A WEDDING 1978

There are websites, documentaries, and touring museum exhibits paying deserved tribute to the legacy of the late, great Stanley Kubrick; a talented director the likes of which we're not apt to ever see again. But, as good as Kubrick was, no one could accuse the man of being a softie where humanity was concerned. At film school, where every director was pigeonholed for convenience, Kubrick was dubbed "The Master of Misanthropy": a title which sounds like criticism, but for me perfectly summarizes the director's piercingly unsentimental world view.

The director I personally miss the most, one whose humanist contribution to cinema is most grievously felt due to its near-absence in the films of today, is Robert Altman. Altman was one of the few directors I grew up on whose films I always respected even when I didn't always like them. In his dogged insistence on making the kind of movies he wanted to see (not what the market was buying), and branding each with a idiosyncratic stamp of personal integrity and artistic innovation, Altman was a reminder to me that not all mainstream directors gained success by underestimating the intelligence of their audience. Not feeling the need to spell everything out for us, Altman made movies that were smart and insightful, and, best of all, surprising!

Amy Stryker as bride, Muffin Brenner

Desi Arnaz, Jr. as groom, Dino Corelli

Never one to make films that fit into easy-to-label, marketable packages, Altman eschewed formulas and just told good stories. And when he didn't have stories to tell (something critics often accused him of) he had the audacity to think that there was something of value to be found in just training his lens on interesting and complex characters struggling to make some sense out of their existence. The entertaining uniqueness of Altman's work, for me, put an emphasis on the fact that a film’s performance at the boxoffice should be the least of a good director's concerns, not the primary. This is not to paint Robert Altman as a pure artiste who shunned wealth and fame in pursuit of his art. No, Robert Altman was an ambitious director who may have bristled at authority, but nevertheless actively sought success. It's just that his offbeat and iconoclastic resume of films proved that he cared about movies just a little bit more more.

Silent screen star Lillian Gish as Nettie Sloan, family matriarch and keeper of all secrets

Perhaps I’m just wallowing in idealized nostalgia here, but it says something about a director when even their misfires (for me, that would be Beyond Therapy, Dr. T and the Women) are more interesting than most director's hits. In the economic landscape of today's film world, a world that demands movies appeal to the broadest audience possible, fewer films are being made that challenge, confront, or contradict the ways audiences already think. In that aspect alone, Robert Altman's sometimes-undisciplined, always-passionate style seems to be of another world. Were Altman around today, I could never imagine the independent-minded filmmaker to be one of these modern directors allowing themselves to be influenced and dictated to by the opinionated tweets and texts of preteen fanboys/fangirls.

Mia Farrow as Buffy Brenner, sister of  the bride with a doozy of a secret

Directors want their films to be successes because they wish to continue to making more films. Audiences, on the other hand, tend to want directors to keep revisiting the same success over and over again. Fans were disappointed when Robert Altman followed the success of M*A*S*H (1970) with a string of wildly dissimilar (not to mention unprofitable) films: Brewster McCloud - surreal comedy; McCabe & Mrs. Miller - revisionist western; and Images - psychological thriller. Likewise, after the critical triumph of Nashville (1975), audiences were thrown for a loop when Altman went all Ingmar Bergman on them with the enigmatic, 3 Women.

Thus, when in 1977 it was announced that Altman’s A Wedding was going to be a return to the all-star, multi-character, overlapping-dialog formula he had more or less patented with Nashville (but somehow failed to pull off with Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson), expectations were understandably high. Alas, perhaps too high.

With a cast of characters double that of Nashville (48 to Nashville’s 24); stars as intriguingly diverse as Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Vittorio Gassman, Mia Farrow, Geraldine Chaplin, Dina Merrill, Howard Duff, Viveca Lindfors, and Lauren Hutton; all centered around an American ritual as ripe for satire as a society wedding…well, nothing could really live up to the potential of such an undertaking. And to many, that’s exactly what Robert Altman’s A Wedding proved.

Simply told, A Wedding is 24-hours of systematic disasters—familial, sexual, climatic, mortal, clinical, emotional, and physical—attendant a formal Catholic wedding uniting old-money society pariahs, the Sloan-Corelli clan, with the new-money, hayseed Brenner family. As poster ads for the film stated, “There is more than one secret at a wedding,” and Altman uses the socially-imposed politeness of a traditional wedding as an opportunity to give us a comedy of manners in which nothing is as it seems and everyone has something to hide.

