Word: scripted
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Sons and Lovers does not lend itself easily to a movie script, but Jack Cardiff has transformed Lawrence's novel into a superb film. The reader must follow a slow and agonizing series of conflicting passions presented in a style which is often deceptively complex. Through a skillful rearrangement of plot elements and dialogue Cardiff has condensed the novel into an hour and 45 minutes without sacrificing its subtlety and force...
...every point, moreover, the actors are supported by Bergman's impressive cinematic skill. His script is a marvel of elision, speaking most eloquently in what it does not say. His photography is both poetic and worshipful. In every frame of the film the still light of subarctic summer silently instills an aspect of eternity, a sense of the presence of God. But as always, Bergman's interest centers in his metaphysical insights. In Through a Glass Darkly he proposes one of the most dreadful and most significant symbols he has ever imagined: the Spider God. Many moviegoers will...
...tale is trite, the script clumsy, and the camera work grossly faked. Though the lovers wander all over Paris, the Cathedral of Notre Dame turns up in the background practically everywhere they go, almost as if it were following them around like a little dog. To conceal such defects, Director Minnelli pours on the martial music and the Metrocolor. When war is declared, the screen turns such a bright blood red that for about half an hour afterward everything looks green. And the Four Horsemen-the Biblical war, pestilence, death and conquest-gallop across the sky at intervals like...
...think Robbins has carried some of his gimmicking too far, notably the collapsible furniture and the doors that open and close on their own. This is the sort of thing one does to cover up a weak script; here it tends to detract from a strong and self-sufficient script. But the audience relished all of this, and I suppose there's no point in railing against success...
...reviews initially. Howard Taubman of the Times found the play "funny, weird, stageworthy and nonsensical.... If you don't insist on a full measure of sense, Mr. Kopit has a fanciful, droll, lurid way with the theatre." In his follow-up Sunday piece Taubman voiced some reservations about the script, such as that it "has its share of irrelevancies that fall into no pattern of communication," but he concluded that Kopit "may become an important playwright...