Suddenly Last Summer - Tennessee Williams BOOK REVIEW (Spoilers)
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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One of my favorite Tennessee Williams plays and film adaptations. Haunting.
I am Greek and I find the English pronunciation of Bacchae so funny (but also cute, no hate here)
I'm always surprised to find someone who enjoys Tennessee Williams. Williams is my literary god . . . but probably not for the same reasons as most fans. Anyhoo, my fav (as a film) is Night of the Iguana. Highly recommend "The Unknown Tennessee Williams" by Lyle Leverich.
Night of the Iguana 🦎 enjoying it knowing Liz was stalking the set protecting her man made the sexual tones of the film funny
Kate Hepburn and Liz Taylor performance in Suddenly Last Summer are transfixing.
...just in and out: you "need" to read " The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness"
Taylor, Burton and Noel Coward (seeminly drunk out of his mind) are in a crazy film flop called 'Boom!' adapted by Williams from his own play 'The milk train doesn't stop here anymore'. It's frankly dreadful pretentious guff, yet so bizarre as to be a fascinating (milk) train wreck.
According to John Waters, Divine took great inspiration from Taylor's OTT performance here and when they met told her as much, but far from being flattered Taylor was apparently somewhat offended having already pretty much disowned the film.
This play is about two Worldviews. Sebastian's and his mother (Katherine Hepburn). Sebastian thinks that our world is bad, unfair and cruel whereas her mother sees it through rose tinted glasses. He wants her to see the World as it is and stop harbouring unrealistic expectations. Tennessee Williams characters are ofren trapped without any way out, any consolation.Both in " Suddenly..." and " The glass menagerie" the mothers don't get it. They are enthusiastic. They have projects. And that's what creates that horrible sadness when children fail to live up to their mother's expectations.
I do not get why the boys committed murder by cannibalism, gay or not. This does not make sense, at least to me. I wish someone would explain that to me as if I was a 3 year old.
I agree 💯 I don't understand it either
For me it was an odd spiritual flourish where the poor summon the gods for vengeance against the abuse from the wealthy. It felt like an overblown stretch but hey , it Williams
Sublime as ever, just watched the movie, Montgomery cliff was sublime, it’s the nuances in his portrayals that can go unnoticed.
unrelated but your moustache in this video is so good man
Please review more plays!
You tell a great story, Cliff; even one as brutal- sounding as this one. There is cruelty in the animal kingdom, a fact I sometimes forget when thinking about how cruel humans can be.
You always have killer recommendations. I can’t wait to check this one out.
Cliff,
Have you read any Sam Shepard? I feel like he has a vibe you'd be down with.
A handful of his plays are pretty sublime. The short fiction is good too.
I thought about Sam Shepard too. I actually visited Paris, Texas because of "Paris, Texas". lol
Always thought with Sebastian getting the idea to go to Cabasa del Lobo, House of the Wolf, in a garden above Amalfi, that it was located in Sardinia. The word picture of Sebastian changes as the play progresses, from Violet's effete intellectual, to Catherine first describing a sweet gentle, passive Cousin to seeing a cynical vicious person who wanted control but wasn't able to coordinate it although he had the potential. "That was how Sebastian described people, as if they were items on a menu. Because l think he was half starved from living on salads. That one is delicious looking. And that one is appetizing, or that one is not appetizing. Fed up with the dark ones, famished for the light ones. All the travel brochures were for blond northern countries. Blonds were next on the menu. Fed up with the dark ones; famished for the light ones. Well, he never got to walk under those cold northern lights. I never saw the Aurora Borealis. Who was it who said we are all of us children, in the vast kindergarten of Life, trying to spell God's name, with the wrong alphabet blocks?
Very good
Darkest themes that ive seen in a classic. The evils that money can buy. The hospital, the relatives where all ready to destroy the womans brain for profit. The young repressed gay man using money to satify lust. Complex. It does pander to the outdated notion that men become gay due to overbearing mothers. Aside from Night of the Iguana its my favorite from Tennessee
Thanks for another interesting vid Cliff. I was very saddened to hear of the death of Martin Amis last week. I think England lost its finest writer. Were you aware of him and any of his works? I think many of his darkly humorous novels would fit perfectly on your channel. 'Money' is often considered the best and might be of particular interest to you since its about someone trying to get a film off the ground.Not that I'd compare you to the hilariously odious John Self! RIP Martin
I had no idea he'd died wtf
Yes, it's a shame, RIP.
