Tableaux of Ice

By J .C .

A DELICATE BALANCE

Directed by TONY RICHARDSON Screenplay by EDWARD ALBEE

A New England family: Mother (Katharine Hepburn) is a shaky queen who fills her days presiding over a wealthy household. Father (Paul Scofield) is a cultivated patsy. Sister (Kate Reid) is a puffy rummy who sweeps about in caftans. Daughter (Lee Remick) keeps ricocheting home after unsuccessful marriages. They all congregate in the heavily furnished rooms of the house, congratulate or chastise each other for the considerable amount of alcohol consumed, and make glum speculations on their neurotic lives.

Like its characters, Albee's script --essentially the text of his 1966 play --is pompous, windy, arch; it is a series of tableaux shaped out of crushed ice.

Only when two close family friends appear (Joseph Gotten, Betsy Blair) does A Delicate Balance show some promise of interest. The friends seek refuge, having been driven from their home by some sudden, undefined, overwhelming fear. They become absorbed in the household for a time. Everyone gets to talk a lot about fear, death, honesty and devotion. The friends' fear eventually evaporates for reasons not made clear.

Their presence has generated a series of uneasy confrontations, and as they depart, Katharine Hepburn is inexplicably moved to praise the psychic release found in sleep. "They say we sleep to let the demons out," she proclaims.

There are no demons on these premises. What could have given A Delicate Balance a little resonance--nothing could have given it life--would have been some good, snarling, circusy dialogue. Instead there are a lot of labored epigrams that sound as if they came out of perfumed fortune cookies ("Blood holds us together when we've no more deep affection for ourselves than others"). In the prestigious cast, only Joseph Cotten manages to make something believable and occasionally poignant of his role.

This is the third in the series of eight subscription presentations by The American Film Theater, and it is the first to be betrayed by staginess. All that Director Tony Richardson has done to give A Delicate Balance a cinematic flow is call upon the considerable talents of Cinematographer David Watkin. Having made that excellent choice, Richardson seems to have disappeared. Watkin uses a kind of embellished natural lighting. His uncluttered compositions can shock the eye with a shaft of light from a table lamp or lull it with a suggestion of the dark distances between night and morning. His craftsmanlike photography, at least, makes the film worth looking at.

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