My esteemed pal A. DeWitt does not bask in what I will admit is the conventional wisdom concerning the Brooks/Scofield King Lear, or maybe I should say the Brooks Lear and everything Brooks brings with it, including Scofield's performance in the title role, pronouncing it "dreadful." (See commetns, below.) I don't want to dismiss my friend's verdict, but by the same token I'm not sure that calling him out to debate it will do me, him, or this blog much of a favor. I could suggest that DeWitt, myself, and, if we can corral him, Ron Rosenbaum all move this over to a Shakespeare message board. Knowing that it'll never happen. Problem solved.
Still. Isn't there a Scofield performance we can all agree on? My good friend Joseph Failla knows there is.
Joe writes, via e-mail: "Let's make sure we mention Frankenheimer's The Train, possibly the most exciting film ever shot in black and white. I remember Scofield's despicable, art appreciating Nazi transcending conventional WWII German villians to become the polar opposite of his noble Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons. For years I had difficulty connecting them as being played by the same actor. An excellent action film grounded in reality by the moral questions it raises, it's criminal a remastered DVD of The Train does not yet exist (the current one is from the format's earliest days and hardly improves on my laserdisc of the 90's). It's a key film that needs to be presented in a form which does it justice."
To which I can only say amen, and amen, and amen again. But Joe, as is his wont, takes it up a notch:
"By the way, I also enjoy Scofield in the far less famous Scorpio, an early 70's spy thriller (by Michael Winner) in which he costars with Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon. It's a supporting role to be sure, but for a long time it was the only other film I had seen him performing in at all."
I declined from bringing up Scorpio in my initial remembrance of Scofield, as I thought it was too cultish, for, like, my own audience. Or rather the audience I'm supposed to be trying to cultivate. (Not that I underestimate you, my actual readers. It's complicated. More to do with corporate pressure than my own ideas and such. Forgive me.) [Anyway...] Leave it to Joe. I think he, and Tim Lucas, and Michael Weldon, are among the few who would ever cite that film as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do. We need more of these guys, and Joe is contempating starting his own blog. I offer him unequivocal encouragement.
I rented "Scorpio" once. I couldn't get through it. Sorry, Paul.
Posted by: bill | March 21, 2008 at 07:11 AM
Geez, Mr. K. I ain't about to get into a fight with the great Jonathan Rosenbaum on this site or any other. I do know my betters, and I only play gadfly to the equally great Glenn because I know you'll indulge me.
But yeah, I do think the Brook LEAR is an abomination, starting with the b &w photography. (I love b & w, but not when it's used as chic shorthand for existential starkness -- the Woody Allen trick.) I think the joylessness of the whole movie leaves nothing at stake. To appreciate what Lear's lost, we have to understand that once upon a time it was good to be the king, yes? And what is it Regan and Goneril want -- more b & w? Lucky them.
I also think nothing in Scofield's irritatingly self-important performance suggests he has any quarrel with Brook's concept. He's just grateful he's being treated as a Great Actor and doesn't give a hang about the meaning. But I agree that he's good in THE TRAIN, which I kind of hate myself for being so fond of. Wasn't it Michel Simon's last part, or close?
Posted by: addison dewitt | March 22, 2008 at 08:28 PM
SImon, despite looking as if he was at death's door in "The Train," did have a few more pictures in him; the only one that got much traction in the U.S. was Claude Berri's "The Two of Us," which I thought held up remarkably well when I saw a new print in repertory about a year back. It's a far better film than you might expect from the future producer of the "Asterix and Obelisk" pictures.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | March 22, 2008 at 11:04 PM
You can get Asterix and Obelisk in MOVIE form? Surely you jest. Or do you mean the cartoon versions that I watched repeatedly as a child?
Posted by: oakling | March 24, 2008 at 03:35 PM