The Dead [VHS]
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VHS Movie Reviews of The Dead [VHS]
Movie Review: Richer with each viewing
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this this first time at the movies 20 years ago on a magical evening when snow was swirling as I left the theater. I had loved the short story and thought the film was a good adaptation. Since then I have seen it three or four more times on video and each time I find that the movie speaks to me more eloquently. Last time I saw it was two years ago and I have to admit I started crying after about ten minutes and wound up sobbing for the last fifteen or so. If there's perfection in filmmaking, this is it. John Houston somehow managed to make a film that improves on the finest short story in the English language. Where is the DVD????Movie Review: A great adaptation of James Joyce's short story
Summary: 4 Stars
Considered by most critics as John Huston's last masterpiece, I think it's very good, but not deserving that high rank. First of all one has to read the original story, because of the lack of action everything is very subtle, everything happens as an undercurrent. One hints only at things for they exist no longer except in the minds of the people gathered here. Besides, those things belong in the past. They are memories, lost loves, lost youths and fond memories all. Dublin lives in the past, among the dead. All Dublin except for Gabriel (the alter ego of Joyce himself), who wants out of this Irish cemetery, even to the risk of being labeled a Brit. What's Galway compared to the continent? But his emigrating will have more than social repercussions. He has to consider his wife, who also belongs in the world of the past through the remembrance of her young lover, of long ago.
Luckily for Joyce, his wife (when they left Ireland they were still unmarried) wasn't like that. He had his Nora with him, and they were of the same thinking. But that was unusual in those times, breaking away with traditions and conventions.
There's a lot to learn from these kind of films. We in Spain can relate also, in this time when regional clans and their nazionalism pulls us apart for the sake of their mythical past and local heroes, and poisons us politically filling us with hatred towards one another, what is best to do? To search for ghosts of the past and live quixotically, or to break away from the political-correct oppression of social-nazionalism and emigrate to... where? Don't give in to what people say is the truth. Find out for yourself.
By the way, I figured out why I couldn't like the film as much as i wanted to (after watching it for the third time): I don't like very much the way Angelica Huston plays Gabriel's wife. It's just not convincing at all. Everybody else is wonderful, though.
Movie Review: The Final Masterpiece from John Huston
Summary: 5 Stars
Not too many filmakers go out with such a great exit, but John Huston certainly did. A haunting and beautiful film about life, love, and loss.I wish I could find a DVD copy for my personal collection, but it seems that
it is not availiable in that format for the U.S. I would still recommend it for anyone who likes to see great literature brought to life on film.It isn't that easy to pull off, but I feel the great performances by the whole cast are a wonder to behold,especially Donal McCann and Angelica Huston. I believe they even adapted this into a Broadway musical some years ago.
Movie Review: One of the All Time Greatest Films
Summary: 5 Stars
I rarely think in such superlatives, but "The Dead," for my money, may be as close to perfection as film making gets. The performances are so real, so natural, that it's hard to believe these are actors on the screen. Angelica Houston, one of our most underrated actresses, is luminous. I had never been a big John Houston fan until I saw this movie, but "The Dead" convinced me of his greatness. I don't know what else to say to convey my love of this film.Movie Review: An All Time Favorite Film
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw 'The Dead' many years ago and have had it on VHS ever since. Like the book out of which the story for this film is taken, I still sometimes go back, and absorb. I have been burned several times by watching a movie version of a book I had read. Now I refuse. And yet despite how precious and special I believe Joyce's 'Dubliners' to be, and how particularly special I find 'The Dead' and a couple other of the short stories (incl. 'A Painful Case') to be, the respectful, caring, and restrained film treatment by Huston of 'The Dead' recreates beautifully and with subtlety some of the shades of melancholy that is the poignant thread linking much of 'Dubliners' and which is felt in different ways in 'The Dead'. The film is quietly masterful in its gentle treatment of the 'story' and its characters. Its quietness and allowance for the absorption of ambiance and characters' emotions evoke the understated manner in which Joyce himself in 'Dubliners' draws the reader into empathetic melancholy with those resigned to a hard world, where storybook endings characterize the lives of so few and among the losses for some are dreams and memories of passionate and truest love, of significance. Huston, in his warm and caring direction of the film, allows the film to be as muted as Joyce's characters in the face of despondency, all while somehow conveying the weights upon them. The actors, too, participate wonderfully with the intended story in subtle yet moving conveyances of the characters and their memories.
This film so strongly merits placement on DVD.