अपनी भाषा में प्लॉट जोड़ेंA well-to-do Connecticut family is upended when the grown daughter's godparents, seized by a nameless terror, decide to come live with them.A well-to-do Connecticut family is upended when the grown daughter's godparents, seized by a nameless terror, decide to come live with them.A well-to-do Connecticut family is upended when the grown daughter's godparents, seized by a nameless terror, decide to come live with them.
- पुरस्कार
- कुल 1 नामांकन
फ़ीचर्ड समीक्षाएं
"A Delicate Balance" Albee in his prime; relentlessly razor sharp. Director Tony Richardson thankfully makes little effort to diminish the inherent staginess and theatricality. He allows his superb cast to milk Albee's barbs to their last drop.
Katherine Hepburn turns in a terrific performance, though those who have a distaste for the Hepburn mannerisms, will not be converted. It's a pleasure to watch both Kate Reid and Paul Scofield, consummate stage performers who fared far less well in the cinema.
While overlong and at times uneven, "A Delicate Balance" is strictly for theater lovers. They will not be disappointed.
Completely uncinematic, downbeat and very static photographed play, from a Pulitzer prize-winning Albee material, with all the psychological soul-killings expected from the author. A pretty valuable record of a theatrical performance: brilliant dialogue and acting are the best it can offer - and it does so.
There are a series of generally long takes, but the staging looks more suitable for a proscenium stage than a film. And this is what separates a mediocre talent like Richardson from, say, Mike Nichols who did a far better job dealing with a (largely) confined space in the film of "Virginia Woolf." The result is that "Balance" comes off as stagy - a more inventive director could have avoided that without changing one line of the text.
"Balance" consists of a lot of mid-shots and close-ups, which doesn't serve all the actors well. This is particularly true of Kate Reid who plays the alcoholic sister Clare - Reid's performance might work well on stage, but with all her tight closeups during long speeches, she tends to overplay and make the character more gratingly tiresome than she should be.
The other casualty in the cast is Lee Remick, as the volatile, childish, much-married daughter of Hepburn and Scofield. But in her case it's Albee's writing that's the problem. This character is poorly conceived and developed - and no actress I know of has managed to make it palatable.
But Hepburn is in excellent form as the proud matriarch Agnes - perhaps a little more coarse at times than Albee intended, but very effective. Scofield as her passive-aggressive husband Tobias is marvelous until he mars his important penultimate scene with too many actorish vocal tricks.
Joseph Cotton and Betsy Blair as the old friends who come to Agnes and Tobias to escape the terror of collective loneliness are both good individually, but never seem to be a long-married couple.
Those not familiar with this play may be slightly turned off by the presentation and think the piece itself is second-rate. Not so. This film may be best for those who have seen it before or are familiar enough with Albee to take the film with a grain of salt and appreciate what's good about it.
So expectations were quite high, prior to watching 'A Delicate Balance' for those reasons. As well as loving the previous two films in the American Film Theatre series 'The Iceman Cometh' and 'The Homecoming'. Sadly, 'A Delicate Balance', while still being worth watching and above average, was a disappointment and was the start of when the series became inconsistent. Most of the following films in the series ranged between above average and good, while one was great and two were below average.
'A Delicate Balance' does have good things. The best thing about it is most of the cast, with Hepburn and Scofield being powerhouses in roles with a lot of meat to them. Especially Hepburn. Kate Reid's performance has gotten more mixed reviews here, count me in as one of those people that liked her here. She struck me as firey and intense in the role most difficult to pull off and near-impossible to nail. Joseph Cotten does understatement beautifully.
Moreover, a good deal of the photography is lovely on the eyes and elegant and the costumes and sets are nice. Edward Albee's dialogue still has wit, honesty and relevance. Parts are moving.
However, 'A Delicate Balance' also came over as very stagebound and can have a pedestrian pace. Despite some nice photography as mentioned, there is an over-reliance on claustrophobic close-ups that betrays the play's stage origins so it felt like a stage production being filmed fairly professionally. Richardson's direction has been more insightful and interesting in other films of his, it did too often come over as too clinical and not enough is done to open up the drama.
Lee Remick struggles badly in a very poorly written role, one of the very few issues that the play has, coming over as neurotic and unsure as to how to play it. Betsy Blair also overdoes it.
In summary, worth the look but could have been a lot better considering what it had going for it. 6/10.
क्या आपको पता है
- ट्रिवियाThis was the first (and only) time that Joseph Cotten and Katharine Hepburn appeared together since they starred in the original Broadway production of "The Philadelphia Story" in 1939.
- भाव
Agnes: Time! Time happens, I suppose, to people. Everything becomes... too late, finally. You know it's going on up on the hill; you can see the dust, and hear the cries, and the steel... but you wait, and time happens. When you do go, sword, shield... finally... there's nothing there... save rust, bones and the wind.
टॉप पसंद
- How long is A Delicate Balance?Alexa द्वारा संचालित
विवरण
- रिलीज़ की तारीख़
- कंट्री ऑफ़ ओरिजिन
- भाषा
- इस रूप में भी जाना जाता है
- Un equilibrio delicado
- फ़िल्माने की जगहें
- उत्पादन कंपनियां
- IMDbPro पर और कंपनी क्रेडिट देखें
- चलने की अवधि
- 2 घं 13 मि(133 min)
- ध्वनि मिश्रण
- पक्ष अनुपात
- 1.78 : 1