The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, 2012)

[broadwayrock]

Rachel Weisz is in talks to star in Terence Davies' adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play 'The Deep Blue Sea'

[ethel]

Rachel Weisz is in talks to star in Terence Davies' adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play 'The Deep Blue Sea'

That's all very well, but when are we going to see the Vivien Leigh / Emlyn Williams version ever again? So 1950s Shaftesbury Avenue! We need a British film on demand series - well, we just need proper releases of everything worth seeing...

[tarpilot]

[Trailer for] Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea

[Brian C]

Just a heads-up for Chicago-area Terence Davies fans - Davies will be at the Gene Siskel Film Center for a screening of The Deep Blue Sea on March 13.

[hearthesilence]

I saw The Deep Blue Sea at BAM last night - Music Box Films held a preview followed by a discussion moderated by Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly) with Terence Davies and Rachel Weisz.

Davies was enthusiastic - funny, because he always makes it clear that he's generally unhappy, but he's very bubbly in public appearances.

It's a good film, I liked it. The first third felt a little uneven, and I still have mixed feelings about that portion, but it gets better from there. The three leads are all very, very good, and the visuals are wonderful. Like most of his films, Davies planned out every shot before coming to his set, meaning he had something in mind, but was very open to trying other things when they started rolling and definitely used such suggestions in the actual movie, but the boldest compositions were probably those he planned ahead of time. They were fairly meticulous, and at one point, I wondered if these were visual ideas that came to him over the past 10 years, with no real outlet for them until now. Without giving any surprises away, this was particularly true for a moving shot that hovered over two characters and a pair of moving shots that were inspired by a Doris Day film. (Forgot the title, but he mentioned it during the discussion.)

The film opens next week in NY and LA, then starts expanding each week after that. (FWIW, it opens in Chicago in two weeks - probably at the Music Box for obvious reasons.)

Forgot to mention one thing - the look of the film was odd in spots. The credits say it was shot in 35mm, but the film's climax looked so mushy, I thought it was shot in 16 or possibly video and printed back to film. The grain in that part was very prominent, but it wasn't crisp grain, again, everything was kind of mushy. It was like the lighting scheme was too difficult for the stock to handle - or perhaps they made an error in shooting it - and what we saw was actually salvaged by a film lab. It's possible they wanted a diffuse look, and this was the result. Anyway, I'd be interested to see if anyone else notices this and wished it didn't look so 'degraded,' especially since it was a wonderful scene and the general lighting design was excellent.

Also, some of the shots in the first 15 minutes felt a little too dim, or perhaps lacking in some needed contrast. Again, it was like they had an idea for something, and the stock couldn't quite handle the lighting. This was especially true when Weisz's character was supposed to be almost in silhouette - her profile would be dark, but not dark enough - you could see everything in a mushy haze, enough that you kind of strain to see what's there, just out of reflex.

[Brian C]

The Deep Blue Sea actually opens at the Landmark Century Centre here in Chicago, which isn't all that unusual for higher-profile Music Box Films releases.

I saw it the other night at the Gene Siskel Film Center, also with Davies in attendance, and pretty much agree with you about the film. I wasn't really sure what I was looking at, either, in the climactic scene. "Mushy" is a good word for it, although I thought a good part of the film (most of the scenes in their flat) was that way, too, besides just the climax.

Like you, I enjoyed the movie overall, but I also had issues with the performances of Weisz and Hiddleston, although the film stakes out some awkward and ill-defined emotional ground. Davies talked afterwards about his reservations with using a stage play as source material, and how he radically altered the play to adapt it for the screen, but I'm not altogether sure he succeeded. The actors seem boxed in by the dialogue, especially Weisz, whose every scene seems to be punctuated by a line of dialogue that tells us exactly what the scene is about. As a result, she comes across as uncannily self-aware, but in a way that seems imposed by the script. Hiddleston has a similar fate, always forced to explain exactly what he wants and why, which doesn't give him much room as an actor to explore the character. On the other hand, I thought Simon Russell Beale came off much better.

