Only someone who has never heard of Anna Magnani could watch Vanessa Redgrave's performance and not think of her. To be fair the part in Tennessee Williams' original play was written for Magnani; I just wish somehow she could have made it her own. When she spits out Lady Torrance's best lines, she might as well just look skyward and give the late Italian star a wink. As for the story itself, it is still provocative even viewed by todays eyes--perhaps even more, as thankfully fewer people are accustomed to seeing such deeply rooted racism. However, in this era in which we've come to expect plot twists and character development, there is surprisingly little change in any character from beginning to end. Each person in this story is exactly who he/she appears to be, which will be very frustrating viewing for those who like to see a moral or have someone at least learn something from what has transpired. And since a rather repulsive gossipy woman reveals a rather important detail at the very beginning, I kept hoping for other secrets of some sort to be unveiled. The affected young (by comparison), ghostly Charlotte (Anne Twomey) surely has a story or two to tell, but it never comes. This is not so much a flaw in the script, but rather a warning that it's not the kind of story I expected it to be. It is a clear style choice by Williams, I'm just not sure that less is more in this case. If anything, it made me long for a depiction of the ancient mythical Orpheus on which this play is based.
8 Reviews
"We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinements in our own lonely skins for life"
TheLittleSongbird31 October 2019
'Orpheus Descending' is not Tennessee Williams at his best, love him as a writer/playwright but not everything he did was gold. The dialogue is unmistakable Williams, the characters typically rich and there are powerful moments but other plays of his ('Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' being a prime example) have much more momentum and aren't as talky or melodramatic, the drama also igniting more in them too. Does that mean it's a dud? No. To me it just doesn't see Williams on top form.
The play was previously filmed in 1960 under the title 'The Fugitive Kind' with Marlon Brando, Victor Jory, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani and directed by the great Sidney Lumet. That was an interesting film with many things done well, like the photography and the performances of Magnani, Brando and Jory, but didn't find it a great one and that it didn't solve the play's faults really (that would have been hard though). Personally consider this made for television film as definitely worth watching if not a must see, and that it's the superior version. The spirit of the play is maintained and it manages to be a powerful production, while also not completely successful at overcoming what stops Williams from being at his best.
Like the source material, the momentum isn't always there with it dragging in the wordier parts. The melodrama can be a bit over-heated in parts and could have been clearer. The drama could have opened up a little bit more at times also, but none of these are sustained throughout the production.
However, 'Orpheus Descending' is an attractive enough production with some truly arresting set design especially that doesn't look cheap or get over-elaborate. The photography is neither too static or cluttered, not having too much of a filmed stage play feel. While talky, the writing is still poignant and eloquent. The staging from the get go gets the doomed atmosphere spot on and the tension and emotion mounts right up to the emotionally devastating climax, handled much better here than in 'The Fugitive Kind'. There are complex emotions throughout that are difficult to pull off, while not completely successful the production does admirably in doing so.
Although her accent is all over the place, Vanessa Redgrave's performance is impassioned and very touching. Kevin Anderson's Val does have a sizeable Brando influence, but he does bring enough of his own touches to avoid being too closely indebted and doesn't become an impersonation, an equally sincere performance. Brad Sullivan is both heart-wrenching and subtly chilling and Anne Towmey is a spirited Carol.
In summary, worthy if not great. 7/10
The play was previously filmed in 1960 under the title 'The Fugitive Kind' with Marlon Brando, Victor Jory, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani and directed by the great Sidney Lumet. That was an interesting film with many things done well, like the photography and the performances of Magnani, Brando and Jory, but didn't find it a great one and that it didn't solve the play's faults really (that would have been hard though). Personally consider this made for television film as definitely worth watching if not a must see, and that it's the superior version. The spirit of the play is maintained and it manages to be a powerful production, while also not completely successful at overcoming what stops Williams from being at his best.
Like the source material, the momentum isn't always there with it dragging in the wordier parts. The melodrama can be a bit over-heated in parts and could have been clearer. The drama could have opened up a little bit more at times also, but none of these are sustained throughout the production.
However, 'Orpheus Descending' is an attractive enough production with some truly arresting set design especially that doesn't look cheap or get over-elaborate. The photography is neither too static or cluttered, not having too much of a filmed stage play feel. While talky, the writing is still poignant and eloquent. The staging from the get go gets the doomed atmosphere spot on and the tension and emotion mounts right up to the emotionally devastating climax, handled much better here than in 'The Fugitive Kind'. There are complex emotions throughout that are difficult to pull off, while not completely successful the production does admirably in doing so.
