1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 36: A midwinter’s tale
Another Hamlet; or, rather, a tale of a theatrical production of Hamlet …
by a troupe of sad sacks …
in midwinter …
in the country …
in an old, run-down church.
Filmed by Kenneth Branagh, in black and white, one winter before his “honest-to-goodness” Hamlet.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
You will have gathered that this tale is a comedy.
It’s the spiritual ancestor of Toast of London. To be sure, everything in the history of British stage, screen, and radio is an ancestor of Toast of London, but, in this case, the ancestry is immediate. One of the main characters in Toast of London is Jane Plough, the mephistophelian-but-flighty theatrical agent. Jane Plough is lifted out of A Midwinter’s Tale. In that movie she is named Margaretta D’Arcy and played by Joan Collins.
(I hadn’t known this about Toast of London. The more stuff I watch, the more that show makes sense.)
Margaretta D’Arcy’s hapless client is an actor named Joe Harper. He is played by Michael Maloney. (Along with Richard Briers and Nicholas Farrell of A Midwinter’s Tale, Maloney reappears in Branagh’s “honest-to-goodness” Hamlet.) Joe has nearly exhausted his career prospects. He could direct and star in this obscure Hamlet, or he could hold out for a role in a lucrative Hollywood science fiction series.
He opts for Hamlet – for the purity of it, and because he doesn’t trust his luck to get the Hollywood role.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I suppose that much of what happens in A Midwinter’s Tale is more or less obligatory. There is the sequence in which the actors are cast for Hamlet. Those who audition are hilariously unsuitable. One of them (John Sessions) insists on playing Queen Gertrude in drag, which is not so un-Shakespearean, but his style is of the campiest sort. Since there are no better candidates, he is hired. He goes through the movie saying things like “’Tis a far, far better thing I do now than I did that night with the sailor and the artichoke.” As in Toast of London, there are literary and theatrical references galore; most of them are not quite so gratuitous, and if you’ve read and seen enough, you will enjoy them very much.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Mainly, though, A Midwinter’s Tale is a fond look at what it’s like to be an actor in a small production:
the intensity of focus …
the sense of being closed to the rest of the world …
the forging of deeply-felt bonds with other members of one’s troupe.
I haven’t experienced this, but I do remember how, in high school, the kids who were rehearsing for Anne Frank spent a night locked up together to feel what it was like to hide away from the Nazis (and everyone else). It affected them profoundly. For a while afterward, they were very close to one another. One gets the idea, watching A Midwinter’s Tale, that certain performers seek out this kind of experience again and again: the dimmer their own prospects, the lowlier the production, the more it satisfies their craving.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Branagh was very successful by the time he wrote and directed A Midwinter’s Tale, which he also funded. For him, this was a labor of love: of theatrical culture and history, of performing, of one’s fellow performers. Love shines through even in the most satirical, most This Is Spinal Tap-like scenes.
Only recently have I become very interested in Branagh as a director. Not so much for his technical abilities – which do appear to be considerable – but for his enthusiasm for sources and traditions.
He says, in an interview, that he became much more religious because he listened to Laurence Olivier reading the Bible when he was studying to play Olivier. It sounds like a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Performance is what Branagh lives and breathes. Missionaries say that people often are gripped by the Bible when it’s presented in a relatable context. Branagh’s context is the actor’s world, the world of A Midwinter’s Tale. As this movie shows, it’s not always, or even usually, a glamorous world; it’s one for sad sacks.
Some people compulsively philosophize or do experiments or make up stories. Actor-scholars like Branagh compulsively act out scripts, making them their own, appreciating how others have made them their own.
This is such a delightful little movie. I look forward to watching it again.
by a troupe of sad sacks …
in midwinter …
in the country …
in an old, run-down church.
Filmed by Kenneth Branagh, in black and white, one winter before his “honest-to-goodness” Hamlet.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
You will have gathered that this tale is a comedy.
It’s the spiritual ancestor of Toast of London. To be sure, everything in the history of British stage, screen, and radio is an ancestor of Toast of London, but, in this case, the ancestry is immediate. One of the main characters in Toast of London is Jane Plough, the mephistophelian-but-flighty theatrical agent. Jane Plough is lifted out of A Midwinter’s Tale. In that movie she is named Margaretta D’Arcy and played by Joan Collins.
(I hadn’t known this about Toast of London. The more stuff I watch, the more that show makes sense.)
Margaretta D’Arcy’s hapless client is an actor named Joe Harper. He is played by Michael Maloney. (Along with Richard Briers and Nicholas Farrell of A Midwinter’s Tale, Maloney reappears in Branagh’s “honest-to-goodness” Hamlet.) Joe has nearly exhausted his career prospects. He could direct and star in this obscure Hamlet, or he could hold out for a role in a lucrative Hollywood science fiction series.
He opts for Hamlet – for the purity of it, and because he doesn’t trust his luck to get the Hollywood role.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I suppose that much of what happens in A Midwinter’s Tale is more or less obligatory. There is the sequence in which the actors are cast for Hamlet. Those who audition are hilariously unsuitable. One of them (John Sessions) insists on playing Queen Gertrude in drag, which is not so un-Shakespearean, but his style is of the campiest sort. Since there are no better candidates, he is hired. He goes through the movie saying things like “’Tis a far, far better thing I do now than I did that night with the sailor and the artichoke.” As in Toast of London, there are literary and theatrical references galore; most of them are not quite so gratuitous, and if you’ve read and seen enough, you will enjoy them very much.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Mainly, though, A Midwinter’s Tale is a fond look at what it’s like to be an actor in a small production:
the intensity of focus …
the sense of being closed to the rest of the world …
the forging of deeply-felt bonds with other members of one’s troupe.
I haven’t experienced this, but I do remember how, in high school, the kids who were rehearsing for Anne Frank spent a night locked up together to feel what it was like to hide away from the Nazis (and everyone else). It affected them profoundly. For a while afterward, they were very close to one another. One gets the idea, watching A Midwinter’s Tale, that certain performers seek out this kind of experience again and again: the dimmer their own prospects, the lowlier the production, the more it satisfies their craving.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Branagh was very successful by the time he wrote and directed A Midwinter’s Tale, which he also funded. For him, this was a labor of love: of theatrical culture and history, of performing, of one’s fellow performers. Love shines through even in the most satirical, most This Is Spinal Tap-like scenes.
Only recently have I become very interested in Branagh as a director. Not so much for his technical abilities – which do appear to be considerable – but for his enthusiasm for sources and traditions.
He says, in an interview, that he became much more religious because he listened to Laurence Olivier reading the Bible when he was studying to play Olivier. It sounds like a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Performance is what Branagh lives and breathes. Missionaries say that people often are gripped by the Bible when it’s presented in a relatable context. Branagh’s context is the actor’s world, the world of A Midwinter’s Tale. As this movie shows, it’s not always, or even usually, a glamorous world; it’s one for sad sacks.
Some people compulsively philosophize or do experiments or make up stories. Actor-scholars like Branagh compulsively act out scripts, making them their own, appreciating how others have made them their own.
This is such a delightful little movie. I look forward to watching it again.