Tempest (1982)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Paul Mazursky

Writers:

Leon Capetanos (writer)
Paul Mazursky (writer)

Release Date:

13 August 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Most men dream their fantasies. Phillip decided to live his.

Plot:

A sobering mid-life crisis fuels dissatisfaction in Philip Dimitrius, to the extent where the successful...

Plot Keywords:

Island | Architect | Marriage | Marital Separation | Cat

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

John Cassavetes	...	Phillip Dimitrius
Gena Rowlands	...	Antonia Dimitrius
Susan Sarandon	...	Aretha Tomalin
Vittorio Gassman	...	Alonzo
Raul Julia	...	Kalibanos
Molly Ringwald	...	Miranda Dimitrius
Sam Robards	...	Freddy
Paul Stewart	...	Phillip's Father
Jackie Gayle	...	Trinc
Anthony Holland	...	Sebastian
Jerry Hardin	...	Harry Gondorf
Lucianne Buchanan	...	Dolores
Vassilis Glezakos	...	Captain
Luigi Laezza	...	Sailor
Sergio Nicolai	...	Sailor

Runtime:

Israel:136 min | Argentina:136 min | USA:140 min | Canada:142 min (Ontario)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby | 70 mm 6-Track

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Iceland:12 | Finland:K-12 | USA:PG | Australia:M | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Athens, Greece

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Director Cameo: [Paul Mazursky]First guest to be greeted by the architect at the New Year's Eve party.

Quotes:

Kalibanos: Who loves you more than all the other goats?

Movie Connections:

References "Saturday Night Live" (1975)

Soundtrack:

New York, New York

A Flawed Masterpiece

"Tempest" is a somewhat self-indulgent, uneven, discursive movie. But as Lord Byron, another visitor to Greece, protested to his friend John Murray about his similarly self-indulgent and discursive "Don Juan," "It may be profligate but is it not life, is it not the thing?"

The connections to Shakespeare's "Tempest" may seem, as another commentator here claims, a bit tenuous. But watch the film again after re-reading "The Tempest," and they'll seem far closer. What makes this film flawed is its uneasy mixture of straightforward normal narrative and sudden jarring apparent improvisation, particularly between Cassavetes and Rowland. But to be honest, these scenes are the most remarkable and gripping in the film, if the hardest to watch.

The music of this film, composed by Stomu Yamashta, is also overlooked. Particularly fine is the perfect little piece played to accompany the afternoon siesta, as people, animals, and seemingly the entire island collapse to sleep away the hottest part of the afternoon. It's a sublime moment, and representative of the best aspect of this movie and the one thing that keeps it somewhat unified, the fact that (aside from extensive flashbacks and the very end) it is the story of one day on an island, from awakening to night.

Overall, I'd rather watch this film a hundred times than see some bombastic Hollywood piece of crap once. And in fact, I probably have watched it several dozen times. Most times, I see something I missed before.

(Confession: I'm biased. This was the second movie I took my Greek-American goddess wife to see.)

Trivia notes on this flick:

- It was Molly Ringwald's first movie, as well as Sam Robards';

- It was actually not filmed on an island, but in Gytheion, the southern tip of the remote Mani peninsula of the Peloponnesus of Greece;

- The (by today's standards) primitive special effects were done by Bran Ferren, who later became head of Disney Imagineering, and still later was an adviser to the US intelligence community;

- Paul Mazursky, the director, chose the title of his recent autobiography, "Show Me the Magic," from the script of "Tempest."