The Art of Making Art

Close up of her.

Close up of him.

Close up of her, looking at close up of him.

Larry Gelbart authored the book for City of Angels, the Broadway hit about Hollywood and the making of movies.

Noting the use of interactive multiple closeups as essential to good moviemaking, Gelbart’s Hollywood Producer kvells, “There won’t be a dry seat in the house.”

Even in a movie about Shakespeare.

Even in a movie about Shakespeare’s greatest play.

Even in a movie with some of the greatest lines of dialogue ever written… c’mon… you gonna quarrel with “To be or not to be?”

Gelbart’s admonition to Stine, the New York novelist and newbie screenwriter:

“Forget all the words to which you gave birth… remember how many a picture is worth; the odds are a thousand to one so get used to it, Stine. The book may be yours, baby, trust me, the movie is mine.”

So it is in Hamnet, a film ostensibly about the death of Shakespeare’s only son and the grieving father’s creation of the play Hamlet. Paul Mescal plays the bard and Jessie Buckley becomes his wife and the mother of his children.

Besides the film being nominated for Best Motion Picture, leading lady, Buckley, and director Chloe Zhao are nominated as well. Ms. Zhao has it down to basics…

Close up of her.

Close up of him.

Close up of her looking at close up of him…

This, at the premiere presentation of the playwright’s greatest masterwork. Add to that Mrs. Shakespeare’s introduction to just what it is her husband does for a living.

There is the illumination on the face of Ms. Buckley, as moment by moment she becomes captivated by what may well be the first play she has ever seen. Now imagine… the play is Hamlet … the greatest play ever written in the English language … and your husband wrote it!

The words the actors speak are like music and, along with the throng that surrounds you in that theatre, you too are captivated… as luck might have it, right there in front of the director’s camera.

But luck has nothing to do with it. The character transitions from an embittered woman, one who has suffered the greatest loss imaginable, to someone who is awestruck by being witness to the gift that God has given her husband.

Close up of her.

Close up of him.

Close up of her, looking at close up of him.

There is also a nomination for the cast… a relatively new category where the contribution to the film of the entire acting company is taken into consideration for an Oscar of its own. Hamnet must win this… it isn’t just the acting of the film’s ensemble… they are all… each and every one, very solid performers.

But there is more going on here than acting. It is the director’s brilliance of selecting faces that look like every 16^th century painting you can ever remember perusing in books or museums. The ruddiness of the English complexion…the plumpness… the shape of the head… the eyes… each actor selected is a perfect picture of the director’s vision of who they will be playing. They are not only talented… they are perfection personified of the physical forms for the roles they have been assigned.

I am more than impressed. This is awesome. To make this movie and perhaps not even need Shakespeare’s words to pull it off. Oh, alright, pepper lines in during the early going to remind folks just who this dude is becoming. Go ahead, have his three fabulous children joyfully portray their father’s witches on an imagined Scottish heath.

This director deserves more than an Oscar. Do the Swedes give a Nobel Prize in Cinema? If not, why not? What a vision. What a talent.

I have yet to see Rose Byrne in If Had Legs I’d Kick You or Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value. I have seen my perennial favorite, Emma Stone being the primary reason to watch Bugonia, and Kate Hudson delivering more than I thought possible in Song Sung Blue.

Don’t care. I am putting it in writing. Jessie Buckley wins. She wins not just because she is so amazingly brilliant and so physically perfect for the role, but because… even though Emma Stone has Yorgos Lanthimos as her devoted director, and Ms. Hudson has probably waited her entire life for this part and this story filled with more ways to manipulate an audience than I can count, Ms. Buckley bought into something… an Asian director, Shakespeare, Hamlet, a love story marked by personal tragedy, and yet, somehow, knowing her director would not for a moment be overwhelmed by any of that while bringing the camera in on a character in wonderment and with total trust in the basics of her craft:

Close up of her.

Close up of him.

Close up of her looking at close up of him.

 

Wow!

 

Barney Rosenzweig