Davies was very enthusiastic during the unmoderated Q&A afterwards. A lot of artists are (understandably, IMO) reluctant to discuss their process very openly, but Davies struck me as very generous in this regard. He'd get a simple question from the audience, and spend several minutes not just answering the question, but zooming off into any number of tangents about his inspirations, personal memories, or just the state of the world (especially Britain) in general.

Regarding the casting of Weisz, he said that he rarely watches new movies, but out of boredom flipped on the TV one day and came across Weisz in one of her movies (he didn't say which). Struck by her eyes ("they'll still be luminous when she's 90"), he called his manager to find out who she was, only to be ridiculed by him because she was already a very famous and Davies is so out of step.

He said that casting the part of Freddie was much more difficult, because young English actors these days have this bizarre idea that they should be free to change their dialogue to suit them. Also they're very rude and tend to be late for everything all the time, which he can't stand (this was one of several "kids these days" rants of his). I don't recall that he specifically mentioned how Hiddleston fit into this picture, but presumably he was on time for his audition and stuck to the script.

Davies also said that he doesn't hesitate to give actors line readings, which he knows is a problem for actors so he's very up front about it with their agents before hand. At the same time, he gave a couple of examples from The Deep Blue Sea of when the actors' phrasing was so unexpected and sublime that he had no choice but to keep those takes. He also mentioned a specific gesture by Hiddleston in that climactic scene (when he hesitates to grab his hat off the rack) that took his breath away for how it changed the meaning of the scene from what he had in mind.

A few other random notes: He said that the score for Psycho is the best film score he's heard. He said that movies over two hours long are inherently problematic - Angelopoulos could pull it off, but even Tarkovsky couldn't manage (Stalker is his greatest film, but The Sacrifice "makes you lose your will to live"). He's written four scripts that he'd like to make, one of which is an unnamed Ed McBain adaptation, and another of which is about Emily Dickinson, his favorite American poet, but it looks like his Scottish period piece Sunset Song will be next. The last time Britain "was important" as a nation was WWII, and now the country is "imploding". His biggest goal for this movie was to recreate the period, because he grew up in those times and really had a very specific idea in mind for how it should look.

There was a lot more, since he spoke at length and being unmoderated, the discussion drifted about. Overall he seemed very gracious and charming.

[warren oates]

Saw Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea today and liked it very much, almost in spite of its source material, a play from the 1950s period depicted, which as other previous posters have noted probably feels more "on the nose" than bracingly honest to a contemporary sensibility. I've seen all of Davies' films now and this one seems to me to be the best adaptation he's yet done, for me definitely the only one that successfully extends the promising poetry of his shorts and first two features into something more conventionally narrative. Sure The Neon Bible and The House of Mirth are arguably richer literature than this play, but everything about the time and place -- all the atmospherics of period and memory that Davies' excels at -- is so perfectly in tune with his aesthetic... The ordinariness of the story and the expected dramatic beats it follows doesn't bore me like it should probably because the film is so in tune with the pain of its protagonist. This is a simple story about someone who feels trapped in a life of her own making, heartbroken and disillusioned and lonely in a dingy flat with dark wallpaper. But it's also very much about all the wallpaper and old mirrors and table lamps in all the rooms she has these feelings in. And nobody does this kind of detail better, the painterly background expressionism of a set and props and the precise quality and hue of light -- except maybe Tarkovsky.

In contrast to previous posters, I quite liked the fragmented, impressionistic nearly diagloueless opening of the film. It almost makes you wish the rest of the film had been more like this. A sort of Terence Davies take on something like In The Mood For Love.

