Brian McFarlane

Much Ado About Nothing

ABR Arts • 24 July 2013

There have been more than 900 Shakespearean film adaptations of one kind or other, for screens large and small, dating back to scenes from Macbeth in 1898. The Stratford playwright would have become rich beyond the dreams of avarice from film rights alone; equally, though, I think he would have acknowledged that film-makers have notched up a pretty honourable record in bringing his plays to the ci ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'The Great Gatsby' directed by Baz Luhrmann

June 2013, no. 352 • 17 May 2013

One should approach a new film with an open mind, but it’s very hard to do so when it has been preceded by the sort of hype that has accompanied The Great Gatsby. And it’s not just the hype but the other threats to the open mind which include the famous source novel (one that people know about even if they haven’t read it), the previous film versions, and the reputation of the new film’s d ... (read more)

Great Expectations

April 2013, no. 350 • 26 March 2013

What is it about Great Expectations (1861) that makes it seem indispensable? Can it be its hero, Pip’s, search for a liveable identity? The small, terrified, often bullied child gets a glimpse of ‘the quality’ albeit in desuetude, becomes dissatisfied with being a blacksmith, receives the eponymous expectations, and tries to become a gentleman before settling for a more modest role and comin ... (read more)

Wuthering Heights

October 2012, no. 345 • 25 September 2012

Those Brontës. If they’d only had a decent agent with foresight, they could have escaped that dank parsonage on the gloomy moors of windswept Yorkshire and set up on the French Riviera in comfort. Since 1910 there have been at least forty film or television versions of Jane Eyre, most recently in 2011. Now it is Emily’s turn for the latest (seventeenth) go at Wuthering Heights (1847), that ex ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'Gay Life Stories' by Robert Aldrich

June 2012, no. 342 • 22 May 2012

The author of this handsomely produced volume claims in his opening sentence, ‘The sex lives of celebrities (and the less famous) always excite the curiosity of others.’ For the sake of his book he’d better be right, because what follows are more than eighty gay histories and/or partnerships, each moving inexorably to the matter of sexual orientation and declaration – reluctant or otherwis ... (read more)

The Deep Blue Sea

May 2012, no. 341 • 23 April 2012

By chance, two of the most famous 1950s plays are in the news again. John Osborne’s historic rant, Look Back in Anger (1956), has been successfully revived on Broadway, while Terence Rattigan’s emotionally taut piece, The Deep Blue Sea (1952), has been filmed by another Terence – Davies, that is. In their day, Osborne railed against the ‘porcelain plates [of] the well-set table of British ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'The Narrative of John Smith' by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Robert Lindsay

March 2012, no. 339 • 01 March 2012

A century later, the Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes industry shows no signs of abating. In recent months alone, there have been Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk, a new Holmes adventure, and the big, dumb action movie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; a television series, Sherlock, set in the twenty-first century, appeared in 2010; and in 2005 Julian Barnes’s George and Arthur investigated t ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'I Found It at the Movies: Reflections of a Cinephile' by Philip French

February 2012, no. 338 • 21 January 2012

Whenever I have found myself in disagreement with Philip French’s film reviews in London’s Observer, I have always felt worried, assuming I had missed a crucial point or misread a plot move. He may well be the longest-serving film reviewer in the English-speaking world; he is certainly the most honoured. ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star' by Jonathan Croall

November 2011, no. 336 • 21 October 2011

As the dust settles on twentieth-century acting giants, and reputations are appraised, it is at least arguable that John Gielgud emerges as the greatest. Certainly his was the longest and most varied career, spanning nearly eighty years, only death itself, when he was ninety-six, causing him to slow down. Since then his pre-eminence has seemed confirmed as one reads about him and his distinguished ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'On Shakespeare' by John Bell

October 2011, no. 335 • 27 September 2011

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. (Matthew Arnold, ‘Shakespeare’) When Arnold wrote his famous sonnet, he could have been anticipating John Bell’s book, which repeatedly asks provocative questions about the man and the work that have been his life’s inspiration – and arrives at much the same conclusion as Arnold. ... (read more)