Quite a slow start (after the shocking opening credits), but if you can last until Peter Falk shows up then you will be rewarded. Particularly impressive how this movie fits with the late 60s questioning of authority, nationalism, and conventional morality. I would have sworn it was made in 68 or 69. At times it reminded me of "Zabriskie Point" and "If." Not a great movie on any level, but it has a number of intriguing ideas, some very good dialogue, and standout performances by Falk and Shelley Winters.
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David Elroy21 August 2001
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Though suffering from extremely poor editing, THE BALCONY is nevertheless a compelling adaption of Jean Genet's inflammatory play. A surrealistic, nightmarish view of a very callous mankind. Shelley Winters is the madam of a brothel (a "house of illusion") in an unknown country with a revolution raging. While the rebels riot and buildings are blown up, Winters and her "actresses" entice and entertain various clients. Joseph Strick, not one to shy away from difficult material (he'd later tackle both ULYSSES & TROPIC OF CANCER), keeps things moving quickly and elicits some great performances from not only Winters, but from Peter Falk, Lee Grant and, as a "Bishop," Jeff Corey. Despite an uneasy mix of stock footage (of a lot of urban carnage) and new material, Strick gets Genet's point across: strip away the costumes and mankind is a mass of powerless imbeciles.
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Real_Review8 May 2019Political futures being decided in brothels. There is a great scene early in the film with an old Caucasian man pretending to be a judge and an African American prostitute, played by Ruby Dee. The scene is both disturbing and sexy. Ruby Dee was amazing. I was like, "Wow, this movie is gonna be awesome!" Well, that was the last of the sexy scenes, and Ruby Dee isn't in the film again.
This film left a lot of potential on the table, but it is still worth watching if you get the chance..
RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 1/1 Story - 0.5/1 Writing/Screenplay - 0.5/1
Total Base Score = 4
Modifiers (+ or -) Originality: 1
Total RealReview Rating: 5 -
FilmFlaneur14 May 2004The Balcony is the stuffy sort of film that the American industry once thought was 'art', even as the effects of the nouvelle vague began to filter through suggesting otherwise. A provocative play by a continental author (Jean Genet), full of prestigious and soon-to-be-illustrious names (Shelly Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant, Leonard Nimoy, et al), shot in crisp black and white (duly nominated for an academy award), music by a genius (Stravinsky) spiced up with cinema vérité news footage and laced with sexual-political overtones, how could it not be? Contemporary reviewers obviously went along: "This film is a remarkable achievement from any point of view. All in all ... not to be missed" (The Guardian). "..first choice for the year among American films" (Daily Telegraph), and so on. Unfortunately now the results seem less impressive. It's stagey, full of self-conscious dialogue played self consciously, and determinedly un-cinematic. Watching the rather turgid results these days the viewer is more likely to wonder what went wrong.
Director Strick virtually made a career out of determined literary adaptations: following the present film came Ulysses, Tropic Of Cancer (1970) and Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man (1977). He made documentaries too, but it was with the former that he strived most to be culturally meaningful, even if the results were never first-rate. The Balcony was the first such outing, and perhaps the least impressive - a production in which, as others have noticed, his literalness as an adaptor hinders rather than encourages the transfer to big screen. As Genet amply demonstrated in his masterpiece Un chant d'Amour (1950), artistic significance can often be best created by the most indirect and poetic means - a process that the director might have here, with benefit, remembered.
Set in a brothel, Strick's film takes place within a city wracked by (unspecified) revolution. Oblivious to the upheavals happening outside, the power-deprived customers of the whorehouse are sold illusions of power, living out their fantasies before the women as such characters as judges, bishops and generals. Things change though, when one of the madam's (Shelly Winters) occasional lovers, the Chief of Police (Peter Falk) asks for help. First, it's for her to impersonate the Queen, then for her clients to help end the revolution by acting out those roles they had only played in fantasy. They succeed admirably in those parts they have acted out for so long; explosions devastate the city. Then, they too are deposed by a new revolution...
