LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

US, 1962, 174 minutes, Black and White.
Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards Jnr., Dean Stockwell, Jeanne Barr.
Directed by Sidney Lumet.

Long Day's Journey Into Night is a very impressive film version of Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical play. Directed by Sidney Lumet, who was well noted as a film director in the late fifties and sixties, after making versions of Tennessee Williams' The Fugitive Kind, and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. Here he respects the text of the play and confines himself to the stage settings, especially within the Tyrone house.

The film is long, running for almost three hours and in black and white photography emphasising light and darkness. It is generally shown without an interval. The audience shares the experience of the long day and its journey into the darkness of night, madness and withdrawal. The four principals are expertly cast. They agreed to work in this film for love of the play rather that for a large salary. Katharine Hepburn is superb as Mary Tyrone and tends to dominate the film. Ralph Richardson, in an unusual casting, is effective as the histrionic father. Jason Robards Jnr. and Dean Stockwell are effective as the sons. The group won the acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The play was produced by Ely Landau who was to go on to make the American Film Theatre series of plays in the seventies. This is a very good version from which to study O'Neill's drama and his themes.

1. The meaning of the title and its atmosphere? As visualised in the film? Whose journey was referred to? Why? The fact that the film was based so directly on Eugene O'Neill's play? The fact that it was an autobiographical play? what impact on the audience?

2. The film was based directly on the play's text. Was this a good thing? Why? Did it detract from the cinematic presentation? The fact of the length and no interval? The impact of the black and white photography? The impact of the confined space? The impact of it taking place during one day only? What was the cumulative cinematic effect on the audience?

3. Comment on the technical validity of the camera work. The way that it followed the actors about unobtrusively in the home, The use of close-ups for all kinds of nuance of expression, The use of lighting, especially on faces, especially within the house at night, especially at the end with the final receding and then the final close-ups.

4. How did the film continually change its moods? By use of the light and darkness, by use of fog and clearing, by use of fog and the dark room, the use of the rooms? How was this communicated to the audience? How did it reflect the change of mood of the character, How important were the moods for this film?

5. Comment on Katharine Hepburn's performance as Mary Tyrone. What were its greatest strengths? In which ways was it defective? How was Mary Tyrone the centre of the play? The Title referring to her? Into what night did she go? After what long day? Comment on the impression of Mary's past, via her present talking. What kind of girl was she, vain, attractive, wanting to be a nun, catholic etc.? As she was swept off her feet by James Tyrone? The nature of her marriage, her bringing up of children, her reliance on drugs because of the cheap doctor during the pregnancy and birth, this effect on her? Her relationship to James and her love for him, her hatred for him? Her relationship to each son? How did she love Jamie? Her devotion to Edmund and not wanting to face the possibility of his death? The pathos of her reliance on drugs, her living in memories, her gentility and its hypocrisy? How sad a figure was she? What other impact did Mary Tyrone make in this film?

6. James Tyrone: How central was he to the film? His style and bombast? An actor acting in real life? His relationship to Mary? His concern for her and his dread of the drugs and her hallucinations? And yet his not helping her financially? His memory of her as a girl, her vanity and her marriage? Her devotion to him? How she supported him during acting days (as her version of this?), their life together and happiness, their relationship to their children, the love and the hate? His attitudes towards his own past and his father, his poverty and meanness? His Shakespearean background and the fact that he went for an easy success and never was able to recover from it? His attitudes towards his sons, bullying them and yet loving them? His confrontations with Jamie? His sharing with Edmund and yet his fighting with him? His attitudes towards the Sanatorium for Edmund? What insight did this character give into human nature, a father, a husband, an actor? What were the strengths of Ralph Richardson's performance? What weaknesses?

7. Jamie: the strengths of Jason Robards' performance, weaknesses? Was there enough explanation of him as a character? His relationship to his mother and his sadness at her drug-taking? His understanding of her? His understanding of his father, and his hatred of him? The fact that he was an actor and like his father? Why had he taken to alcohol? The women? The fact that he was a success on Broadway yet a failure in real life? His concern for Edmund? His jealousy of him? His support of him? Especially as regards the Sanatorium? The fact that most of his scenes were fighting, and sudden shifts from sentiment to hate? The role of alcohol in portraying these moods?

8. Edmund: how central was he to the dramatic impact of this particular day? The strengths of Dean Stockwell's performance? as a young man, with experience and to be a playwright, a poet, having gone to sea to search for truth, to escape from his family, and yet about to die of consumption? His devotion to his mother and concern for her? His love for Jamie and his support of him? His love for his father and yet his revulsion for him? As the victim of his meanness? Edmund as the sensitive character focusing the emotions of them all?

9. How well portrayed were the dramatic encounters of each of them? The balance of them encountering each other? The sudden surge of love and hate, the interplay of life and death, deaths in the present and the deaths of the past? The interplay between truth and falsity? Appearances and reality? True good and true evil? The unwillingness to face truth, and yet the admission of it deep down within them.

10. How was the receding focus of the small cinematic image of the long day's journey into night? The sadness of Mary's final receding into a dream world? What would the next day bring them all?

11. Why was this such strong drama? How valuable a human document was it? Does it give insight into the suffering of mankind? What insight into suffering did it give? of coping with suffering day by day? of mature coping with suffering? Of the suffering of the world? How pessimistic was this film?