Read the Peter Weiss play, and you'll find it to be a brilliant, multilayered, and meaningful work of art. The Peter Brook movie of it is anything but, and it helps to explain the downturn in highbrow British film c. 1967-1974. Peter Brook's baleful influence had to have encouraged the nihilistic pretentiousness of "A Clockwork Orange," "The Ruling Class," and all of Ken Russell.
1. Grotesque ugliness for its own sake. Brook and his makeup artists have a field day with drooling "crazies" and perfectly elocuting clown-face choruses. If you've ever wanted to see Brad Pitt's performance in "Twelve Monkeys" multiplied by 20, by all means watch this movie.
2. Allegedly good actors horrendously overacting: Glenda Jackson, Patrick Magee, Freddie Jones, and Ian Richardson (he of the unblinking stare) are all terrible.
3. Maddening, gimmicky cinematography: fish-eye lens, blaring overexposed white light, blurriness.
4. The worst nightmare sequence ever, added by Brook.
5. A stupidly violent conclusion that also departs from Weiss.
Basically the movie is for pseudo-intellectuals who are looking for a way to slum it whilst still claiming highbrow credentials. Read the play instead.
1. Grotesque ugliness for its own sake. Brook and his makeup artists have a field day with drooling "crazies" and perfectly elocuting clown-face choruses. If you've ever wanted to see Brad Pitt's performance in "Twelve Monkeys" multiplied by 20, by all means watch this movie.
2. Allegedly good actors horrendously overacting: Glenda Jackson, Patrick Magee, Freddie Jones, and Ian Richardson (he of the unblinking stare) are all terrible.
3. Maddening, gimmicky cinematography: fish-eye lens, blaring overexposed white light, blurriness.
4. The worst nightmare sequence ever, added by Brook.
5. A stupidly violent conclusion that also departs from Weiss.
Basically the movie is for pseudo-intellectuals who are looking for a way to slum it whilst still claiming highbrow credentials. Read the play instead.