Two time Oscar nominated actress Jill Clayburgh died yesterday after a long long struggle with leukemia. She was 66 years old.
Clayburgh in Starting Over (1979) and Running With Scissors (2006)
Younger moviegoers may remember her as the rundown matriarch of that chaotic impossibly neurotic brood in Running With Scissors (2006) or the well heeled matriarch in television's Dirty Sexy Money. (2007-2009). Those were both part of a mini Clayburgh revival in the Aughts which was kicked off by two Broadway runs in Naked Girl on the Appalachian Way (2005) and the revival of Barefoot in the Park (2006).
But Clayburgh's heyday was unquestionably in the late 1970s, when she became something like the screen embodiment of Modern Liberated Woman. Clayburgh will always be connected in cultural history to her zeitgeist moment in 1978 when she starred in Paul Mazurky's frisky Best Picture nominee An Unmarried Woman. Inthe film her husband suddenlyleaves her for a younger woman and she starts dating again, becoming a sexually liberated woman as a single mother with the help of randy virile Alan Bates. Clayburgh was a possible winner, too, but Jane Fonda (who she had bested at Cannes tying with Isabelle Huppert for Violette), shared the campaign advantage of headlining a Best Picture nominee with a hot topic (Vietnam); Fonda won.
Clayburgh's second consecutive Oscar nomination can almost be seen a sequel, a bit of afterglow from her first. She's playing two different characters and the second film is more of a comedy but in the first her divorce means she's Starting Over and in the second it's Burt Reynolds's turn. Clayburgh is the new woman in his life.
My favorite moment from An Unmarried Woman
Though Clayburgh will remain An Unmarried Woman in the historical imagination she was actually A Married Woman. She married the playwright and screenwriter David Rabe exactly one year and three days after An Unmarried Woman was released. How about that? (Does anyone know if the newlyweds attended the Oscars in April 1979? Inside Oscar doesn't say.) Our condolences go out to Rabe and their three children this morning. *
Remember when Dennis Quaid played f***up former high school football star "Mike" in Best Picture nominee Breaking Away (1979)? [What a vintage crop, eh? Breaking Away, Kramer Vs. Kramer (write-up), Apocalypse Now (write-up), All That Jazz (write-up) and Norma Rae? Love that Oscar year.] Or, depending on when you were born, do you remember when you first saw him doing so? Erik Lundegaard does and wrote up a sweet tribute to the film yesterday.
Dennis Quaid in Breaking Away. He turned 25 shortly before the movie opened.
Erik describes Mike aptly as "a Springsteen character without the guts" and uses Mike's own words to further the point
You know what really gets me, though? I mean here I am, I gotta live in this stinkin’ town, and I gotta read in the newspapers about some hot-shot kid, new star of the college team. Every year it’s gonna be a new one. And every year it’s never gonna be me. I’m just gonna be Mike. Twenty-year-old Mike. Thirty-year-old Mike. Ol’ mean ol’ man Mike! These college kids out here are never gonna get old, or out of shape, cause new ones come along every year.
Mike is too gutless to stop the downward slide and knows it. He's tragically aware that his glory days are behind him and he's only 19. Dennis's best days, on the other hand, had just begun. This was only his sixth feature and first memorable breakthrough.
People often uncharitably view older stars as "has beens" -- I'm not saying people say this about DQ mind you. What do they say about him? -- but if you were working when you were in your early twenties and you're still working consistently in your mid fifties, this is a resounding success story for any actor, whether they're above the title or way down on the call sheet. It's a tough life and the odds are against success.
But back to Breaking Away... and Friday Night Lights (?)
Wasn't Quaid's Mike essentially Tim Riggins before there was a Tim Riggins? Or at least from the same character gene pool. Mike has more of a chipped shoulder and less of a golden heart.
Character intros: "Mike", former football star, is introduced singing, leisurely leading his friends to an afternoon swim in Breaking Away. He's all about killing time, responsibility is not a priority. "Tim Riggins", current football star, is introduced in the Friday Night Lights pilot, drunk and sleepy-eyed. Getting to football practice on time is not a priority.