Although her accent is all over the place, Vanessa Redgrave's performance is impassioned and very touching. Kevin Anderson's Val does have a sizeable Brando influence, but he does bring enough of his own touches to avoid being too closely indebted and doesn't become an impersonation, an equally sincere performance. Brad Sullivan is both heart-wrenching and subtly chilling and Anne Towmey is a spirited Carol.
In summary, worthy if not great. 7/10
Ring-a-Round the Rosies
nammage15 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The play this is based on, first produced in 1957 (I believe) flopped. Then the great director Sidney Lumet took a stab at it in a loose adaptation film called 'The Fugitive Kind' from 1960 starring Marlon Brando and Joanne Woodward which was also a flop (though has a 7.2/10 rating here at IMDb) though ironically Tennessee Williams has a play from 1937 called "The Fugitive Kind" but the Lumet film was not based on it; but Williams' play 'Orpheus Descending' was a revision of the 1940 work "Battle of Angels". Confusing, no? What's my point to all that? So many, including Williams, tried to make this story work and never could, really. Well, not until a well-worked yet relatively unknown writer/director Peter Hall. His adaptation is closely aligned to Williams' version, and actually works pretty well on screen.
This film stars Kevin Anderson as Val Xavier, a singer drifting through town who gets a job at Lady Torrance's store. Lady is played by the great actress Vanessa Redgrave. Lady is married to Jabe who's played by Brad Sullivan, who's dying of cancer and is also the man who killed Lady's father; Lady hates Jabe but remains married to him anyway; though Jabe eventually tells hers, most likely because he's dying. Anne Twomey plays Carol Cutrere who is actually linked to Val in the play but not so much in the film but that she feels like saving him; though there may be one scene where Val alludes to Carol in a flashback scene but it's not entirely clear he's talking of Carol. I felt that, while there are many aspects to the story, this film was about being saved from either the horrific tortures of one's life or to a basic degree being able to free oneself from the constraints of it. The ending of the play and the ending of this film is the same but different. While Lady does get shot by Jabe in both, Val, in the play dies in a building fire where as in the film Jabe sets him on fire reminiscent of how he and the Klan killed Lady's father. I thought that part was a homage, if nothing else. I could be wrong, though.
The powerful creativity of this film isn't the acting, or necessarily the direction, it's the poetry of the words which I am sure would come off confusing to some or just link it to one of the few weird films such as those directed by Lynch or Cronenberg. Personally I felt it's sort of like the 1982 film 'Deadly Drifter' (also known as 'Out' which is the title of the novel it's based on) which starred Danny Glover and Peter Coyote. Mainly in the way it moves around: entrancing yet subtle in certain ways. Michael Emerson had his TV & Film debut (played Benjamin Linus on the TV show 'LOST') in this film playing the clown toward the end of the film. It's a very small part and you won't recognize him but I thought it worth mentioning. It's a vibrant film. No lack of excitement. Very well written. As TV films go, it wasn't that bad overall.
This film stars Kevin Anderson as Val Xavier, a singer drifting through town who gets a job at Lady Torrance's store. Lady is played by the great actress Vanessa Redgrave. Lady is married to Jabe who's played by Brad Sullivan, who's dying of cancer and is also the man who killed Lady's father; Lady hates Jabe but remains married to him anyway; though Jabe eventually tells hers, most likely because he's dying. Anne Twomey plays Carol Cutrere who is actually linked to Val in the play but not so much in the film but that she feels like saving him; though there may be one scene where Val alludes to Carol in a flashback scene but it's not entirely clear he's talking of Carol. I felt that, while there are many aspects to the story, this film was about being saved from either the horrific tortures of one's life or to a basic degree being able to free oneself from the constraints of it. The ending of the play and the ending of this film is the same but different. While Lady does get shot by Jabe in both, Val, in the play dies in a building fire where as in the film Jabe sets him on fire reminiscent of how he and the Klan killed Lady's father. I thought that part was a homage, if nothing else. I could be wrong, though.
The powerful creativity of this film isn't the acting, or necessarily the direction, it's the poetry of the words which I am sure would come off confusing to some or just link it to one of the few weird films such as those directed by Lynch or Cronenberg. Personally I felt it's sort of like the 1982 film 'Deadly Drifter' (also known as 'Out' which is the title of the novel it's based on) which starred Danny Glover and Peter Coyote. Mainly in the way it moves around: entrancing yet subtle in certain ways. Michael Emerson had his TV & Film debut (played Benjamin Linus on the TV show 'LOST') in this film playing the clown toward the end of the film. It's a very small part and you won't recognize him but I thought it worth mentioning. It's a vibrant film. No lack of excitement. Very well written. As TV films go, it wasn't that bad overall.
