A mother haunts a home that never was, absorbed by the fog of a tremulous
past where regrets bleat in the empty spaces of the night. Sydney Lumet once
again stages a tumultuous and claustrophobic narrative for the silver screen,
translating a static dialogue into the fluid grace of film language.
The strident tale involves a family’s final descent into the dark night
of the soul, where all psychological boundaries are transcended and each
character is stripped naked, where language is used like a volatile paint
thinner to reveal their loathing towards the others…and towards themselves. The
quartet is dominated by the Patriarch James Sr., a retired actor and alcoholic who
pursued fortune (and attained it) at the cost of his artistic soul. Mary is the
Matriarch, a woman who wanders the threshold of present reality lost in a
morphine fog. James Jr. is the eldest son who is but a shadow of his father, a
failure in every venture except in whoring and boozing. And Edmund is the
youngest, his tubercular future not looking very bright, educated and once free
but now trapped within the confines of an infectious family disease.
Each character vomits a hopeless monologue as the past becomes more alive
than the present, buried in an abattoir of regrets and self-loathing, people
who have dug their own graves and futilely lie down in them. Though this play
was no doubt cathartic for Eugene O’Neil, who wanted it published posthumously,
the problem is in discovering sympathy for the characters. They are vain,
narcissistic, hostile, and show very little (if any) empathy or sensitivity
towards one another (or anyone else). They are wealthy entitled braggadocios
who have isolated themselves not only from the world but each other. This isn't a tale of addiction, though that may be a side effect of the underlying
problem: this is a tale of a family that despises one another. This family grew
from a bad seed and now bears poisonous fruit. But this tempest has no end, there
is no hope of survival, and as each utters the truth (or their version of the
truth) they acknowledge that they will never change. Edmund is the most likable but his physical disease becomes a metaphor for the fatal diagnosis of
the family unit. He needs to be sent to a Sanatorium to have a chance to
recover, a home away from home from a house that never was. His only hope of
survival is to leave.
Sidney Lumet allows the camera to become voyeur into the melodrama where
it meanders and tracks through the dilapidated house, following the characters
as they stalk one another. He often films in close up for dramatic impact, to create
intimacy with the characters whose very words and actions push us away. This
creates frisson as the dual purposes of what we’re seeing and what we’re
feeling work against one another. The first act seems to stutter a bit as the
editing is a bit too formal and staged, but by the second act becomes fluent. Lumet
allows each actor to hold the screen without quick editing or reaction shots,
to focus upon their withered visages and empty lost eyes. The final scene as
Mary floats down the stairs dragging her soiled wedding dress and sits at the
table is wonderfully conceived. Lumet oh so slowly pulls the camera back to an
impossible perspective (what happened to the walls?) so the eerie ghost lights
from outside highlight the table, as Mary becomes forever lost in her youth.
Then he suddenly cuts to extreme close-up of each before receding to the
story’s end. Jarring and brilliant as Lumet gives the audience a final shock
before fading away.
The acting is superb and professional as Kate Hepburn, Ralph Richardson,
Jason Robbards and Dean Stockwell reach deep down inside themselves and find
their own demons to conjure for the silver screen. This long day’s journey
finally ends not with a shout…but a whisper.
Final Grade: (A)
