The Sea Gull | |
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Directed by | Sidney Lumet |
Screenplay by | Moura Budberg (trans.) |
Based on | The Seagull 1896 play by Anton Chekhov |
Produced by | F. Sherwin Green Sidney Lumet |
Starring | Vanessa Redgrave Simone Signoret David Warner James Mason |
Cinematography | Gerry Fisher |
Edited by | Alan Heim |
Music by | Mikis Theodorakis |
Production companies | Sidney Lumet Productions Warner Bros.-Seven Arts |
Distributed by | Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (US) Warner-Pathé (UK) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 141 minutes |
Countries | United States United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted and translated from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull .
The Warner Bros.-Seven Arts release was filmed at the Europa Studios in Sundbyberg, Stockholms län, just outside central Stockholm.
Set in a rural Russian house, the plot focuses on the romantic and artistic conflicts among an eclectic group of characters. Fading leading lady Irina Arkadina has come to visit her brother Sorin, a retired civil servant in ailing health, with her lover, the successful hack writer Trigorin. Her son, brooding experimental playwright Konstantin Treplev, adores the ingenue Nina, who in turn is mesmerized by Trigorin. Their interactions slowly provoke the moral and spiritual disintegration of each of them and ultimately lead to tragedy.
In his review in The New York Times , Vincent Canby described the film as "so uneven in style, mood and performance that there are times when you could swear that the movie had shot itself — though not quite fatally". Canby also mischaracterized the camera work, saying "Lumet's way with this adaptation by Moura Budberg is implacably straightforward. It plows ahead, scene by scene, act by act, in which there always is first an establishing long shot and then cuts to individual actors as they act and react. This kind of Secret Storm technique inevitably flattens out the nuances and the pauses that give depth to the tangled personal relationships. It also makes too literal the boredom and quiet despair that should hang over the Chekovian characters like an unseen mist. Most of the performances are excellent, but all of the actors seem to be on their own . . . Miss Signoret is simply miscast, if only because of her Frenchness. Her speech rhythms are so jarring that it's often impossible to understand her . . . As a result of the variety of styles, the movie turns into a series of individual confrontations that seem as isolated as specialty acts. Without the single dominating influence that should have been provided by Lumet, the play is fragmented beyond repair." [1]
Time observed, "The paralyzing problem with this film version of Chekhov's first major play is that it is far too dramatic . . . Any traces of wit have been pretty well destroyed by Lumet's lumbering technique. The actors perform as if they were all on the verge of a nervous breakdown . . . Lumet moves his camera incessantly to give the illusion of action, but uses fadeouts to duplicate the curtain falling at the end of an act . . . Most disturbing of all, [he] and cinematographer Gerry Fisher have shot the whole film in softly gauzed pastel colors, thereby reducing Chekhov's intricate dramatic tapestry to the sleazy cheapness of a picture postcard." [2]
Variety called it "a sensitive, well-made and abstractly interesting period pic." [3]
According to the Time Out London Film Guide, it is "basically an actors' film . . . sometimes dull and almost always unsatisfactory, despite excellent performances." [4]
Simone Signoret was a French actress. She received various accolades, including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, a César Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, in addition to nominations for two Golden Globe Awards.
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by Martin Bregman and Martin Elfand. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick and Charles Durning. The screenplay is written by Frank Pierson and is based on the Life magazine article "The Boys in the Bank" by P. F. Kluge and Thomas Moore. The feature chronicles the 1972 robbery and hostage situation led by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile at a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn.
Judith Davis is an Australian actress. In a career spanning over four decades of both screen and stage, she has been commended for her versatility and regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. Frequent collaborator Woody Allen described her as "one of the most exciting actresses in the world". Davis has received numerous accolades, including nine AACTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards.
The Seagull is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev.
Three Sisters is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is often included on the shortlist of Chekhov's outstanding plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.
The Deadly Affair is a 1967 British spy film based on John le Carré's first novel, Call for the Dead (1961). The film stars James Mason and was directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Paul Dehn.
