TIFF '24: "Carnival Is Over" and serving poor man's Shakespeare

by Cláudio Alves

CARNIVAL IS OVER (Photo Credit: Helena Barreto)

You know a film has grand ambitions, mayhap delusions of grandeur, when it opens with two extensive title cards setting up a mythos and cast of characters you'll need to follow to make sense of what's to come. Carnival Is Over wants to ensure the audience understands the century-old Animal Game, a clandestine lottery controlled by the "bicheiros" of Rio de Janeiro. Bask in this sense of legacy, for it's about to be upturned as a crisis of power blossoms within the crime lord's syndicate. It all starts with the return of a prodigal son from abroad, a year after his father's suspicious death. Valério is the heir's name, but you might as well call him Hamlet. Or perhaps Macbeth. Later in the narrative, he'll even play a little Titus Andronicus…

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Queering the Oscars: Visconti's "The Damned"

by Cláudio Alves

At the 42nd Academy Awards, the Best Original Screenplay category was a rarity of historical importance. You wouldn't know it in 1969, but all nominees would be studied for years to come. Whether seen as seminal works in their author's careers or cultural milestones with much to reveal about the society that produced them, the films form an illustrious bunch, going from Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice's pop psychology to the revisionist brutality of The Wild Bunch. The winner was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a western which has inspired queer readings for over half a century though it was far from the queerest picture in the race. 

That would be Luchino Visconti's The Damned, marking the start of his German trilogy, the international metamorphosis of his cinema, and the most open expression of gay sensibilities in his oeuvre to that point…

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Macbeth beyond "The Tragedy of Macbeth"

by Cláudio Alves

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth is a beautiful experiment in bringing German Expressionism to 21st-century digital cinema. I could wax rhapsodic about its minimalist set designs and symbolic costumes, the crystalline black-and-white cinematography and ominous soundscape. Hell, there's a book's worth of material to be written about Kathryn Hunter's merge of avant-garde physical theater and Elizabethan dramaturgy. All that being said, and that Scripter nomination aside, the movie's a rather lousy Shakespeare adaptation. Despite pronouncements about trying to reinvent the Macbeths as a middle-aged couple, going deep into the psychology of two creatures whose youth is long gone, Coen doesn't go deeper than the surface. 

In the end, it's a standard reading of the play that serves as a foundation for all that style. The cinephile in me loved it, while the Shakespeare geek felt dispirited. However, there are enough Macbeth movies out there to please just about everyone. It all depends on what you're looking for… 

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Almost There: Ian McKellen in "Richard III"

by Cláudio Alves

With its streaming release on Apple TV+, it seems like everyone is watching The Tragedy of Macbeth. As people discuss Joel Coen's adaptation of Shakespeare's Scottish play, talks of Oscar are nearly unavoidable - Denzel Washington is poised to earn his ninth acting nomination for the titular role. However, while his awards triumph feels obvious, one shouldn't think that playing the Bard's most famous roles is an easy ticket to the Oscars. Many major adaptations have been snubbed over the years, and even when the Academy embraces a Shakespearean flick, it rarely extends such love to its cast.

Look no further than Sir Ian McKellen's first major bid at big-screen stardom. In 1995, after starring in a famed stage production directed by Richard Eyre, the actor decided to take that Richard III to the movies…

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"Sonnet 129" via Ralph Fiennes

It's 129 days until the Oscars. Please enjoy this interpretation of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 129" by Ralph Fiennes, released back in 2002 six years after Ralph Fiennes second Oscar nomination and seven years before his directorial debut, Coriolanus, which was also Shakespearean.

Remember when Fiennes directed Vanessa Redgrave in an Oscar worthy turn?

Ralph Fiennes hasn't been Oscar nominated for 25 years and that is dumb given his filmography since then.