9.13.09 -- Beckett

I just finished watching Beckett on Film: 19 Films x 19 Directors. Beckett really isn’t something to watch first thing in the morning before you’ve had coffee (mainstream Hollywood fare and musicals are easier on the eyes and mind at that point). Two of the shorter plays/films have stayed in my mind – Not I directed by Neil Jordan and Come and Go directed by John Crowley. The images Crowley used of the three women in the play were almost painterly. As for Not I, I was so transfixed I couldn’t even drink my coffee. The instructions of the play are that the lights be shone on the female character’s mouth and all else blacked out. Somehow only seeing a close up, shot in all directions, of a person’s mouth is quite jarring. Losing the other distractions of eyes, body, etc., intensifies what’s being said. Something so dramatic that causes you not to be able to do anything else is rather rare these days.

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