Beckett on Film DVD Set
The hugely ambitiousBeckett on Filmproject gathered together 19  different directors to turn the 19 stage works written by Samuel Beckett  into films. The range is vast--from the 45-secondBreathto the two  hours of his most famous play,Waiting for Godot--but all the works  reflect Beckett's penetrating obsessions with memory, regret, and the  simple, excruciating experience of being. Not every film succeeds--like  all great theater, Beckett's plays demand interaction with a live audience  to express their full intent--and though scholars tout Beckett's every  word as genius, several works are slight (Catastrophe,Ohio  Impromptu, orWhat Wherewill leave many viewers unimpressed).  But all the plays feature Beckett's uniquely distilled language; the  greatest of them--includingWaiting for Godot(in which two tramps  pass the time while they wait for someone who may never come),Endgame(in which a blind man and his lame servant bicker and joke  as the world declines), andPlay(in which a love triangle is  bitterly recalled by two women and a man in urns)--are astonishing in both  their potent humor and piercing grief.Though Beckett's stature drew in an  impressive array of directors (including Anthony Minghella, Patricia  Rozema, and Neil Jordan) and actors (including Jeremy Irons, Julianne  Moore, Alan Rickman, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Michael Gambon, and John  Gielgud), some of the finest work comes from relative unknowns. But the  gem of the collection isKrapp's Last Tape, about an old man  revisiting his life through recordings he has made throughout his years.  It's the perfect marriage of text, actor (the incomparable John Hurt), and  director (Atom Egoyan,The Sweet Hereafter); in their hands, the  play spins from deeply funny to deeply sad, all with only the slightest  dim of the light in Hurt's eyes.--Bret Fetzer