HBO's "The Normal Heart": Your Thoughts- Page 6

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/28/14 at 11:20pm

Watched the whole thing in full for the second time tonight on a bigger, better screen than my own. I can't find much fault in the direction at all, which surprises me. I love the way sex was handled, much more beautifully and sexily than I thought either Murphy or Kramer were capable of imagining. Not that I believe Larry had much to do with it. I had minor quibbles. I'm not sure I understand why the mirror ball appears at the end of the envelope stuffing scene. I'm not sure why sometimes Julia Roberts put pauses in the places she put pauses unless she imagined her wheelchair being a version of James Kirk's Captain's Chair.

And I still have no idea what emotion she was playing in the aborted dancing scene. Jealousy?

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 5/28/14 at 11:44pm

I thought the mirror ball was to show the contrast between the sexy fun atmosphere that was there not long ago and the more serious tone that has taken over.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/28/14 at 11:48pm

Except that the scene change happens before the dance benefit when the ball reappears in its true context.

At first I thought Murphy was going for a theme with the fractured mirror reflections and considered the mirror ball part of it. I just can't make logical sense out of the mirror ball being up on the ceiling while the man cleans the room where they were stuffing envelopes and then the lights go out and the mirror ball lights up.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 12:14am

Was a Julie Taymor moment.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 12:15am

Ha! I did like other moments. Like when Ned's conversation switches from the mansion to the restaurant, as if Ned has not even taken a breath in his harangue.

But why wasn't Alec Baldwin playing the brother? Was Alfred Molina's wig suggestive of Alec's hair, but just cheap?

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:45am

I finally watched this tonight. I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to, because of my general distaste for Ryan Murphy and because the 2011 revival was one of the most powerful theatrical experiences I've ever had and I wasn't sure I wanted to experience this piece in any way other than that one. I'm very glad I did end up watching it, because I really loved it.

The most I can say for Ryan Murphy is that he didn't ruin it. It seems that he left the material alone, which I think was the best we could have hoped for.

The performances were wonderful, with the standouts for me being Joe Mantello and Jim Parsons, who was even better as Tommy than he was on Broadway. I think that the piece as a whole works better onstage. I don't know what it would have been like on film with a decent director at the helm, but part of what gives the piece such an impact onstage is the relentlessness of it. That white backdrop on Broadway with the names continuing to be projected on it until they reached the back wall of the house was so stark that it made it seem like the whole play took place almost in one breath, that Ned/Larry's rants were just continuously happening until you couldn't take it anymore. His eventual expulsion from GMHC makes more sense when you get the feeling that he has just been screaming at everyone in sight for 3 straight years.

Overall, though, I think it's still powerful and it will reach a lot of people and that's important. My mother watched the movie on Sunday night and it was her first exposure to the material and she can't stop talking about it and was begging me to watch it so we could talk about it. I think that's a good thing.

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 01:45 AM

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:01pm

Is the Rolodex that Tommy used in the play or was it added for the film?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:06pm

It's added. It's a small-scale adaptation of the ever-growing number of names of the dead, which is a large visual piece of stage productions.

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:19pm

Ahh...so you would see Felix and Bruce's name appear at the pivotal moments?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:27pm

Not necessarily. In the Broadway revival there was an ever expanding series of lists of the dead that eventually took over the entire set and then spilled into the audience and then over the theater. The play ends with Bruce still alive.

What was really tough was that a lot of the names were real and you might see somebody you knew or knew of, if you were around at the time.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:54pm

BEST MOVIE
An Adventure in Space and Time
Burton and Taylor
Killing Kennedy
The Normal Heart
Sherlock: His Last Vow
The Trip to Bountiful

BEST ACTOR IN A MOVIE OR MINI-SERIES
David Bradley, An Adventure in Space and Time
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock: His Last Vow
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dancing on the Edge
Martin Freeman, Fargo
Mark Ruffalo, The Normal Heart
Billy Bob Thornton, Fargo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MOVIE OR MINI-SERIES
Matt Bomer, The Normal Heart
Warren Brown, Luther
Martin Freeman, Sherlock: His Last Vow
Colin Hanks, Fargo
Joe Mantello, The Normal Heart
Blair Underwood, The Trip to Bountiful

