"Middlemarch" Moves Forward

Of course while I was away, the one movie project I am following moved forward. According to blogger Lady Ashley, who puts it the most succinctly:

Sam Mendes has signed a two-year deal with Focus Features that includes two projects, one of which is a new adaptation of George Elliot’s Middlemarch. Better yet, Andrew Davies has already submitted a script for the film. So we’ll see this big-screen Middlemarch in either 2010 or 2011.

The Independent reports that Mendes beat Martin Scorcese to the punch on this project. Despite the one big flaw in Marty's The Age of Innocence (the narration) it's still an excellent film. I'd trust Scorcese over Mendes, I think, but after Revolutionary Road I can see the Lydgate/Rosamund plot being really devastating under the latter's direction. Anyway, I recommend the Independent article, as it's a lovely example of how to write literature and art through the medium of journalism without robbing the subject of emotion and subjectivity.

More discussion of the matter here and here. And the casting discussion rages on at imdb.

The Winter's Tale at BAM

Last night was a true cultural treat for me and my sig oth. We ventured out to Brooklyn for three hours of the Bard. The play was Sam Mendes' production of "The Winter's Tale," starring Simon Russell Beale (aka Charles Musgrove from Persuasion), Sinéad Cusack (Mrs. Thornton from North and South), and Morven Christie (Rose Maylie from Oliver Twist) as well as superstars Ethan Hawke and Rebecca Hall, the latter of whom is now at the top of my list for Dorothea candidates in Mendes' maybe-we'll-see-it, maybe-we-won't Middlemarch.

So aside from being six degrees of period drama awesomeness, and giving me the realization that hey! BBC dramas are unfuckingbelievably good because they utilize the world's top Shakespearean actors, I really adore the play on its own merits. For those who don't know it, TWT starts out as a tragic family drama, with a raging, jealous king wreaking havoc on his family. Then it skips ahead 16 years for an interlude of bawdy pastoral fun with the progeny of the main characters and some country bumpkins. Then the play gets serious again as it reconciles the two halves. It's a really interesting and moving work, full of meta-commentary on the nature of comedy and tragedy and art vs. reality as well as a humanistic approach to the themes of jealousy, forgiveness, power, and love. Basically it's little bit of everything Shakespeare does best thrown together in a provoking way. Plus the female characters in this play are SO AMAZING. They are just wonderful, strong, self-realized characters who steal the show.

Mendes' production was very strong, if a bit slow and Mendes-y at moments, but he does draw great performances out: the acting was top-notch, especially from the Brits. Ethan Hawke hammed it up as one of the comic characters, and the music and scenery were lovely and well done. It was well worth the hour subway ride from the northern of Manhattan and the accidental detour into East Harlem we took on the way back :) (but it did lead us to a 24-hour Dunkin Donuts, which is really the best way to digest Shakespeare!)

Here's Ben Brantley's review.

Middlemarch Watch: Can Mendes do Eliot Justice?

So now that "Revolutionary Road" is over and done with and la la la, Sam Mendes' next project is slated to be a big screen adaptation of "Middlemarch" with Andrew Davies as screenwriter. As an obsessive fangirl of Dorothea Brooke-Causabon/Will Ladislaw love, I've decided to inaugurate a "Middlemarch watch" feature to track the progress, if there is any, on this film. George Eliot in Hollywood--it would definitely be a first!

Here is my inaugural find: a blogger called John at purple state of mind writes about the pros and cons of Mendes at the helm of the project. I pretty much agree with what he says; that Mendes' earlier projects are stagey and rather airless (I forgive my 16 year old self for being sooooo obsessed with "American Beauty" which I now see was not quite as deep as I thought). But, he notes that "Revolutionary Road" was a huge step up. I really liked Rev Road despite not wanting to. I thought the actors were electric though the screenplay was a bit pat.

And let's face it--Frank and April Wheeler ARE extremely similar characters to Rosamand Vincy and Tertius Lydgate in almost all ways, including weirdly parallel baby/no-baby plots and professional aspirations and well, everything. Anyway, here be John's thoughts:

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So Mendes is getting better, and I’m inclined to see his decision to make Middlemarch as further evidence of growth. Much has been made of the fact that this British director is now taking on his first native project. He must sense the opportunity...

On the evidence of Revolutionary Road, I’m prepared to believe that he’s looking home for a reason. He may sense in Eliot a chance to work with the same ambition on more fertile ground. His movies demonstrate an unmistakable interest in the interplay between individual conscience and social imperative, whether the setting is American suburbia, the United States military or criminal enterprise. Middlemarch affords a classic framework for such concerns. In its massiveness, it could also be a trap for the director’s worst impulses. In the absence of a point of view with which to harness the material, prettiness would be the default position.

In other words, if Sam Mendes wanted to put himself to the ultimate test, he’s found it. No matter what he does, George Eliot’s reputation will remain intact. It’s an open question whether his will.

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Up next will be a discussion of casting, which is already causing sparks to fly on the imdb board. Let's just say the anti-Kiera Knightley folks are out in full force. God bless them.