Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely poignant and captivating!, December 30, 2006
Tennessee Williams was a stunning writer for the theater... The impact of his plays can overwhelm an audience with its superior force...
Written in 1957, "Orpheus Descending" is a reconstruction of Williams' 1940 "Battle of Angels," filmed under Sidney Lumet's direction as "The Fugitive Kind."
Williams subtracted elements of the ancient myth of Orpheus and Euridice to examine the sadistically patriarchal Southern Gothic town and to create a violent plot, involving ruined love, weakness, sex, betrayal, vengeance and lingering hatreds... "Orpheus Descending" shows how social prejudice threatens the lives of identified outsiders...
This classic play is not quite his masterpiece... "A Streetcar Named Desire" is... It lacks some of the regretful charm of "The Glass Menagerie" and the entire impact of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof." Nevertheless it is a deeply moving work of art...
Williams was known for his compelling dialog and themes that - for their time - often seemed strange or shocking... He vividly suggested the sexual tensions and prevented violence of his tormented character, usually with compassion as well as irony...
The film focuses on a handsome drifter from New Orleans, named Val Xavier, wearing a snake skin jacket - Williams' trademark of a rebel, non-conformist - Val is a "fugitive kind" who comes in off the highway... He is a rural Orpheus who descends to rescue his love, not in Hades precisely, but among the intrigue, chatter, and violence of the hot-tempered town of Two Rivers, Mississippi... He is a wandering guitar player who embarks on an affair with a lonely frustrated unhappy storekeeper's wife Lady Torrance...
Anna Magnani is intelligently sensual and charming as Lady... Joanne Woodward is the hungry grotesque drunken Carol who tries to seduce Val in a cemetery... Both women are so intense, that they force you to become involved with them...
The genuine community provides also interesting watching: Victor Jory, positively magnetic as the brutal oppressive husband Jabe Torrence; the vindictive sheriff R. G. Armstrong; and the soft-hearted Vee (Maureen Stapleton).
Lady Torrence is a study of the immigrant woman who has acquired a patina of resilient toughness but who slowly admits her sensuality... She catches perfectly contradictory emotions of one who is wary of the stranger but who longs for his healing touch...
With handsome magnetism, Brando is no less compelling... He is quite convincing avoiding all the clichés of the drifting Don Juan... With some kind of lucid intensity, he mixes his character's predatory and uncivil arrogance with flashes of sweet tenderness...
The film (definitely worth seeing) is extremely poignant and captivating... The direction is excellent and the action moves very smoothly, never allowing you to relax...
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For the fugitive kind of person.., October 26, 2000
By A Customer
I recently saw this film in a class of mine, and afterwards I was compelled to buy it. This film embodies the idea that silence is more powerful than words. Some people may find this film boring and slow, but those who do have not felt the intense connection you get by watching someone--the way they move, observe, think--and by understanding their human emotion. Though the story in general is simple--two strange and peculiar characters fall in love--the thoughtful lighting, the ambient music, the disorienting camera angles, the sharp acting..they all unite to create a complicated layer of emotions that provoke you. On the silver screen, these characters will go down as silent heroes to those who ever felt they were misunderstood by most. This film is a peculiar classic with peculiar characters, but nonetheless brilliant.
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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fake Widescreen - Buyer Alert!, June 20, 2006
The aspect ratio is fake.
The top and bottom of the regular full screen version has been cropped out of the picture to give the illusion your getting a widescreen - what your getting is less picture!
The studios should label the DVD's as they did when they cropped VHS video picture " this film has been modified to fit you tv screen" as in modified to fit a 16x9 tv in this case.
You have already lost one third of the picture when it was modified to full screen, now you loose an additional one third to one fourth of the movies image!
The reason leterbox and widescreen has a demand, is that the audience or consumer wants to view the Movie as it was filmed and framed by the filmaker, and not loose out on portions of the movie that the director intended.
In other words the idea to release in widescreen was for the intention of showing MORE not LESS of the movies image.
The studios believe they can get away with this, since the average buyer does not have a full screen video version to compare with, or the consumer is just unaware.
I compared this DVD to a full screen VHS version, and in many cases where some DVD's come with both Full & Wide Screen on a flip disc, compare them before watching, many of the widesreen sides are just chopped versions of the full screen.
The picture quality is great on this and most DVD's, it is unfortunate though that it has to be a conciliation for cropped picture.
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