The Stage on Screen (Part 2): Five More Films About Life in the Theater

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this “Stage on Screen” list, there are more worthwhile examples than I could even begin to cover when it comes to this topic. But the many points of crossover between stage and screen is a fun and inexhaustible topic, so I couldn’t help myself from throwing out five more for consideration, followed by some “honorable mentions” that will have to wait for another list to come along. I want to begin with the most recent film across both lists (which I suspect will be high on my year-end list, as well).

Grand Tour

Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes always has performance stages on his mind, and maybe to no greater degree than in his most recent film, the ingeniously crafted Grand Tour. There are a few fascinating layers to the interplay of theater, performance, and cinema here, and the first to present itself is the recurring footage of puppet theater that binds the movement of the film with a mythic quality. The title of the film refers to the “grand tour” of Asian countries that constitutes the travel route of main characters Edward (Gonçalo Waddington, a perfectly cast “old turtle,” as one character describes him) and Molly (Crista Alfaiate, equally wonderful in one of my favorite films of 2021, Gomes’ The Tsugua Diaries), who embark on a chase that takes them across Mandalay, Rangoon, Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Osaka, and Shanghai.

While the romantic pursuit that drives the film’s leads is set in 1917, Gomes is only half-interested in playing the theatrical game of period films typically obsessed with historical accuracy. Gomes has a refreshing trust in the audience’s “pact with fiction,” and works more to challenge and juxtapose that ability we carry into the movie, rather than treat it as a fragile agreement. For Grand Tour, Gomes first traveled the titular “grand tour” and shot the locations as they are today, including every carnival, puppet theater, gambling hall, tourism guide, and karaoke performance he could find along the way. Then, after creating a bank of modern documentary footage across the character’s trajectory, he built sets at his home base and began to work with the fictional aspects of the film’s story, partially inspired by the W. Somerset Maughm travelogue “The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong.” What results is an entirely unique interplay of theatrical scenes from the modern world and a theatrical recreation of the old world. One moment feels like a faithfully period romantic comedy, while the next involves a spontaneous dance of Chinese motor bikes set to “The Blue Danube Waltz,” or a Filipino café rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” that leaves the singer collapsed in tears.

As the film drifts from location to location, from past to present, from black-and-white to color, and from fiction to documentary, it always returns to those establishing images of puppet theater. The mythic and timeless tale of doomed love depicted in small-scale light and shadow grows increasingly resonant as we understand the staged nature of the scenes depicting the separate journeys of Edward and Molly. The journey of our romantic leads is, indeed, doomed. But Gomes understands how to balance tragedy and beauty, and his films have a whimsical approach and dedication to beauty that feels necessary, if not revolutionary, in a cinematic age saturated by an obsession with doom and dystopia. In a way, it feels like Gomes is answering modern filmmakers who can only envision film as a bludgeoning object with fleeting, imperfect songs and puppets thin as paper.

Dogville

One of my favorite terms in theater is used to describe Bertolt Brecht’s tactics of “Alienation,” otherwise known as: Verfremdungseffekt. It’s one of those German terms that just rolls off the tongue, describing an act of making a work of art or theater strange, or estranged, from our typical engagement with it. Of course, we might want to be careful when talking about German rolling off the tongue in conjunction with Lars von Trier, the ever-dedicated provocateur and miserabilist who directed, perhaps, the most fully Brechtian exercise of cinema ever, 2003’s Dogville. If the previous film on this list, Grand Tour, might be described as a mildly alienating act of stripping away historical context, then Dogville is an aggressively stripped-down period piece that reduces all design detail to little more than a set designer’s tape lines on a theater stage.

Dogville is Von Trier’s version of Thornton Wilder’s quintessential piece of American minimalism, Our Town. The narrator in Dogville is not staged, but only heard in voice over, carried across by the bristled, British tones of the great John Hurt. The set of Dogville is nothing more than a somewhat bare theatrical stage. Little more than the aforementioned tape lines on the floor outline the remote Appalachian village of Dogville, though there are small bits of period detail throughout the costumes and sets. But the film/stage set of Dogville is certainly, and most revealingly, without walls. Anyone who was raised or has spent significant time in a small town will recognize the uncomfortable closeness this design decision makes explicit. Von Trier uncannily understood that only by reducing the details of design could he fully tell his tale of a morally and situationally compromised and doomed village. Every shameful act is laid bare, yet no one sees a thing.

There’s a book by Jake Horsely from around 20 years ago called “Dogville vs Hollywood” that delves into Von Trier’s utter compulsion toward a cinema of revolt, beginning with his Dogme 95 movement. In the book Horsely calls out Dogville as repulsive, boring, and far too long, but in just the right ways. While Horsely admires the film, to be sure, I’m not sure I agree with his assessment of it as boring or long (repulsive? Yeah, maybe a bit). I’ve always found Dogville to be perfectly engaging for its almost 3-hour running time that explicitly announces itself as consisting of 9 Chapters and a prologue. It has a captivating, novelistic grandeur. The script itself is ruthlessly constructed, featuring some of the best screenwriting in Von Trier’s long career, as devious and punishing a story as it may be.

