In my opinion, that is both true and false, but most of all, it's a bad starting point for offering critique. ![]() I've often heard people express disappointment that Mazursky's "Tempest" has little to do with Shakespeare's original. Paul Mazursky, the director, chose the title of his recent autobiography, "Show Me the Magic," from the script of "Tempest.".The (by today's standards) primitive special effects were done by Bran Ferren, who later became head of Disney Imagineering, and still later was an adviser to the US intelligence community.It was actually not filmed on an island, but in Gytheion, the southern tip of the remote Mani peninsula of the Peloponnesus of Greece.It was Molly Ringwald's first movie, as well as Sam Robards'.This was the second movie I took my Greek-American goddess wife to see.) Trivia notes on this flick: Most times, I see something I missed before. And in fact, I probably have watched it several dozen times. ![]() Overall, I'd rather watch this film a hundred times than see some bombastic Hollywood piece of crap once. It's a sublime moment, and representative of the best aspect of this movie and the one thing that keeps it somewhat unified, the fact that (aside from extensive flashbacks and the very end) it is the story of one day on an island, from awakening to night. Particularly fine is the perfect little piece played to accompany the afternoon siesta, as people, animals, and seemingly the entire island collapse to sleep away the hottest part of the afternoon. The music of this film, composed by Stomu Yamashta, is also overlooked. But to be honest, these scenes are the most remarkable and gripping in the film, if the hardest to watch. What makes this film flawed is its uneasy mixture of straightforward normal narrative and sudden jarring apparent improvisation, particularly between Cassavetes and Rowland. But watch the film again after re-reading "The Tempest," and they'll seem far closer. But as Lord Byron, another visitor to Greece, protested to his friend John Murray about his similarly self-indulgent and discursive "Don Juan," "It may be profligate but is it not life, is it not the thing?" The connections to Shakespeare's "Tempest" may seem, as another commentator here claims, a bit tenuous. "Tempest" is a somewhat self-indulgent, uneven, discursive movie. ![]() Yes, it's a little long and disjointed and it works a little too hard at being different (there's even a curtain call at the end of the film), but it never fails to hold the attention of those who like something a little different in their filmgoing. This film is sad and tragic and funny and intense. Julia stops the show in one scene dancing with a flock of sheep accompanied by Liza Minnelli singing "New York, New York". Ringwald shines in her film debut and there is a scene-stealing performance by the late Raul Julia as Kalibanos, Cassavettes' manservant on the island. ![]() Cassavettes is surrounded by a first rate cast.his scenes with Rowlands crackle with intensity and his surprising chemistry with Sarandon is a stark contrast to his scenes with Rowlands. Even though Paul Mazursky is credited as director, Cassavettes hand is all over this film.the long scenes filmed without cutting, the improvisatory feel to the dialogue., the self-indulgent storytelling style, this is definitely his show from beginning to end, and if you're not a fan of his work, the film will seem laboriously long and dull but if you are a fan, there are rewards to be had. Loosely based on the Shakesperean play, TEMPEST follows an architect (the late John Cassavettes, in one of his best performances), bored with his work and his crumbling marriage (to real life spouse Gene Rowlads), who decides to chuck it all, say the hell with the rat race and go live on an island with his daughter (Molly Ringwald, in her film debut), and new girlfriend Aretha (a luminous Susan Sarandon). For many years I thought I was the only person on the planet who had seen TEMPEST, and I am so glad to learn that I am not the only person who discovered this sleeper somewhere in their movie-going travails.
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