Long Day's Journey Into Night

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Starring: Katharine Hepburn
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Type: DVD
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Studio: Republic Pictures
Release Date: 2004-05-11
Running Time: 174 minutes

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Another Hepburn Triumph
I never cared much for Katherine Hepburn's acting until she reached middle and began her triumphal progress to a very robust old age. Her acting just got better--in part because she was given more substantial material & roles to play. I saw her on stage once. The play wasn't anything to speak of--and Hepburn had broken her leg & was confined to a wheel chair. But from the moment she rolled herself on stage the actress RADIATED. I was sitting in probably cheapest seat in the very last row of the house--and I didn't feel I was missing anything. KH filled the entire theatre with her stage presence. I know how corny this sounds, but KH had a magnetic aura.

In terms of this particular film, Hepburn is certainly at her most commanding. The signs of Huntington's disease she suffered from (resulting in tremors, particularly of the head) are barely discernable. They actually fit the role in that the symptoms could pass off as part of the addictive process of the character she was portraying. I also think that LONG DAYS JOURNEY was playwright Eugene O'Neil's best work--probably because it hit so close to home. It is basically a 4-character play (5 if you include the Irish maid who represents an outsider momentarily peeking in at the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional families.)

The 4 people--Father, Mother & 2 adult sons--represent 16 possibilities of familial addictive relationship--addiction, co-dependency, enabling, etc. Everyone is addicted to something; with the mother it's shooting morphine, the father is an alcoholic & egotist & the sons are both alcoholics with physical & behavioral problems. The interplay between the family is often painful to watch, but they are snared together--probably because no one else would put up with them.

The Lion in Winter
Suddenly, Last Summer
Katharine Hepburn: Film Collection

Borrrring Snoozefest!!
It is all talk. The performances are good but the film is much too long and what could have been an excellent character study comes off over-the-top and theatrical. Hepburn is unflatteringly photographed and her mannerisms are distracting and annoying as well as her "cheese grating" voice. Sir Ralph RIchardson, Stockwell and Robards do well by their roles but I just couldn't get to care about their characters because the film put me to sleep within ten minutes of watching it and I had to watch it in spurts (took me 17 days)to complete the viewing.

Long Day's Journey Into Night
Sidney Lumet's slow-burning adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's semi-autobiographical play depicts a theatrical family's slow disintegration with haunting precision. Ralph Richardson is ideally cast as the fading family patriarch, while both Robards and Stockwell (O'Neill's proxy) are superb as the two sons, each consumed by their own afflictions. Hepburn executes a tour-de-force as the fragile, brain-addled Mary Tyrone, a spectral symbol of the family's decay from within. Lumet wisely sticks to the letter of the play, and the results are unforgettable.

Hepburn will blow you away
There is no denying the brilliance of this. Everything from the ground up, of this film is amazing: material - O'Neil's play is one of the finest pieces of drama ever written; the performances are first class - among them, and most notable, Katharine Hepburn - absolutely mind blowing, its staggering to think this is the same person that did The Iron Petticoat, however here Hepburn is in top form...at her brilliant best (which she was for most of her career, really only the occasional Iron Petticoat, Spitfire fiascos - other than that, the greatest actress ever. The director, Sidney Lumet does a fine job directing it simply, but effectively.

All this combined...makes this an incredible picture. One of the finest.

Something that is interesting that I noted while reading Hepburn's autobiography "Me: Stories Of My Life" is the fact that this was rehearsed for many weeks in a warehouse, and then shot largely in sequence so the actors could perform long scenes, instead of having to keep cutting. In the end, we are basically seeing a theatre quality performance. There is a very real, raw, live feel to it - strikingly effective.

As for what the other reviews said about poor dvd quality: I cant say I really noticed that at all. I found the WHOLE thing brilliant.

A Long Dysfunctional Collapse in Oblivion
I came away from viewing "A Long Day's Journey into Night" with the impression that I had seen a masterful performance. My negative impressions were with the script. I have enjoyed Eugene O'Neill's plays but confess that, like Tennessee Williams, I'm not inspired by his work. In "Long Day's Journey", the aspect that confounded me the most was the number of times that different actors cursed a fellow family member and reconciled within the next 30 seconds. If these charactors merely learned to count to ten before expressing their thoughts, this could have been a short three act play. This self-induced emotional roller-coaster reminded me of a boss or two that I had in the past. From them I learned to disregard both praise and criticism when displayed arbitrarily. I guess this aspect made me tend to disregard the emotions on display in "Long Day's Journey". On the other had, the cast was certainly up to the task of acting out those emotions. Each of the four main characters had his or her turn with their emotional outbursts. Katherine Hepburn probably stood out the most with her scenes and it's surprizing that hers was the only Oscar nomination to come out of this film.

What is the point of this play? Well, my take on it is that it is the story of how a family of four disintergrates by each following their own path towards destruction. The irony is how they had the power to reinforce each other but chose the opposite approach. I suppose that is the explanation for the frequent emotional roller-coasters that frustrated me. O'Neill showed us that each character was both devil and angel to his family members. Where was the strength to come from with a supporting cast like that? Ironically, in this autobiographical play, the person with the gravest challenge ended up with the best outcome. Of course, that wasn't in the play or movie; it was in the life of the playwright. Depending on how autobiographical this play actually is, it may go a long way in explaining O'Neill's pessimistic outlook on life.