Customer Reviews

Faerie Tale Theatre - Rip Van Winkle

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RIP VAN WINKLE is a fine addition to the FAERIE TALE THEATRE series, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Harry Dean Stanton in the titled role.

Rip Van Winkle (Harry Dean Stanton) is a good man, he's just a too much of a dreamer is all. His wife Wilma (Talia Shire) has had just about enough of his loafing ways, the house is falling about their ears and there's no money.

When Rip goes hunting in the forest he happens upon a group of ghosts, who offer him some of their stange green drink. Sleepy and confused, Rip sleeps away in the forest (for 20 years!).

Once awake, Rip now finds himself in an entirely different world to that he knew only yesterday. What has happened to Rip Van Winkle?

Featuring great performances from Roy Dotrice and Tim Conway. Harry Dean Stanton is suitably-bewildered in the title role, and Talia Shire has a ball as the frazzled Wilma.

RIP VAN WINKLE is the kind of pseudo-fairy tale that can mean nearly anything that the reader wants. In the hands of director Francis Ford Coppola, RVW is a surprisingly entertaining version of the Washington Irving novel that was resurrected by the Fairie Tale Theater. A previous reviewer castigated Coppola for what he termed the cheapness of the sets. Yet, as I watched the film for myself (no children involved), I was carried along by what I saw as a deliberately surreal style that successfully mimicked the much more somber tone of the text. Rip (Harry Dean Stanton)is presented as a henpecked husband of wife Vilma (Talia Shire), a woman whose cacophanous shrewishness more clearly suggests Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West than the shrill yelping of say Hillary Clinton. In such a non-threatening world, Vilma's harsh voice and equally harsh hairdo do little more than serve as plot devices to propel Rip into the haunted mountains of the Catskills, where the tale's true power resides. Rip leaves the outer level surreal world of his village to enter the inner level surreality of the Magic Mountain of Commander Heinrich. There he sees the magical ghosts whose own deaths 150 years ago prefigure his own looming sleep death of twenty years. Rip's return is a balancing of his own confusion of his long sleep with an equally confusing long sleep of the burgeoning united colonies. The silliness of the mayor (Tim Conway) suggests the subtext that the changes in Rip's village--astounding as they must seem to the bewildered Rip--are only the precursor to further changes that involve granting rights to women and people of color. When Rip finally accepts the reality of his new life, so does the viewer accept the notion that even the seeming reality of momentous changes must be viewed against future and even more momentous ones. RIP VAN WINKLE succeeds in resonating this message as well as far more "serious" films.

Atmospheric and delightful version of the Washington Irving classic from Faerie Tale Theatre. Francis Ford Coppola creates a spellbinding film with Harry Dean Stanton turning in a great performance as the man who liked to sleep alot! Talia Shire is wickedly funny as Rip's wife, Wilma. Alot of people probably think the same thing as I do, that the sets are a little too fake such as the sheet used for water when the goblins talk about their misfortunate shipwreck. Overall however, it's another excellent episode.

Francis Ford Coppola, Talia Shire("The Godfather," "Rocky") and Harry Dean Stanton team in this Faerie Tale Theatre production of Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle." Unfortunately, the show cannot overcome an ironic plodding lethargy in the script. Despite clever if oblique references to the America Mr. Irving writes about(specifically New York) it never really finds solid narrative footing.

By his very nature, Rip Van Winkle is a passive protagonist. I can't really find fault with the way Harry Dean Stanton plays him, but I wish Mr. Coppola had given him something to do. While this may defeat the purpose of the character, a patented Faerie Tale Theatre creative overhaul is what this story needed to help the translation from page to screen. The visual highlight of(SPOILER)some bizarre ghosts add some pop to the proceedings. The sequence has aged very well.

Talia Shire is marvelous as Wilma Van Winkle, Rip's exasperated wife. I am often a stickler for textually accurate adaptations, but it would have probably been impossible to use Irving's original label for the character, the distant and politically incorrect 'Dame Van Winkle.' Ms. Shire nearly completely transforms herself, and her performance is definitely a highlight.

In a story about a man who sleeps for twenty years, the dull screenplay ultimately accomodates the title character's inaction. However, the show's ultimate message of unceasing cultural and world change in spite of individual inaction is effectively well-made in the final act. Also featuring Roy Dotrice and Mark Blankfield, Faerie Tale Theatre's "Rip Van Winkle" is mediocre, with stifled glimpses of the storytelling potential that never comes to fruition.

P.S. It's a shame Faerie Tale Theatre didn't adapt Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" instead. Special effects requirements probably made it cost-prohibitive, but I've always thought it was a much better story.

I didn't feel that this adaptation of Irving's story stayed true enough to the original. The character development in the beginning was weak, and the encounter with Henry Hudson's crew was really stretched (unnecessarily). I was glad I didn't pay a lot of money for this.

First of all, let me state that Faerie Tale Theatre is one of the best children's series ever made. It walks the fine line of being entertaining for both children and adults without pandering to either. However, this is by far the weakest entry in the series and should be avoided by all but completists. The dark aspects of Washington Irving's book have been toned down in service of a bland script and oddly tacked-on environmental message. There are glimpses of the sort of magic and wonder the story invokes, but mostly this is a lifeless and static adaptation. Francis Ford Coppola is the most acclaimed director to work on the show, but he's directing on autopilot here. The script by Mark Curtiss and Rod Ash (who have notably written the most as well as the lamest scripts in the series) wanders aimlessly in the first half before crashing to a halt in the second. Harry Dean Stanton as Rip is one of the few good things here, but Talia Shire is woefully miscast (although I think that was the point) as Rip's overbearing wife. The series always runs on a shoestring, but here it really shows. During Hudson's flashback of the storm at sea, even young children will be rolling their eyes at the toy boat tossing around on a blanket. Some of the set pieces do deliver (most memorably the encounter with the ghosts) and Carmine Coppola's music is pretty enough, but I can find little else to recommend here. Maybe if you need help falling asleep....