[hearthesilence]

Saw Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea today and liked it very much, almost in spite of its source material, a play from the 1950s period depicted, which as other previous posters have noted probably feels more "on the nose" than bracingly honest to a contemporary sensibility. I've seen all of Davies' films now and this one seems to me to be the best adaptation he's yet done, for me definitely the only one that successfully extends the promising poetry of his shorts and first two features into something more conventionally narrative. Sure The Neon Bible and The House of Mirth are arguably richer literature than this play, but everything about the time and place -- all the atmospherics of period and memory that Davies' excels at -- is so perfectly in tune with his aesthetic... The ordinariness of the story and the expected dramatic beats it follows doesn't bore me like it should probably because the film is so in tune with the pain of its protagonist. This is a simple story about someone who feels trapped in a life of her own making, heartbroken and disillusioned and lonely in a dingy flat with dark wallpaper. But it's also very much about all the wallpaper and old mirrors and table lamps in all the rooms she has these feelings in. And nobody does this kind of detail better, the painterly background expressionism of a set and props and the precise quality and hue of light -- except maybe Tarkovsky.

In contrast to previous posters, I quite liked the fragmented, impressionistic nearly diagloueless opening of the film. It almost makes you wish the rest of the film had been more like this. A sort of Terence Davies take on something like In The Mood For Love.

I actually like the opening too, it was one of the strongest bits of movie. I think most of my mixed feelings about the first quarter came from the scenes with her husband and mother-in-law. To be fair, most of the humor is concentrated in those scenes, so I imagine it'll be the most entertaining stretch for most people - I was definitely amused. But at the same time, in showing how grating her life with her husband's like, I kind of wondered if it was a little too simple and a little too easy? The rest of the film (or I suppose the original story) did such a wonderful job of sketching out the complexities of the affair, it made that part of the film seemed all the more conventional and less interesting in comparison.

[domino harvey]

DVDBeaver on the Blu... not to start something I necessarily want to finish, but why would anyone need a Blu-ray of a film that looks like it was shot through a dream-sequence Vaseline lens?

[warren oates]

DVDBeaver on the Blu... not to start something I necessarily want to finish, but why would anyone need a Blu-ray of a film that looks like it was shot through a dream-sequence Vaseline lens?

=; That target market would be me. I just re-watched Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes and would love to have them on Blu-ray too. The idea that a stylized painterly un-razor-sharp image suffers on or isn't also improved upon by the Blu-ray format seems like a weird nonstarter coming from somebody like you. Unless I'm not getting the joke...

[colinr0380]

I'll register my interest in having domino's unwanted review copy of McCabe and Mrs Miller forwarded on to me when it gets a Blu release then.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I think it looks beautiful. Oneiric and Terence Davies are two things that totally deserve each other.

[hearthesilence]

I imagine it would be tough to transfer this to standard-def video, so if I were to purchase this, I'd definitely want a Blu-Ray. They don't show what I thought were the most extreme shots in the film (more on that in a second), but the screencaps on DVDBeaver look close to what I remember.

FWIW, I saw Distant Voices, Still Lives a week after The Deep Blue Sea, also projected in 35mm, and while it tilts toward the same look, The Deep Blue Sea goes much further in testing the limits of its photography. I don't recall any shots in Distant Voices that had the same mushy-looking, flying saucer grain as those evening shots during the final meeting between Weiz and Hiddleston.

[warren oates]

I'm glad colin above mentioned McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Off the top of my head, in the pro-mushiness column, I could also put almost all of Sokurov's films, most of Wong Kar Wai's and any number of other great looking art films like Flowers of Shanghai all of which I'd love to see on Blu-ray. When it comes down to it, domino's question is almost akin to asking "why did they even shoot this on film if it was going to look so hazy?" Then again, it was domino's curt (and accurate) dis of Meek's Cutoff that finally got me to join in the first place. Still, I feel a bit like Woody Allen in that scene from Manhattan where he first meets Diane Keaton -- like, what great art is going to get trashed next?

[Brian C]

Yeah, I can't imagine what the film would look like in standard def, but I imagine it would be something like tinted mud.

BTW, warren - Flowers of War? I don't recall that being "mushy" at all. On the contrary it seemed to be shot like any big-budget Hollywood movie.

