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[...]I am doing a cut version, swingeingly cut in some places, and then I am collaborating with a writer-Ranjit Bolt, in this case-who is immensely accomplished in verse translation and doing work of this kind. [...]it is to be railed against, and therefore, I did a heavily cut version, and this time the writer that I contacted was myself, and I adapted and interposed bits of text here and there, and what was fascinating . . . was that the critical fraternity arrived-it was a fraternity then-there was virtually no sorority-and they hugely, hugely approved of this attempt on the play, and said it was revelatory, and not one person said, \"Although, Oy! Again-I'm sorry, this is terribly small-minded-but once again, I would love to be the seat of that knowledge, gathering the actors around and cherry picking and selecting the things that I think would inspire them and get them going, and not say, \"Here is your research project, come back tomorrow all of you having read all of this material and then we'll have a debate about it.\" If there are famous cruxes, then they're bound to come up in rehearsals; but, for the most part, I would think that it is sensible for a director of a particular production, with a particular interpretation, to make the decision ahead of time, so you're not communicating that it is all up for grabs. [...]the text that we start with doesn't have any words changed.

The long-awaited King Lear at the National Theatre had all the hall- marks of Sam Mendes's best Shakespearean work: from the scenic trap- pings of anglepoise lamps and creative locations for scenes that provide a fresh context for the action to the presence of Simon Russell Beale in the leading role. There were also apparent homages to the outgoing artistic director of the NT, Nicholas Hytner, and his production of the play in 1990 at the RSC, the same season Mendes began his decades-long col- laboration with Beale with Troilus and Cressida. Aware that much commentary surrounding this high-profile production will undoubtedly focus on directorial intent, and spurred on by the negative reactions I have encountered online, I will focus here on the rich detail to be found within the performances. Kate Fleetwood's Goneril was primly dressed and existed in a constant state of tension conveyed by her closed body language and crossed arms; Anna Maxwell Martin's Regan was Goneril's opposite and moved like Marilyn Monroe; and Olivia Vinall's Cordelia was sensibly attired, with her honest forthrightness a beacon of truth in the family.

The article explores the war film genre through the lens ofthe reception of Sam Mendes’s 1917 (2019) in Polish film crit-icism. Using the example of this film, which generates nu-merous problems for a genre-based approach, the authordemonstrates the importance of considering the context offilm criticism in genre studies, in particular due to the warfilm genre being ambiguously defined in film studies. Heargues for a shift from Rick Altman’s film genre theory toAndrew Tudor’s approach, which incorporates social andcultural contexts. In his research, the author also draws onPierre Bourdieu’s field theory, which recognises the roleof critics in shaping cultural knowledge, as well as JanetStaiger’s perspective, which emphasises the influence ofsocial and national factors on the reception of cinema. Thearticle answers questions regarding the complex status ofthe anti-war film and traces the genre concepts present inthe critical reception of 1917.

The combination of cinematography Roger Deakins (and his team of assistants, grips, etc.), director Sam Mendes and the art and set design crews designed the film to move in what some industry insiders refer to as “oners”: continuous long takes that either do not conclude with an edit; or are stitched together in one of many ways, digitally edited or through what I call “mise-en-trickery”, which is when the edit is hidden within the details of the shot, like a dark coat, a black space, a piece of furniture, a character walking past the camera, or within a whip pan, to suggest the illusion of a single shot. Since the gradual shift to digital filmmaking from around 2010 onwards there has been a marked increase in these type of films, largely due to how digital technology facilitates extreme long takes from a technical standpoint. [...]the single take real time narrative has become a common aesthetic choice for low budget filmmakers, which may seem counter-intuitive when you factor in how much time (which often translates to money in filmmaking) preparation, planning and mapping out is involved in sustaining the long take. In the above mentioned scene where Schofield wakes up from his black out (67 minutes), the camera is on a Trinity rig to film Schofield’s face from close up overhead, but when he gets up and walks up a set of stairs to the top floor, where we see the church yard lit by flares through a window, there is a blend which disguises a practical switch of the camera to a 50 foot Technocrane, which had to be accommodated by knocking out the back part of the set. The length of the Technocrane enabled the camera to move beyond the windows (which were specially built to part open to allow for the camera).

[...]with more audience members in the room, there is more that can go somewhat awry-and the night I saw Romeo and Juliet was one such night. According to the extensive programme notes, director Polina Kalinina had decided to set Shakespeare's play in 1968, using the student unrest in Europe as its backdrop. Costumes and hairstyles suitably evoked the era, and the action began with the Chorus replaced by a lone young woman entering and walking onto the battered merry-go-round that was the sole set piece in the first half, singing an arrangement of a sonnet.

FQ columnist Bilal Qureshi reflects upon the significance of Bong Joon-ho's Parasite's Oscar victory over the presumed favorite, Sam Mendes' World War I drama 1917 for both the film industry and the culture at large. In keeping with the premise of his column \"Elsewhere,\" which explores the ways in which cinematic works are activated and reframed by the national, cultural, and aesthetic geography of where they are experienced, Qureshi offers a fresh perspective on these two films based upon his experience of watching 1917 in Dubai, with Arabic subtitles and an ethnically diverse audience. Viewed in this Middle Eastern context, a film dismissed as passé and traditional by U.S. critics revealed itself as urgent and resonant, transcending differences of language and geography to offer a potent reminder of why the pain and loss of war still matters.

The women looked stunning in Mad Men-esque cinched-waist dresses and coiffed hair; the men's costumes included wonderful details, such as Polonius's purple silk pocket square and Rosencrantz's argyle sweater. During Claudius's \"auspicious and dropping eye\" speech, Estrella stared offinto the middle distance with a kind of unfocused horror, giving the impression that his mental state was less a direct result of his mother's overhasty marriage to his uncle and more a result of the collision between this event and his already-present psychological demons. Many Shakespeare productions (such as Sam Mendes's recent Richard III) have hearkened back to this era as a means of demonstrating Shakespeare's relevance to the present, but, as Sullivan did not consistently reference this political/historical context throughout the production, its presence at the play's end seemed superfluous.