and Irishman : Johnston) 3
his planned adaptation ol Othello, l Shot iorthe mos! Dan I" Home. Michael Mac Liammolr's scheming l awrhgelxdslr '33:“ We“ and Velllceflld Macadar. MOI'OCCO. = lago, the iilm presents a highly I Othello plays the Glasgow Film Theatre ' 0 - I Welles slack ol resources not only ; opened-out visualisation oi the action : irom Sun 25 Oct. v
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