Magnolia Pictures shared the official trailer for Dance First, Academy Award winning director James Marsh’s (The Theory of Everything, Man on Wire) biographical film on Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. The film is written by Neil Forsyth and stars Gabriel Byrne as Samuel Beckett.
Starring the film besides Byrne are Fionn O’Shea, Sandrine Bonnaire, Léonie Lojkine, Bronagh Gallagher, Gráinne Good, Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake, and Aidan Gillen.
The film was previously screened as the closing film of the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on November 3, 2023.
Release Date
Directed by James Marsh, ‘Dance First’ opens in US theaters on August 9, 2024 and on VOD on August 16, 2024.
Synopsis
Literary genius Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, WWII Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, recluse. But despite all the adulation that came his way, he was a man acutely aware of his own failings. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos “Dance first, think later,” the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon.
“I wasn’t a student of Beckett as a younger person, but found that as an older, more mature person, the work spoke a lot more strongly and loudly to me. So I was actually really pleased to go back and see some of the plays and read some of the books and reconnect with a writer who was kind of overlooked as a younger student of literature and I liked the playful aspects of the screenplay as well. It wasn’t an earnest, adulatory sort of worship at the altar of Beckett. It was about his mistakes, his regrets, his guilt.” Says director James Marsh about the subject of the film, Samuel Beckett, in an interview with Film International.
Reviews
Guy Lodge in a Variety review wrote about the film, “Literary careers are hard to encapsulate on screen: What could teach you more about Beckett, after all, than reading him? But neither does “Dance First” fully capture the subversive elements of a life that might reflect its output. It’s all so well-behaved and well-presented — between the elegant but not expressionist chiaroscuro of Antonio Paladino’s cinematography, and the sweetened melodic sweep of Sarah Bright’s score — that Beckett’s difficulties, along with his grim humor and deadpan playfulness, feel somewhat ironed out.”
Paul Whitington in an Irish Independent review praised the film’s character pairing of Beckett & Suzzane (Léonie Lojkine), writing “Their complex relationship is at the heart of this film, which reaches its most poignant pitch when they are old, as Sam and Suzanne (played now by Sandrine Bonnaire) honestly confront their mutual shortcomings. This is an honourable attempt at a Beckett biopic, well cast and not overplayed.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for ‘Dance First’.
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