Burton and Taylor (tv film)

[selenak]

It's been finally done: after various attempts that were embarrassing in various degrees, we finally got a good film about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It wisely did not try to be a biopic covering their entire relationship, or even those parts that were most famous (and where the audience would have the most mental images to compare), but

Comments

[kathyh]

We watched it last night and it was so good that J stayed awake, which is quite unusual for a Saturday night :) I thought both actors were at the absolute top of their game and excellent at conveying both the love and the fact that it was no longer enough. I totally agree that Helena Bonham Carter is so much better when she's not doing Gothic. She did another of these BBC4 biopics as Enid Blyton which apparently was very good too, though I haven't seen it.

This may be the last drama that BBC4 does (though the new DG may change that) but if it is they went out with a bang.

[selenak]

I shalll hope they put the Enid Blyton thing on the international Iplayer then, so I can see it. This one was really excellent. And hey, if it is to be the end of BBC4, thematically appropriate!

[kathyh]

I hope "Enid" turns up on the iPlayer but they might think it's on too British a subject, despite starring Helena Bonham Carter.

It's not actually the end of BBC4, just the rather classy drama they produced. J and I were amazed to see that "Burton and Taylor" wasn't a co-production as we didn't think the BBC could do something like that without international financing any longer. This might account for why they aren't making drama any longer! Fortunately the rest of BBC4 and its excellent documentaries is still with us.

The DVD for "Burton and Taylor" comes out at the end of August :)

PS

[selenak]

...and now I've checked my old post with Burton diaries and letters quotes again to be sure, I can also marvel at the cleverness of the script. Take the way it opens the film with Burton quoting Lear "never never never". Now this is a letter the real RB wrote to her around the time of their first divorce: : One of these days I will wake up - which I think I have done already - and realize to myself that I really do love. I find it very difficult to allow my whole life to rest on the existence of another creature. I find it equally difficult, because of my innate arrogance, to believe in the idea of love. There is no such thing, I say to myself. There is lust, of course, and usage, and jealousy, and desire and spent powers, but no such things as the idiocy of love. Who invented that concept? I have wracked my shabby brains and can find no answer. But when people die - those who are taken away from us can never come back. Never, never, never, never, never (Lear about Cordelia). We are such doomed fools. Unfortunately, we know it. So I

[abromeds]

The script gives both of them great zingers and, given the obvious temptations here, valiantly resists imitating either Edward Albee or Noel Coward.

SO glad to hear that. That was my big fear when I first heard of the project; that route would have been so easy yet so doomed. Looking forward to watching this now. :)

[selenak]

No, they avoided Taylor/Burton either as Martha/George or Amanda/Elyot. Mind you, some of Burton's lines are aphorisms but these actually tend to hail from him (I reognized them from the published diaries, unless of course the real RB pinched them elsewhere). But the film is neither an Albee-esque evisceration digging up the horrible truth nor a Cowardesque drawing room comedy.

[mitchy]

I caught up with this yesterday and loved every minute of it. I thought both West and Carter were outstanding. It is not easy to play iconic roles, where everyone will have their own mental image of what they should look and sound like, but I thought they tackled it with aplomb. Carter, in particular, captured exactly some of Taylor's mannerisms and facial expressions. And West did a superb job with the voice, which let's face it, is impossible to recreate exactly.

I saw enough of the Coward play to wish I could have seen it for real and have to give huge kudos to the cast for that, because they're not just acting a part in play, they're acting actors acting a part in a play, which is whole extra layer of complicated.

Overall, it was the sort of quality drama that the BBC used to be famous for but the output of which has declined a lot in the last 2 decades. I can only hope the new DG kicks them back into shape, because we need more dramas like this.

[selenak]

Yes, plays within plays are always tricky, and they really made mone believe in these excerpts that this wasn't DW and HBC playing Elyot and Amanda, but how Burton and Taylor would have played them. Everyone really brought their A game to this film.