Long Day's Journey Into Night

No question, this is a great play, and the cast (led by Jack Lemmon, and also starring Peter Gallager and Kevin Spacey) are outstanding, but as a film goes, it's not very strong.

This version is merely a filmed version of the Broadway play. It takes place on the set of the play, and the direction doesn't hide it. As such, there aren't many interesting shots and some are just downright bad. And these people are play acting, not film acting. Very big mannerisms and movements. So it's not really intimate.

Still, you won't be bored. Great acting, wonderful play, just probably not the best film version of it.

The difference between this production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and the 1962 version is the difference between a filmed stage play and a movie. The 1962 film was an incredible work, one of the best adapted stage plays to film ever.

One big part of the play is the obsession of James Tyrone into making a grand estate as would befit a celebrated matinée idol of the stage. With the action taking place in the Tyrone living room in the play you have to depend on the players to envision this edifice that Tyrone is trying to create. In the 1962 film the dialog moves in and out and around the grounds of the estate and the film was shot in a mansion that still stands on the Connecticut ocean shore and is an attraction today. The house becomes a character unto itself and therefore the 1962 film has dimensions that cannot be realized here.

Playing the wildly dysfunctional Tyrone family is Jack Lemmon and Bethel Leslie and their sons, Kevin Spacey and Peter Gallagher. O'Neill takes us back to a moment in time in 1912 as his alter ego Peter Gallagher is sick with tuberculosis, but knowing he has a gift to give the world and worrying whether he will live long enough to give it. It's through his eyes we see the events unfold.

O'Neill plays are long and deep on characterization if short on action. But the characters linger with you forever. Jack Lemmon is the patriarch, a former matinée idol as O'Neill's father was, grown famous for playing a pulp version of The Count Of Monte Cristo a gazillion times. Like someone in a long running television series, he became a victim of typecasting and the public wouldn't see him in anything else. But the role made him prosperous, but intellectually stifled.

Watching Lemmon he must have studied Ralph Richardson's 1962 performance so much that pieces of Richardson kept creeping into his mouth. At times he was almost imitating him. Still Jack Lemmon is a good enough actor to create his own Tyrone.

That will not be said about Bethel Leslie whose health is everyone's concern and what the family revolves around. She doesn't sound the least like Katharine Hepburn. During the difficult birth of her second son who grew up to be Peter Gallagher, she was prescribed narcotics for the pain and grew to like it too much. As she married well, her addiction kept her from being a police problem or a dreg on whatever meager social services existed in 1912. It's not clear what started her on this, but my guess would be laudanum, an opium derivative and prescribed by a lot of quack doctors and even some good ones who didn't know at the time what the long term effects were. Leslie is as riveting as Katharine Hepburn was.

Ditto for Kevin Spacey who stepped into the giant shoes of Jason Robards who was considered to be the premier interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill in his time. The older son carried the father's hopes and dreams of succeeding him as a stage actor of renown, but his love of the nightlife of Broadway overtook him. That final drunken scene with his father and brother where he just totally loses it is Spacey reaching incredible dimensions.

Gallagher takes it all in and he will survive despite a father who won't send him to a proper sanitarium for a cure because he's cheap, despite a mother who clings to him, despite a brother who can't reconcile love, hate, and jealousy that he has all at the same time. He did survive and gave us some of the best work in American literature.

And this is a fine production of one of the best works of American literature.

Yes, it's almost 3 hours long. Yes, it's just 4 chemically altered characters alternating between yelling at each other and doing pages-long soliloquies. Yes, they never leave the single set. And you know what? It's amazing. This is literally master class in acting. Eugene O'Neill is a tough slog, but it was totally worth it to see these 4 inhabit the roles. I've forgotten how good an actor Peter Gallagher is and it's no small feat holding your own against Jack Lemmon. Don't try to compare it to the 1962 Katharine Hepburn film version... this one is like going to the theater, without having to leave your couch.

'A Long Day's Journey into Night' (1987)

Opening thoughts: Eugene O'Neill's (one of America's finest playwrights, up there with Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller) 'Long Day's Journey into Night' is a hugely powerful work and one of the greats of the 20th century. Being indeed masterful in character writing and character development and the emotion that pulsates throughout is intense and moving. The first act though may test the patience of first time viewers, with its deliberate pace and heavier emphasis on character and words than plot.

The two best known names are Jack Lemmon, a very amiable actor who was often typecast but did the type of role incredibly well but here as against type as one can get, and Kevin Spacey, hate him as a person but he is/was a heck of an actor. Along with my love of the play and wanting to see as many productions/adaptations as possible, they were my main reasons for seeing this version. While not one of the best, it is still very well crafted and powerful.

Bad things: Limitations do show in the photography and settings, which do an under-budgeted and disorganised feel.

The photography also looking a bit too static and filmed play-like.

Good things: It however is incredibly well acted. The best performances coming from a truly devastatingly moving Bethyl Leslie as the most richly drawn character of the play and from Spacey in a masterclass of searingly intense self-loathing. Peter Gallagher is also moving. Lemmon doesn't quite embody his patriarchal role in the same way as the others do, but he does an admirable job playing against type and is very commanding. The chemistry smolders between the four, Lemmon and Leslie and Lemmon and Spacey particularly so.

O'Neill's writing is hugely intelligent, thought-provoking and complex in the way the characters are written and interact. It is very heavy in talk, and it is very uncompromising talk, but it's the kind that is always crucial to every character, their actions, way of thinking and motivations.

Moreover, the production is deliberately paced, but actually never felt dull to me (even the early portions), in fact for me it flew by. It also has a big emotional impact, especially with Mary and how harrowingly she declines, both in a searingly intense and tear-inducingly moving way which makes it not an easy watch. The direction throughout is sympathetic and intelligent. The characters still are psychologically fascinating, as usual with O'Neill, they have been criticised for being unlikeable but to me they have always come over as very realistic (like the subject matter itself, so much so it hit home with me). While they have their flaws, then again most characters in most films do, they are so powerfully and intricately written that it was hard not to relate.

Closing thoughts: Concluding, not perfect with visual limitations and some static-ness but very impressive everywhere else.

8/10.

Although the camerawork and credits are almost painfully simple, the play itself and the acting make it an amazing experience. At almost 3 hours long, it at first seems a bit daunting, but when the final line is spoken, you can't help but feel cheated out of just a little bit more. I had to see this because I had just seen Kevin Spacey on Broadway in the Iceman Cometh, and, though that was the more powerful experience, I remain sure that this production was as close to perfect as it could be, considering it was not seen live. That it is not live is a problem, because there are moments that clearly expect an audience reaction, but having a live audience videotaped would have detracted greatly, so I am completely satisfied with this method. All of the actors, with the possible exception of Cathleen, who is by far the most minor character with the least screen time, were perfect, and I would take the time to say my favorites, except that that would comprise of listing every actor in the play/movie. The direction starts off somewhat irritating and looks clearly made-for-TV, but by a few minutes into it, this seems completely irrelevant. The introductory credits are white typed on black with absolutely no sound, which is slightly disconcerting considering there are no previews or anything before the start of the play to hint ahead of time, but during the end credits, the magic of this silence is greatly appreciated. An extremely simple production, with only the one set used on stage, this was infinitely more satisfying and powerful than I ever would have imagined from my video rental guy's comment that I must want to torture myself by watching it all in one night. Looking back, I can't imagine a place where I would have been willing to pause it even long enough to answer the phone. I give it a ten out of ten.