Kathleen Effie Widdoes is an American actress. She is known for playing the role of Emma Snyder on the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns. For her work on As the World Turns, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1986, 1987, and 1991. She also received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1994. Widdoes has appeared in theatrical productions, including The Beggar's Opera (1972), Much Ado About Nothing (1972), Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), The Tower of Evil (1991), Hamlet (1992), and Franny's Way (2002). She has been nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award. She has won two Obie Awards and a Lucille Lortel Award. Widdoes has also appeared in films, including The Group (1966), The Sea Gull (1968), and Courage Under Fire (1996).
A Matter of Time is a 1976 American-Italian semi-musical fantasy film starring Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman, directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay, by John Gay, is based on the novel The Film of Memory by Maurice Druon. The fictional story is based loosely on the real life exploits of the infamous Italian eccentric, the Marchesa Casati, whom Druon knew during her declining years in London while he was stationed there during World War II. The film marked the first screen appearance for Isabella Rossellini, the last for Charles Boyer, and it proved to be Vincente Minnelli's final project.
Maria Ignatievna von Budberg-Bönninghausen, also known as Countess von Benckendorff and Baroness von Budberg, was a Russian adventuress and suspected double agent of the Soviet Union secret police (OGPU) and the British Intelligence Service.
Q & A is a 1990 American crime film written and directed by Sidney Lumet, based on a novel by New York State Supreme Court judge Edwin Torres. It stars Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Armand Assante and Lumet's daughter, Jenny Lumet.
Equus is a 1977 psychological drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Peter Shaffer, based on his 1973 play. The film stars Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins, and Jenny Agutter. The story concerns a psychiatrist treating a teenager who has blinded horses in a stable, attempting to find the root of his horse worship.
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots is a 1970 American drama film. The screenplay by Gore Vidal is based on the Tennessee Williams play The Seven Descents of Myrtle, which opened on Broadway in March 1968 and ran for 29 performances.
Power is a 1986 American political drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Richard Gere. The original screenplay by David Himmelstein focuses on political corruption and how power affects both those who wield it and the people they try to control.
Uncle Vanya is a 1970 film adaptation of the 1899 Anton Chekhov play of the same title and directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy.
The Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull in 1898, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, was a crucial milestone for the fledgling theatre company that has been described as "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama." It was the first production in Moscow of Anton Chekhov's 1896 play The Seagull, though it had been performed with only moderate success in St. Petersburg two years earlier. Nemirovich, who was a friend of Chekhov's, overcame the writer's refusal to allow the play to appear in Moscow after its earlier lacklustre reception and convinced Stanislavski to direct the play for their innovative and newly founded Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). The production opened on 29 December [O.S. 17 December] 1898. The MAT's success was due to the fidelity of its delicate representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the time. To commemorate this historic production, which gave the MAT its sense of identity, the company to this day bears the seagull as its emblem.
The Seagull is a 2018 American historical drama film directed by Michael Mayer with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, based on the 1896 play of the same name by Anton Chekhov. The film stars Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Corey Stoll, Elisabeth Moss, Mare Winningham, Jon Tenney, Glenn Fleshler, Michael Zegen, Billy Howle and Brian Dennehy. Filming began in June 2015 in New York City, much of it shot in Monroe, New York, 50 miles north of New York City, and the world premiere took place at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2018, prior to general release on May 11, 2018, through Sony Pictures Classics.
The Seagull is a 1972 Soviet film adaptation of the 1896 play of the same name by Anton Chekhov. It was directed by Yuli Karasikand its music was written by Alfred Schnittke.
The Seagull is a 1959 Australian television play based on the 1896 play by Anton Chekhov. Filmed in Sydney it stars Thelma Scott and was produced and adapted by Royston Morley.
Stupid Fucking Bird is a contemporary adaptation of Anton Chekhov's 1896 play The Seagull, written by American playwright Aaron Posner, co-founder of the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Posner has written multiple adaptations of Chekhov and Shakespeare's works. In 2013, Stupid Fucking Bird premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. According to Howard Shalwitz, the play takes a satirical spin on a theatrical classic, but has the essence of Chekhov's original intent for the piece—what it means to create art.
Leila George D'Onofrio is an Australian actress.