Der Sturm

...than Susan Sarandon at 36 in The Tempest? Or more intense than Cassavetes? Yes, the film does meander and my attention wandered a bit at the second viewing but the film has many great moments. 1) Cassavetes coming home drunk to a party of his wife's friends and asking her producer played by Paul Mazursky to dance. 2) Susan Sarandon and Molly Ringwald singing "Why do fools fall in love? 3) Cassavetes imploring the gods, "Show me the magic?" Whether or not it's a faithful reinterpretation of Shakespeare is beside the point. One more moment: as the credits roll the actors take their bows, emerging one by one from a Greek doorway. Cassavetes is last. Refusing to bow, he simply walks out the door, gruff and unamused and that's why we miss him so.

There are some nice elements here. Molly Ringwald (at 14, her first film), Susan Sarandon and Gena Rowlands all charm. The Greek scenery is nice but not particularly well exploited. Raul Julia and Sarandon steal every scene they are in, master actors.

But the writing is dreary, wandering all over the place. I'm very patient with meditative movies, but this just meanders. The Tempest connection is so very slight. All the elements, the main magic, that gives the play its power are ignored here and what we have instead is a tired midlife crisis plot, plus a petulant pubescence.

If you want a magical Greek coming of age tale built around a fragile love affair, read `The Magus.'

If you want an intelligent, magical adaptation of The Tempest that has intellectual and visual power, see `Prospero's Books.' Pass this one up unless you just want to experience these women in some comfortable performances.

"Tempest," derived very loosely from Shakespeare's play, is an interesting concept fatally marred by its length. If a ruthless film editor had been employed to cut the final print, this might have been a really good film. It certainly has the right cast: John Cassavetes, Gena Rowland, Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald and Raul Julia. Cassavetes, an excellent actor who largely avoided the mainstream, is the "Prospero" of this film, a "world-famous" architect with magical powers, while Raul Julia is Caliban, recreated as Kalibanous, the lone inhabitant of a Greek Island to which the architect retreats along with his daughter (Molly Ringwald) and his young lover (Susan Sarandon), leaving behind his estranged wife (Gena Rowlands). Each of the five performs extremely well, but there are a host of peripheral characters who should have been left on the cutting room floor and many inessential scenes that should have been dispensed with altogether. Unfortunately, Paul Mazursky, the producer, director and co-author of the script indulged himself and was apparently unable to separate the necessary from the surplus. Still, there are the pleasures of this film: the young Susan Sarandon at her sexiest, Molly Ringwald, not yet famous, Raul Julia, an antic, horny Caliban, and Gena Rowlands and Cassavetes at the peak of their talents. Without those pleasures, I would have given this film a much lower rating.

I love this movie despite the fact it just misses being great. It's an adult entertainment, full of issues that a grown person can relate to. The acting is superb. It's fun watching John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands as a feuding middle-aged couple. Who knows how much of it came from their own marriage? Susan Sarandon has never been sexier or more appealing than as her freewheeling character, Aretha. Raul Julia is a hoot as a lusty goatherd. The scenery in Greece is spectacular; the New York settings cause me to squirm due to many shots of the World Trade Center. Fantastic score by Stomu Yamashta. With so many things going for it, why isn't this a great film? It's a bit rambling and overly long, unfocused, and uncomfortably imbalanced between humor and drama. Still, it's engaging, entertaining, and deeply thoughtful.

I can't say what knowing the source for this movie adds, but this is one of my favorite films from Paul Mazursky (director and co-author). This is a retake on the Shakespeare "comedy", but utterly removed from the stage. Without much text, Mazursky and star Cassavettes make visual a mid-life crisis of passion and purpose. Desperate to re-center himself, Cassavettes retreats to a remote Greek island--where the locals and the island itself weave a little magic. With Raul Julia especially, Susan Sarandon and Molly Ringwald, this is an adult fantasy that is emotionally satisfying and visually gorgeous. And funny. It wasn't a big box office hit, but whenever it does come to DVD, it will sell.