Why is this not out on DVD? This adaptation will be obsolete soon.
Added 2/8/2009
I think the other reviews of this adaptation are sound and say everything I would ever want to say. But what I want to know is why, oh why, can't someone turn this masterpiece of an adaptation into a DVD.? There is no excuse. I've used the VHS version in the classroom for about a decade and neither I nor my students tire of it. But, with each passing year people and schools will be dumping their VHS players, and this faithful and compelling adaptation will disappear. I no longer have access to a tape player, and I will not settle for any other versions, which are inferior (sorry Jessica Tandy and Katherine Hephburn). I have written the company, but received no reply.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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When will this be released on DVD?
Added 10/31/2008
This is the best film version of the Tennessee Williams play, and one of the best transfers to film of one of his plays - right up there with the Kazan film of "A Streetcar Named Desire." I can still visualize so much of this film, it was that powerful - Joanne Woodward's "jonquils" speech, Malkovich's opening and closing monologues, Karen Allen's frightened, sensitive and shy portrayal, and James Naughton's kindly, clueless, then sensitive portrayal of the Gentleman Caller.
Since Paul Newman's death, can those of us out there who love this movie figure out whom to contact to petition a DVD release of this heart-rending film of Tennessee Williams' first masterpiece?
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Dealing with Severe Social Isolation
Added 8/19/2007
This is a somewhat sad story. A woman and her adult daughter Laura live an extremely reclusive life, and do so in a dark, cheerless flat. Perhaps the most memorable part of the story is when a gentleman caller comes. He wants to go out with Laura, to whom he says: "Did anyone tell you that you are beautiful?" Upon learning that she has never dated, he says: "That's all the more reason that you should go."
3 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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SUPERB!!! When will it be available on DVD?
Added 10/13/2006
This is the best most intelligent version of St. Tennessee's GLASS MENAGERIE I've ever seen! There is great humor and tenderness in this version, alonside the heartbreak. The direction by Paul Newman is subtle and insightful, the artful cinematography by the great Michael Ballhaus gives every scene layers and layers of meaning, and the acting is astounding. John Malkovich's Tom is achingly brilliant (the semi-literate lump Christian Slater playing Tom/Tennessee on Broadway was absurd) and bursting with resentment and anger and creative potential; Joanne Woodward perfectly inhabits mother Amanda's well-meaning but at times smothering narcissistic love and sing-song nagging and melancholic nostalgia; and then the revelation is Karen Allen (who knew?) whose wounded resigned Laura cannot achieve her mother's ambitions or her brother's cultural curiousity, but who compassionately loves these two human volcanos despite everything.
I love these characters---Tom, Laura, and Mother Amanda---and I want to be with them again and again, despite how heart-breaking they are.
I only wish this version of GLASS MENAGERIE, which gives oxygen to William's poetry and lets it breathe and live inside us all the more powerfully, will become available on DVD soon!
6 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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Deeply moving---unquestionably the best film version.
Added 5/19/2006
The depth of feeling manifested in the acting on display here easily trumps both the (wildly miscast)Gertrude Lawrence and the (vastly overrated) Katherine Hepburn versions of this celebrated play.
Though everyone involved (on both sides of the camera) does a first rate job, special accolades are due to Joanne Woodward, who is perhaps the first actress to really understand Amanda, since the role's originator--Laurette Taylor.
The pathos in Miss Woodward's delineation of the character is almost unbearable on some occasions, as in the famous jonquil soliloquy, in which she conveys, with hushed voice and beatific eyes, a sentimental recollection for lost time (and lost love) that is not only wholly personally convincing, but also manages to imprint her sentiment onto the audience with all the deja vu of Proust's madeleine.
Her Amanda is never less than fully persuasive.
And Mr. Malkovitch, in his final address to the camera, ("blow out your candles Laura") achieves effects of the same high order, with emotions so confiding, intimate, and genuine that he leaves viewers of any sensitivity as heartbroken as he is.
All told a devastating achievement not to be missed by admirers of Mr. Williams.
7 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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Why is this not out on DVD? This adaptation will be obsolete soon.
Added 2/8/2009
I think the other reviews of this adaptation are sound and say everything I would ever want to say. But what I want to know is why, oh why, can't someone turn this masterpiece of an adaptation into a DVD.? There is no excuse. I've used the VHS version in the classroom for about a decade and neither I nor my students tire of it. But, with each passing year people and schools will be dumping their VHS players, and this faithful and compelling adaptation will disappear. I no longer have access to a tape player, and I will not settle for any other versions, which are inferior (sorry Jessica Tandy and Katherine Hephburn). I have written the company, but received no reply.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
When will this be released on DVD?
Added 10/31/2008
This is the best film version of the Tennessee Williams play, and one of the best transfers to film of one of his plays - right up there with the Kazan film of "A Streetcar Named Desire." I can still visualize so much of this film, it was that powerful - Joanne Woodward's "jonquils" speech, Malkovich's opening and closing monologues, Karen Allen's frightened, sensitive and shy portrayal, and James Naughton's kindly, clueless, then sensitive portrayal of the Gentleman Caller.
Since Paul Newman's death, can those of us out there who love this movie figure out whom to contact to petition a DVD release of this heart-rending film of Tennessee Williams' first masterpiece?
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Dealing with Severe Social Isolation
Added 8/19/2007
This is a somewhat sad story. A woman and her adult daughter Laura live an extremely reclusive life, and do so in a dark, cheerless flat. Perhaps the most memorable part of the story is when a gentleman caller comes. He wants to go out with Laura, to whom he says: "Did anyone tell you that you are beautiful?" Upon learning that she has never dated, he says: "That's all the more reason that you should go."
3 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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