I've been wanting to read his work for some time and have heard great things. I was surprised to discover he was a fellow Floridian.
'Money' is on my shelf, I'll get to it asap. Thanks for your kind words and comment.
This film was made after Montgomery Clift’s car accident, which disfigured his face and left one side (his left) practically paralyzed. This made it difficult for him to make facial expressions, and the camera often favors his right side since his left side barely moves. His best post-accident role was Justice at Nuremburg. But if you really want to see what all the fuss was about regard Clift, check put A Place in the Sun, which was pre-accident. He and Taylor are off the charts in that one.
If you enjoy dramatic writing, then you should check out some of Strindberg’s work. I’ll recommend The Father. His novels such as The Defense of a Fool are also great. Wonderfully gloomy, humorous and contradictory stuff.
Love this one!
The turtles on the beach scene is burned into my memory.
Beautiful and haunting and terribly sad.
Symbolism
Just went to a production of it here in Sydney. And, despite the distractions of the actor playing the dr being a last minute replacement and having to use a small notebook as cover for not knowing his lines in combination with my wife, needing to pee and the theatre too small to escape unnoticed, checking the time on her phone next to me every 5mins - thought it was f’ing great!
Streetcar being one of the greatest films ever made I figured I was always going to love it. Still. Nice to see it pop up here for review so recently after seeing it performed.
Paul Bowles actually wrote the scores for many of Tennessee’s plays. Very interesting music, even when you disregard the composer’s later (brilliant) writings.
It’s crazy how many of the books I love you’ve reviewed. Keep up the good work, man. A book that I want to recommend to you is a classic of Romanian literature. It’s called “Rakes of the Old Court” by Mateiu Caragiale, translated by Sean Cotter who translated Cartarescu. It’s quite short, around 150 pages.
The book was voted by romanian critics as the best of the 20th century. It follows four characters as they drink and gamble their way through the bars and brothels of Bucharest. It’s probably the best written book in Romanian that I’ve read and I’m glad it got translated.
Reading suddenly last summer and the glass menagerie in freshman year of high school is what made me fall back in love with reading fiction - two of my favorite plays to get films as well
I'm glad you did this review. I've needed an excuse to pick up Williams. I've always felt a strong connection to him, as he was my grandmother's cousin.
No kidding! Did she have any good stories about him?
Review suggestions
José Saramago's Blindness
António Lobo Antunes's The Land At the End of The World
It was off Broadway, not on Broadway till the 1990s
Hey Buddy! Thanks for your Videos, be happy and healthy, love ya!
Trying to implement more regular small reading sessions into my everyday routine, youre inspiring!
Just bought and read this today based off your review, what a read
I've been watching your videos for months and what I love the most is the variety of work you find that all seems to have dark themes running through them. Your videos are super effective at inflating my TBR, man
Your channel is very heimlich. I often find myself substituting breakfast say, or lunch, for a video or two, forgetting time and place, seeping down into the collective unconscious of literature that your channel portrays so well! Better than food
Thank you very much, glad you’re enjoying
My first trip
I watched the movie on TV one afternoon when I was home from school, sick - grade five, maybe - not old enough to know what was going on, but old enough to be really creeped out by it. I can still see Sebastian stumbling along with all those boys after him (shudder!).
I saw a production of Suddenly Last Summer in London in 1999 with Rachel Weisz as Catherine (before she was famous). I must have been about 14 and it really stuck with me. RW was exceptional. The best actress I've ever seen perform live.
I have only way the film which was excellent very good film with queer themes especially during the haze codes.I would love to read it
The Shaffers were indeed brothers. Anthony Shaffer actually wrote Sleuth as well as The Wicker Man.
I can’t believe I found you. O Joy! So excited to explore more and more of your videos.
That is quite a book cover.
Spring storm is a good one
Ah! He said the thing! 5:10
your so cute
Please do another Thomas Pynchon book! His stuff after Gravity’s Rainbow had much more heart. Highly recommend doing Vineland.
Funny - I've read everything else (I think) of Pynchon's, but didn't make it through Vineland; just found it a bore, as I recall (that was decades ago). To each their own! ... Okay, I just looked at a Pynchon bibliography to check the spelling of Vineland (thought it was 'Vinland'), and discovered I hadn't covered nearly as much of Pynchon's oeuvre as I'd thought ....
@@nozecone Yeah it’s definitely not for everybody, makes it a tough one to recommend which is hard when people ask my favorite books and it’s at the top of the list 😅