The film is also perfectly cast, each actor bringing weight to the most blatantly imaginary circumstances a film might dare attempt. Nicole Kidman as the fugitive Grace is at the peak of her powers, and Paul Bettany has never been cast better as the town’s pretentious idealist, Tom Edison, Jr. There are too many greats here to mention, and even though the film has a truly large ensemble, the great performers here are doing much more than minor, supporting work, including: Ben Gazzara, Stellan Skarsgård, Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, Jeremy Davies, and James Caan. All the performers seem to perfectly understand that Dogville is pure theatricality, and far from moralizing. As Grace concludes: “If there’s any town this world would be better without, this is it.”

Cradle Will Rock

Tim Robbins capped off a small string of directorial efforts in the 90s (after Bob Roberts and Dead Man Walking) with an ode to the theatrical spirit of the Federal Theater project, Cradle Will Rock. The infamous 1937 anti-capitalist operetta of the same name by Mark Blitzstein (Hank Azaria) was a product of FDR’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) and shut down due to budget cuts before it opened. The film leaves itself open to multiple critical hits for not being historically accurate, combining timelines for the convenience of the story, and forcing together various figures of the WPA era such as Diego Rivera (Ruben Blades), Norman Rockefeller (John Cusack), and a rollicking depiction of the production’s director, Orson Welles (Angus Macfadyen). But the film’s freewheeling grasp of history is partly what gives the film such momentum. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the swirling excitement and drama of the film, no matter how fast and loose it plays with the facts.

John Turturro’s acting has rarely appeared as effortless as it does with the role of Aldo Silvano, a struggling actor and family man finally getting his big shot. Likewise, Emily Watson (who will show up in the next film on this list and worked with the director of the previous film on Breaking the Waves) is also born for the role of Olive Stanton, a down-and-out gal who goes from sneaking a bed backstage to getting her big shot in the musical. While not every storyline that swirls around the journey of this central duo is quite as convincing—especially the bits involving ventriloquist Bill Murray and his romance with a right-wing zealot played by Joan Cusack—the overall flow of the film is undeniable and thrives on the spirit of an old cliche: “the show must go on.”

And, yes, there is little evidence of a factual timeline at play in Cradle Will Rock, but, to its credit, the film never acts as if it’s trying to get history exactly right. Instead, the film just feels delighted with the personalities and theatricality of the period, juxtaposing depictions of political children’s theater like Revolt of the Beavers with the art world of Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera, all their creative endeavors hanging in the balance at the whims of the elite. The final sequence involving the makeshift production of “Cradle Will Rock” is absolutely thrilling, and more than worth the bits along the way that might strain credibility. As for the final shot, I wouldn’t dare to give it away for those who haven’t seen it. You might roll your eyes a bit. But…you might not! It’s the kind of shot that, perhaps, separates the sentimental theater lovers from everyone else.

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York is a sprawling ode to creative ambition and isolation, and one of the most specific and dark meta-comedies ever made. The film revolves around tortured, joyless theater director Caden Cotard, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. And, of course, the film feels even darker in the wake of his considerable absence. When I first saw Synecdoche, New York in 2008, it hit so uncomfortably true that my immediate reaction was: I adore it…and should probably never watch it again. Now that over 15 years have passed, I feel less connected to the film personally, and can see the mechanisms and humor of the film more clearly, for better and worse.

And so, I watched it again–this time with a bit of distance from a daily agenda that included discussing the impact of Arthur Miller and Bertolt Brecht with freshman college students—and it’s still shockingly dark. But it’s also very funny, with a humor that is as much about Kaufman’s off-kilter visual and editing sensibility as it is about his off-kilter and go-for-broke dedication to metafictional style (also, if you happen to be watching Nathan Fielder’s current season of The Rehearsal, it makes for a curiously resonant companion piece).

Synecdoche is Kaufman’s first directorial effort, even though it feels like a final film. Of the three features Kaufman has made, it’s clear that there is little compromise in his concepts from page to screen—not unike Von Trier, he seems impossible of creating anything that isn’t exactly how he wants it. Alienating at times, indeed. But, for those in tune with the creative process and the world of theater, Synecdoche deals with that mindset in the most uncompromising and fascinating fashion.

