Vivid portrait of the great playwright of inertia points up the contrast with his real-life romantic entanglements and daring work for the French resistance
Director James Marsh has boldly, maybe even sacrilegiously, given us a Hollywoodised biopic of Samuel Beckett. It starts with Beckett surreally escaping the Nobel ceremony to talk in private with a doppelganger confessor – a breezier, more worldly self in a rollneck sweater and jacket – and glumly wondering to whom in his life he should penitentially give the prize money, a guilt list which ushers in the flashbacks.
It isn’t hard to imagine what the man himself would have said about this movie, but though a little hammy, it is well acted and tells the story with verve, tackling the paradox of Beckett’s bleak fictional universe of stymied inaction and his dramatic real life of service in the French resistance and romantic intrigue. There’s a very thoughtful,...
Director James Marsh has boldly, maybe even sacrilegiously, given us a Hollywoodised biopic of Samuel Beckett. It starts with Beckett surreally escaping the Nobel ceremony to talk in private with a doppelganger confessor – a breezier, more worldly self in a rollneck sweater and jacket – and glumly wondering to whom in his life he should penitentially give the prize money, a guilt list which ushers in the flashbacks.
It isn’t hard to imagine what the man himself would have said about this movie, but though a little hammy, it is well acted and tells the story with verve, tackling the paradox of Beckett’s bleak fictional universe of stymied inaction and his dramatic real life of service in the French resistance and romantic intrigue. There’s a very thoughtful,...
- 11/1/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
In a genre not traditionally given to brevity, James Marsh’s literary biopic “Dance First” at least has that on its side: In 100 minutes, it races through the key events and alliances in the life of Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett, even finding time for some metaphysical musings alongside the cradle-to-grave checklist. But Beckett’s characteristic terseness — or radical “lessness,” to borrow a title from one of his stories — isn’t a feature of this creditable but ponderous film, which ultimately achieves its efficient runtime by skirting any meaningful engagement with Beckett’s work and literary legacy. What’s left is an anatomy of his unhappiness via a procession of stymied or soured relationships: shot with grace, acted with intelligence, but short on Beckettian daring or wit.
It’s another biopic from Marsh, following 2014’s popular “The Theory of Everything” and 2017’s less-seen “The Mercy,” that resists bringing his...
It’s another biopic from Marsh, following 2014’s popular “The Theory of Everything” and 2017’s less-seen “The Mercy,” that resists bringing his...
- 10/1/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The actor talks about his new movie Dance First, in which he plays the Irish dramatist, the time he shared a drink with Richard Burton and why he had to leave Los Angeles
In 1969, Samuel Beckett and his wife learned that he had won the Nobel prize in literature in a telegram from his publisher. “Dear Sam and Suzanne,” it read. “In spite of everything, they have given you the Nobel prize. I advise you to go into hiding.” Both were notoriously celebrity averse. Suzanne described it as a “catastrophe”. Beckett declined to give a Nobel lecture, and refused to talk when a Swedish film crew tracked him down to a hotel room in Tunisia, leaving them with a surreal mute interview.
Into this temporal void, a new psychological biopic has poured a monumental reckoning, in which the 63-year-old playwright scrambles out of the Nobel ceremony to find himself in a rough-hewn underworld.
In 1969, Samuel Beckett and his wife learned that he had won the Nobel prize in literature in a telegram from his publisher. “Dear Sam and Suzanne,” it read. “In spite of everything, they have given you the Nobel prize. I advise you to go into hiding.” Both were notoriously celebrity averse. Suzanne described it as a “catastrophe”. Beckett declined to give a Nobel lecture, and refused to talk when a Swedish film crew tracked him down to a hotel room in Tunisia, leaving them with a surreal mute interview.
Into this temporal void, a new psychological biopic has poured a monumental reckoning, in which the 63-year-old playwright scrambles out of the Nobel ceremony to find himself in a rough-hewn underworld.
- 9/22/2023
- by Claire Armitstead
- The Guardian - Film News
European pay TV platform Sky has released the trailer for Sky Original film “Dance First,” ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 30. Film Constellation is handling international sales on the film.
The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”). “Dance First” will be released in movie theaters in the U.K. and Ireland in November, on Sky Cinema in those countries in December and on Sky Arts and Freeview next year.
In “Dance First,” Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects”) plays Samuel Beckett with young Beckett played by Fionn O’Shea (“Normal People”) in a sweeping account of the life of this 20th century literary icon. Parisian bon vivant, World War II resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse, Beckett lived a life of many parts.
The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”). “Dance First” will be released in movie theaters in the U.K. and Ireland in November, on Sky Cinema in those countries in December and on Sky Arts and Freeview next year.
In “Dance First,” Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects”) plays Samuel Beckett with young Beckett played by Fionn O’Shea (“Normal People”) in a sweeping account of the life of this 20th century literary icon. Parisian bon vivant, World War II resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse, Beckett lived a life of many parts.
- 9/21/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
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