Vanya on 42nd Street [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Louis Malle Louis Malle

Overview

In the late 1980s, noted theatrical director Andre Gregory assembled a group of friends and actors and began rehearsing a new translation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya by David Mamet, not with any specific performance in mind but as a way of exploring the beauty and precise construction of Chekhov's play. Louis Malle, a friend of Gregory's, became interested in the project and spent two weeks filming Gregory's actors as they performed Uncle Vanya without an audience in a run-down theater near New York's Times Square. In these performances, the line between theater and real life is blurred as conversations between actors -- juggling take-out cups of coffee and wearing street clothes -- slowly grow into a superb performance of Chekhov's classic, with Wallace Shawn as Vanya, Julianne Moore as Yelena, Brooke Smith as Sonya, and Larry Pine as Dr. Astrov. With a certain sad irony, this marvelously realized adaptation of a play about people wondering what they've done with their lives proved to be Louis Malle's final film; he died of cancer in 1995.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/28/2012
UPC:	0715515090919
Original Release:	1994
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:59:00
Sales rank:	15,862

Special Features

Documentary featuring interviews with André Gregory, that play's director; actors Lynn Cohen, George Gaynes, Julianne Moore, Larry Pine, Wallace Shawn, and Brooke Smith and producer Fred Berner; Trailer; Plus: a booklet featuring an eassay by critic Steven Vineberg and a 1994 on-set report by film critic Amy Taubin

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Wallace Shawn	Vanya
Julianne Moore	Yelena
Brooke Smith	Sonya
Larry Pine	Dr. Astrov
George Gaynes	Serybryakov
Lynn Cohen	Maman
Phoebe Brand	Marina
Jerry Mayer	Waffles
Madhur Jaffrey	Mrs. Chao
Andre Gregory	Himself
Joshua Redman	Composer

Technical Credits

Louis Malle	Director
Fred Berner	Producer

Editorial Reviews

A clever and powerful interpretation of the Anton Chekhov play Uncle Vanya, Vanya on 42nd Street reunites director Louis Malle with Wallace Shawn and André Gregory, his collaborators from 1981's My Dinner With André. Like that film, Vanya is a self-reflexive examination of the thin line between an actor's performances and his or her own life; the success of both films relies on Malle's ability to convincingly blur that distinction. Essentially a filmed rehearsal, Vanya's spare production design -- no costumes, no set, just an empty, rundown theater -- gives it tremendous resonance. Without a uniformly excellent cast, the film might have come off as merely conceptual; thankfully, Malle is aided by Shawn, surprisingly effective in the play's (and the film's) title role, and the emotive Julianne Moore as Yelena. Brooke Smith's heartbreaking performance as the ignored Sonya, however, really steals the film.

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