Long Day's Journey Into Night Reviews

(BluR) Intense characters, twisted against each other, but family at the end of the night/day. Consumption, drunkenness, pity, madness, drugaddiction (corutesy of mrs Hepburn) ...

Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night is unquestionably a descent into one family’s personal hell, and perhaps his magnum opus. A work of autobiographical candor that laid bare the emotional scars and inner demons that drove his art. A film version could be a dangerous prospect; the magic of the stage is that since an entire section of their home is missing it makes us more than a voyeur. We are the silent fifth-member of the family, quite possibly the ghost of the dead-infant that is but one of the numerous problems causing the family to rot from the inside. Thankfully this film captures that same kind of emotional claustrophobia allowing for a similar kind of voyeurism to take place.

Much of this is achieved through the astounding moody and stylized cinematography from Boris Kaufman. A frequent collaborator of director Sidney Lumet, Kaufman and Lumet express a kind of filmic dialogue which allows us access into the Tyrone’s hellish world and very little reprieve from it. Very rarely do we escape from the interiors of the Tyrone’s dilapidated and consuming mansion, but when we do sunlight and trees look deadly and threatening. Faces look weather-beaten and damaged; rooms can be encroaching upon you with their shadows or made to engulf you with their disturbing openness and isolation. And the final image of the family sitting around a table completely surrounded by a circle of harsh white light does not evoke a heavenly pallor, but a disturbed and remote circle of the damned.

Night tells the story of the Tyrone clan, a four-member family each battling some form of addiction, who are stuck in a twisted emotionally co-dependent relationship based on mistrust and hatred. It’s one of those plays that actors dream about to not only display their skills but to enhance their craft. These roles are challenging for even the most talented of actors. They must walk that fine line between being shrieking narcissists that we hate and people we are completely enraptured by, even if we don’t particularly like them. This film version has been blessed with a cast that nails each and every challenge and nuance within the roles.

Lead by Katharine Hepburn, in a particularly brilliant piece of casting, as matriarch Mary, the cast is a force to be reckoned with. Hepburn’s natural intelligence, authority and independence add a nicely autobiographical touch to her reading of Mary. Her natural trembling adds a nice authenticity to the mercurial and deeply venomous character. She is all frayed nerves and pathetic abnegation. Hepburn was wisely nominated for an Academy Award for her performance here, and while I maintain that The Lion in Winter is her magnum opus as an actress I can fully appreciate and understand why some would chose this one instead. If any actress prospered more from aging than Hepburn I can’t think of them.

But the three men in the family don’t play second fiddle to Hepburn’s vicious mother. Ralph Richardson is the alcoholic father who pinched pennies on everything from doctors to the family to his son’s treatment facility. His vain attempts to buy up real estate and hide his alcoholism only point out the gap between his problems with addiction and self-realization, his responsibility for Hepburn’s morphine addiction further complicates matters. He denies his severe alcohol problems, but criticizes her for the “demon” within her. Jason Robards is the older son, an actor like his father who might show some kind of promise if he wasn’t in a permanent state of drunkenness. His father’s alcoholism looks “functional,” but Robards is in the midst of a full-blown downward spiral. It doesn’t help that he hates both of his parents and his younger brother. Robards is magnetic and fiery, a screen presence who is exceedingly commanding. Dean Stockwell, so young and attractive, is the younger brother who is slowly succumbing to TB. His mother hates him because she incorrectly blames him for the death of her youngest, his father wants to find the cheapest hospital he can find to shove him in, and his brother is angered that his very existence helped push their mother into drug addiction. It doesn’t help that Stockwell is the most together of the family, which Robards cannot abide. Stockwell is fey and quiet, but he to can also release his pent-up acid in large bursts. He is too soft in looks to survive in this world, and his fragility is pounced upon by his family. His focus and talent, the fact that he has a shot to get out of the psychological warfare, also drives Robards to hatred and jealousy. It’s a convoluted and messy tapestry of accusations and denial.

Unfairly, and very much unjustly, Hepburn was the only actor in this film to receive recognition from the Oscars. She lost to Anne Bancroft for The Miracle Worker, and the film was widely ignored upon release. Time has only been kind to every performance in the film. In another year they might have pulled off a Network-style acting sweep, and maybe the film would have been more widely recognized. This is an undervalued and underrated masterpiece. It’s also a great early work from master filmmaker Sidney Lumet. That alone should be worth your time.