The result is an uneven and somewhat tedious melange of humour, surrealism, melodrama and socio-political comment. There are important parallels to be drawn between the immoralities outside and inside the brothel, but in the event the balance is rather laboured, while many of the observations remain rootless. While Genet's play undoubtedly must have worked in its original theatrical incarnation, plonked down here amidst a rout of American thespians determined to see it done justice, its edge is fatally blunted by studio compromise, the result frequently, boredom. Naturally the work of a homosexual former social outcast and thief would have suffered in any American adaptation at this time, as cultural sensibilities were so different. His brothel, supposedly serving the "wildest ambitions and fantasies of its clients" is here without either real fantasy or wildness, in a film that desperately seeks genuine politicization to sink its teeth into, but merely chews around the edges of 'significance'. It might have been a brave project for the time, even daring, but the obscure dullness of it all today is unforgivable.
Stravinsky's music intersperses the action, but being a selection of existing pieces plonked down in situ rather than an original score - in fact, the composer never wrote one - its divertimento clarity only points up how glum and obscure much of the action is which it supports. Jerry Fielding's adaptation of A Soldier's Tale for Straw Dogs (1971) shows how some effective arranging might have been done, but one supposes Stravinsky had the casting vote on this occasion and was presumably happy with the result. Winters is fatally miscast as Madame Irma, the 'lesbian letch' who runs the show, entirely missing the sophistication her role demands. Other members of the cast act out their roles with appropriately straight faces, but only Peter Falk retains lasting credit, lending his part something of the intensity it demands.
No less a talent than Fassbinder also struggled, perhaps surprisingly, with a Genet adaptation when he directed the unsatisfactory, though considerably more watchable, Querelle in 1982. Outside of Genet's own film, perhaps the most memorable adaptation of his work also stars Shelly Winters, this time freed from the millstone of cultural obligation: the cult item Poor Pretty Eddy (1973, wrongly given by IMDb as a second version of The Balcony) which, in its own bad taste way is probably a 100 times more subversive than Strick's establishment effort... -
sparrish228 September 2020Shelly Winters, Peter Faulk, Leonard Nemoy. But the rent must have been due. This story had some promise, but it is poorly written and the filing is terrible. The story just wanders around. i could not tell if it was a drama or comedy. It kind of had both.I did think it was an interesting expose of brothels i.e.; those who condemn them secretly patronize them.
Spoiler: In the last minute Shelly Winters breaks the third wall and totally ruins it. It was like she was drugged. She just seemed out of it. -
film-critic23 September 2004The Balcony is not just an ordinary extension to your house ... in this film it is a place where mortal men go to live out their fantasies. It is a modern day dream castle, where men can escape from the hardships of the real world and act out lives of important people that they may never have the opportunity of becoming. I use the word men for a reason in this review, because the "Balcony" is a brothel. It is a place where men go to fulfill not just their sexual fantasies, but also their dreams. If one wants to become the Bishop; he can go to the "Balcony" and demand that women tell him their sins. If one wants to become the strongest General in the English army with a trusty steed by his side all that he needs to do is go to the "Balcony" and a woman will become his sidekick. There is even a place for men to become Justices of the Supreme Court; carrying out sentences to the women that they hire. Rooted with deep political and sexual undertones, this black comedy digs deep into your soul and your mind. Adapted by the play by Jean Genet, we watch as three men live out their fantasies as their troubled country is rocked right outside the doors by a gang of rebels.
With the revolution happening outside, the business has been tough, but the ladies seem to be surviving. Everyone is happy, until Peter Falk enters the scene. He plays the police chief who is trying to bring the rebels outside to justice. He is also the man who is dating the owner of the brothel played by Shelly Winters. He does not know how to bring the rebels to justice and keep the moral of the people and troops together when the Bishop, General, and Justice have all been murdered. Then he finds his answer in the least of places. He gets the women of the brothel to ask the three men to become stand-ins for the actual leaders of the country. After much persuasion, they say "yes" and begin their voyage outside into the "real world" wearing the masks of their fantasies. At first they succeed, but soon the power reaches even these imposters as they begin to change the rules in their positions. As relations begin to heat up again, a surprise twist shows us that role-play can happen in the most common places.