Katherine "Tulip" Brenner (Carol Burnett) finds herself the object of in-law Mackenzie Goddard's (Pat McCormick) extravagant affections

Socialite Clarice Sloan (Virginia Vestoff) and Sloan household manager Randolph (Cedric Scott) have been secretly involved for years

To wed wealthy Regina Sloan (Nina Van Pallandt) Italian waiter Luigi Corelli (Vittorio Gassman) has had to deny his past. Meanwhile, Regina, following the difficult birth of their twins, has become a drug addict.

High-strung nurse Janet Shulman (Beverly Ross) tries unsuccessfully to keep Antionette Sloan-Goddard (Dina Merrill) in the dark about a death in the family.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I saw A Wedding on opening day in 1978. In a nearly empty theater in Hollywood I sat through A Wedding two times in a row, obviously in the minority in finding it to be a delightfully funny film that was even a little touching. (Note: Given the sheer number of characters and stories one has to keep straight, A Wedding is a film that actually plays out better and feels less frenetic with repeat viewings.) As satire, A Wedding is too superficial and broadly farcical to compete with Nashville’s more thoughtful and expansive delineation of America's politics as show business lunacy; but its ensemble cringe-comedy predates the family dysfunction of television’s Arrested Development (including that program’s non-stop, full-frame activity that demands your constant attention), just as the camera’s penchant for capturing characters in moments of unobserved vulnerability anticipates today’s reality TV craze and the mockumentary style of Christopher Guest & Co. (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, For Your Consideration).

Former supermodel Lauren Hutton plays the head of a quarrelsome film crew enlisted to capture the events of  the wedding. Her cameraman is Allan Nicholls, co-screenwriter of A Wedding who also composed songs for and appeared in Nashville and many other Altman features. On sound is Maysie Hoy,  assistant editor on Nashville and 3 Women who appeared as an actress in several Altman films as well.

PERFORMANCES

Altman’s movies tend to be exceptionally well-cast. I’m not sure how he did it, but he seemed to be capable of casting “to type” and “against type” simultaneously. In this chaotic, culture-clash merging of the working-class millionaire Brenner family of Kentucky with the inherited-wealth Sloans of Illinois society, Altman makes things infinitely easier for us viewers by having the Brenner’s somewhat anemic-looking strawberry blonde and redhead family contrasted sharply with the reedy platinum and gold cool of the Sloans. Wittily, all the actors are cast in groups that believably look as though they could actually be related (Carol Burnett, Dennis Christopher, Mia Farrow, and the wonderful Amy Stryker are a particularly inspired example).

The actors all “look” like the types they’re supposed to embody, but Altman’s well-chronicled technique of getting actors to develop their own characterizations through improvisation and experimentation result in many amusing and surprising twists.

Geraldine Chaplin is superb as Rita Billingsly, the stressed-out wedding planner

My personal favorite performances in A Wedding belong to Paul Dooley and Carol Burnett as "Snooks" and "Tulip" Brenner, the parents of the bride. Each realizes their characters so completely that one can effortlessly envision their life together beyond the parameters of the film

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

A Wedding has been criticized by some for being plotless, but to my eye, contriving a situation wherein a wildly divergent group of people are forced to interact in ways both formally ritualized and circumstantially familiar, is very nearly an irresistible recipe for all manner of human drama. Plot structure can impose a sort of order to the messy business of life that may well be comforting to audiences, but isn't always necessary. Sometimes a free-form film like this, one that exposes human foibles and follies without attempting to ascribe motive and reason beyond those interpreted by the viewer, can provide a far more rewarding experience.

Ladies in Waiting
Mona Abboud, Marta Heflin, and Lesley Rogers check out the males 

Society doctor Howard Duff casually dispenses "feel good" drugs to ailing wedding caterer Viveca Lindfors

Pam Dawber (here with Gavan O'Herlihy) made her film debut in A Wedding, playing a character 360 degrees away from her Mork & Mindy TV persona. Two years later, Mork himself (Robin Williams) would make his film debut in Altman's Popeye.    

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

A Wedding is a consummate example of Robert Altman's patented "comedy of proximity." He starts with a wide-angle view of some slice of Americana...a view glimpsed just far enough away so that we can comfortably impose upon these familiar people and situations, our preconceived notions about them. 

