A Master Builder
A Master Builder • 2h 7m
Directed by Jonathan Demme • 2014 • United States
Starring Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty, Lisa Joyce
Twenty years after their brilliant cinema-theater experiment VANYA ON 42ND STREET, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory reunited to produce another idiosyncratic film version of a classic play, this time Henrik Ibsen’s “Bygmester Solness” (“Master Builder Solness”). Brought pristinely to the screen by Jonathan Demme, this compellingly abstract reimagining features Shawn (who also wrote the adaptation) as a visionary but tyrannical middle-aged architect haunted by figures from his past, most acutely an attractive, vivacious young woman (the breathtaking newcomer Lisa Joyce) who has appeared on his doorstep. Also featuring standout supporting performances by Julie Hagerty, Larry Pine, and Gregory, A MASTER BUILDER, like VANYA, is the result of many years of rehearsals, a living, breathing, constantly shifting work that unites theater, film, and dream.
Up Next in A Master Builder
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The Ibsen Project
In this conversation, recorded in March 2015, film critic David Edelstein talks to director Jonathan Demme, actor André Gregory, and actor-writer Wallace Shawn about the making of A MASTER BUILDER.
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Hilde and Aline
In this piece, produced in February 2015, actors Lisa Joyce and Julie Hagerty discuss their roles in A MASTER BUILDER.
