The Sea Gull

The Sea Gull
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sidney Lumet
Produced by	F. Sherwin Green Sidney Lumet
Written by	Anton Chekhov Moura Budberg
Starring	Vanessa Redgrave Simone Signoret David Warner James Mason
Music by	Mikis Theodorakis
Cinematography	Gerry Fisher
Edited by	Alan Heim
Production company	Sidney Lumet Productions Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Distributed by	Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (US) Warner-Pathé (UK)
Release date	22 December 1968
Running time	141 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom Greece
Language	English

The Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American-Greek drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull.

The Warner Bros.-Seven Arts release was filmed at the Europa Studios in Sundbyberg, , just outside central .

Set in a rural Russian house, the plot focuses on the romantic and artistic conflicts among an eclectic group of characters. Fading leading lady Irina Arkadina has come to visit her brother Sorin, a retired civil servant in ailing health, with her lover, the successful hack writer Trigorin. Her son, brooding experimental playwright Konstantin Treplev, adores the Nina, who in turn is mesmerized by Trigorin. Their interactions slowly lead to the moral and spiritual disintegration of each of them and ultimately lead to tragedy.

In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby described the film as "so uneven in style, mood and performance that there are times when you could swear that the movie had shot itself — though not quite fatally . . . Lumet's way with this adaptation by Moura Budberg is implacably straightforward. It plows ahead, scene by scene, act by act, in which there always is first an establishing long shot and then cuts to individual actors as they act and react. This kind of Secret Storm technique inevitably flattens out the nuances and the pauses that give depth to the tangled personal relationships. It also makes too literal the boredom and quiet despair that should hang over the Chekovian characters like an unseen mist. Most of the performances are excellent, but all of the actors seem to be on their own . . . Miss Signoret is simply miscast, if only because of her Frenchness. Her speech rhythms are so jarring that it's often impossible to understand her . . . As a result of the variety of styles, the movie turns into a series of individual confrontations that seem as isolated as specialty acts. Without the single dominating influence that should have been provided by Lumet, the play is fragmented beyond repair."