As Altman methodically draws us into closer proximity to the people (individuals we thought we "knew" by way of cultural stereotyping), we are forced to confront the fact that few of the people and almost none of the events are as we assumed them to be. The beautiful turn out to be pretty monstrous; the self-satisfied, the most delusional; the ones least suspected of having any value are in fact the most authentic. As layers of pretense and self-concealing  facades are eroded away (through comedy that often strips characters of their thin veneer of dignity) it becomes obvious that after being made to confront all we thought we knew about these people at the start of the film, we're left being made more keenly aware than ever, that in the end they are all just human. Not in any way different from us and the people we know. No better, no worse.

Robert Altman's biggest joke is how easily the bride and groom turn out to be the least important people at A Wedding

A Wedding ranks high on my list of favorite Robert Altman films. Its humor and take-no-prisoners view of humanity an acquired taste, to be sure. But it shows off Altman in particularly fine form, and it's a film that can still make me laugh out loud just as sure as its melancholy conclusion never fails to touch me. It's not Nashville, and it's not Gosford Park...but it's a worthy saga that falls (pratfalls, would be more like it) somewhere blissfully in between.

THE AUTOGRAPH FILES:

Carol Burnett dwarfed by the statuesque Ann Ryerson (as Victoria, a member of the Sloan family who wears a Greek toga and inexplicably addresses everyone in terrible French), and the lovesick Pat McCormick

Pat McCormick

Ann Ryerson - 1978
Inscription: "I'm more excited than you that you recognized me! I'm happy to sign this!"

Pam Dawber - 1980

Copyright © Ken Anderson

DEAD RINGERS 1988

David Cronenberg’s profoundly creepy Dead Ringers is a film that defies pigeonholing as deftly as it eludes any single interpretation of what it all adds up to. Ill-suited to pat, genre classification and easy summation, the stylish surrealism that is Dead Ringers combines Cronenberg’s by now trademark technology-fetish / body-horror motifs with the most compelling elements of the psychological suspense thriller, the romantic triangle drama, and the horror film.

Dead Ringers is a fictionalized treatment of a true story about prominent New York physicians, Stewart and Cyril Marcus: identical twin gynecologists who made headlines in 1975 when their bodies were discovered in their Manhattan apartment a week after their deaths, the result of trying to kick mutual barbiturate addictions. The story was dramatized in the 1977 novel Twins by Bari Wood &Jack Geasland, and it is from this source that screenwriter David Cronenberg and Norman Snider draw their inspiration for Dead Ringers.

Jeremy Irons as Elliot Mantle

Genevieve Bujold as Claire Niveau

Jeremy Irons as Beverly Mantle

In Dead Ringers, the functional dysfunction of the psychologically and emotionally co-dependent twins Beverly and Elliot Mantle (Irons), threatens to unravel when Beverly (the introvert to Elliot’s self-possessed extrovert) falls in love with a patient they share (both professionally and sexually, albeit unknown to her). Claire Niveau (Bujold) is a famous movie actress with a slight masochistic streak and a functioning drug problem (“It’s an occupational hazard”) who arrives at the twins’ fertility clinic to discover why she can’t get pregnant.  When the doctors discover that the source of her infertility is a trifurcate cervix—a rare condition branding her a “mutant” in the eyes of the doctors—Elliot reacts with clinical detachment while Beverly responds empathetically. This fundamental psychological difference in the makeup of the otherwise identical, obsessively-attached brothers, coupled with the introduction of an intelligent, self-aware female into their otherwise male-centric existence, is the catalyst for a disturbing series of events culminating in a darkly tragic conclusion that is as unexpected as it is inevitable.

Dead Ringers is an irresistibly offbeat psychological drama that generates tension not only from its examination of the mystifyingly synergistic relationship between identical twin brothers (with all its attendant homosexual panic and latency), but from a unerringly pervasive sense, sustained throughout the film, that at any moment this dark-hued character study can erupt into unimaginable horror.

Claire: "I think you two have never come to terms with the way it really does work between you."

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Typically, if one wants to see a film about heterosexual men both afraid of and repulsed by women, yet have no recourse but to have sex with them lest they be forced to confront the broader sexual identity ramifications of their deeper emotional and psychological affinity for men; one has to go to a Judd Apatow movie or watch one of those reprehensibly misogynist romantic comedies unvaryingly starring Gerard Butler or Katherine Heigl.

