Ulysses

Rating:
Summary: video serves a purpose, but...
Review: AFter having read Joyce's novel, I thought that seeing a movie version of it would be interesting. In that case, I was correct. However, I believe the book was poorly represented. It is hard to capture a 66 page stream of consciosness dream sequence with film. It was an interesting idea, but...

Rating:
Summary: Whose Afraid of James Joyce?
Review: AN EXCELLENT transfer from novel to film [to pristine DVD]!
This semi-intellectual excursion into the world of sexual frankness [THAT that final monologue about intimacy ...!]bordering on pornography - but always avoiding the issue .... along the lines of "What did He/She say?" or "Run that by me again".

This is a perfect example of the 'voice-over' film - images matched to the continuous 'stream of consciousness' - oddly set in the mid-sixties .....

The performances are uniformly excellent and the mood of brooding Dublin during THAT day - well set.

Quite timeless - especially the miscommunication between the sexes .....

Rating:
Summary: The visuals capture the poetry of one day in Dublin
Review: If a movie could do justice to Molly Bloom, this is it.

If a movie could skip the chapter "Nausicaa" and yet capture the longing inside Joyce's characters, the ruin of old Irish castles, the striving of Stephen Dedalus and the trippy wonder of the brothel where Dedalus and Mr. Bloom come together in a kind of mini-Gotterdammerung, this movie is it.

Rating:
Summary: 2.5 stars for the film, 1 star for the disc
Review: Joseph Strick's Summer of Love version of Ulysses is a film that bursts with some its era's most iconic cinematic hallmarks: intellectual abstraction, Sellers-like comedy, dated provocation, and some Angry Young Man `moody-broody'-ness. But it's also based on what I - and many others - regard as the finest novel of the century, and perhaps of all time. Having mounted such a story with an unpracticed director and an unknown cast, the producers delivered a film that's dated badly, and proves largely of its time.

It is not without virtues, though, for Joyceans and otherwise. It was filmed, in luscious black and white, on location, but no effort was made to hide the relative modernity of 1967 Dublin and the post-Victorian trappings of the setting are limited to Milo O'Shea's hat. That fact alone makes the film interesting. It also boasts some amusing directorial asides courtesy of talented dilettante Strick, such as the very subtle insertion of Joyce's headlines into the newspaper scene.

Many of the performances are good, and some are indelible: Milo O'Shea is vulnerable, attractive, awkward, comic, tragic, and sometimes simply naturalistic in a tour de force performance that deserved an Oscar and remains his greatest-ever screen showing. To say nothing of his eyebrows, which spread more joy than Molly Bloom's behind. As well, TP McKenna is wonderful as a puckish, hedonistic Buck Mulligan. But most of the cast are too old for the roles they've taken, and some come off poorly, in particular a lead-footed Maurice Roeves as Stephen Dedalus. Joyce fans will likely enjoy a few of the setpieces - the opening in the Martello Tower is nicely handled, and the Cyclops chapter is agreeably deconstructed - but loathe others, especially the appallingly stiff Proteus monologue.

Those without any familiarity with the book will likely be lost, and while Molly Bloom's closing monologue is beautifully mounted, outside the context of the novel it has nothing to do with the rest of the film, and it's over a half hour long. The episode in the whorehouse is even longer, underscoring Strick's disagreeably prurient approach to the material. That being said, although this film was banned in Ireland until recently there's little in it that will offend contemporary tastes. This marks the first use of the F-word in a mainstream film, as far as I know, and there's some brief male nudity in the form of Mulligan's mulligan. The rest could play unedited on generally puritan US daytime TV.

In general I'd recommend that fans of sixties cinema and Joyceans see this film at least once, but I cannot in good conscience recommend Image Entertainment's insultingly sloppy (and absurdly overpriced) DVD. The picture quality and color is dreary, with chalky whites, fuzzy grays and pockmarked blacks. There is visible flicker in the top-right corner at all times, and even more pronounced flicker accompanying _every single edit_, especially early in the film. The dialogue is mono and muffled and there are no closed captions or subtitles, making the film a tough slog for those who haven't already memorized the (generally faithful) Joycean dialogue. Nor, for that matter, are there any other supplemental features, of any kind! The film is split up into huge, twenty-odd minute blocks, not useful for skipping.

Upsetting both Joyce fans and the Joyceless, Strick's Ulysses has always been a film without an audience. Image's lazy package, and $49 list price, aren't helping it find one.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent representation of some aspects of Joyce's novel
Review: Joyce's ULYSSES is one of the great works of literature of this century -- it is also a difficult novel to read. Most readers need help and there are various guidebooks available for this. Another way of accessing the novel is by listening to oral interpretations of it on tape or record or by watching Strick's excellent film tribute to the book. Of course, it could not be possible to get that whole massive work into a couple of hours film -- I doubt that Strick ever intended to. But this film is an excellent introduction to the book, one that I would recommend warmly.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent representation of some aspects of Joyce's novel
Review: Joyce's ULYSSES is one of the great works of literature of this century -- it is also a difficult novel to read. Most readers need help and there are various guidebooks available for this. Another way of accessing the novel is by listening to oral interpretations of it on tape or record or by watching Strick's excellent film tribute to the book. Of course, it could not be possible to get that whole massive work into a couple of hours film -- I doubt that Strick ever intended to. But this film is an excellent introduction to the book, one that I would recommend warmly.

Rating:
Summary: Joyce when you don't have time for the book
Review: Wonderful visualization of the basic plotline. Yes, the book does have a plot. Filmed in Dublin, so you see the towers, river, and streets. The production is done with love, for those who couldn't imagine life without this book.