Sophie Fiennes’ Ralph Fiennes’ T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

Ezra Pound is probably the most advanced American modernist poet ever, but he was not just canceled for his ideology. He was committed to an insane asylum. Critics keep trying to cancel his onetime protégé T.S. Eliot for his conservatism as well, but his comparative accessibility and even greater cultural significance have helped his literary reputation withstand their efforts. In fact, Ralph Fiennes adapted Eliot’s Four Quartets for the stage, which in turn, his filmmaker sibling has transferred to the screen in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, opening tomorrow in New York.

The Hollow Men and Prufrock probably have a reputation for being somewhat less dense, but it is surprising how contemporary Eliot’s Quartets sound. The opening words of Burnt Norton: “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future” represent a meditation on the ways humanity relates to time that could easily fit within a post-modernist reading list. However, Eliot later tries to illuminate a path out of the post-structuralist morass, through his high Anglican faith. Indeed, Fiennes recites lines from Little Gidding, like “You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid” with the reverent gravity they deserve.

It is just Fiennes on-stage, barefoot in a rumpled sportscoat, looking very much like a homeless English professor. Yet, his expressive performance and command of Eliot’s language holds up against the stark, surreally minimalist backdrop. This is definitely a spartan production, but it suits Eliot’s aesthetics.

The White Crow: Fiennes Brings Nureyev to the Big Screen

Rudolf Nureyev brought ballet to new heights of popularity when he danced with the Royal Ballet in London and he took The Muppet Show to new levels of prestige when he danced with Miss Piggy. Yet, these career highlights were made possible by the most dramatic episode of his life: his defection from the Soviet Union. Nureyev’s fateful goodwill tour of France with the Kirov Ballet is the focus of Ralph Fiennes terrific The White Crow, which opens this Friday in New York.

Nureyev was born on a Transiberian train car, far away from the Kirov (a.k.a. Mariinsky) ballet in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Despite the bad timing of being born during WWII, Nureyev’s raw talent and drive would eventually take him to the Vaganova Academy in Leningrad, where ballet master Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin would take him under his wing, as the audiences sees in flashbacks. (Mikhail Baryshnikov would later study under Pushkin as well).

By the time Nureyev reached Paris, he already had a reputation for being the most electrifying dancer of his generation—and for being difficult for his minders to control. Despite attempts to shield him Parisian society, Nureyev quickly befriended French dancer Pierre Lacotte and Chilean expat Clara Saint, the former fiancée of French Culture Minister Andre Malraux’s late son, with whom he enthusiastically partook of Paris’s nightclubs, parties, and after-hours scene. For a while, Strizhevsky, the KGB agent assigned to the Kirov tour, gives Nureyev some slack, but eventually, the liberties he takes become to much for the apparatchik to bear.

However, when Strizhevsky tries to pull him from the tour in the Paris airport, Nureyev immediately senses something is wrong. Refusing to return to Moscow, a conflict of wills ensues, overseen by the quick-thinking gendarmes assigned to the airport, with Saint operating behind the scenes as a liaison to the press and the French government.

The White Crow (a Russian expression meaning something like “a rare bird” and “an odd duck”) is a little over two-hours long, but it feels like it runs less than ninety minutes, because the climatic airport defection scene is so tightly and tensely helmed by Fiennes. This is easily his best film as a director (even though his Coriolanus was also quite good), because his has such a strong aptitude both for the Cold War thriller elements and the dance sequences.

Fiennes gives himself an important assist with his achingly conflicted and humanistic portrayal of Pushkin. Of course, the critical casting coup was real-life Ukrainian-born ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko, who looks and moves like Nureyev (which is saying a lot). He projects the magnetism that had such a potent effect on Nureyev’s admirers, but it is far from a hagiographic portrayal. In fact, he also quite vividly conveys the dancer’s ambition and diva-like arrogance.

Aleksey Morozov is almost as compelling as Strizhevsky, whose desperation to keep Nureyev in the fold and in his shackles is intensely palpable. Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) is rather a dreary, whiny presence throughout the first hour of the film, yet somehow, she snaps to during the crucial airport standoff. The ensemble is impressive, both in their dramatic roles and when applicable, as dancers. Plus, the period production is seamlessly crafted (it is easy to see why it would be hard to keep someone in the Worker’s Paradise, after seeing Paris in the early 1960s).

Nureyev, along with Baryshnikov and Alexander Godunov, established freedom-seeking Soviet ballet dancers were some of the gutsiest, most principled artists during the Cold War. Indeed, it is worth noting Sergei Polunin’s engaging performance as Nureyev’s friend and troupe-mate, Yuri Soloviev, who refused to join the Communist Party, even after Nureyev’s defection, despite the thuggish pressure exerted by the KGB. Fiennes nicely captures the tenor of the times and the passion of Nureyev’s dancing, making it a worthy companion film to Bruce Beresford’s criminally under-appreciated Mao’s Last Dancer. Very highly recommended, The White Crow opens this Friday (4/26) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.

The Invisible Woman: That Scandalous Dickens

Her actress-sister Frances eventually became Anthony Trollope’s sister-in-law.  For her part, Ellen Ternan had a much closer relationship with Charles Dickens, but she was infamously not his wife.  Ralph Fiennes brings their not-so secret affair to the screen as the director and star of The Invisible Woman (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Dickens was a genuine literary celebrity—the Stephen King of his era.  He even wrote serialized novels too.  Dickens also had ten children from his plain, unassuming wife, Catherine. As the Dickenses grow increasingly distant, it is not terribly surprising the novelist will eventually succumb to temptation with one of his many admirers.  That will be Ellen “Nelly” Ternan.

