In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan, 1993)

In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan, 1993)

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, Emma Thompson, John Lynch, Mark Sheppard, Don Baker, Corin Redgrave, Beatie Edney, Marie Jones, Daniel Massey, Paterson Joseph, Gerard McSorley. Screenplay: Terry George, Jim Sheridan, based on a book by Gerry Conlon. Cinematography: Peter Biziou. Production design: Caroline Amies. Film editing: Gerry Hambling. Music: Trevor Jones.

Reality doesn't come neatly packaged, so films based on "true stories" always have to lie to us. The trick is not letting the lies get in the way of what truth remains in the story. Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father was attacked for too much fictionalizing, too many departures from the facts, and the best that Sheridan could do was to claim that the film was not so much a story about Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four -- falsely arrested for terrorism and imprisoned for 15 years until the verdict was overturned -- as it was about "a non-violent parent." And if Sheridan's film had been that, if it had focused more intensely on the relationship between Gerry and Giuseppe Conlon, it would have been a different film entirely. But Sheridan and co-screenwriter Terry George yielded to the temptation to stray into more dramatically conventional territory: the efforts to exonerate the Conlons and the others, and the courtroom showdown that resulted in their release. With the blurring of the facts, the film shifts into melodrama. But it's a very well-acted melodrama. Daniel Day-Lewis resorted to Method techniques -- spending time in jail and speaking with a Belfast accent even off-screen -- to get into Gerry Conlon's mind, and it's a wholly convincing performance, following Conlon from layabout to victim to victor. What there is of the troubled relationship of father and son is beautifully presented in the scenes with Pete Postlethwaite as Giuseppe, and Emma Thompson makes the most of the part of Gareth Peirce, who was not in fact so much the lone heroic defender as the script makes her out to be. In the Name of the Father holds the screen well -- if not as well as it might have if the fictionalizing choices hadn't been so obvious and conventional. 

Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet

Romeo: Leonardo DiCaprio
Juliet: Claire Danes
Tybalt: John Leguizamo
Mercutio: Harold Perrineau
Father Laurence: Pete Postlethwaite
Fulgencio Capulet: Paul Sorvino
Ted Montague: Brian Dennehy
Dave Paris: Paul Rudd
Capt. Prince: Vondie Curtis-Hall
The Nurse: Miriam Margolyes
Apothecary: M. Emmet Walsh
Gloria Capulet: Diane Venora
Caroline Montague: Christina Pickles

Director: Baz Luhrmann
Screenplay: Craig Pearce, Baz Luhrmann
Based on a play by William Shakespeare
Cinematography: Donald McAlpine
Production design: Catherine Martin
Costume design: Kym Barrett

Roger Ebert hated it: "I have never seen anything remotely approaching the mess that this new punk version of Romeo & Juliet makes of Shakespeare's tragedy." But I kind of love it, and something tells me that Shakespeare would. After all, he wrote for a very mixed audience, ranging from people who admired lyric poetry to people who just wanted a little action, a little bawdry, and perhaps a good cry. Baz Luhrmann's version is Shakespeare for the multiplex. But Ebert makes a good point when he says "the movie lacks the nerve to cut entirely adrift from its literary roots." The problem with Romeo + Juliet (no, I don't know why the plus sign rather than "and" or ampersand) is Shakespeare: The text and the theatricality keep getting in the way of Luhrmann's cinematic impulses. He constantly has to work around the demands of Shakespeare's dialogue. Sometimes the workarounds are witty: I like the replacement of the prologue with a TV newscast, the change of the peacekeeping Prince Escalus to a cop called Capt. Prince, even the placement of Paris on the cover of Time as "Bachelor of the Year" -- though why wasn't he on People's cover as the "Sexiest Man Alive"? Even the change in weaponry is nicely handled: Obviously, contemporary gangbangers have to carry guns, and not the weapons specified in Shakespeare's dialogue, so instead of Colt and Glock, their guns have brand names like Sword, Dagger, and Rapier. There is also some wit in the performances: I particularly like the reimagining of Juliet's mother, whom Diane Venora plays as an aging trophy wife, not above doing a little flirting with Paris, her intended son-in-law. Harold Perrineau's portrayal of Mercutio as a drag queen also makes a good deal of sense, given the flamboyance of the character in the play. On the other hand, I don't know why we first see Father (not Friar) Laurence shirtless, delivering a botany lecture to some choir boys. Priestly pederasty was beginning to make headlines when the film was made, but a hint at Father Laurence's predilections doesn't seem relevant to his function in the story. On the whole, the film is best when it's full of action, drawing on the kind of energy that Luhrmann is known for, and it tends to sag in the love scenes. So maybe Romeo + Juliet is a mess, but it's an entertaining one -- and haven't we seen enough productions of the play that weren't?

Watched on Starz Encore Classics