For years, I waited for a thumbnail review of "Play It as It Lays" in "Sight and Sound". After, perhaps, over a decade, such a review appeared. It panned this great film. That pan is wrong. Frank Perry's elegant film matches the exquisite novel and script by Joan Didion.
As commentators note, Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins seem transparent in their roles. Their final scene in the film defines one of the most beautiful in all cinema. I lack the means to name the intricacies that make this work. Symbol, form, dialogue, iconography, and cinematography work subtly with fine nuance and consistent tone. The editing in particular weaves complex cinematography to create a sense of intense visual alienation that intensifies the dialogue. Adam Roarke, Tammy Grimes, as well as every other actor in this work, seem in top form.
I think this an under-appreciated masterwork.Read the discerning review here by Graham Clark.
As commentators note, Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins seem transparent in their roles. Their final scene in the film defines one of the most beautiful in all cinema. I lack the means to name the intricacies that make this work. Symbol, form, dialogue, iconography, and cinematography work subtly with fine nuance and consistent tone. The editing in particular weaves complex cinematography to create a sense of intense visual alienation that intensifies the dialogue. Adam Roarke, Tammy Grimes, as well as every other actor in this work, seem in top form.
I think this an under-appreciated masterwork.Read the discerning review here by Graham Clark.