Clambert
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« on: July 29, 2014, 09:28:34 pm » |
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I don't honestly think you're missing much, although if you should track down a copy it's worth seeing as a curiosity, but it's not remotely in the same league as, say, his Delius film. The chief drawback - apart from the rather obvious effects of severe budget constraints - was KR's decision to play Bax ; admittedly, by this stage there was a certain physical approximation between them, but the fact remains that Ken R was no actor, and so Bax simply comes across as a bit of an old Grump; but then Russell was frankly not much of a writer either, so the characterization was basic and the dialogue was pretty clunky - no real insights into the pain and regret that informed the composer as first his youth, then his middle-age, slipped away. Glenda J looks the part as Harriet Cohen, but again isn't really given much to do ("I'm going to Leeds tomorrow to play your second sonata" sort of thing), and there are of course some nice visual touches - Bax's girlfriend (I can't remember which one?) dancing on the beach to, I think, Fand, and a brief but absolutely ravishing woodland sequence accompanied by November Woods. It must be 20 years since I last saw it so I suppose it's creditable that I recall that much, though I think I probably saw it at least twice. As I say, a curiosity - and (I admit) a better one than, say, his dire film about Martinu...
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