Director Joseph Strick takes on quite a daunting task with his film adaptation. The Balcony is very racy at times and definitely pushes the envelope, but it is the film's subtle humor that keeps it from becoming all too serious. The wild fantasies played out inside the Balcony are turned into something that can put an end to the violent revolution. While the film is mainly comedic, there are metaphors abound. The brothel itself becomes the main symbol of an unruly, but acceptable, community where morals and standards are nowhere to be found.
The violence outside its doors mirrors the activity in the brothel. It seemingly tells us that without standards anything can happen and be accepted. The brothel may even come out on top, as the madam says, "We don't allow death in here." I felt as I watched it that I was watching a film that had been made this year. The dark themes, the powerful images, and even the switching ending are all issues that Hollywood uses in everyday film today. It is not something that you see in 1963 (when this film was made). I applaud this film for taking chances, and while it isn't the greatest film out there, it should gain respect with the deeply rooted symbolism that it carries. I especially loved the ending. Look to see an interesting 'side' of Nimoy and Falk. This film also explores the issue that we may carry the clothes of power, but without them ... without anything on our backs ... we are just the same as the next man or woman. We are all human.
I also enjoyed the idea of throwing standards to the wayside. That is the major theme of this film. Without standards, you have the violence that happened outside of the "Balcony" ... without standards you have people imagining worlds that do not exist, living lives that they have not earned, and not caring about consequences just people's reaction to themselves. This is obvious when the three unknowns head out onto the city to bring peace, God, and justice to the unknowing people. They do not care that they do not have the training for this power, all they care about being able to feel like they have the power if only for just one moment.
Overall, this film was a scary and interesting when you begin to think about it on a different level than just a comedy. This movie will rank as one of the oddest films I have ever watched in my film career, but one that will remain in my mind forever.
Grade: **** out of ***** -
Stu-4227 February 2003I really like Peter Falk and I thought it would be interesting to see Leonard Nimoy in this early role so I checked this one out. I have absolutely no idea what it was about or why it was made. Yes, I know that it had something to do with a revolution and women selling their bodies, but what a strange film. Peter Falk is always a pleasure, but with ridiculously unintelligible dialogue as this it was even hard to watch him. The opening scenes of real footage were very interesting and from there on it was very tough sledding. I'm usually very lenient from the production side, but I just have to comment on the extremely poor "special effects" here. The parts where a background is used to depict scenes as characters are driving around were not only completely unconvincing, they're totally laughable. Two good things which raise this from a 1 to a 2 are the alluring Lee Grant and the mercifully short 84 mins.
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MOscarbradley30 September 2007Jean Genet's great surrealist comedy was filmed, brilliantly in 1963, by Joseph Strick and is thought to be among the first American art-movies. It's certainly not commercial and Strick makes few real concessions to the medium. It's stage-bound (sound stage-bound?)and no mistake and probably all the better for it and the translation, (it is scripted by Ben Maddow), is first-class.
Set, fundamentally, in a brothel which is more a 'house of illusion' in an unnamed country during a revolution it's about artifice and role-playing, power games for the under-privileged. When the real Minister of Justice, Archbishop and General are killed three of Madame Irma's customers take on the roles under the guidance of the real Chief of Police, (Peter Falk). Nothing really happens and nothing is really resolved. 'You can go home now', Madame Irma tell us, the audience, after the revolution appears to be quashed. Everything is an illusion.she assures us, even real life.