As is the case with most Kaufman’s scripts, it’s difficult to believe he takes such inadvisable and headlong meta-fictional leaps into the abyss, and, more often than not, pulls them off. In Synecdoche, New York, the doubling and tripling of characters inside an ever-expanding rehearsal piece that seemingly has no opening night in sight takes on a simultaneously moving and absurd tone. Deep into the strangely enveloping, continually shifting narrative, a character played by Diane Weist—originally cast as a cleaning lady but now playing another version of Cotard himself—sums up the entire film with shocking conciseness: “Well, Caden Cotard is a man already dead. He, um, lives in a half-world between stasis and anti-stasis and time is concentrated, chronology confused. Yet, up until recently, he’s strived valiantly to make sense of his situation. But now he, um, he’s turned to stone.” Kaufman has to be one of the only writer/directors who can craft such an emotionally and cinematically layered story and then toss in a moment where he dismantles any need for figuring it out at all. This moment–like most of Kaufman’s films–seems like it shouldn’t work, but plays perfectly in the hands of one of our last great original screenwriters.

Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Birdman tauntingly hides behind Michael Keaton's back. — Michael Keaton in Birdman

My final entry on this list probably doesn’t belong on this list at all. Sure, it’s a film about a Broadway theater production, but most folks reading Film Obsessive likely don’t need a “head’s up” about the picture that won the 2014 Oscars for Best Picture, Directing, Screenwriting, and Cinematography. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have become synonymous with the masterful long take, and their combined feats of the theatrical deserve some space on this list.

Even with all that in mind, Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) does not belong on this list. It’s too obvious. And I have to confess…I don’t think I like it much anymore. Birdman is still interesting and worth thinking about for our purposes here, but I think I fell out of love with it.

So, allow me to indulge in this space to not recommend Birdman. Instead, I’d like to recommend staying open to the idea that—to paraphrase the late, great David Lynch—movies are as you are. We change, and our reception of movies changes. And this might be important in a world where the moviemaking industry increasingly relies on the premise that you, the audience, will simply love what they tell you to love, and keep buying it in upgraded formats for many Christmases to come. Despite how most people feel about movie critics, the ability to appreciate and reassess is one that’s culturally useful, whether you consider yourself a critic or not. The ability to change one’s mind is essential. You might watch Star Wars one day for the umpteenth time and think “you know, I don’t like that movie anymore”…and that’s ok. I watched Birdman again, and I don’t like it anymore. Two very different movies, I know, but the recommendation remains: don’t be afraid to change your mind now and then. Don’t be afraid to fall out of love with a movie. They’re complicated things, just like you. And it won’t be the first time or the last.

Now, let me reclaim this space for a bit of praise for Birdman. For one, it’s technically masterful. I love watching Iñárritu and Lubezki when their films are great (Children of Men) and when their films fall short (Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths). Some filmmakers are so interesting you’d pay to see them fail before taking time to watch lesser artists hit their target dead center. Birdman is a mesmerizing journey with a killer drum score, and the momentum of the film is undeniable. And, at its heart, there’s something achingly truthful about the distance between the screen and the stage; between a franchise film like Birdman that has been repeated to death, and a small, avant-garde stage adaptation of American realist author Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. That distance is a chasm, an unresolvable pit between the ideas of Art and Commerce.

I think Birdman wants to evoke this tension in interesting ways, cleverly using former “Batman” Michael Keaton as former “Birdman” Riggin Thompson. But upon recent review, I found it all shallow and grating. The interplay between Keaton and Edward Norton as uber-method co-star Mike Shiner is tiresome. And this time around, Emma Stone and Andrea Riseborough’s characters were more compelling to me, and I wanted more of them over the relentless psychosis of Riggin. Also, the confrontation between Riggin and the theater critic played by Lindsay Duncan is just ridiculous. Then again, maybe that’s the point? Maybe Riggin is stuck in an absurdist circle of hell? Maybe he’s a man already dead who lives in a half-world between stasis and anti-stasis, and time is concentrated, chronology confused. Or something like that. But if that sort of thing sounds interesting to you, see the movie above.

Or watch Waiting for Guffman. Waiting for Guffman is loaded with honestly drawn truths about making theater and hasn’t lost an ounce of humor or watchability in almost 30 years. So yeah, that’s my real recommendation. Waiting for Guffman.

Waiting for Guffman Cast — Waiting for Guffman image courtesy of Warner Bros

Finally, here’s the list of alternate films I considered when crafting these lists—the honorable mentions, so to speak. If you’d like to take a deeper dive into the topic of “Stage on Screen”, these all have something to offer on the topic:

And Everything is Going Fine (Stephen Soderbergh, 2010)

Annette (Leos Carax, 2021)

Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965)

Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Robert Altman, 1982)

A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024)

Film (Samuel Beckett/Alan Schneider)

French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1955)

Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)

Manderlay (Lars von Trier, 2005 – the sequel to Dogville)

Meetings With Remarkable Men (Peter Brook, 1979)

My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)