In dramatizing a narrative wherein two gynophobic men share an emotional and psychological bond between them that is infinitely deeper than either is capable of with a woman (a childhood flashback reveals the brothers to be fascinated by the prospect of sex without touching, and their interest in females never more than clinical. “They're so different from us,” laments Elliot), Dead Ringers and the story of the Mantle twins works as a macabre metaphor for the kind of casual misogyny one encounters frequently in motion pictures about male/female relationships. Only this time, the ugliness lurking behind the oh-so-subtle "bromance" jokes and anti-female subtext is writ large and in blood.

A History of Violence
The threat of female-directed violence runs through Dead Ringers like an exposed nerve. In this scene where Elliot visits Claire on the set of her film, Cronenberg provocatively stages the scene in the makeup trailer with Bujold sporting false bruises and injuries. 

Dead Ringers is set in the world of gynecology. A world nevertheless presided over by condescendingly patriarchal men who make use of women's bodies, often with little regard for their feelings in the name of research and medical progress (per the unexplained scene of a woman leaving Elliot's office in near hysterics). Elliot and Beverly's casual disregard for women is manifest in their habit of interchangeably treating (and sleeping with) their clients without benefit of disclosing their true identities. The latter habit effectively keeping at bay the twins' nervously unaddressed issues of homosexuality; a prominent element in the novel that is merely hinted at in the film.

Think What You Can Keep Ignoring
Woman as smokescreen for homosexual anxiety

Similarly, the brother's deep-seated curiosity about (and revulsion to) female anatomy not only reflects a common cultural attitude (director Cronenberg discusses on the DVD commentary track how the film's gynecological setting was enough to scare off many studios and several prospective leading men), but when coupled with the psychological fallout of the twins' crippling interdependency and drug use, their propensity to see women as "the other" and the "disruptive element"; leads to the nightmarish invention and utilization of gynecological surgical instruments more befitting instruments of torture.

PERFORMANCES

While Dead Ringers ranks as my absolute favorite David Cronenberg film of all time, I can well imagine that its considerable unpleasantness and inherent creep-out factor contributed to it being thoroughly being ignored by the Academy come Oscar time. Which is really a pity, because you’d have to look far to find a braver, more persuasively committed job of acting than what Jeremy Irons archives in his performance(s) as the tragically conflicted Mantle twins. No matter what one feels about the movie as a whole, there’s no getting around the fact that Irons carves out two distinctly separate personalities by means of the most intriguing subtleties. His refusal to resort to showy and obvious means of conveying the differences between the brothers roots this fantastic story in a reality which makes Dead Ringers a thriller both horrific and deeply moving. (Irons must have felt the same for in 1991 when he won the Best Actor Academy Award for Barbet Schroeder's Reversal of Fortune,  he thanked David Cronenberg in his acceptance speech.)

Jeremy Irons’ virtuoso dual performance is Dead Ringers’ main attraction, but for me, in spite of its technical and stylistic brilliance, the film wouldn't have worked at all were not for the incisive and grounded contribution of Geneviève Bujold. A film rooted in laying bare the adolescent male fear of women and their bodies would simply not work were the primary female role handed over to one of those indistinguishable Hollywood actress types molded to fit into the standard objectified fantasy image of womanhood. 

Geneviève Bujold, an actress whom I've always admired (although I will never understand what the hell she was doing in Monsignor) and whose praises I sing in my post about her breakout role in Coma, is always assertively, intelligently herself. She's an image of woman as a real, complex, flawed individual. A human being, not a fantasy or fetish figure As portrayed, her Claire Niveau stands as a credible threat to the union of the brothers because no matter how hard they may try to see her otherwise, she remains a mature, fully fleshed-out person, not an object.

Beverly: "My Brother and I have always shared everything."
Claire: "I'm not a thing."

Bujold is such a vibrant catalyst that Dead Ringers suffers a bit when her character disappears for a long stretch during the film's second act, but I derive so much pleasure out of what she brings to each scene that she absolutely makes the film for me. It's so integral to the plot to have the Mantle twins' stunted image of women contrasted with a decidedly dimensional, fleshed out example of woman as she is, not as she's perceived. And in the casting of the always-intense and interesting Geneviève Bujold, Dead Ringers hits home the discrepancy between male adolescent sexual fixation and a mature emotional and physical attraction to a human being of the opposite sex.