Light My Fire
Prof_Lostiswitz14 February 2004
Hot diggity dog, is this a great movie! I'm surprised that so few people have heard of it, neither would I if I hadn't found it going cheap.
The story deals with your usual southern redneck town full of repressed and frustrated people, typical Williams territory. In this it does a great deal better than such Hollywood formula fare as Mississippi Boring, I mean Burning.
Vanessa Redgrave isn't too convincing as an Italian-American, she's just Vanessa Redgrave; but what the hey, that's just right here. She plays (what else) an abused and unhappy grocer trapped in a loveless marriage. Her invalid husband is incapable of loving her; we might be tempted to feel sorry for him, but we know (which she doesn't) that he was responsible for burning her father to death many years before. The image of fire recurs throughout the movie, both as a symbol of sexual passion and as a harbinger of fearsome cruelty. If we recall that Orpheus descended into Hades, this ashcan of a town is effectively hell.
Kevin Anderson is very convincing as a southern drifter who conceals a kind heart. Not only that, he does a great job of howling out those Delta blues to his trusty ol' guitar, almost operatic in quality. You just know that something is going to happen to him.
Williams combines his usual erotic concerns with a story that involves the Klan, lynching and redneck hypocrisy - and it makes for a more compelling story. I've seen Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I reckon that this is a better movie. The only problem is that the title is too abstract, its relation to the story is too tenuous; something more direct would attract more viewers.
The story deals with your usual southern redneck town full of repressed and frustrated people, typical Williams territory. In this it does a great deal better than such Hollywood formula fare as Mississippi Boring, I mean Burning.
Vanessa Redgrave isn't too convincing as an Italian-American, she's just Vanessa Redgrave; but what the hey, that's just right here. She plays (what else) an abused and unhappy grocer trapped in a loveless marriage. Her invalid husband is incapable of loving her; we might be tempted to feel sorry for him, but we know (which she doesn't) that he was responsible for burning her father to death many years before. The image of fire recurs throughout the movie, both as a symbol of sexual passion and as a harbinger of fearsome cruelty. If we recall that Orpheus descended into Hades, this ashcan of a town is effectively hell.
Kevin Anderson is very convincing as a southern drifter who conceals a kind heart. Not only that, he does a great job of howling out those Delta blues to his trusty ol' guitar, almost operatic in quality. You just know that something is going to happen to him.
Williams combines his usual erotic concerns with a story that involves the Klan, lynching and redneck hypocrisy - and it makes for a more compelling story. I've seen Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I reckon that this is a better movie. The only problem is that the title is too abstract, its relation to the story is too tenuous; something more direct would attract more viewers.
Are Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep Actually One and the Same?
alicecbr23 September 1999
Vanessa, an Italian in lower Slobovia, I mean Lousiana or Mississippi.....what a background to play against. This Tennessee Williams classic has great allusions to 'crossing the river', so read up on your Greek mythology before watching this movie. All of us with Southern accents cringe at the dead-on representation of the hypocritical upright citizenry of this pitiful town. The dying husband/Klansman who had burned out his wife's father many years before (and burned her father, as well, we find out) comes to life in the finale as he applies the torch to the hero. The hero, a young man in a snakeskin jacket, gives new life to three downtrodden women. One of them, driven crazy by the town's abuse, shows acute intelligence warped beyond redemption by her suffering.
This one is not a light excursion into escapist fare. The fact that most of Tennessee Williams' plays pull back the mask from Society's hypocritical face is certainly emphasized here. We make our compromises with what we learned in Sunday School and one day, we join a gang that strips and sets fire to those who are 'different' among us. When they in turn go berserk, as in Columbine, we blame the movies !!(?). Who is truly insane here?
Right on characterizations by the four townswomen, each one familiar to us. The artist who escapes into religious visions after facing lynchings and chain gangs, supervised by the brutality of her sheriff husband, fills the screen with her plain soul-beauty. We were taught of 'Southern Schizophrenia' in Sociology: the cleaving in two of our brains in order to co-exist with going to church three times a week and twice on Sunday.... and our savage mistreatment of the 'different', usually black, Jewish or Catholic. That was then and now is now......are we any different?
See it. Find yourself in it. Not an easy trip, because the 'Orpheus descending' is you and me.
This one is not a light excursion into escapist fare. The fact that most of Tennessee Williams' plays pull back the mask from Society's hypocritical face is certainly emphasized here. We make our compromises with what we learned in Sunday School and one day, we join a gang that strips and sets fire to those who are 'different' among us. When they in turn go berserk, as in Columbine, we blame the movies !!(?). Who is truly insane here?
