Dance First

The final words of his 1953 novel “The Unnamable” — “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” — are among the most famous written by Irish poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist Samuel Beckett. They epitomize both the hopelessness and the senseless resilience of what we’ll call the human spirit in an utterly plain and compelling way. They express despair and overturn it. They are, in a sense, exemplary of his larger work. 

This movie’s title, “Dance First,” derives from his more famous dramatic work, the bleak absurdist comedy “Waiting for Godot,” a revolutionary work that changed theater forever. “Perhaps he could dance first and think later,” says Estragon of Lucky, the slave of the tyrannical Pozzo. Oppression has addled Lucky to the extent that he doesn’t quite know how to take that. 

The conundrums of life are given a rather more conventional depiction in this fictional biographical film, directed by James Marsh, whose reductive work on Stephen Hawking in his 2014 “The Theory of Everything” doesn’t exactly give one hope that he’ll do Beckett justice. Shot in black-and-white, the movie almost giddily partakes in components that Beckett’s work abjures: treacly music (by Benoit Viellefon), ingratiating, potentially “relatable” characters, a linear series of linear mini-narratives of love and loss. Within the parameters it sets for itself, though, the mostly black-and-white movie is largely watchable, if not wholly easy to swallow. (But note this well: this movie doesn’t even have enough respect for Beckett’s work to give the “Dance first” quote its proper citation; late in the movie, it’s discussed as something he “said to a student.”) 

That’s partially due to the work of Gabriel Byrne, who plays the older Beckett with a clipped intelligence. Beckett famously won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969, an event he described as “a catastrophe.” He didn’t attend the ceremony or give the expected speech. Marsh’s movie depicts a Beckett nightmare in which he attends the award-giving and climbs a ladder out of the building to escape the accolades. 

Finding himself in the cavernous gray foundation of the theater, Byrne’s Beckett argues with himself (literally — in these sequences, Byrne is doubled) about what he’ll do with that Nobel Prize money. Donate it to Trinity College, his alma mater, maybe? The discussion sparks recollections of the women and men in his life. There’s his brilliant and imperious mother, who takes exception to her child’s writing. Lucia Joyce, who serves as a conduit between Beckett and the family member he’s truly interested in, her father James (you know, the author); Alfred Peron, the friend who taught Beckett French, which language he adopted for his work. (Peron’s terrible fate is speculated to have inspired Beckett’s creation of Lucky.) And more. 

The film itself isn’t too concerned with the work. Given the eventfulness of Beckett’s life, it doesn’t need to be. While young Sam (played by Fionn O’Shea) is a bit of a shy fellow — imagine! — he also has a kind of confidence that attracts the attention of women, some of whom are played here by Maxine Peake and Sandrine Bonnaire. A resident of Paris from 1937 on, he joins the French Resistance during World War II and exhibits considerable courage and resourcefulness. When he meets BBC translator Barbara Bray (Peake), he is immediately entranced but maintains his devotion to wife Suzanne (Bonnaire). The older and wiser Beckett of the film asks his double, “What does a snake look like, to you?” 

The movie skips over a lot in the life: his medical issues (persistent cysts) and athleticism (he was a first-rate cricket player), the fact that prior to taking up with Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil he’d had a long involvement with the heiress Peggy Guggenheim. And it makes things up: placing him at the Nobel Awards ceremony in a non-dream sequence when, in fact, he didn’t go. It frequently seems that what the movie ultimately wants from Samuel Beckett is for him not to have been…well, Samuel Beckett.

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