Heidi von Palleske as Dr. Carey Weiler
A casualty of  Dead Ringers having so many fascinating central characters is that Elliot's relationship with Carey is barely fleshed out. Although von Palleske is an intriguingly sensual presence of somewhat ambiguous allegiance, her role is so sketchily drawn that I had no idea until researching this post that she was a fellow physician. 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

As one might well guess with a film about identical twins, themes of identity, duality, and role-playing figure prominently in Dead Ringers. In one scene, a pair of identical twin call-girls arrive at Elliot's hotel suite and he asks one of them to call him by his own name, the other to call him by his brother's. Bujold's Claire is not immune to identity issues either, for while she has a strong sense of herself as a person, in her profession she is called upon to assume the identities of many different people. In her private life, she likes to role play as well, in the form of gently masochistic sexual games.
Elliot: “She’s an actress, Bev, she’s a flake. She plays games all the time. You never know who she really is.”

In the case of Elliot and Beverly, the two exploit the inability of others to tell them apart, yet their own nebulous sense of identity make them susceptible to the same subterfuge. In spite of thinking of themselves as individuals, in all things emotional and psychological, neither of them can really ascertain where one ends and the other begins.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

People who know me might be surprised to find a film as morbid and depressing as Dead Ringers listed among my favorites, for as is my wont, I tend to shun (on principle) movies I consider to irresponsibly wallow in the gross and violent for the sake of sensation. Of course, the key factor here is responsibility. For as long as I've been a fan of movies I've held to the belief (not a particularly popular one) that movies do indeed affect, influence, and condition us. I feel that as a viewer, I am in a vulnerable position with a filmmaker (one cannot “unsee” what has been shown) and I expect them to respect the power their images have. Nothing bores me more than when weighty issues like death, pain, human suffering, and violence are treated as purely escapist entertainment by geek directors wallowing in perpetual states of arrested development and using film as a venting mechanism for their sensation-deprived childhoods.

I don’t trust directors like Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, and Michael Bay, because, as far as I'm concerned, their sensibilities are stuck somewhere between middle school and Mad Magazine. They have nothing to say to me. Directors like David Cronenberg (add to that David Lynch, Michael Haneke, Nicolas Roeg, and of course, Roman Polanski) may have taken some time to find their artistic voice, but they understand that you can deal with any subject in film if it is dealt with honestly and responsibly. That honestly being that violence, cruelty, and death come at a human cost, and that there is attendant pain and suffering as a result of people's action. I find I can watch a film about any dark subject when it is dealt with it in a manner true to human experience, and by doing so forge a deeper understanding of personality, humanity, and behavior. Violence rendered as a cartoon, for something to ooh and ahh over, for conscience-free consumption...that's about as close to a definition of obscenity as I can imagine.

Dead Ringers is a film I can watch repeatedly and still marvel at the visual cohesion it has with its subject matter. It's a beautifully bleak-looking film with a haunting, mesmerizing score by Howard Shore. It's intelligent, daring, and unflinchingly honest in the depiction of its characters and in the exploration of its themes. Dead Ringers is not perfect, but I personally consider it to be David Cronenberg’s  best, most mature, and fully-realized work. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson

SEPARATE TABLES 1983

With major motion pictures looking more like overproduced TV shows—Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast and Furious: God Only Knows How Many. And binge-watch television programming providing the most satisfying viewing around—Sherlock, Downton Abbey, In Treatment; I suspect it's only a matter of time before I jettison the cinephile conceit of this blog entirely and concentrate exclusively on network television and cable TV. As it's a widely-held belief that today's Golden Age is taking place not on movie screens but on the HD flatscreens in our living rooms, I'll seize upon the current zeitgeist as an opportunity to highlight a 1983 cable-TV adaptation of a play that takes advantage of the intimacy-enhancing attributes of the diminished-screen medium to produce a work that's infinitely more faithful to its source material than the Oscar-winning 1958 motion picture adaptation. 

Separate Tables, Terence Rattigan's two-act play (or two, One-Act plays, if you like), debuted on Broadway in 1956 after having enjoyed a successful run in London's West End since 1954. Four years later, Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, David Niven, and Deborah Kerr starred in a significantly reworked film version that garnered seven Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), with Supporting Actor awards going to Niven and co-star Wendy Hiller. 

Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster in the 1958 film adaptation of Separate Tables

Though I was aware of the 1958 film adaptation of Separate Tables by reputation, I only got around to seeing it this month. Alas, despite its pedigree, cast, awards, and overall fine performances, I was underwhelmed. Burt Lancaster, doing all of his acting with his teeth, and Rita Hayworth, going for vulnerable superficiality, but landing at mannered artificiality, make a jarringly ineffectual pair. It's a handsome production, to be sure, but I found it to be strangely inert.

A Pay-TV presentation, Separate Tables premiered on Home Box Office
Monday, March 14, 1983

But to be fair, the true source of my dissatisfaction with the Lancaster movie lies in my having seen, just two weeks prior, the vastly superior 1983 HBO television adaptation of Separate Tables directed by John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, The Day of the Locust, Sunday, Bloody Sunday). Produced by Ely and Edie Landau, the pair responsible for that fabulous collection of filmed plays under the banner of the American Film Theater (1973 -1975), this videotape production starred—be still my heart—Julie Christie and Alan Bates. Heretofore unknown by me (how was THAT possible?), this movie is an extraordinary acting showcase for all concerned and comes off as something of a minor theatrical miracle: the filmed play that satisfies as a film. It's such a feast of stunning performances and heart-wrenching emotion that the rather cool 1958 film version can't help but pale in comparison.

Julie Christie as Anne Shankland

Alan Bates as John Malcolm Ramsden

Julie Christie as Sybil Railton-Bell

Alan Bates as Major David Angus Pollock

As director John Schlesinger's first project following the mega-flop of his $24 million American comedy Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), the modest Separate Tables, filmed in Bristol, England, feels like something of a return to his origins as a TV series director for the BBC in the 1950s. 

With his glory days as the Academy Award-winning, go-to expatriate director of big-budget hits behind him, the excellence of Separate Tables as a TV film suggests a career resurgence for Schlesinger. But instead, it represented the last glimmer of brilliance in a period of steady professional decline for the director. One that extended from his last profitable release—the 1976 thriller Marathon Man—to his death in 2003.

Irene Worth as Mrs. Maud Railton-Bell

It's anybody's guess why the director's post-1983 film is distinguished by its utter lack of distinction. But in bringing Rattigan's Separate Tables to television, something in the Schlesinger of old seems to have been reawakened. Maybe it was returning to his homeland, working with a nearly all-British cast, or reuniting with the two actors with whom he's done his best work (and whose careers he's primarily responsible for having ignited: Julie Christie, Darling - 1965, Alan Bates, A Kind of Loving - 1962).

Whatever the reason, Schlesinger, a former actor and always a gifted actors' director, gets compelling performances out of his cast, displaying a keen eye for shining a light on the wounded spirit behind the facade of control. Separate Tables is top-form John Schlesinger and a triumph on every level. When I settled in to watch it for the first time, I, of course, hoped I would enjoy the film. What I didn't expect was that a TV movie I hadn't even known existed before this year would turn out to be one of the finest works of John Schlesinger's career.

Claire Bloom as Miss Cooper

The entirety of Separate Tables occurs within the dining room and lounge of The Beauregard Hotel, a modest residence hotel in the resort town of Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. Concerning itself with the lives and interactions of the hotel's sundry inhabitants—most of them elderly, nearly all of them alone—Act I: "Table by the Window" takes place in December 1954; Act II: "Table Number Seven" occurs some 18 months later. As is the custom with most theatrical productions of Separate Tables, the lead roles in Acts I & II, while different characters, are played by the same actors. Thus in this instance, not only was I blessed with the reteaming of frequent movie co-stars Julie Christie and Alan Bates (Far from the Madding Crowd, The Go-Between, Return of the Soldier), but granted the exceptionally rare treat of seeing these two exceptional talents in dual roles. (This device was abandoned in the film version, which cast different actors in each part and compresses a year and a half's worth of drama into two somewhat overwrought days.)

