A Delicate Balance (1973)

Why so much hype?

Powerful

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A film with that name simply has to deal with a marriage. Most especially if it's from the 1970s and stars Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield. This drama concerns the most fragile relationship we could imagine, a sharp edge of lost youth and icy pain tinging the whole narrative from the very beginning. It's an Edward Albee play and it won a Pulitzer, so the writing is effective, the relationship mechanisms are intricate and run deep, the characters introduced into to the realm of the sad couple are perfectly cast, and alcohol has a strong presence. I found myself fascinated by how the delivery and contents of the conversations made me cringe uncomfortably.Let's compare it to John Cleese, but let's skip the humor I suspectthat A Delicate Balance would not quite be recommended by today's media-happy cinema, it would simply be acknowledged as a masterpiece, albeit a depressing one. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the film: "They say we dream to let the mind go raving mad." "There's nothing here but rust and bones." "Such silent sad disgusting love…"The following dialogue snippet plays the control and submission game well:Agnes (Hepburn): You are NOT young now, and you do NOT live at home.Tobias (Scofield): Where do I live? Hepburn: In the deep dark place…So, there is quite a bit of malice and strange ticks that come from years of not speaking about what needs attention, and instead dealing with only the perceived pleasant, which eventually becomes unpleasant and slowly rots. In the end, some marriages end up this way- if you decide to rent this movie, be warned that some of the tactics of subliminal knife-throwing are dangerously poignant and we can recognize them, if not in ourselves, but in the couple next door, or that guy that we know, or the newlyweds bickering in the grocery store.Love is attainable- be assured. There is effort to life, however, and we can only get better if we continue to strive towards enlightenment, and it starts at home and with our close ones.This film came out in 1973, which is my favorite time of cinema, perhaps because that decade was my first, and I know that I was influenced by all types of signs of the times at the time- music, literature, cinema, news, clothing. There was a stoic way of looking psychotherapy in the eye and not being afraid of getting a little depressed or depressing, embracing the dull and dysfunctional, if you will: like the storyline of the Ice Storm, or Bergman's Cries and Whispers. (As I understand, even Bergman declined to direct the movie version of A Delicate Balance- perhaps he was in a bad marriage himself?) Hollywood of the 1970s was more about truth than the bottom line, making it an excellent time for Albee and his keen sense of the psycho-drama.Watch it: A Delicate Balance. It will leave you dumbfounded and with a metallic taste in your mouth, as if something unwanted but ever-present entered your soul to remind you about the perils of lost youth and unspoken love.

What a tremendous production! I had avoided seeing it because I thought it might be too brutal. It is certainly merciless in the dialogue between hateful sisters, but there is much more to the film than that. The writing is so very many-splendoured; some of the lines (Katharine Hepburn has the best ones) sound like Shakespeare and Albee even makes a self-referential joke about that after one of Claire's declarations.The cinematography contributes greatly to the liveliness of this stage drama; it is never dull or boring. Mesmerizing performances all around; terrifically complex and deep questioning of life's meaning and the value of love, loyalty, friendship, family. An unqualified 10 for me. The DVD has very interesting contemporary interviews with Albee and the cinematographer, and text from a very helpful review.

Time has not been kind to the movies made under the umbrella of the well intentioned American Film Theater. The bulk of these works are way off the mark, failing to achieve one of the major goals of the project; the preservation of these important plays on screen. "Butley", "The Homecoming" and "A Delicate Balance" are the ones that came off best."A Delicate Balance" Albee in his prime; relentlessly razor sharp. Director Tony Richardson thankfully makes little effort to diminish the inherent staginess and theatricality. He allows his superb cast to milk Albee's barbs to their last drop.Katherine Hepburn turns in a terrific performance, though those who have a distaste for the Hepburn mannerisms, will not be converted. It's a pleasure to watch both Kate Reid and Paul Scofield, consummate stage performers who fared far less well in the cinema. While overlong and at times uneven, "A Delicate Balance" is strictly for theater lovers. They will not be disappointed.

I've seen the great Edward Albee play twice, and I've read it twice. This adaptation is agonizingly slow. The camera seems to be about 6 inches from the actors' faces, and I wanted to escape. I walked out of the theater after 45 minutes, before Lee Remick, Betsy Blair and Joseph Cotten showed up. See it at your own risk.