Celebrate Ron Reed’s birthday: What’s your favorite stage-to-screen adaptation?
Filmwell’s Ron Reed is celebrating his birthday today, and we’d like to invite you to participate in the party. Here’s how:
Since Ron is not only a passionate cinephile, but also the Artistic and Executive Director of the excellent Pacific Theatre in Vancouver B.C., let’s honor Ron by revisiting and recommending our favorite stage-to-screen productions. What’s your favorite film that was adapted from a stage play?
Michael Leary:
Tape (Linklater, 2001)
The already intensely claustrophobic script of Stephen Belber’s one act play becomes even more of a dramaturgical assault in the confines of Linklater’s direction. As the dialogue circles, and the narrative leaps across changes in direction, Linklater manages to maintain an edge of your seat theatrical immediacy even though Tape is total cinema.
Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
Does this count? Kurosawa’s take on King Lear embellishes its characters with backstory and dials up all the lusts and insanities. But it is a bona fide epic that captures the sense of chaos at the heart of Shakespeare’s script.
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)
Even though Dreyer goes out of his way to grant Kaj Munk the prominent opening credit for Ordet, it is one of the least theatrical stage-to-screen adaptations out there. The spare, quiet world Dreyer provides the characters in this script are often found staring offscreen into the theological essences of Munk’s play – which Dreyer shows us with immense cinematic certainty.
Titus (Taymor, 1999)
I suppose this is another entry that barely counts, but Taymor’s adaptation of Titus Andronicus is a remarkable feat of set design masquerading as cinema.
Alissa Wilkinson:
It’s hard to pick. But I do love Amadeus.
Jason Morehead:
The one that immediately comes to mind for me is A Man for All Seasons.
Jeffrey Overstreet:
Well, you could do worse than Casablanca.
But the films that sprang to mind, already mentioned by my colleagues, include Ordet and Amadeus. Both are such cinematic achievements, I think I might find stage versions frustrating.
Glengarry Glenn Ross has aged well, as its ensemble cast brought out the very best in each other. And speaking of great ensembles, I’m also very fond of Vanya on 42nd Street, which is a smashing production of Chekov’s play, as well as a tribute to the power over great theater; it draws us in without any of the cinematic trappings we’ve come to think are necessary.
Kenneth Branagh’s Henry IV, however, embraces cinematic tools while maintaining the manner of theatrical line-readings. Branagh was born to be a stage actor, not a screen actor, but he found a great way to turn the screen into a stage for this inspiring, passionate film
I can think of a few that deserve more attention too: 1994′s What Happened Was… was Tom Noonan’s film adaptation of his own two-character stage play, and it’s wonderfully strange. The Big Kahuna, adapted from the play Hospitality Suite, is one that deserves more attention. And this is a stretch… but I’d also highly recommend a little-known documentary called OT: Our Town, which is about the staging of Thornton Wilder’s famous play by high school students.
These are a few of my favorite things. Which reminds me: We’d better not leave out The Sound of Music.
I am in on Branagh’s Henry V (1988). Simply amazing, despite/given what Branagh had to work with. In fact, I daresay that, even with bigger budgets and bravado later on, any of his subsequent adaptations simply don’t measure up to his Henry.
Amadeus is my favorite, but since that’s already been mentioned I’ll throw Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet into the mix. Happy Birthday!
Wasn’t A Few Good Men a play, originally?
I’d have to go with Fiddler on the Roof.
CHICAGO (great adaptation, transforming it to really be a film, not just the play with a camera in front of it)
LION IN WINTER (like the movie better than the play – rare for me; probably the performances — could it be better cast?)
1776
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (Grant’s double takes were never better)
ROPE (the tightness of the whole movie in one shot – sweet)
DEATHTRAP(doesn’t hold up, but at the time it was a thrill ride)
12 ANGRY MEN (it’s rare that a film could be so perfectly a film without opening up the story, but worked to a wonderful effect here and with ROPE)
Happy birthday, Ron!
If we’re allowing Ran, then we might as well include Throne of Blood, too; it was Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth.
The Big Kahuna.
Best cyberthday party ever!
Such great mentions. So pleased to see Kaj Munk get mentioned – good on you, Leary. And Titus is in fact my favourite Shakespeare film (though certainly not my favourite Shakespeare play) – reminding me that this is the film treatment of a Julie Taymor staging of the play, if I’m not mistaken. And of course she took the stage to screen thing the other way with Lion King.
Man For All Season indeed! And A Dozen Dudes in a Dander. So what do the following all have in common? Twelve Angry Men, Driving Miss Daisy, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Man For All Seasons, The Woodsman, and You Can’t Take It With You.