This may well be Genet's best work and Strick and Maddow do it proud. The performances are first-rate. Shelly Winters is particularly fine as the bisexual Madame Irma and Lee Grant is often astonishing as her assistant and part-time lover Carmen. (When this movie came out Grant had yet to make much of an impression on the big screen). Although miscast, Peter Falk handles his speech to the crowds beautifully. Daring in its day, (we have foot fetishism and a lesbian kiss), the film quickly disappeared from the circuits despite very favourable reviews and today is seldom seem. But it is still a classic and really should not be missed. -
frankallen5 December 2007This has to be one of the worst films ever made. It is utterly abysmal. It is so bad it makes Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from outer space" seem like a masterpiece. How talented actors like Shelley Winters, Lee Grant and Peter Falk could have become interested in this fiasco beggars belief. How on earth could it have nominated for an Oscar for the photography beggars belief. There must have been some real turkeys that year. Well IMDb insist on 10 lines, so as I have nothing further to add about this turkey here goes, It is rubbish rubbish rubbish. It is stupid stupid stupid. It is appalling, crass, and i'm afraid iv'e run out of adjectives, but believe me it really is RUBBISH
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adriangr2 May 2016I watched this film out of curiosity and came away very unsatisfied. This probably worked as a play, but even as that it must have been hard work to sit through. Serious and pompous, with a lot of long, long scenes of talking, it's definitely a piece about words. I'll take it that this is the style of the Jean Genet source material.
The story tells of a brothel that is still in operation while the country outside is falling into chaos due to a revolution. People from the brothel are persuaded to use their skills in role play to pose as various heads of power and calm the panicking masses.
The film contains many lengthy vignettes where characters just read heavy and pretentious dialogue to each other in small rooms/stages, or make speeches in cheap and unconvincing "interaction" with stock footage of crowds outside. It's barely using the medium of film to all to any advantage when things are as threadbare as this. Even the music is nasty and discordant.
There's nothing here that takes advantage of the switch from stage to screen. It's little more than an earnest group "reading" of the script. All of the cast look like they are acting, nobody realistically inhabits any single one of the characters. I guess this movie is considered "art" because of the pedigree of the literary source material, but as screen entertainment, this is dismal. -
fourcolor28 July 2005Directed by Joseph Strick, this 1963 movie is a heady mix of philosophy and psychology. The dialogue comes from the French playwright Jean Genet, and rises well above the literary merits of all but a few American films. Beyond its cerebral wordiness - which could well seem unintelligible, but could just as easily be found rewarding for its challenges - this film offers distinctive and remarkable observations on all manner of things, from identity & authority to violence, sex, & the will to power. The movie is largely shot in dark, eerie interiors, and it looks and feels stagebound: this is not necessarily a flaw. The stark & claustrophobic black & white frames help keep a simmering tension amid even the (darkly) humorous passages. The unconvincing "special effects", such as they are, should not be taken out of context: the occasional shots of the outside world are deliberately dreamlike & unrealistic. Redolent of the postwar avant-garde theater of Beckett and Ionescu, this is a surreal vision, and it's one worth exploring. (Shelley Winters performs a career-high bravura as the Madame, and the score is by Stravinsky.)
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I'm sure that Off Broadway, this Jean Genet play was fascinating, especially with Nancy Marchand and later Grayson Hall in the role of Irma, the madam, here played by Shelley Winters. As a film, it's a strange little black and white movie that looks like it was made for TV but rejected because of its subject matter. It's far from a perfect film but once you get into with, it's difficult not to be memorized mainly because of the fascinating cast.
"The world is full of loose women", Winters tells her very close business associate Lee Grant in a paraphrased quote. "What it needs is a good bookkeeper." In 1963, Winters says this line matter of factly where had she said it a decade later, it would now be considered camp.
There's plenty camp here, but that's mainly because of its obvious theatricality, and the presents of actors like Leonard Nimoy and Peter Falk in smaller parts. There's also Ruby Dee as one of the girls, barking orders at a man dressed as a judge to lick her high heel shoe. Her lengthy single scene is marvelous because it is played with the large photo of a jury in the background, and Dee (along with Peter Brocco) is excellent.
You definitely have to be in the mood for something like this or it will come off as a pretentious piece of convoluted new wave theater that got a quickly shot movie version on an obvious soundstage. Seeing the future Columbo and Spock together is also worth it.
