One of the best from the series The Complete Beckett. Gambon is dreadful and brilliant. I found myself utterly riveted. As the TV ads here said when the full series was shown recently, many will find Beckett pointless. A fortunate few will find him brilliant. Thank heavens this series was made.
6 Reviews
A Few Notes
matthewjbond9 February 2007
I just want to add that all four members of the cast are brilliant here, and Thewlis & Gambon play off each other beautifully. Gambon catches the right note of ham (pun intended), and Thewlis finds his small spaces between, as his part requires.
Although I would've liked to have seen the two windows facing back, more as two eyes, I can accept Conor McPherson's choices. Perhaps the space could've been a bit more confined, placing the trashcans closer to Hamm, but that, too, is personal taste.
Certainly the steps down to the kitchen were genius, making Clov hobble up them torturously, and re-inforcing how dependent Hamm is on Clov.
Although I would've liked to have seen the two windows facing back, more as two eyes, I can accept Conor McPherson's choices. Perhaps the space could've been a bit more confined, placing the trashcans closer to Hamm, but that, too, is personal taste.
Certainly the steps down to the kitchen were genius, making Clov hobble up them torturously, and re-inforcing how dependent Hamm is on Clov.
A masterpiece
dbborroughs23 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Connor McPherson makes a masterful film about four people at the end of the world dealing with their lives. Two are reduced to legless existence in garbage cans, on is blind and immobile sitting in the center of a great empty room, and one is unable to sit down and is in constant motion waiting for his next task. Its a darkly bleak film that transcends it's limiting stage origins thanks to being more than just a camera filming a play. To be certain the film never leaves the room that is where it all takes place but at the same time you never really notice since it moves around the room changing perspective, and focus to make a film that is very much a living breathing thing. I'm very impressed with McPherson as a filmmaker since he'd done something that very few people who've tried to film a Samuel Beckett play has done, namely make it work on film on its own terms. Its a masterpiece. (I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Michael Gambon and David Thewlis as Clov and Hamm who manage to make acting look easy.)
Beckett straight.
the red duchess7 March 2001
'Endgame' is often considered Beckett's masterpiece, arguably the greatest play of the 20th century. The musicality, companionship and lightness underpinning 'Waiting for Godot''s despair is replaced by claustrophobia; just as Vladimir and Estragon, kept alive by hope, are taken over by Hamm and Clov, bitter, maimed master and servant, waiting not for Godot, just the end.
The play's apocalyptic comedy, complete with parents kept in dustbins, is a chessgame about death; mental disintegration in a meaningless universe; an allegory for the theatre. There are never any escapes in Beckett's hells, just the knowledge that the grim winding down of a life will be deferred for tomorrow night's performance.
For me, the play is also an hilarious parody of the Anglo-Irish Big House story, with Hamm the cruel landlord, withering solitary as the Famine lashes outside, littered with the corpses he refused to help, always witholding that saving kind word, as we all do.
Director MacPherson is himself an acclaimed playwright, and surely sensitive to Beckett as theatre, not just the words which enthrall other filmmakers of his work. He shoots his film in the obtrusively unobtrusive style of a BBC schools educational video, with minimal cinematic flourish.
The play's apocalyptic comedy, complete with parents kept in dustbins, is a chessgame about death; mental disintegration in a meaningless universe; an allegory for the theatre. There are never any escapes in Beckett's hells, just the knowledge that the grim winding down of a life will be deferred for tomorrow night's performance.
For me, the play is also an hilarious parody of the Anglo-Irish Big House story, with Hamm the cruel landlord, withering solitary as the Famine lashes outside, littered with the corpses he refused to help, always witholding that saving kind word, as we all do.
Director MacPherson is himself an acclaimed playwright, and surely sensitive to Beckett as theatre, not just the words which enthrall other filmmakers of his work. He shoots his film in the obtrusively unobtrusive style of a BBC schools educational video, with minimal cinematic flourish.
Quite wrong
ferdinand19323 October 2003
Beckett said that his plays were about small men in large landscapes ( well Godot, anyway) and the trouble with this production is that the dreaded close-up obscures the rhythm and the dimension of the interplay between all characters. McPherson's direction is utterly wrong, showy, youthful, and consequently misplaced in a piece that possesses the echoes and regrets and pain of King Lear.
Adapting to different media is of course desirable but the challenge of Endgame is the static, 'voiced only' nature of the text (that's why the parents are in the bins, Beckett couldn't manipulate them on and off stage, so he stuck them in bins), and the movement of the camera distracts from the essence of the play.
It's a great shame as the play is the best and personal favorite of the writer himself.
Adapting to different media is of course desirable but the challenge of Endgame is the static, 'voiced only' nature of the text (that's why the parents are in the bins, Beckett couldn't manipulate them on and off stage, so he stuck them in bins), and the movement of the camera distracts from the essence of the play.
It's a great shame as the play is the best and personal favorite of the writer himself.
David Thewlis Filmography Project
gink1027 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
#36 Endgame
Clov = The Dismal Character
Pros: As a script written by Samuel Beckett it is quite good because the narration is interesting; a pestilent story with a dark background almost tinged with a kind of disturbing/dubious film the fact of having that aura gives him that one point in favor along with the fact that David fits so well in this kind of bizarre roles, he plays Clov, a man with a kind of mental disorder who lives next to Hamm (Michael Gambon) both locked up from the outside world inside a desolate house.
Cons: In the end, this adaptation ends up being just a short unconventional film. Clov is one of those types of characters that make you want to know more about them but they are not sufficiently developed because the film is already very limited, no matter how unusual this film would be, for some reason I don't like it.
Clov = The Dismal Character
Pros: As a script written by Samuel Beckett it is quite good because the narration is interesting; a pestilent story with a dark background almost tinged with a kind of disturbing/dubious film the fact of having that aura gives him that one point in favor along with the fact that David fits so well in this kind of bizarre roles, he plays Clov, a man with a kind of mental disorder who lives next to Hamm (Michael Gambon) both locked up from the outside world inside a desolate house.
Cons: In the end, this adaptation ends up being just a short unconventional film. Clov is one of those types of characters that make you want to know more about them but they are not sufficiently developed because the film is already very limited, no matter how unusual this film would be, for some reason I don't like it.
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