 "Table by the Window" 

In "Table by the Window," Julie Christie plays an aging fashion model who "accidentally" reunites with ex-husband Alan Bates, a disgraced Labor politician drowning his regrets in drink and a one-sided love affair with the hotel's compassionate proprietress Claire Bloom. Seeing these actors handling Rattigan's humor and pathos with such engaging ease is wonderful. Julie Christie, in particular, looks quite the stunner in an elaborate '50s hairdo that succeeds where several of her high-profile period dramas of the '60s hadn't: getting her to abandon her trademark bangs). "Table Number Seven" has Christie as a childlike, repressed spinster dominated by her mother (the splendid Irene Worth) and infatuated with a posturing military Major (Bates) harboring a dark secret.

"Table Number Seven" 

All of these characters share the common, pitiable trait of fighting to maintain a sense of dignity while struggling to cope with regret, loss, disillusionment, aging, fear, and, most acutely, loneliness. Within the crippling confines of staid, British social conventions—such as the doggedly adhered-to tradition of hotel guests dining at separate tables despite sometimes years-long associations—Separate Tables provides a most moving dramatization of the contradictious nature (frail, yet resilient) of the human soul.

Sylvia Barter as Lady Matheson

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I'm showing my age when I say I feel the same about good acting as young audiences today feel about noise, explosions, stunts, and special effects: I don't require much else from a movie. Separate Tables is pretty much a filmed play. It all takes place in what is essentially one big set, with no superfluous "opening up" scenes or cutaways. And if there's any kind of cinematic dexterity on display at all, it's Schlesinger's ability to come up with so many interesting angles in such cramped quarters (although a pesky boom mic shadow makes an appearance in one scene). But with a cast as talented as the one assembled for this TV movie, all you can wish for is that the director keeps the filmmaking gimmicks to a minimum and just lets the actors do their stuff. And, happily, that is precisely what Schlesinger does. The performances in Separate Tables are the main attraction and let me tell you, there's not an IMAX CGI experience that can match the thrill of watching gifted actors at the top of their game.

Brian Deacon and Susannah Fellows
Young unmarried couple Charles Stratton and Jean Tanner ruffle the feathers
of tradition with their casual dress and (gasp!) smoking in the dining room

PERFORMANCES

A welcome problem that comes with having a favorite actor about whose work I've written enthusiastically repeatedly is the worry that I'll one day run out of superlatives. Well, in the case of Julie Christie, I think I've hit it. Having already written essays on no less than six Julie Christie films to date, I think I've used up my entire thesaurus of Christie-related accolades. More's the pity because, in a long career of noteworthy performances that have never failed to leave me thoroughly impressed with her beauty, talent, and screen presence, her dual performances in Separate Tables had me floored. Christie's not just good in Separate Tables; she's phenomenal. For me, she gives what I think is the absolute best performance of her career. And given how over the moon I am about her already, that's really saying a mouthful.

Having carved an early career out of playing shallow, self-involved characters, Christie is in fine form and in well-trod territory as the vainglorious Anne in "Table by the Window." But what I love is how, after playing variations of this type for years now, she's still able to mine bits of genius in her characterization that makes this woman infinitely more dimensional and complicated than I think she appears on the printed page. A favorite: in a moment of defensive desperation when her character confesses to her accusing husband, "You see, I've still got a little pride left." Christie conveys in a split second, with just vocal emphasis and the look in her eyes, the kind of wounded dignity a person clings to moments before relinquishing everything to the fear of being alone. It's an isolated moment of brilliance in a ceaselessly pleasing performance. 

Liz Smith as Miss Meacham

But without a doubt, my highest praise is reserved for Julie Christie in "Table Number Seven." I've never seen her in the role of the mousy underdog before, and witnessing a severely deglamorized Christie - who always registers such strength and intelligence - losing herself within a character of tissue-thin self-esteem and naked vulnerability, is rather glorious. Watching Christie in this was like discovering her anew. The double-barreled impact of her performance in both roles is sensational.    

Bernard Archer as Mr. Fowler

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Say what you will about "English Reserve," but a culture rooted in formality and rituals designed to conceal emotion and ensure personal distance makes for some seriously fascinating drama. What makes Separate Tables so profoundly affecting for me (and where this particular cast most notably excels) is that the characters so often speak to each other in ways so obviously antithetical to how they genuinely feel.  

In less capable hands, such emotional restraint can result in characters we can't feel anything for and a film that keeps us at a remove. But when you have a cast of actors capable of showing the concealed layers of emotion and sensitivity behind the stiff-upper-lip posturing and dialogue, they create the necessary underlying tension that brings a chamber piece like this to life. 