Yes, this post has also been brought to you by last night's season finale of Friday Night Lights which was just marvelous. Speaking of FNL and Tim Riggins, can Taylor Kitsch, who came to fame playing him (coincidentally, like Quaid, just as he was turning 25), manage a movie career after Friday Night Lights? That's the plan. Dennis Quaid wouldn't be a bad role model at all in building an enduring big screen resume. And that's true not just for Kitsch, who is 29 now, but true for any other young actor who excels at aimless bad boys, charming devils and/or All American types approaching personal crises.
Kitsch has made six movies already but he'll get his first real shot at big screen stardom when John Carter of Mars, his seventh, opens in 2012. He's already done filming but the post-production will be long on that one.
<-- Dennis seen prepping for his role in Soul Surfer earlier this year
Dennis will next be seen (presumably) at the Emmy Awards on August 21st. He's nominated for playing Bill Clinton in the TV film That Special Relationship. Next year we'll see him as the dad of a shark attack survivor in Soul Surfer and (possibly?) in the bible-thumping John Lithgow role in the remake of Footloose (2011). *
Yesterday I took in the Ken Russell film The Devils (1971) at the Walter Reade. It's part of RussellMania which goes on for a few more days still. We don't really have gonzo English language filmmakers like Russell any more, or if we do, they don't get any attention. Everything is so safe. Even the "daring" stuff. The Devils is one of his hardest films to find (not available on DVD and everytime it's going to be, it suddenly isn't.) I figured images would be hard to come by so in order to prevent me from doing something foolish and illegal with my cel phone, my friend Ed offered to draw me stills for posting purposes. You have to admit, he captures Vanessa Redgrave's EXACT likeness in character as a filthy minded hunchback nun.
Uncanny isn't it?
I had expected the film to be more camp and less serious, but it's actually quite a sober historical epic, a true story from the 17th century which kicks off with the political maneuvering of royals and cardinals in France, and then gets more regional, zeroing in on the fortified town of Loudun and the religious posturing of clergy and civilians alike. There's politics, personal power plays, organized religion as a petri dish of corruptions, both political and personal. Faux exorcisms, the plague, corrupt legal systems, and sexual misconduct beset the characters until it all comes crashing down including, literally, Loudun's white brick city walls (designed by Derek Jarman!) All that plus erotic and visual abandon because it's...
a Ken Russell film.
from the least prudish decade of English language cinema and
about a nun Sister Jeanne (a ballsy performance by Vanessa Redgrave) who desperately wants to get biblical with that lion of Loudun, Father Grandier (played by Russel muse Oliver Reed)
It's totally worth seeing if you get a chance. One of my friends went a few nights ago and sat two rows behind Vanessa Redgrave herself. (He reported that she cackled offscreen at her nusto cackling onscreen. How great is that?) Though it's less graphic than I'd been anticipating -- some of the scariest bits involving torture mercifully take place just offscreen -- it's hardly free of disturbing moments.
The original poster from 1971 "Not for everyone!" -- can you imagine a movie today proudly proclaiming its elitism?and intended DVD art for a release that didn't happen [photo src].
Though he's still working (supposedly there's a new version of Moll Flanders coming) the early seventies were arguably the peak Russell years. His 1970 release Women in Love won multiple Oscar nods (including a Best Actress trophy for Glenda Jackson) and other prizes and he followed that up in 1971 with not one but two films (The Devils, The Boyfriend) which went on to win him the National Board of Review for Best Director. Despite random scattered honors, success or infamy for later films like Tommy (1975), Crimes of Passion (1984) or The Lair of the White Worm (1988) he was only "awardable" in the 70s and even then he was never anything like an Oscar bait figure.
It's funny, really. He loves biographical epics as much as any AMPAS member ever has -- he made several -- but he loves them too perversely and too specifically; you can't mistake his films for someone else's.
The current RussellMania fest only covers his 60s & 70s work which is a shame because I was really hoping to watch Kathleen Turner don that platinum blonde China Blue wig and do unspeakable things that no A list actresses is ever supposed to do onscreen.
Have you ever seen a Ken Russell film? Do you think there's any director currently pushing the boundaries of "taste" that's also doing work worth celebrating nowadays? *
Let's talk Sissy Spacek. My friend Matt has been highlighting her something fierce over at Pop Matters, but why should he have the Sissy all to himself?