Right on characterizations by the four townswomen, each one familiar to us. The artist who escapes into religious visions after facing lynchings and chain gangs, supervised by the brutality of her sheriff husband, fills the screen with her plain soul-beauty. We were taught of 'Southern Schizophrenia' in Sociology: the cleaving in two of our brains in order to co-exist with going to church three times a week and twice on Sunday.... and our savage mistreatment of the 'different', usually black, Jewish or Catholic. That was then and now is now......are we any different?
See it. Find yourself in it. Not an easy trip, because the 'Orpheus descending' is you and me.
Captured magnificence that most viewers missed on Broadway.
mark.waltz19 May 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Like recent revivals of "A Raisin in the Sun" and "A Trip to Bountiful", fans of live theater who couldn't make it to New York or get tickets got a chance to see classic stage plays with actors who gained much acclaim for their work on stage through professionally filmed productions which give nearly the same thrill as the live performance. In the late 1980's, the legendary Vanessa Redgrave receives much acclaim for her performance as Lady Torrance in the revival of the rarely performed Tennessee Williams play, filmed as "The Fugitive Kind' 30 years before this with Brando, Magnani and Ives. It's good, not great, but this version is spectacular with Redgrave heartbreaking as a very unhappily married woman, Brad Sullivan as her miserable ailing older husband and Kevin Anderson as the sexy drifter who stirs up passion in the flamboyant Redgrave (speaking in quite a passionate Italian accent) that she hadn't known in years.
A fantastic ensemble includes Sloane Shelton and Patti Allison as two local gossips trying to drive Anderson out of town, Marcia Lewis as Sullivan's nurse who knows all sorts of secrets, Miriam Margolyes as the soft spoken Vee and Anne Twomey as a woman Anderson's own age previously involved with him. Sullivan's character may seem frail, but thar doesn't stop him from exercising some pretty evil revenge, already guilty of a reprehensible crime. This is quite darker than the more well known Williams plays and that's not an easy thing to do. Redgrave is breathtaking, throwing herself into every aspect of bringing this character to life, nicely supported by Anderson and Sullivan. Of the other players, I found stage and soap character actress Sloane Shelton quite fascinating to watch, and it's always a delight to see veteran stage actress Lewis pop up in something important. Peter Hall's direction is superb. One of the best modern versions of a Williams play.
A fantastic ensemble includes Sloane Shelton and Patti Allison as two local gossips trying to drive Anderson out of town, Marcia Lewis as Sullivan's nurse who knows all sorts of secrets, Miriam Margolyes as the soft spoken Vee and Anne Twomey as a woman Anderson's own age previously involved with him. Sullivan's character may seem frail, but thar doesn't stop him from exercising some pretty evil revenge, already guilty of a reprehensible crime. This is quite darker than the more well known Williams plays and that's not an easy thing to do. Redgrave is breathtaking, throwing herself into every aspect of bringing this character to life, nicely supported by Anderson and Sullivan. Of the other players, I found stage and soap character actress Sloane Shelton quite fascinating to watch, and it's always a delight to see veteran stage actress Lewis pop up in something important. Peter Hall's direction is superb. One of the best modern versions of a Williams play.
Orpheus Upended
marcar91215 August 2017
After watching this TV-movie on TCM recently, originally produced and aired on its sister network TBS, I couldn't believe that the talents of Vanessa Redgrave and Sidney Lumet created such a poor version of this classic myth. Redgrave, though always beautiful and interesting to watch, is ludicrous as the Italian Lady Torrance. Her accent vacillates between pidgin Italian and cast-upon-the-moors Irish. I couldn't tell what she was saying half the time. Thank God for closed captions. Although I love Redgrave in Blow-Up, Howard's End and Mrs. Dalloway, she was insufferable in this movie. The whole turgid mess was miscast, poorly produced, out-of-focus (literally and figuratively) and just plain awful. And I'm big fan of Tennessee Williams. I had looked forward to watching this movie when I caught it on the TCM schedule, but honestly, if you like Redgrave, Lumet and Williams do yourself a favor and skip this one. It leaves a very bad taste in your mouth, and the tragedy and haunting beauty of the original myth are nowhere to be found.
Unbelievable! What a masterpiece!
rebeccax514 August 2017
Somehow I had never seen this. It showed tonight on Turner Classics and Vanessa Redgraves, who was always great, took it to a level I had never seen this or the play before. I hope there is video obtainable of this on the stage with Redgraves and Anderson.
When acting is as great as this it legitimizes the profession to do more the pander or entertain. It's both tragic and comic as well as a statement on human stupidity and evil.
When acting is as great as this it legitimizes the profession to do more the pander or entertain. It's both tragic and comic as well as a statement on human stupidity and evil.
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