Blogcritics Comments on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Comment by Alan Dale on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:29:43 EDT

British literary, theater, and film folk are generally pretty left-wing. I got the sense from the way Dench was presented as Lady Catherine in Pride & Prejudice--her delivery, the make-up, the lighting--that the intention was to show how truly horrid upper-class pride could be. That's part of Austen's intention, too, to make D'Arcy's pride seem less repellent by contrast. But Lady Catherine's pomposity in the book is laugh-out-loud funny, and it's a huge loss to emphasize an ideological point that's inherent in the character at the expense of the wit that is equally important.

Comment by Michael J. West on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:48:21 EDT

Ideologically motivated? How do you mean?

Comment by Alan Dale on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:31:59 EDT

Shakespeare in Love would be an exception to my comments about her, but it may be an exception that proves the rule. How could she NOT get laughs in those two great roles in The Importance of Being Earnest and Pride & Prejudice? You'd have to work at it. Perhaps the humorlessness was ideologically motivated, but that doesn't make it more palatable.

Comment by Michael J. West on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:00:18 EDT

I suppose that's true. Dench's best work has always called for theatricality, technically precision, and humorlessness--she's easily the greatest Lady MacBeth I've ever seen--but I'm not sure it's an accident that she sometimes spins comedy out of that dourness. Witness her brief turn as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love.

Comment by Alan Dale on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:10:38 EDT

Thanks for the comment, Michael. Disturbing to identify with such a character, but also disturbing that loving Siouxsie Sioux is now a sign of middle-age! Mais o� sont les fucking neiges d'antan? As I tried to say in shorter compass in the review, Judi Dench's performances may generally be masterful on a technical level but are not necessarily appropriate for the material she's given. She has a distinctively commanding air onscreen but her personality is less notable for what it gives than for what it withholds. This makes her technical skill more apparent—what else is there to pay attention to?—but not very involving. She lacks the playfulness of many English theatrical crossovers, e.g., Edith Evans, Leslie Howard, Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, Vivien Leigh, Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Ian Richardson, a quality that makes me happy to watch them in anything. As a result, although directors will cast Dench in anything "classy," her actual range is quite limited. Barbara in Notes on a Scandal is smack in the middle of that range so all the skill and even the reserve resonate for once, and in fact are highly amusing.

Comment by Michael J. West on Movie Review: Notes on a Scandal - You Were Temptation

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:18:00 EDT

Nice review. I never saw this one; my wife went with a girl friend to see it and loved it, but also found it quite disturbing. (On that note, nice Siouxsie Sioux reference, too. :-D) Doesn't it almost seem redundant at this point to say that Judi Dench turned in a masterful performance?