But the plot is really bizarre (the circumstances surrounding a country's revolution unfold in a bordello), even if the performances are fascinating. The undertones of Winters and Grant's relationship is never confirmed but fairly obvious, and they are great. Be prepared for the jaw dropping finale, not quite "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" but a scene that should be part of every Shelley Winters career retrospective. -
jht17620 June 2006I really was expecting a "skin flick" based on its lobby cards when I first saw this film adaptation of Jean Genet's "The Balcony" in the summer of 1963, but I was definitely in for an awakening -- rude perhaps but definitely an awakening.
I recommended the film to the owner of Gainesville, Florida's independent movie theater based on the original road show I had seen; however, I had to eat my words when he was only able to book the bowdlerized version that was available for distribution only a few short months after the film's original release. Perhaps too many people had been lured into theaters by the lobby card promise of a "skin flick" and were upset when they were greeted with a film that actually made the audience think for a change.
I rented the DVD today and watched the uncut version of "The Balcony" for the first time since that original viewing some 43 years ago. I took notice of the grainy stock footage used in most of the exterior scenes and compared them with the crisp images of the interior of the TV studio sound-stage, Madame Irma's house of illusions, and I wondered if this might not have been deliberate -- reality is actually grainy and slightly out of focus while our fantasy world is crisply delineated but still patently phony as when Peter Falk as George, the Chief of Police, breaks through the kraft-paper door or when the rocks -- in the Leonard Nimoy as Roger fantasy -- oscillate when touched.
Shelley Winters was ideal as Irma; I cannot think of another actress working in 1963 who could have done better in the part. The rest of the cast was also exceptional.
One note concerning another comment about Peter Falk's accent being Southern and German -- surely this was said in jest? Falk's accent was a combination of his native New York accent and a put-on Latin American/Spanish accent if it was anything. Again, that mixture of accents was in keeping with the part and with the fantasy.
"The Balcony" was definitely worth watching again some 43 years after I saw it during its first run. Will I still think so if I watch it after another 43 year interim? I think I probably will. . . . -
silverscreen8882 September 2005Failed minds, postmodernists who recognize no means of defining the categories of reality, and recognize no hard-and-fast universe of what is real and what is not are "impractical" at achieving any sort of results; how could anyone unable to define what a film is confront an allegorical work of art? How, I ask could anyone understand a one-to-one correspondence between a 'second level of reference' and a primary one, if one is helpless to comprehend the priorities and internal-dynamic properties of the first? Case in point: the way in which imprecise thinkers try, mentally, to approach Joseph Strick's well-paced filmic version of Jean Genet's "The Balcony". "The Balcony" is a favorite film of mine; not because of its obscurity, and I grant it can be read in several ways at some places; I like it rather because its author tries to deal with the false philosophy of "postmodernism" itself; this is a film used for exposing its utter vacuousness. The way the author, and Ben Maddow in his perceptive screenplay, tried to show why pretension, authority-structures and believers are an endless circle of meaningless human shells was devastatingly simple. The author staged a revolution, in an unnamed urban city. Instead of dealing with specifics, the filmmaker followed his plot line by providing graphic images of what happens during any rebellion or revolt--a categorical expose of rebellions and revolutions as violent exercises of disagreement by dissidents; then he confined the dramatic action for the most part to a brothel; there under the direction of Madame (Shelley Winters) and her assistant (Lee Grant), clients play out their fantasies about power--using women as their paid "victims", co-participants and surrogate result-receivers and perpetrators. The Madam's boy friend, the real Chief of Police, (Peter Falk) then enters and is desperate. The General of the army, the Bishop of the Church and the the chief Justice of the country have all been killed; Madam suggests replacements--her best clients are better than the originals at these roles. He is persuaded. So are they. But once they have been sworn in outside, the rebellion gets real for them too. And they, and the rebel leader and the chief, are all driven back inside, to confront the emptiness of their exercises of power--the fact that only power over the real universe and oneself matter; that any other sort of "power- mongering" is meaningless after all; since pretensions are universal and a pragmatic structure that argues only that, "The Establishment needs to be maintained", its proponents forget that this is as anarchistic a premise as is anarchy--"any rebellion on any terms"--would have