The Dead

So many literary adaptations are disappointments. There are many reasons for that, but usually it is the need to cut down a complex novel to the size of a screenplay. The Dead is unusual - it had to be 'padded', as the short story itself is a tiny, relatively short gem. It may in fact be the finest short story in the English language. In beautifully spare language it tells of the realization of Gabriel Conroy that his life, and the lives of so many around him are controlled by memories of the dead. Even his own wife of many years loved a man now dead more than him.

To bring such a short story to the cinema was always going to be tricky. John Huston did a magnificent job. He never gave in to temptation to play it up or use fancy technique to expand on the story. It is simple and true, with outstanding acting. The only slight miss-step is the use of music to accompany the devastating final soliloquy.

Its rare indeed for a movie version of a literary masterpiece to be itself a masterpiece, but I think its fair to use this term for this movie. Its not a bravura piece of film making, but it is simple and pure - I always think of Ozu's movies when i think of The Dead, its at that level of purity and simplicity and deep wisdom.

This is a wonderful evocation of a previous age. True, it is slow moving but that is definitely part of its charm. Stately and elegant - a fitting tribute to an iconic director! Not many films can boast such a unique form. Top marks to the director for having the bravery to create such a work of art that may have seemed commercially non-viable. I doubt very much a piece like this would be given the green light in today's action-driven, dumbed-down movie environment. Does a good job of adapting the James story and also brings a little something extra to it as well as all truly good art should - it is not enough merely to emulate. Wonderful film and not to be missed!

The entire movie, an artful adaptation of one of Joyce's "Dubliners" stories, takes place on the night of January 6 (Epiphany), 1906. Most of the film takes place at an annual party given by three spinsters (two sisters and their niece), where a group of upper-class Dubliners gather for an evening of music, recitations and dinner. While there is very little plot per se, the interaction and conversation among the group reveals much about Dublin in the early 20th century when the stirrings for independence were just beginning. The cast, all talented Irish stage actors with the exception of Anjelica Huston, are universally wonderful, and one actually feels he is a guest at the gathering himself. The poignant final scene, between Ms. Huston and the amazing Donal McCann, reveals much about the marriage of the characters. There is poignancy mixed with humor and insight, and for those who like quiet, thoughtful movies, "The Dead" is highly recommended. My wife is from Dublin, we make a ritual of watching this wonderful movie every January 6th. After many viewings it never fails to move me, and each time I glean something that I've missed before.

This is truly a remarkable movie. "The Dead" shows us a turn-of-the-century Irish dinner party attended by a host of lost souls. It is a snapshot of people who either loved and lost, or never got to love at all. Everyone here longs for love -- not just ordinary fondness, but a condition where one almost sees God in the other person. (Those who have not experienced this will deem it maudlin.) For example, in the story, Anjelica Huston's character refers to one "Michael Fury" whose love for her had burned so intensely that he allowed himself to freeze to death in a river because he could not be hers. Such actions strike the idle passerby as pathetic (savage Americans would label Michael Fury a "loser"). But years later, when this kind of passion is deemed the only thing that matters, people privately develop a more respectful take on such things.

At dinner, tenor Frank Patterson sings for the guests, his lovely voice stealing through the walls like the scent of a garden into a tomb. Beauty like this makes us want to find someone, open our jugular vein, and urgently bleed into them. We feel that somewhere burns an unseen, silent, and impossibly distant Light. If only we could share that Light with someone, or at least share a quest for it. But how? Alas, we can only stand at the bedroom window alone, watching the snowfall like Anjelica Huston's husband (Donal McCann) does at the movie's end. Many characters in the movie spend their whole lives at that bedroom window. Others are like Michael Fury, dying in a freezing river as he stares at the house where his Beloved conducts her affairs, unresponsive to him. At one point, after a guest recites a moving poem, one of the female guests laments, "Imagine being loved like that." She means a devotion so intense as to rearrange our psyches. But her chance for love is gone, crushed beneath layers of dashed hopes now piled high like the snows of Ireland in the movie. No rose sprouts in these drifts; only long-buried yearnings that waft like a vapor around headstones.

This movie hints at secrets that are akin to something one experiences as a child who, lying awake and alone one night, spies a star outside the window and for an instant glimpses the Unspeakable. The child makes no mention of this to anyone - who would understand? ("That's nice, dear.") But the longing to share that glimpse with someone, or to share someone else's glimpse, burns until death. At the end of "The Dead," Anjelica Huston's husband realizes that he has shared no such glimpse with his wife, no such love. His wife has sobbed herself to sleep on the bed and remains silent as he looks out the bedroom window in the wee hours. Great stories have great dialogue, but the greatest have characters whose silence points to the realm of boundless could-be's. We hear the husband's lamenting thoughts as exterior night scenes melt into one another. Fields, starlit graveyards, wizened trees -- all hushed as "snow is gently falling all over Ireland, and falling gently."

No routine tale of collision between desire and proscription this; no melodramatic costume-struggle between attraction and social propriety. "The Dead" speaks to each person's Star of Bethlehem, glimpsed once and then repressed until something like this dinner party shakes it loose. On the morrow the guests will tell themselves that they simply had too much wine at the party, and will thereby seal Heaven into their mental cellar once more. Their pain will continue as always.

Sensitive and understated, I give this one top marks across the board. Bravo to John Huston. A fitting last effort by a great director.

This is my favourite movie of all time. And I always think of it as John Huston's requiem.

I must have seen it at least 20 times and never tire of it. The mood, the script, the singing, the dinner, it is like being invited into someone's home and observing the events and not able to participate even though you want to... It is a rare treasure, this movie and I cannot write enough praise for it.

It is cast incredibly well, with quite a few Abbey Theatre faces and also the wonderful tenor voice of Frank Patterson. Lady Gregory's poem recited in the movie is one of the most moving ever written. Anjelica's scene walking down the stairs as she listens to the song is one of the best performances every seen on film. I cry every time I see it..for all the right reasons.

We have all had love lost at an early age and weep for our young hopeful selves.

Donal McCann acted in far too few movies for my liking, he just loved stage work and stuck to it, and it is our loss that we do not have more of his performances on film as he does so much with this delicate role by expression and the portrayal of a deep love for his wife that will never be reciprocated and he conveys such inner sadness at knowing this.

If you want your movies action and plot packed avoid this, there really is no beginning, middle or end just a lens onto the characters at a dinner party in Dublin 80 years ago and all the little nuances and shadings of the personalities portrayed so beautifully.

Bravo to all who were involved in this production. 10 out of 10.