Hedda (VHS) [1975] Glenda Jackson

http://bayimg.com/GaKhJaadC Hedda (1975) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073098/ THE SOURCE FOR THIS TORRENT WAS PRODUCED IN 1987, THERE IS SOME DEGRADATION OF AUDIO AND VIDEO Q2UALITY. Hedda is a 1975 film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. It stars Peter Eyre, Glenda Jackson and Patrick Stewart and was directed by Trevor Nunn. This was the first (and so far the only) major theatrical film version of the play in English. Previous productions of the play in English with sound had all been made for television. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (Glenda Jackson). The film was also screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition. Glenda Jackson ... Hedda Gabler Peter Eyre ... Jørgen Tesman Timothy West ... Judge Brack Jennie Linden ... Thea Elvsted Patrick Stewart ... Ejlert Løvborg Constance Chapman ... Juliane Tesman (Aunt Julie) Pam St. Clement ... Berthe Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama. A 1902 production was a major sensation on Broadway starring Minnie Maddern Fiske and following its initial limited run was revived with the actress the following year. The character of Hedda is considered by some critics as one of the great dramatic roles in theatre, the female Hamlet, and some portrayals have been very controversial. Depending on the interpretation, Hedda may be portrayed as an idealistic heroine fighting society, a victim of circumstance, a prototypical feminist, or a manipulative villain. Hedda's married name is Hedda Tesman; Gabler is her maiden name. On the subject of the title, Ibsen wrote:My intention in giving it this name was to indicate that Hedda as a personality is to be regarded rather as her father's daughter than her husband's wife. Joseph Wood Krutch makes a connection between Hedda Gabler and Freud, whose first work on psychoanalysis was published almost a decade later. Hedda is one of the first fully developed neurotic heroines of literature. By that Krutch means that Hedda is neither logical nor insane in the old sense of being random and unaccountable. Her aims and her motives have a secret personal logic of their own. She gets what she wants, but what she wants is not anything that the normal usually admit, publicly at least, to be desirable. One of the significant things that such a character implies is the premise that there is a secret, sometimes unconscious, world of aims and methods — one might almost say a secret system of values — that is often much more important than the rational one. At the time Ibsen wrote Hedda Gabler, the term "New Woman" had emerged to describe women who were pushing against the limits which society imposed on women. While the New Woman sought self-determination and freedom, as well as equality with males and a true understanding of female sexuality, the Old Woman believed in self-sacrifice, a woman's duty to her husband, and sexuality only in terms of childbearing. Hedda is a model case of a "New Woman" who ultimately finds no satisfaction in liberation. This is not to say that Ibsen by any stretch of the imagination intends Hedda Gabler as a critique of the New Woman; to the contrary, he is offering a critique of the resistance against it. When we first see Glenda Jackson's Hedda Gabler in the opening credit sequence of the new film, Hedda, she is standing on the deck of a Norwegian coastal steamer, her body straight and lean, her jaw firm and her eyes betraying no interest whatever. Hedda tolerates scenery. Fjords, mountains, autumn foliage are landscapes to be passed through as quickly as possible. That's all. Standing on the deck, she is the steamer's figurehead. She could slice through a polar icecap without receiving a scratch. It's a striking image, and one that sets the style for the bright, clean-edge performance that follows. Hedda is Trevor Nunn's screen adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company stage production that he directed and toured in this country and Australia last year. It is very much a film, though, with a few exceptions at the beginning, it sticks to the single interior set of the Ibsen play. The pleasures of Hedda Gabler are not inexhaustible, especially when Hedda is playe with the more conventional gestures of despair. Miss Jackson's Hedda comes on with low-key fury, her manner so abrasive and openly sarcastic that it's difficult to see why men have tried to conquer her, unless it was simply the game and not the prize that was fascinating. She is intelligent. She's well-born. She's also lethal, which is so apparent from the start of Miss Jackson's performance that the interest is not in why she wrecks the lives around her, but how. This version of Hedda Gabler is all Miss Jackson's Hedda and, I must say, great fun to watch. Jackson's Hedda is exaggerated, neurotic, neurasthenic, and full of poses. Miss Jackson's technical virtuosity is particularly suited to a character like Hedda. Her command of her voice and her body, as well as the Jackson mannerisms, have the effect of separating the actress from the character in a very curious way. It's as if one were reviewing the other with rueful self-awareness. It's the drama critic in Hedda who describes as a grotesque farce her marriage to a dull pedant who doesn't come up to her ankles. Hedda is a terrific role—and Hedda knows it. She is willful, insatiable, articulate, but no more demanding of others than she is of herself. One of the problems with the film is that none of the actors seem to have the resources needed to balance Miss Jackson's performance. Some of this is in Ibsen's play, of course. It's no contest from the beginning, when Hedda and her husband return from their honeymoon and she sets about goading her former lover into a positive act (suicide) and sparring with her husband's best friend, who could possibly become a lover. Most effective is Timothy West, as the possible lover who is almost as ruthless as Hedda is. But both Peter Eyre, as her husband, and Patrick Stewart, as the former lover whose life and work she destroys, haven't the weight to make the contest with Miss Jackson especially interesting. In this Hedda, the women have the best moments. Jennie Linden is fine as the deceptively defenseless Mrs. Elvsted, who originally comes to Hedda's house for help and stays on to replace her. Miss Linden succeeds in uncovering the smugness underneath Mrs. Elvsted's helplessness, which then becomes a weapon as lethal as Hedda's arrogant demand for perfection. The physical production is handsome, and Mr. Nunn is most successful in preserving the claustrophobic nature of the play without creating a static film. Hedda is an imaginative, intelligent film version of a play that I wasn't breathlessly waiting to see at this moment.

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charley0 (2012-12-21)

thanks, better than nothing, *S [very blurry]