[warren oates]

BTW, warren - Flowers of War? I don't recall that being "mushy" at all. On the contrary it seemed to be shot like any big-budget Hollywood movie.

Well, I meant the Hou Hsiao-hsien film, but you're right in that it's not so much mushy/hazy as extremely golden, another aspect of the look of The Deep Blue Sea that I like very much.

[Brian C]

Fuck me, I'm an idiot. I thought it was quite a stretch to refer to Flowers of War as an "art film"...

[Numero Trois]

Regarding the casting of Weisz, he said that he rarely watches new movies, but out of boredom flipped on the TV one day and came across Weisz in one of her movies (he didn't say which).

It was Swept from the Sea

[Brian C]

Good catch, thanks.

[DeusEx]

My one complaint with the film would be the occasional unevenness in the script and the performances - which have moments of feeling understated and naturalistic, and others that veer in demonstrative and melodramatic directions. Either style - naturalistic or melodramatic - can be a virtue, but the inconsistency felt odd on occasion. In particular, the scenes with the mother-in-law are so insistent about the acid verbal exchanges, but every line (and every cringing reaction) feels forced and predictable. Again, this wouldn't necessarily be a problem for me (I'm very warm to melodrama done well) except that it's so jarring relative to what's come before and what will come after - which is poetic, moving and disarmingly earnest. Of course, this jarring or stylistic inconsistency may have its point too, but I wasn't sure if this was the point I ought to be getting.

Beyond that - and there are other moments where this sense of forced line-readings and overdetermined dialogue creeps in - I was really won over by this one and I'm keen on exploring the rest of Davies's films (which I've had on my shelves, and have been putting off, for years). In terms of the plot and the themes I couldn't help being reminded of Gertrud (though it's been quite a while since I've seen that one), and to some extent Blue Valentine. I'll add that I'm also a big fan of Barber's violin concerto and love the way Davies uses it here.

[hearthesilence]

My one complaint with the film would be the occasional unevenness in the script and the performances...In particular, the scenes with the mother-in-law are so insistent about the acid verbal exchanges, but every line (and every cringing reaction) feels forced and predictable. Again, this wouldn't necessarily be a problem for me (I'm very warm to melodrama done well) except that it's so jarring relative to what's come before and what will come after - which is poetic, moving and disarmingly earnest. Of course, this jarring or stylistic inconsistency may have its point too, but I wasn't sure if this was the point I ought to be getting.

Earlier in this thread, I voiced a reservation on similar grounds. I think we both feel that those scenes belong in another movie. Again, they were probably the funniest scenes, but the tone of the script and the performances doesn't fit with the rest of the film.

[CSM126]

Well I guess I'm the one curmudgeon who hates this movie. It's so mannered and cold and slow-paced and, frankly, boring that I'm not sure whether to just forget it or get angry that a film this dull is being foisted on hapless audiences. Then again, judging from this thread I must be the only one feeling this way. It's also butt-ugly to look at - I'll believe it was shot on film when I see a negative. This muddy excuse for photography looks like a shot on video movie made with a newsroom RCA brick, projected through a lens covered in feces.

I just sat there in the theater screaming inside my head for them to get on with it, whatever it was they were doing (not much). There are pregnant pauses for dramatic effect and then there are dramatic pauses for making the movie longer to satisfy the producer. I just couldn't stand it.

[knives]

I understand mannered and slow-paced, but not cold. Despite the impressionism allowing for the presentation of coldness I thought the movie was so close to every character's pulse that I suspect it warmed my own body. It's a very sympathetic look at insanity.

[J Adams]

I can understand a cold response to the film but for me that\'s the right response. Yeah it\'s dark, static, distancing, etc. I wouldn\'t want to watch a lot of films like this. But it was filmed and acted in a way that perfectly suited the subject matter. Arguably Davies\' best film. And a very gutsy one. He certainly could have made a MUCH more user-friendly version.

[colinr0380]

I suppose that, were it available anywhere, the 1955 Vivien Leigh version could be considered the 'user friendly' one!