“Even in that horrible place, they couldn’t turn off the stars…” Magnolia has revealed an official trailer for the film titled Dance First, an intriguing biopic about the life of literary genius Samuel Beckett. This premiered at the 2023 San Sebastian FIlm Festival last year, before then opening in the UK in November; Beckett was Irish so the UK got first dibs on this release. The film documents the Irish writer’s life, from his childhood, his friendship with James Joyce until the incarceration of the latter’s mentally ill daughter Lucia Joyce, his relationship with his future wife Suzanne Dumesnil, also as a fighter for the French Resistance during WWII, his postwar literary rise and subsequent Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, his affair with translator Barbara Bray and his later life until his death in 1989. Throughout the film, Beckett carries out an interior monologue. Irish actor Gabriel Byrne stars as Beckett, joined by Fionn O’Shea, Aidan Gillen, Maxine Peake, Sandrine Bonnaire, and others. The film has pretty rough reviews, with only a rotten 56% on RT so far. The title is a reference to Beckett’s motto “Dance first, think later. It’s the natural order.” // Continue Reading ›
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