By all accounts, Ternan was a middling actress at best, but she still caught Dickens’ eye in a production of The Frozen Deep, his quasi-collaboration with Wilkie Collins.  Dickens quickly becomes a patron to the Ternan family, including her mother and two sisters, all of whom are considered better thespians than Ellen.  Of course, Mrs. Ternan is no fool, but she understands the limits of her daughter’s options. 

Nevertheless, this is still Victorian England, when scandal meant something.  To play the part of Dickens’ mistress, Ternan will have to assume the titular invisibility.  Even if she wanted to, she is incapable of flaunting social norms, like Collins and his lover.  Regardless, the truth is bound to come out sooner or later, or else Fiennes’ film would never exist.

So here it is, somewhat more preoccupied with societal conventions and class distinctions than a typical installment of PBS’s Masterpiece, but not too very far removed stylistically.  It is hardly an apology for Dickens, but Fiennes’ lead performance is easily the best thing going for it.  He rather brilliantly expresses the passion and recklessness lurking beneath his almost painful reserve.  Unfortunately, it is sort of like watching one hand clap during his scenes with Felicity Jones’ Ternan. When Fiennes is quietly intense, she is just quiet.

Frankly, Invisible must stack the deck against Dickens’ poor, anti-trophy wife to sell his attraction to the pale, mousy Ternan.  Maybe we just don’t get Jones here, but it seems like most red blooded scribblers would be more interested in Kristin Scott Thomas’s elegant and sultry Mrs. Ternan.  Regardless, Joanna Scanlon’s subverts the intended sabotage of her character, investing the real Mrs. Dickens with excruciating dignity and humility.

Certainly presentable by general British costume drama standards, The Invisible Woman is more distinguished by Fiennes’ turn as an actor than a director.  There is also plenty of fine work from Thomas, Scanlon, and Tom Hollander as Collins, but the central chemistry is lacking. Recommended mostly just for voracious Victorian readers, it opens Christmas Day in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Fiennes’ Coriolanus

It has long been considered one of Shakespeare’s most divisive tragedies. Though academic appraisals remain quite mixed, Coriolanus always had its champions, including poet T.S. Eliot. As a result, there are few cinematic predecessors against which actor Ralph Fiennes directorial debut might be compared. In the Olivier-Branagh tradition, Fiennes also stars in his contemporary retelling of Coriolanus (trailer here), which begins a one week Oscar qualifying engagement in New York this Friday.

In a Balkan city that “calls itself Rome,” Caius Martius has earned the honorific title “Coriolanus” for his victory over the city-state’s bitter rival, the Volsces. At the behest of his proud mother Volumnia and her ally Senator Menenius, the general consents to campaign for the office of Consul. The approval of the Senate is assured, but Coriolanus’s candidacy must also be accepted by the masses. This is a taller order, especially given the officer’s refusal to pander to the lowest common denominator.

Nonetheless, with Menenius’s help, Coriolanus appears to win over the people. Yet, just as quickly, the deceitful senators Brutus and Sicinius turn the crowd against him, with the help of a cadre of professional activists. Venting his outrage, Corilanus’s contempt for the fickle masses leads to his banishment. It also drives him to Volsces, where he makes common cause with his old nemesis, Tullus Aufidius. Dead to everything except his rage, Coriolanus will have his revenge in a manner befitting Shakespearean tragedy.

Given his abruptly shifting loyalties and his un-Shakespearean lack of introspection, Coriolanus is a difficult figure for many to get their heads around. However, Fiennes’ portrayal really unlocks his character. We can understand how his rigid conception of honor compels each action he takes. Despite Corilanus’s reticence, it is a big, seething performance of great physicality that commands viewer attention. Clearly, this is a man of action, not given to soliloquizing.

This is definitely Shakespeare at his manliest (no tights or sonnets here, thank you very much). Indeed, Gerard Butler matches Fiennes’ testosterone as Aufidius, while Vanessa Redgrave nearly outdoes them both as Volumnia, the motherly Lady Macbeth. Yet, the real soul of the film comes from the great Brian Cox as Menenius, whose humanity leads inexorably to pathos. Though a relatively small part, it is also interesting to see South African actor John Kani, who projects a suitably stately presence as Coriolanus’s former superior officer, General Cominius.

Throughout Fiennes’ effectively streamlined film adaptation it is also obvious why the original play troubles so many critics, given its scathing depiction of the Roman masses as no more than a weapon to be wielded by the unscrupulous. Frankly, in Coriolanus, “the people” get what they deserve. Indeed, the film comes at a time when it rather inconveniently begs comparison to uninformed masses occupying Zucotti Park.

An impressive directorial debut, Fiennes stages some vivid scenes of warfighting. His resetting of the story works more often than not, though the cable news flashes in Shakespearean English can be a bit jarring. Strikingly cinematic, the Belgrade locales also add the weight of contemporary historical tragedy, heightening the on-screen drama. One of the better recent Shakespearean films (considerably more satisfying than Taymor’s Tempest, for example), the unexpectedly timely Coriolanus is definitely worth seeing. It begins a special one week New York run for Academy Award consideration at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square this Friday (12/2) and then opens more widely on January 20th.