Looking at Film from Every Angle
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Now that you’ve (hopefully) had a chance to watch The Dead, please join us in discussing this film by posting your comments below.
And don’t forget, Mike Furlong, you need to make your selection today for February 2012. You can send it by e-mail or PM on UAADB.
I found the meditative quality of the film peaceful and without having read Peter’s own take on the film, I came to mostly the same realization. This feels like John Huston’s most personal film. So near the end of his life, the movie is like his own reflection on life, its fleeting brevity and the ability to find and realize you’ve found love and the acceptance that love comes with many restrictions.
I found it a bit rough at times to sit through considering a good portion of the film has absolutely nothing going on except Huston’s own reminiscences of what family gatherings were like around Christmastime each year. It isn’t until two-thirds of the film has passed that we get the gorgeous solo that sends Anjelica Huston’s mind back to a time when her first and only true love died.
Huston’s soft and haunting performance anchors this last third of the film, which more than makes up for the early scenes feeling so unequivocally tedious.
As an aside, can someone explain to me why everyone considers the old woman’s vocal performance so amazing when it was painful to my ears. Perhaps it was the beauty of a woman so late in life sharing her voice however jarring it is. Were the compliments merely a polite conversation or is there some historical or cultural significance to them?
I think most of the guests were being polite. It’s only poor drunken Freddy who praises her effusively – first telling her that he’s never heard her sing so well, then topping himself by telling her he’s never heard her sing half so well.
I’m sure you meant to say John Huston and not John Ford (who also could have made a good version of this I would guess.)
Probably confused the love of Irish heritage with a Ford film.
Yes, they were being polite and she more or less knew it.
Like Mike, I didn’t have much luck my first time viewing it when first released on video probably 20 years ago. Never tried again until last week. Whether it is age, mood or a remembrance of my own Irish heritage and those gatherings I went to as a young boy (I once sat on my Uncle Patty’s lap as he sang about 20 stanzas of Master MacGrath), I not only watched the whole movie, I really enjoyed it. I wondered what the hub bub about Angelica Huston’s performance was all about, until the scene of her on the staircase listening to Mr. D’Arcy’s beautiful song The Lass of Aughrim.” It’s all in her face; and her telling of the tragic story of her young love Michael Furey just capped it all. A great performance.
Thanks for suggesting this, Peter. I probably never would have watched it again, otherwise.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see this in time. I got the disc from Netflix over the weekend and there was a crack stright through the DVD, so I had to send it back. I only got the replacement in the mail yesterday, which means I won’t be able to hit it up until next weekend at the earliest.
The best time to watch this film is on the 12th day of Christmas also known as the Feast of the Epiphany, the day on which it takes place in 1904.
It’s a memory piece, an old man’s film if you will, taken from James Joyce’s short story containd within The Dubliners collection.
On the surface, nothing much happens. Two old ladies are giving their annual luncheon for family and friends. A song sung by one of the guests reminds one of the attendeees of the singer who loved her in her youth and who died of pneumonia caused in part by her seeming indiffereance. Her reaction causes her husband to realize his wife could never love him as much as she loved that boy from long ago as the snow all over Ireland falls on the living and the dead.
One of the film’s most poignant moments is the husband’s matter-of-fact realization that one of his elderly party-giving aunts will soon be gone, a realization that must have been very much on the mind of John Huston as he directed from his wheelchair hooked to an oxygen tank. His death before the release of the film underscored how fleeting life is.
This is Huston’s most personal film, a giving in to the sentimentality he previously avoided in his films. The cast is letter perfect, particulary Donal McCann as the nephew/narrator and Anjelica Huston as his wife.
Sadly, this was a film I could never get behind. It’s always praised for being intimate and personal, but I feel it’s a detached film with very little emotion. John Huston has always been an interesting filmmaker, freely bouncing among several genres and always taking chances; unfortunately his final film lacks a discernible plot, and Anjelica feels more restrained than usual. I’ve watched this film three times, always feeling like I’m missing something, and for countless thousands of adjectives, the only one that suits this film is an overused one – utterly boring.
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