The Shooting Party (1984)
Country: GB
Technical: col 96m
Director: Alan Bridges
Cast: James Mason, Edward Fox, Dorothy Tutin, John Gielgud, Judy Bowker, Cheryl Campbell, Gordon Jackson
Synopsis:
Assorted nobles gather with their wives at an estate noted for the excellence of its shooting, and spend the weekend in conviviality and more or less overt rivalry, whether in the handling of a shotgun or a woman.
Review:
The above is an over-simplification in that the narrator, reminiscing from the trenches two years later, in fact experiences painfully unconsummated true love. There is also the strand of the poacher-cum-beater (Jackson) who symbolises the cannon fodder of the conflict to come. Unfortunately there is a lot of inconsequential talk and only one or two fine scenes, all involving Mason; besides which the obvious limitations of budget (flat lighting) and uninspired mise en scene mean that it never quite achieves the resonance of La Règle du Jeu, to which it serves as semi-self-conscious homage.
Country: GB
Technical: col 96m
Director: Alan Bridges
Cast: James Mason, Edward Fox, Dorothy Tutin, John Gielgud, Judy Bowker, Cheryl Campbell, Gordon Jackson
Synopsis:
Assorted nobles gather with their wives at an estate noted for the excellence of its shooting, and spend the weekend in conviviality and more or less overt rivalry, whether in the handling of a shotgun or a woman.
Review:
The above is an over-simplification in that the narrator, reminiscing from the trenches two years later, in fact experiences painfully unconsummated true love. There is also the strand of the poacher-cum-beater (Jackson) who symbolises the cannon fodder of the conflict to come. Unfortunately there is a lot of inconsequential talk and only one or two fine scenes, all involving Mason; besides which the obvious limitations of budget (flat lighting) and uninspired mise en scene mean that it never quite achieves the resonance of La Règle du Jeu, to which it serves as semi-self-conscious homage.
Country: GB
Technical: col 96m
Director: Alan Bridges
Cast: James Mason, Edward Fox, Dorothy Tutin, John Gielgud, Judy Bowker, Cheryl Campbell, Gordon Jackson
Synopsis:
Assorted nobles gather with their wives at an estate noted for the excellence of its shooting, and spend the weekend in conviviality and more or less overt rivalry, whether in the handling of a shotgun or a woman.
Review:
The above is an over-simplification in that the narrator, reminiscing from the trenches two years later, in fact experiences painfully unconsummated true love. There is also the strand of the poacher-cum-beater (Jackson) who symbolises the cannon fodder of the conflict to come. Unfortunately there is a lot of inconsequential talk and only one or two fine scenes, all involving Mason; besides which the obvious limitations of budget (flat lighting) and uninspired mise en scene mean that it never quite achieves the resonance of La Règle du Jeu, to which it serves as semi-self-conscious homage.