Also mentioned, Macbeth and The Big Kahuna, both great favourites of mine. What do they have in common? Apart from the fact that Tyler referenced them both.
And all this talk of stage and screen brings a few personal favourites to mind, colouring slightly outside the lines…
Dogville – was never a stage play, but has any film ever felt more like live theatre?
Me & Orson Welles, Shakespeare In Love – two films that imagine the backstage dramas behind historic theatrical openings
Or, wholly fictional, but along those same lines – Midwinter’s Tale, Waiting for Guffman.
Hmmm… Rope got mentioned. Which brings to mind the next show up on our stage, The Passion Project. Anybody know the connection between Hitchcock’s (more or less) one-shot wonder and Dreyer’s silent masterpiece?
Anyhow, thanks for the party! Much fun. Now I don’t feel nearly so old.
PS Ah, Casablanca! Good catch, Mr O. And completing the circle, “Everyone Comes To Rick’s” begat “Casablanca” begat… “Play It Again, Sam.” Which was both a movie and a play.
All my favorite Cary Grant movies were plays: “Philadelphia Story,” “Holiday,” “Bringing up Baby,” and “His Girl Friday” (aka “The Front Page”). Happy Birthday, Ron!
My favourite would be Branagh’s Hamlet, but I’m a crazy obssessed broad.
Also a nod to great musicals: yes, Fiddler on the Roof.
Yul Brynner in The King and I. Sexiest bald man ever (until Patrick Stewart). Saw him do this part live in 1984, not long before he died, and he was still stunning.
My Fair Lady: too bad for you, Julie Andrews, but what an eyeful and earful this movie is, and how stunning in every way are Hepburn and Harrison! The Ascot scene is one of the best musical scenes ever.
West Side Story: amazing opening titles, music, dance, Natalie Wood (a force of nature even when she’s lip-synching), and, hello, the very hot Rita Moreno and George Chakiris.
And I personally love Guys and Dolls and Kiss Me Kate — great music and funny gangsters (who could not love “Brush up your Shakespeare”?), natch.
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE is my favorite. Love the sweet, sweet silliness, brilliantly structured.
And, because I know Ron adores musicals…oh, never mind.
Happy Day, Mr. Reed! (he said belatedly)
Dangerous Liassons (Close, Malkovich, Pheiffer)
Used People (Shirley McLaine – and I don’t usually care for her)
English Patient (though I know this wasn’t a play, but the film was so much more moving and well shaped than the novel to me)
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (Taylor, Newman)
Happy Birthday Ron! xo
Driving Miss Daisy and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Happy Birthday, Ron!
Was very shaken by Polanski’s Death and the Maiden. Not sure it’s the best.
One more I love: You Can’t Take It With You
A belated happy birthday to you, Ron. My favorite stage-to-screen adaptation is William Wyler’s version of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes — a great ensemble cast (including several actors who had starred in the stage version), brilliant use of deep focus, and a scathing social commentary.
Happy birthday, young Ronny.
I was reminded of how stage and screen really differ, remembering a screening of “Rhino”, a movie that was simply the stage production captured on film. I think they just set up a camera out in the audience and let it roll. It was a very odd play, and the film captured none of the atmosphere generated in a live performance. I remember being distinctly uncomfortable by the end of the film, but may also have had something to do with the large Safeway bag* of cayenne popcorn I consumed while watching. One of the many oddities I saw at the old Princess.
*Of course, this outs me as an old guy. I refer to the GOD (good old days – hmm, modern trendy acronimization doesn’t always work well) when Safeway packed your groceries in stout brown paper bags, and you could take your own food into the cinema.
Greetings, cousin Jimmy! Yes, that was the Ionesco play, part of a series of stage plays filmed and distributed to theatres as a package. There may have been programmes, and I believe you could even purchase a subscription for the series. I also remember “The Iceman Cometh,” maybe “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds.” I saw several of them, can’t call other titles to mind. I viewed them at Studio 82 in Calgary.
And yes, I remember the Princess well. I saw “Key Largo” and another Bogie in rep there one night. Also, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” Not that either of those were ever plays. (Now wait – maybe “Key Largo”? A quick check of IMDb, and… yup! By the celebrated American playwright Maxwell Anderson.
And thinking of Andersons, I can’t help recalling Wes, and the stage versions of “Apocalypse Now” etc, in “Rushmore.” Some stories make the transition better than others…
For me, it’s BECKET, adapted from Jean Anouilh’s “Becket ou l’honneur de Dieu” (Becket or The Honor of God). Richard Burton as the martyr Thomas Becket and Peter O’Toole as Henry II. It’s an amazing piece of film and a study in great acting. The courage and defiance that Becket shows as he knows what’s coming is uplifting and incredibly moving, to say the least.