The resident busybodies of The Beauregard Hotel unearth
some unpleasant news about one of the hotel guests.

It's unexpectedly touching to see such frosty characters fighting to maintain appearances while, deep inside, they struggle to cope with the need to be loved, accepted, and understood. Alan Bates is quite astounding and is particularly heartbreaking as Major Pollock in "Table Number Seven." If I'm less enthusiastic about Bates' heartsore Mr. Martin in "Table by the Window," it's only marginally so. It's a marvelously versatile turn on his part; no shade of either of his performances rings false. I just tend to harbor an antipathy toward male alcoholics in drama. Which is to say, how they're written. They're often so self-pitying that they leave the viewer with none of their own to contribute. Bates' performance in each play, however, is unquestionably solid.

The always-enchanting Claire Bloom is extremely well-cast as the hotel proprietress, a classified "alone type," but not necessarily by choice. I've always found Bloom to be an actor possessed of a kind of grounded warmth and dignity, two qualities she draws upon in each playlet to poignant effect. Never sentimental, she radiates a womanly resilience that makes her sympathetic character a realist and survivor. As she comes to assist so many in ways where she must sometimes sacrifice her own wants, her openness inspires empathy but never pity. 

The "modern," anti-marriage" couple of Act I return to the hotel 18 months later in Act II.
Married, with an infant, and the seeds of narrow-minded conservatism already taking root. 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Gay playwright Terence Rattigan often wrote works that subtly critiqued the cold rigidity of the upper classes. In dramatizing the crippling effects of sensitive people forced to live lives of suppression and isolation, in Separate Tables, Rattigan (author of The Sleeping Prince, which was made into the Marilyn Monroe film, The Prince and the Showgirl) makes a deliberate plea for the acceptance and tolerance of those who are "different"; those don't easily fit into the narrow confines of what is socially perceived as normal or conventional.

Sibyl: "What's the matter with me? There must be something
 the matter with me... I'd so like to be ordinary."
Miss. Cooper: "I've never met an ordinary person. The one thing I've learned in five years
is that the word 'normal' applied to any human creature is utterly meaningless."

There are other equally insightful and moving entreaties in the play for the abidance of compassionate humanity towards those we don't understand, each capable of inducing a major case of waterworks when delivered by actors who inhabit their characters so completely.  

Note: Those interested can research Separate Tables online to read more about the gay subplot of ACT II that was considered for the Broadway production, but ultimately jettisoned by Rattison before opening. But truthfully, one need only listen to the dialogue as is to grasp specifically that the Major is '50s coded gay, and that his being charged with "indecent behavior in a Bournemouth cinema towards women" refers to a different gender. 

I love Separate Tables as it is. It's really quite a lovely play. The language is so beautiful, the characters are so rich, and the overall theme is so loving and humane. But this play written by a gay man, and, in this instance, interpreted by a gay director and brought to life by a bisexual actor--could only be improved upon if one day the second ACT/ second PLAY were allowed to convey Rattigan's true message with the forthright authenticity originally intended. 

BONUS MATERIAL

A big shout out of thanks to my good friends Jeff Marquis and Chris Tassin, two faithful readers of this blog who, upon learning of my obsession with all things Julie Christie, graciously and very generously sent me a copy of Separate Tables. This particular film has only ever had a VHS release, never seems to pop up on television, and is as rare as hen's teeth on eBay. So you might well imagine that I flipped my graying wig when I received it, and as I had such a delicious time crying my eyes out watching it, I will forever be in their debt.

Jeff and Chris are the comic geniuses behind Punchy Players, a series of hilariously loopy viral videos that have made a smash on YouTube. If you're a classic film fan (and what would you be doing here if you weren't?), you owe it to yourself to check out these great videos HERE.  

Lastly, I have to give a big hug and kiss of thanks to my sweetheart (whom I'll spare by not mentioning his name). Without him, I would never have seen the long-out-of-print 1958 version of Separate Tables. After watching the Schlesinger version, he knew the film geek in me was chomping at the bit to see how it compared to the award-winning original. I was nevertheless content to wait and see if it would turn up on TCM sometime, when, out of the blue, my hon dug up a rare DVD copy online and surprised me with it! That just about knocked me out.

As Separate Tables is a film about the importance of friendship and the indispensability of love, I dedicate this post to my good friends and my life partner. Thanks, guys!

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2013