Quote:
Originally Posted by bwdowiak
to those who have liked Vanya:
if I liked The Last Metro would I enjoy Vanya? or are the films quite different?
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They are quite different. One is about the trials and tribulations of a theater company staging plays under a regime of increasing censorship, the other is like being invited to a private viewing of a stage play rehearsal by a group of actors in a run down NYC theater.
Vanya is very intimate in setting; we as the audience have great seats to watch a well-tuned rehearsal of a David Mamet adaptation of Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya.
The film opens to the sounds of a jazz score by the Joshua Redman Quartet as we see the actors arriving individually at the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street in NYC. Among them are also a few specially invited guests who will be the audience for the rehearsal; the audience members are not actors but real people being themselves, including noted Indian cookbook author Mahdur Jaffrey. Through conversations among the guests and the crew, we are introduced to the theater where the rehearsal is being filmed. The New Amsterdam Theater was originally built in 1903 and once was home to the famous Ziegfeld Follies, before being turned into a movie palace prior to WWII. At the time of the filming of
Vanya on 42nd Street, the New Amsterdam Theater had been abandoned and in a state of severe disrepair for about ten years. We see all this faded glory as the cast and crew set up the props and furniture on a recently installed temporary stage. When everything is ready, the guest settle into their seats, the actors take their positions on or off the stage, and the play begins.
I should point out that my repeatedly referring to the movie as a filmed rehearsal does not do it justice. There are no stops or do-overs or a director saying "I think you should stand here and say it like this". The flow is smooth and uninterrupted except at the end of an act, when the play's director tells the actors well done and let's take a short break before the next act. The rehearsal is not in preparation for an actual general audience opening (to my knowledge, this was never the intent of the ensemble and never happened). Rather, it is a continuation of a series of workshops held by famed experimental stage director Andre Gregory, who appears in the film as himself, where a group of actors participating in the workshops came together to perfect their craft and engage in a four-year project of intimate stage rehearsals of Mamet plays. The film
Vanya on 42nd Street is the end result of their efforts, presented not as a full blown stage adaptation but instead as an intimate portrait for a small audience. Among the actors participating in the workshop are Wallace Shawn (
The Princess Bride) who portrays Uncle Vanya, and Julianne Moore (
Boogie Nights, Safe).
I really enjoy
Vanya on 42nd Street and am so glad I gave it a chance. Ordinarily I might have passed on it based on what I read online about how the film is structured; it just didn't generate any excitement. However, it being a Louis Malle film, and his last, made me take the plunge. I was well rewarded by an extraordinary production, where the dialogue and acting are so good we are transported beyond the confinement of the stage with its simple props to a wider experience of a wonderfully human tale set in an upper middle class country estate in 19th Century Tsarist Russia.
EDIT:
Criterion has a 3 Reasons video for
Vanya:
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