Vanya on 42nd Steet

Starring:Phoebe Brand, Lynn Cohen, George Gaynes, Jerry Mayer, Julianne Moore, Larry Pine, Brooke Smith, Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory, Madhur Jaffrey, Oren Moverman
Director: Louis Malle
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

This stirring 1994 work by Louis Malle brought the legendary French filmmaker into another collaboration with actors-writers-directors Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, scribes and stars of the great My Dinner with Andre. The situation here is that Shawn and Gregory were participants in a years-long, informal project remounting a production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya every few months for select friends and the general worthiness of the idea. Wearing street clothes and strolling to a crumbling New Amsterdam theater on Broadway, actors Shawn, Julianne Moore, George Gaynes, Brooke Smith, Larry Pine, Phoebe Brand, Lynn Cohen, and others would do a full run of the text (as sharply translated by David Mamet) while a beaming Gregory (the play's director) looked on. Malle--who died following this film--spent a few days transforming the theatrical experiment into a viable film that maintained the company's unusual purpose and spirit. The result is something between a narrative feature and a documentary about an acting workshop, and is both highly entertaining and cinematically enthralling. A terrific final note in Malle's distinguished career, this is a must-see for anyone who cared about his work or who has a passion for Chekhov. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

a beautiful film that showcases ensemble work on the stage.............2007-06-20

VANYA ON 42ND STREET was my introduction to director Louis Malle's body of work. This 1994 film was the last film Malle completed before he passed away, and it is a great tribute to his talent for storytelling, as well as a great vehicle for his very talented cast. Basically, the film takes place on a stage, where the cast (including Julianne Moore and George Gaynes) is doing a read thru of Anton Chekhov's UNCLE VANYA. Together, they capture the dismal reality that Chekhov's characters live in, and its very engrossing. The actors are very engaging. This is another one of those films that doesn't rely on excessiveness. Minimalism is a great, underutilized quality in films, in this day and age. I really think that the understated direction and wonderful collective atmosphere sustained throughout the duration of the piece is beautiful. Definitely give this one a go!

How can a fruitless life be regarded pure? .......2007-04-02

This statement belongs to a clever dialogue between the doctor and Vanya's niece in the middle of the night. Few directors along the history of the cinema have been able this brilliant and enviable opportunity to express with major solemnity, supreme conviction and admirable honesty, his last creative Op. like Louis Malle, a very prominent director who adapted the powerful, incisive and even neo existential play of Chejov around a crumbling and abandoned theater in Manhattan, where Malle accents and carves in relief not only his profound love for the actuality of this work; he makes a true tour de force around the lives and times of these personages where every one has something to hide, miss and love. Nobody is happy because there is not any innocent happiness. There `s a lot of issues to be considered, analyzed and scrutinized that you will have to watch several times to taste, delight and enjoy it due its single grandness. Filmed with outstanding realism, wondrous angle shots, suggestive illumination and supported by a formidable cast in which nothing is out of control. Marvelously made and one of my twenty top films of the Nineties.

In case you just have only heard about it, get close and convince by yourself. This is a masterpiece, under any possible angle.

A must-see for the students of acting and formidable evidence the theater may be conveyed to the cinematic stage, with pristine elegance.

Chekhov, Naked.......2007-03-07

Louis Malle's VANYA is a fascinating film, a rare opportunity for outsiders and nonprofessionals to experience one of the world's greatest plays as theater people experience it. The first read-through and the first run-through of a play--minus sets, costumes, props, etc.--really give the cast a good sense of what they're doing, because they focus entirely on the words and ideas of the playwright. Not all plays live up to such scrutiny, but the best ones do. Malle and Co. present us with Chekhov's play in its purest form, unadorned and unencumbered, and I now have a new, clear understanding of the people in the story--who they are and what they want. If you love Chekhov, or if you simply love theater, VANYA ON 42nd STREET is a rare privilege.

sorry, fail to sit thru the whole 9 yards.......2006-03-01

the casts are all good but i couldn't stand the endless blah,blah,blah. maybe it's good but i simply fail to find this bore-to-death movie the least interesting. if i were in the theatre, i might have to apologize to the other audience when i bailed out of the aisle in the middle of the big nowhere.

Truly Special.......2005-07-06

If anything in life is certain it is that if you didn't like Louis Malle's "My Dinner with Andre" you won't like his "Vanya on 42nd Street. But even this cannot be entirely depended on, because if you have matured as a movie viewer since seeing "Andre", you might find yourself unexpectedly able to appreciate "Vanya".

Both films are superficially minimalist, relying on script and acting talent to entertain, although Malle's shot selection is also an important element of Vanya. The only real effect is a recorded voice-over sequence for Julianne Moore's character Yelana. As the voice-over plays Yelana's thoughts, the camera is tight on her face and Moore's facial expressions must subtly mirror her thoughts. This is a routine "film" device but in this stage-film context it provides Malle an opportunity to simultaneously utilize the best of both mediums. Acting for camera is different than acting for the stage, particularly in the degree of expression dimension. In this sequence Moore must act for the camera while pretending to be acting for a theater audience. I think this was the best sequence in the film, tight shots like this are an area where the film performance is more demanding than a live stage performance.

The opening scenes of "Vanya on 42nd Street" suggest "My Dinner with Andre", as each member of the scattered ensemble makes their way through the crowded streets of Manhattan for a rehearsal at the rundown New Amsterdam Theater. Once inside they exchange casual conversation and before we realize it the play has started. The lighting has been subtly altered and a large table on the stage has become a sitting room on a rural estate in Russia. But this is not a dress rehearsal and the cast performs in their street clothes.

The subject of Anton Chekhov's late 19th century play is what use should we make of our lives? The deeper subject is the moment of introspection when one confronts the fear that they have wasted theirs. Some complain that since the play is a translation from Russian and is over 100 years old, it reflects a culture too foreign to be of relevance today. While they are correct about regular reminders that the setting is not contemporary, you just as regularly find yourself surprised that Chekhov's subject and theme are so universal and timeless.

During Sonya's long monologue to close the film (perfectly handled by Brooke Smith who literally glows from the moment you see her in the first crowd scene) I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's likewise introspective "Mrs. Dalloway"-written 30 years later in England. Sonya closes the play by expressing her hopes that while we can do nothing but endure in this life, at least we may find a perfect mercy beyond the grave. Clarissa Dalloway looks through a bookshop window to find the passage "Fear no more the heat o' the sun/Nor the furious winter's rages".

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

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