Just in case you missed the Sydney Theatre Company "documentary", In the Company of Actors, you will be delighted to know that the ABC are airing it tonight at 8.30pm.
The blurb on the website explains;
In raw and intimate detail the documentary takes the audience behind the curtains to observe the actors immersed in the creative process. We discover that presenting a seemingly effortless performance is a complex, detailed, technical and exhaustive process, with the director Robyn Nevin, writer Andrew Upton, and their teams of artists and technicians working 18-hour days. As we enter their world, we feel and understand their deeply ingrained love of theatre and their passion for telling stories.
Oh, I nearly forgot... there is also the review I wrote when I first saw it at the premiere last year HERE.
So get your mates together, get comfortable on the couch with your red wine and popcorn and sit down for the big event. You could even do a Eurovision type thing and even dress up. The possibilities are endless!
Thursday, 7 February 2008
No wonder they're crawling all over...
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 11:09 am
Labels: Film, Sydney Theatre Company, Television
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17 comments:
"Crawling all over" what?
" ... writer Andrew Upton ..."?
I wonder what the Ibsen Estate would have to say about that grotesque mis-representation! Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say he was the Adaptor? Or possibly it's just a little bit more shameless profile building?
Can I add to that??? On the website that Nicholas links to at the ABC, it says that it is an "award-winning documentary".
What award? Whose?
I think the film was accepted at a number of film festivals both over here and internationally.
Maybe they won one overseas. I looked at their website, but it doesn't mention any, which is surprising.
I could have certainly given it an award...
Yes ... me too. Several in fact.
Nicholas, I thought better of you. It sounding a lot like you are being very defensive over the fact that whereas you wrote a quibbling and ungenerous review both the Herald critics (even the curmudgeonly Doug Anderson) have given the doco high praise. Surely you can't object to the fact that their enthusiasm will encourage hundreds of thousand of people to watch and perhaps become more interested in the process of theatre. Isn't that what you aspired to do? It's no surprise that Michael Webster is once again quick to sink the boot into anyone with talent and success, but you, Nicholas? Ah Sydney...
No, pluscachange... what is wonderful about the difference of opinion is that it is a difference of opinion.
Doug Anderson, Michael Idato and Keith Austin all gave the documentary very positive reviews.
But, as you know, I don't share the sentiment that it will encourage interest 'in the process of theatre'.
But then again, as with all things, I could very well be wrong.
I never knew that Andrew Upton spoke Norwegian!
I watched it for the first time last night.
I had to take a break after only 15mins because it was so BORING.
My flatmate's boyfriend left after 5 mins saying there was not a single reason to keep watching.
We agreed it was like they edited together the most boring parts of some interviews with some really boring people.
Monumentally dull.
You are so right Jane, they are all terribly boring. No wonder Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Justine Clarke and Robyn Nevin just can't seem to get anything happening career-wise...maybe you could give them some advice.
Be careful of sarcasm anonymous... Look where it got me!
On another note (and more positive) Ruth Ricthie at the Herald also gave In the Company of Actors a great review.
It appears that I am, once again, in the minority... right where I belong!
Fair enough Nicholas. You are refreshing and perhaps unique in your willingness to admit that, as a critic, you may not always be right. Your opinion is just that--yours. Would there were more like you.
Oh no pluscachange, I don't want you to misunderstand me... I am ALWAYS right... whether I am in the minority or not is another question altogether!
You are not entirely alone in your view Nicholas. I reiterate that I failed to undertsand the point of this doco entirely. Anonymous, the point I was making was not that these people were boring per se but that the film-making made them so. My friend, who has nothing to do with the theatre, did not have his attention grabbed by anything in the first 5-10 minutes so walked away. I, who have had quite a bit to do with theatre, was left with nothing to chew over except why the interviewing and editing style of this doco sucked all the life from these people. We were left with the lamest and least enlightening platitudes about what the theatre means to these people - it's a privileged space, there's no such thing as character, she's a bundle of contradictions etc. Nothing new, just drama without the drama for me.
Well Jane, horses for courses I guess. Fortunately for the film-makers, as Nicholas points out, all four Herald critics were unanimous in their praise. They may not have had "quite a bit to do with theatre", I suppose, but I daresay they know a bit about good film making. And have attention spans longer than your boyfriend's, it seems. Each to his own...
Which is where Nicholas' great article comes in anonymous.
Do you think that if they had been aware of the conflict of interest and limited objectivity that they would have been so 'unanimous in their praise'?
It's bewildering that nobody - from the SMH telly critics to Anonymous (hi there) and the rest, even the perspicacious Mr Pickard - has worked out the real story behind the doco. It's the one about
why it took such a long time to surface. The real story was told by A Crimper who said Miss Nevin was so appalled by the early footage in
Sydney when her long lank locks made her look like the Wicked Witch
of the Wharf, that she tried to sit on it - (not her hair, the doco)
hence so little rehearsal footage.Then she put a sack on her head and went straight out to get her hair cut. You have to admit it looks really good these days and in the second half of the doco. Such is life.
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