been. In the film, there are a few moments that seem like stage moments; but most of the narrative I suggestis fought out on a idea-level far above the average film. As the Madam, Shelley Winters is very capable but seems to play the film on too literal a level here and there; Grant is much slyer and in keeping with the spirit of the work. As the police chief, Falk keeps his difficult role this side of surreality with considerable skill; as his opponent, Leonard Nimoy seems very capable also. As the three power figures, Kent Smith as the General is superb, full-voiced, authoritative and compelling; Jeff Corey makes an arch Bishop, intellectual and devious; and Peter Brocco as the Judge is a well-trained classic actor also, very much capable of delivering judgments. As the women they boss over and are controlled by, Arnette Jens, Joyce Jameson and Ruby Dee are all very good and very intelligent; it is to be regretted all have been denied more work in films and the longer parts they deserved to play. The film's ending is celebrated; as some reviewers have noted, the ending working as well on film as it did in the staged version--you will have to view the film to judge this point for yourself; but the film seems to have been made yesterday, as others have suggested largely because its authors handle ideas about reality on a level of categorical truth, not specifics. George Folsey is credited with the cinematography, which is quite varied and difficult; the remainder of the credits are those of the original stage production used here in a translated fashion. The use of the characters within the brothel to comment upon the actions going on in the outside world needs to be noted; this chorus-like rediscovery, notable in "Pride and Prejudice" for instance, is a genuine reviving of an idea-level often missing from post WWII works. The title "The Balcony" refers to the idea that those not immediately engaged in activities within the "house" are spectators of reality, hence able to comment upon its ongoing progress; this also means they can do so in a sense relative to the world outside their limited mini-universe, being detached observers like those in a theatrical "balcony". I urge everyone interested in powerful drama to give this interesting "stunt" or limited-allegory of the world a try. I am an admirer of its purpose and of its execution.
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eschetic-212 January 2010This is absolutely NOT a film for the theatrically illiterate or anyone who cannot accept a film which is less than realistic and into the exploration of the fantasies film is supposed to look at (dare we admit it is stage influenced - but not stage bound?). Those who simply want a mindless night at a "fun" film had best look elsewhere, but for anyone who has a mind and enjoys using it, who knows what Existentialism is, or who enjoys really good acting in demanding texts, the 1963 adaptation Ben Maddow made of Genet's 1959 draft of THE BALCONY in consultation with the original author is close to a "must see." Moving smoothly from the horrifying stock footage of the wartime rioting as the Germans were withdrawing from Paris and radicals were wreaking vengeance on "collaborators" (representing an unnamed country in revolution) through shots establishing a very young and handsome Leonard Nimoy as a revolutionary the film quickly settles into the studio produced isolation of a prominent brothel where clients can act out any fantasy and Genet can use these fantasies to examine the nature of power and relationships - even for a moment drawing back the tenuous curtain separating fantasy and reality.
Top billed Shelly Winters as the madame may never have given a better, subtler performance, and the later all to irritating (as television's Columbo) Peter Falk gives a performance of sustained intensity as a man who thinks he's in charge of his destiny - very reminiscent of the best Twilight Zone work.
All too often overlooked in the uniformly solid cast are Ruby Dee (between her stage triumphs in PURLIE VICTORIOUS and A RAISIN IN THE SUN and recreating them on film) as a woman on trial, Jeff Corey (a versatile character actor with over 200 movie and TV credits including everything from Perry Mason to Star Trek) as "the Bishop," Kent Smith (with a resume akin to Corey's but possibly best known as Peter Keating in the movie of THE FOUNTAINHEAD) as the "General" and famously Blacklisted Lee Grant (just coming off that painful period) as one of Ms. Winters' "girls." Despite the brilliance of all concerned, the film has had its problems It was made at a time when, even if independent films could get around the political bigotry of the previous decade, they were still not immune to the pressure of a sexual puritanism which had a major studio first force a damaging rewrite then refuse to issue an important Billy Wilder film (KISS ME STUPID) under its own name because it appeared to endorse infidelity. The screenplay of THE BALCONY is, on many levels, "tamer" than the stage version. The castration of a character is eliminated as are most homosexual references and exposed skin is kept to a minimum, and it may have been still further Bowdlerized in regional release, but the essential ideas are there for any with the wit to explore them.
