No special effects needed; it's all in the words and acting, Mar 3 2001

By	Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews

Dustin Hoffman stars as Willie Loman, a fading traveling salesman who has made all the wrong decisions in his life. A young John Malkovich plays his son, Biff, a jobless loser. Steven Lang, is cast as his other son, Happy; Linda Reid plays Willie Loman's wife; and Charles Durning plays his neighbor, Charlie. All have been nominated for a variety of awards and Dustin Hoffman won a Golden Globe for best actor that year.

There is no doubt that this is a play, not a movie by the way it is staged. Flashbacks are achieved, for example, by the character Biff, coming on stage in a High School sweater. The characters often seem to be speaking directly to the audience also. I found all this refreshing after watching so many movies where computerized cinematography and special effects are everything.

This play doesn't need special effects. It is all in the words and the acting. And what fine acting it is! I forgot how good a play can be! Especially one by Arthur Miller. The Director, Volker Shloendorff, made his American debut with this production, his prior experience being only in France and Germany. For drama at its finest, I definitely recommend this video.

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Magnificent---With One Exception, Aug 10 2000

And the acting! Kate Reid is simply overpowering as Linda---a role which too often is played subserviently and "mousily." This woman is a survivor, a wife who has devoted her life to her husband quite literally for better or for worse---and this story is about the "worse." Stephen Lang exudes just the right amount of amoral obliviousness as Happy. And John Malkovich, while physically wrong for Biff (especially next to the much beefier Lang), gives a performance of extraordinary anguish and intensity, making the climactic confrontation between son and father almost too painful to watch.

But...this may border on blasphemy, but for me, Dustin Hoffman proves jarringly mediocre as Willy Loman. He struts, he rants, he yells---but he is just never convincing in the part. Every time he moves, it appears "studied": he does not move like a tired old man, he moves like a vigorous young man who has learned to imitate a tired old man. His performance is filled with the kinds of little gestures and tics that Method actors learn from observation, but in this case they are never internalized, never built into a coherent performance. Indeed,this is a performance of "moments," and Hoffman is best in the quiet ones, when he is sitting out on the porch asking his wife if she remembers what things used to be like. At such times, he loses the gimmickry and becomes movingly human. But in the "big scenes," he mistakes volume for power, shrillness for emotion. With a weaker supporting cast, his limitations might not have been quite so noticable. But in the face of the extraordinary actors on view here, Hoffman all but disappears.

It is a serious problem, but Schlondorff's film largely overcomes it through visuals, montage, and the power of the rest of the cast. As it is, this film is not quite a classic, but it comes close. Very highly recommended.

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