Dance First
Screenings
Academy Award winner James Marsh’s (Theory of Everything, Man on Wire) recent historical biopic portrays the many faces of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. Dance First documents Beckett’s public life as a celebrated playwright, his private life as amanuensis to his Idol James Joyce (Aiden Gillen) and his complicated life with his wife Suzanne (Sandrine Bonnaire). Throughout the film, Beckett carries on an internal monologue which reveals his secret life. Beckett played many roles in life: he was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, a French resistance fighter in World War II, and a disloyal husband. At the centre of the film is Gabriel Byrne, who inhabits the role of the recluse Beckett.
The gloriously black and white Dance First premiered as the Closing Film at the prestigious San Sebastian Film Festival last September.
Okko Huopainen