If you're up to it (and many viewers will recognize that Rod Serling clearly was), this is a journey through time and space - and one's mind - well worth taking. -
desperateliving24 February 2005The transplanting of Genet's writing to film is odd indeed. It feels strongly allegorical, and it is: it's about a made-up revolution going on in the streets, violent scenes of apocalyptic fighting, where the two opposing forces, the police chief and the leader of the revolution, meet in a brothel where fetishistic sex scenes are enacted. So Genet's play seems at first to be about how sex binds, but it's more a post-modern sort of play, where all is an illusion and we play roles -- in Genet's world, our choices are governed by sex (which the film's comic ending uses to end the conflict through nakedness).
That's all well and good, but the revolutionary aspect doesn't come together too well, because the mocking of people who believe anyone who's presented to them isn't really successful; it's told more than it's dramatized. (Three joes from the brothel who act out their fetish scenes are made to participate in the battle outside as the people they play in the brothel.) The fakeness of the sets (complete with fake horse neighs and jury murmurs for the various acting out of fetish scenes) makes intellectual sense to go along with the fakeness of the rest of it (Winters' closing line is great), but the literal, set-like play, and the lousy stock footage, takes away from the melodrama, I think. It's a little difficult to watch, and the direction isn't very good; the decadence, the threats made by Falk, some of the lines -- it'd work better on the page. But it becomes larger as it goes along, and is successful in an unconventional way.
The strangest moments are the emotional ones, where emotion pierces through the artifice -- which, honestly, is rare, almost limited to the scene where the man licks the prostitute's shoe and she begins to cry, or the one where a prostitute-turned-file-clerk longs to be a prostitute again just for an hour. The most instantly recognizable Genet-like image is the one of Nimoy behind bars, his hairy chest exposed. Nimoy, whose appearance is brief, is very good here; he has the emotion through movement that Falk instead strains for. If Daniel Day-Lewis was doing Columbo in "Gangs of New York," then Falk is doing Bill the Butcher, with his German-Southern accent, mustache, and histrionics.
The three men from the brothel are necessarily flaky -- they seem to be acting in another film. I think the awesome Shelley Winters is the only one who really nails her performance: her recognizable inflection, the effortless "a" pauses in her speech, the svelte hand movements; she's most in tune to what's going on, and she pulls it off beautifully. There's a startling kiss between her and a girl from the brothel that must have been a jolt to audiences at the time; it still seems violent, even though it's done seemingly out of affection. 8/10 -
I admit that the movie is a little slow at times, but the plot and the circumstances, and the celebrities in this film are enough to make it worthwhile. The power struggle scene between Leonard Nimoy and Peter Falk seems to be almost homo-erotic. And seeing Shelley Winters kiss another woman. Too much! This movie is one of my favorites!
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Quinoa198426 February 2009I never heard of The Balcony until someone recommended it highly to me, and perhaps it's understandable why it sits still in obscurity. The name Jean Genet is far from unfamiliar to theater-buffs, and in fact he was one of those real surrealist playwrights that stretched the boundaries of what was possible to portray on the theater. In the case of this play it's about manufacturing dreams, of control during wartime and the cynical belief that people can be dominated by desire and thought and deed, which maybe isn't far from the truth. It's a very strangely structured play, but its unpredictability is a major asset; we may predict that another fetish or some kind of subversive ideal will be projected, but the way its written about and acted about is the amazingly peculiar thing. Genet teases and prods human nature while going into something new we haven't seen before. It's a challenge I was glad to take.
