Long voyage vers la nuit

A long descent into the sick heart of a family that is as dysfunctional as any to ever hit the silver screen. This movie covers, in sometimes tedious detail, the idiosyncrasies of each member of the family. Mom, (Kate Hepburn) in an Oscar-worthy performance as the center of the family and a drug addict. She is almost too convincing as someone on the edge. Dad, (Richardson) as the miserly father too cheap to even give his sick wife and son the proper medical treatment. And the 2 sons played by Stockwell and Robards as the demented and damaged off-shoots of 2 very fragile human beings. If you look closely, O'Neil has made it so that it seems each individual is responsible for the way the family has turned out. And so it is with all of us. It is not just our parents but ourselves that effect the family tree and its health or lack of it.

"Long Day's Journey Into Night", taken from Eugene O'Neill's original play written between 1939 and 1941, is a telling, semiautobiographical account of one day in the lives of the broken Tyrone family. Mary, the wife (Katharine Hepburn in an wrenching, afflicting performance that earned her an Oscar nod) is mentally unstable and takes morphine to steady her nerves. Her constant berating of her inebriated actor husband James (Sir Ralph Richardson) serves as embarrassment for him and his sons, James Jr. (Jason Robards), an alcoholic free spirit, and Edmund (Dean Stockwell, in a senitive and effective performance), the frail son dying of tuberculosis. A stagy film, to be sure, but the dialogue is spoken which such anger and despair that it is impossible to dislike. Also, during the day, it seems as if the family is cordial and polite, but when darkness falls, everyone unleashes their belittling venom on each other, thus symbolizing the contrast between day and night. This quartet of fine performers were awarded honors at the Cannes Film Festival for their painstaking work on this overpowering masterpiece. A great early achievement from legendary director Sidney Lumet. ****

Although this film retains the feel of a stage production, this seems to heighten the tension and emphasize how amazing these performances really are.

I've always felt that the play is well-suited to being filmed in black and white. The lack of color seems to bring out even more of the dreary agony that the characters are going through, as well as making the fog seem even more dismal and real.

Because O'Neill's play is apparently autobiographical, the suffering is amplified intensely. This film is a fantastic drama--but because of the length (around 3 hours) and the anguish that the characters go through, you need to be sure you're in the right mood before you sit down to watch it.

This is a typically dark, fine-grained O'Neill work that becomes almost overwhelmed with its own moodiness. Hepburn plumbs some psychological depths here as the drug-addicted mother. Richardson is fine as well, but it is disappointing that double-Oscar winner Fredric March, who won a Tony for the role on Broadway, did not play Tyrone is the screen version. We do get to see Jason Robards recreate his role, and his experience clearly comes through. This is continually penetrating vision of a family that perhaps is not as dysfunctional as "normal" families would like to believe. A disturbing film well worth seeing.

You know the play. You know the actors. But , each new view is the first. Sure, the atmosphere is the best thing. And the performances, off course. But you feel be more. Because Mary Tyrone , so familiar from play has new nuances and shadows and creepy lights in the hands of Katharine Hepburn. Because Ralph Richardson is Jamie Tyrone in each detail. Because Jason Robards and a so young Dean Stockwell. Its gift - it represents more than a good adaptation. But a subtle, precise gem about the fall of members of a family.In many scenes, as the reflections of a mirror.