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MOVIE OR MINI-SERIES
Amanda Abbington, Sherlock: His Last Vow
Kathy Bates, American Horror Story: Coven
Ellen Burstyn, Flowers in the Attic
Jessica Raine, An Adventure in Space and Time
Julia Roberts, The Normal Heart
Allison Tolman, Fargo




Big Bang, Fargo, The Good Wife, Masters of Sex, The Normal Heart Lead 2014 Critics Choice Nominations

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 01:54 PM

[Eris0303]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 1:55pm

Sorry for the double post

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 01:55 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 2:23pm

I would've gone with Danielle Ferland over Roberts. I met her in a dream last night. I scared the bejesus out of her when I tapped her on the shoulder to tell her what a good job she did as Estelle.

I'm thinking the movie got in my brain.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 2:37pm

Estelle was one of my favorite moments of the film. Reminded me so much of Rev. Zeigler.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 3:13pm

And I still have no idea what emotion she was playing in the aborted dancing scene. Jealousy?

YES. What was that?

I have lots of scattered thoughts. Maybe I'll post them eventually, but I'm not really sure it's worth the mental energy; I doubt anybody cares about my nitpicks, and I'm not fishing to be told people care.

I will say -- because I can't stop saying it to anyone who will listen -- how much I loved the screenplay. I thought the writing was magnificent, and loved the way it blended old and new material. I'd love to find a copy of it some day.

I didn't love the movie the way I love the play, but I also know I probably wasn't really capable of that. I certainly had my skepticism about Ryan Murphy's ability to make the film well -- to the point that for a while, I would have preferred to see it never made at all than in his hands -- and there are things that could have been better, but it was lightyears from a trainwreck, and there were lot of things that I thought were very right (though those are mostly to the credit of the writing). I couldn't sleep Sunday night and my dreams were haunted by images from the movie; I guess that speaks for itself.

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 03:13 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 3:20pm

So that's two of us who had Normal Heart dreams. Anybody else?

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 3:24pm

luvtheEmcee, I totally agree about the screenplay. Kramer did an incredible job adapting the play.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 3:27pm

I wonder if there was a script doctor?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 4:51pm

It was reminiscent of the way I felt in the few hours after HBO aired Angels all those years ago. Ironically, the way I felt about most of the performances in the film appears to be similar to the way many felt about Angels when it aired, too. But I was on the opposite side of that discussion.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 4:52pm

Oh and Namo, I couldn't make sense of several of the transitions.

And all of the names in the revival projections were real, no?

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 04:52 PM

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 5:13pm

I knew that the names were listed onstage but not that they expanded into the theatre. That sounds so powerful.

Updated On: 5/29/14 at 05:13 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 5:17pm

I thought all the names were real too, but just because there were some people I knew.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 6:21pm

I had a dream about Jim Parsons

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 9:26pm

"And I still have no idea what emotion she was playing in the aborted dancing scene. Jealousy?"

I thought that scene was astonishingly clear. Roberts plays a woman who has spent most of her life encased in iron (iron lung, wheelchair, leg braces, etc.) and she is shocked by, then gives in to, the sheer joy of being held by another human being. And so she loses herself in a moment that isn't about death and dying.

But Ned--being Ned--is oblivious to the impact on her (and, in fairness, it doesn't have the same meaning for him) and ruins the moment by returning to his fears and rants. The moment spoiled, she throws down her crutches and returns to her chair.

What is so brilliant about the scene is that it dramatizes the profound need most humans have for physical contact with others. And thus it serves as a counterpoint to Emma's logical, but unrealistic, argument that "if you know ****ing will kill you, don't you stop ****ing?"

So, no, it's not that she's jealous. It's just that she had lost herself in a moment of human contact and Johnny Mathis, a moment which Ned proceeded to spoil.

I loved the film and thought that was one of the very best scenes.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/29/14 at 9:33pm

Wouldn't Ned have screamed at her for wanting to play Johnny Mathis, who was closeted at the time?