This being said, I cannot recommend The Balcony as if it's one of the all-time great "lost" treasures or other. At best it made me very intrigued to see how it would be done on stage, perhaps (or just most likely) in an off-Broadway production. It's not without a sturdy cast, with Shelley Winters turning a good performance as the "madaam" of the fantasy brothel of sorts where outside there's chaos and war but inside she controls all (it's not a total knockout performance like say Lolita's mother, it's about right for the character though nothing really remarkable except in small bits), and Peter Falk as a personally wounded and disgruntled army person. Lee Grant is also a sight to see, as is Jeff Corey as a mixed-up Bishop, and Leonard Nimoy (yes, Spock) appears with a couple of minutes of real inspiration.
That isn't necessarily the problem though. If there's anything that could be pointed out it's just the way the film is shot and music is used and little important film-making things like that. Joseph Strick isn't a bad director, matter of fact he has a few moments of crazy inspiration that make it worthwhile (i.e. the three "guys" going around the rubble and addressing the "crowd" of stock-footage), but he doesn't bring any truly fantastic style to make this during-apocalyptic tale something haunting. Many shots are too static, and the music by whoever it is comes off as out of place or not matching well enough the surreal nature of the material. In fact, this might be one of the handful of projects I would be interested in seeing as a remake. It's prime material, daring and provoking in the best ways. It's just missing "something" to it, which may explain it's slightly obscure status. -
This is a really daring attempt to put Genet on screen at a time when the American public was scarcely ready for him. Much of the acting is superb, and I am specifically thinking of the lesser-known actresses - Ruby Dee, Lee Grant, Joyce Jameson and Arnette Jens - I would love to know more about them. They obviously bring a great depth of understanding to their roles, which involve "pretending to be fakes" i.e. playing whores in a "house of illusion" which is sanctified to the to the cheaply sublime notion that you can become a dignitary by putting on a fancy suit of clothes.
Genet's play exposes the falsehood of public institutions by showing the hollowness and sadism inherent in them, as insignificant customers who enjoy dressing up as bishops, judges and generals are suddenly called upon to play the real thing owing to the upheaval of a revolution. Those who believe in institutions will find this totally weird and unbelievable, as will those who don't understand Genet's perversely religious approach, veritably a "black mass".
After all this, I want to say that Shelley Winters is totally useless in her interpretation of the Madam; she destroys the atmosphere every time she opens her mouth. She plays the role as a coarse New Yorker, whereas the part requires a faux-aristocratic approach. Watch "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" to see how this kind of role should be properly played. Lee Grant is much better as her assistant, doubtless the subordination leads to a better understanding of the part.
Another problem is the black-and-white film. Genet demands deep, lush colours, admirably demonstrated in The Maids (1974). It must be that this film suffered from a low budget I am going to say something heretical, this movie would benefit from colourization. The horrible fake colours resulting from that process would be just right for the hideously fake atmosphere demanded by the story.
The cheap special effects (e.g. back-projection) are just right for this story about tawdry theatrical imitation. Viewers who complain about them may not understand the message. Still, I really object to having Shelley Winters state the moral of the piece in a couple of lines at the end; that treats us all like dummies. No wonder she's been forgotten! -
When Mom and I went to the local library, this was among the films she seemed interested in seeing probably because of the stars she saw listed on the cover of the DVD. I, myself, had never heard of it so I agreed to check it out. Mom would eventually declare the movie weird which I agreed with. I mean, Shelley Winters plays a madam who lets her underlings role play with their clients as various authority figures as a revolution is going on outside. Then Peter Falk is the chief of police who is a lover of Ms. Winters who enters her place looking for some people to play the real authority figures who had just been killed. Okay, now that I've just explained the premise, I'll just also mention the other players in this unusual movie-Lee Grant, Ruby Dee, and Leonard Nimoy. All deliver interesting theatrical-like performances that's pretty entertaining to watch as they basically deliver lecture-like speeches. Like I said, The Balcony is pretty weird but also makes you think of what it's trying to say so that's somewhat of a recommendation.