Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
Directed by Louis Malle
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
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What critics compared Vanya on 42nd Street to
Like Robert Altman, or Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street, Polanski retains the physical confines of the play but smashes through the proscenium, setting his camera loose inside the apartment.
Nichols refuses to move in closer to find whispers or silence to replace this, nor does he move back and take a post-modern approach, as did the brilliant Vanya on 42nd Street (1994).
Buildings consist of a few key interior props surrounded by chalk outlines in place of walls, but unlike the imaginary sets of such minimally staged film-plays as Vanya on 42nd Street, these invisible doors sound like wood when you knock on them, the sky produces real snow, and the chalk drawing of a dog barks.
She was particularly memorable in Silence and in Vanya on 42nd Street (opposite Hannibal's Julianne Moore ).