News

Franco Zeffirelli apprenticed to Luchino Visconti, stage directed operas and directed several movie hits, the biggest of which was this exuberant, attractive Shakespeare adaptation, filmed like an opera with sumptuous sets and sunswept Italian locations. The novelty for 1968 was casting the Bard’s star-crossed young lovers with actual teenagers. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are attractive kids directed to give spirited performances; the critics may have had mixed reactions but the public received the film well. If memory serves, Criterion’s new remaster looks better than Paramount’s original release prints.

Romeo and Juliet

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1171

1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 138 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 14, 2023 / 39.95

Starring: Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Milo O’Shea, Pat Heywood, Robert Stephens, Michael York, Bruce Robinson, Paul Hardwick, Natasha Parry, Antonio Pierfederici, Esmeralda Ruspoli, Roberto Bisacco, Roy Holder, Keith Skinner, Dyson Lovell, Richard Warwick, Laurence Olivier.

Cinematography: Pasquelino De...

Peter Brook, the innovative film and theater director known for groundbreaking adaptations of classic literary works and bringing prominent non-Western influences into the theater world, has died at the age of 97. The news was confirmed by BBC.

For the majority of the 20th century, Brook was consistently viewed as one of the most important directors working in the theater world. Born in London in 1925, he began directing Shakespeare productions at Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1940s. He quickly became known for his willingness to infuse classic texts, including operas and Christopher Marlowe plays, with experimental aesthetic choices. After several of his productions transferred to Broadway in the 1960s, Brook moved to Paris in the early 1970s. He founded an experimental theater company known as the International Centre for Theatre Research, which traveled throughout Africa and the Middle East to work with local artists on collaborative theater pieces.

As time went on,...

Click here to read the full article.

Peter Brook, a British theater and film director known for an influential and distinguished career which saw him garner worldwide acclaim, has died. He was 97.

The two-time Tony Award winner, who had settled in France decades ago, directed the film adaptations of his best stage works as well as the 1963 movie Lord of the Flies.

Brook’s publisher Nick Hern Books said in a statement Sunday that he “leaves behind an incredible artistic legacy.” French media reports said that Brook died in Paris on Saturday.

Born in London in 1925, Brook would go on to study at Oxford University and direct his first London show, Doctor Faustus, while he was still a teenager.

After serving as director of productions at the Royal Opera House, he gained further notoriety through his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, or RSC, including Titus Andronicus, starring Laurence Olivier.

Exclusive: Sam Riley (Maleficent) and Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan) will portray noble-born brothers Thomas and Edward Seymour in the historical thriller Firebrand, joining already announced Alicia Vikander and Jude Law who are portraying Katharine Parr and Henry VIII in the first English-language film from Brazilian director Karim Ainouz (The Invisible Life of Eurydice Gusmao).

The movie, shooting up in the Derbyshire region of the UK’s Peak District, is based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s bestselling historical novel Queen’s Gambit.

Film follows the marriage of Katherine (the filmmakers have chosen to spell Katherine with a K; some historians use a C) to Henry, his sixth and final wife, and how she fell foul of her husband’s courtiers — namely his key adviser Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, a role taken by Simon Russell Beale.

Gardener’s duties included uncovering high-profile heretics. He set his sights on Protestant martyr Anne Askew,...

By Joe Elliott

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. The movie was a sensation when it came out in 1968, spurring ticket sales in the millions and becoming one of the top-grossing features of the decade. One reason the film made so much money was due to the number of people who returned for a second or even fifth viewing. It seemed audiences just couldn’t get enough of the story about those two star-crossed adolescent lovers from old Verona. The movie’s memorable music score, composed by Nino Rota, also became a best seller. The album quickly went gold and was later repackaged in a beautiful deluxe box set that included the entire movie soundtrack, along with two handsomely produced companion booklets.

There was something about the film, for all its shortcomings, that many found almost hypnotic. I’ll fess...

(Charles Crichton, 1950; StudioCanal, PG)

Made during Ealing Studios's peak period from the early 40s to the mid-1950s, Dance Hall is virtually the only movie produced by that male-dominated studio that might be considered a feminist work. Co-scripted by Diana Morgan, the sole woman admitted by Ealing boss Michael Balcon to his elite creative team, it looks at the world from the point of view of four young working-class women (Natasha Parry, Petula Clark, Jane Hylton and Diana Dors). They live in council flats, work in the same west London factory, and find romance and an escape from their drab lives at the local dance hall. Except for the middle-class accents, the film presents an honest, down-to-earth portrait of Britain in the postwar age of austerity. Typically for its time, Parry (future wife of the director Peter Brook) is torn between glamorous sports car-driving spiv Bonar Colleano and dull,...

Orson Welles would first appear on American television in the Omnibus production of King Lear. This was back in the day where television was thought of as an instructional and culture enlightening medium, but it was also a live medium. It may not be the best Lear, but classic television is always welcome. King Lear (Orson Welles) is old and ready to retire from the throne of England. He is going to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, Goneril (Beatrice Straight), Regan (Margaret Phillips), and Cordelia (Natasha Parry). He tests their devotion by asking each to tell of their love to give the winner the largest section of the kingdom. The older daughters give flattering answers,...