The great actress, everyone's favorite telekinetic murderess, is finally in a buzzy film again (Get Low opens today). And though I don't much care for the new movie, it's always nice when a frequently absent major actress wins Oscar buzz and praise again.
She's a big name but what does that name mean to today's moviegoers? For people born in the late 80s or 1990s, maybe her stint on TV's Big Love comes immediately to mind (Emmy nominated this year). But I'm guessing if it's not the cross-generational popular Carrie, it's mainly In the Bedroom that takes over the imagination: Sissy breaking plates, Sissy slapping Marisa Tomei, Sissy taking weird drags on her cigarette that manage to be both furious and catatonic simultaneously. How can they be both at once? She's a mysterious but vivid actress in her best work.
For those who lived through the 70s or 80s, the name will probably conjure multiple associations. Her filmography has a smattering of daring side dish classics but the main course is an oversize portion of middlebrow Oscar bait. To extend the food metaphor, that stuff can often taste healthy but afterwards... where is the nutritional value? In the long run aren't so many "prestige films" filled with empty calories? Her filmography also has intermittent weird gaps. And, unless I've got my dates wrong those gaps don't really even coincide with the births of her daughters (which is when many actresses take their long breaks). What happens in these gaps? It's almost as if Sissy gets an enigmatic closeup and then bolts from the cinema as enigmatically as teenage "Holly" abandons home in Badlands.
Oscar nominations are in bold.
Prime Cut (72) | Badlands (73) | Ginger in the Morning (74)
Note: Sissy worked with the brilliant art director / production designer Jack Fisk on Badlands and they married the following year when they were both still in their 20s. She's one of those rare actresses, like Meryl Streep, who has been married for almost the entirety of her fame to the same man. Another association. The two actresses are but six months apart in age and both became essential screen icons in the 1970s and won their first Oscars just one year apart.
Carrie (76) | Welcome to LA (76) | Three Women (77)
The underseen Three Women is one of Robert Altman's very best films. It's completely mandatory viewing for fans of Ingmar Bergman's Persona (an influential before) and Mulholland Dr (an influenced after). It's the middle link in that brilliant women-fused-together dream chain. Sissy disappears for a few years right after. And then...
Note: Such a star in the 80s she gets top billing over... Mel Gibson.
Violets Are Blue (86) | 'night Mother (86) | Crimes of the Heart (86)
The pinkish tone of the last two posters. They're screaming "GIRL MOVIES!" Not that we don't love girl movies, mind you.
It's too depressing to continue from there. Sissy's last two characters in 1986 were suicidal. Maybe the actress saw the 90s coming? After Crimes of the Heart, for which she was Oscar nominated, she disappears for four years until a series of movies crop up in the early 90s like The Long Walk Home (1990) that are well intentioned but don't go anywhere or did go places (JFK, '91) but didn't need her to get there. By the late 90s she'd been shoved into the supporting classes, from which she never really returns as headliner, but for her last classic, In the Bedroom. She collected a few trophies that year until the late surging Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) trumped her on Oscar night.
Here's three must-sees from the last twenty years of her filmography (though not always for her presence).
JFK (91) | The Straight Story (99) | In the Bedroom (01)
That's the first 15 films of her career (excluding extra work in a Warhol picture) and 3 more still. How many of those 18 have you seen?
And what would you like to see Sissy do next? Some of you have suggested in comment threads that she'd make a great Violent in August: Osage County whenever that becomes a film. She wouldn't be a bad choice for it at all, though one assumes Hollywood will want Meryl Streep to do it since they want her to do everything. As should be painfully obvious The Film Experience loves Meryl Streep, but some of her contemporaries sure could use her the big break of Streep passing on a choice role.
Exit music: Remember when we mentioned Streep's son being a fine musician? That's another thing the two actresses have in common. Here's Sissy & Jack's singer songwriter daughter Schuyler Fisk doing "From Where I'm Standing". Pretty voice, right? You can totally see Sissy in her. It's that lank sunkissed hair and those awesome cheekbones.
I'm a week late chiming in here but I can't let the topic pass me by as a major fan of Woody Allen's filmography. Before Woody's quality started to dip and I found Pedro Almodovar, he was my favorite living director.
I can't find a suitable link to the original text that won't charge me money (dagnabbit) but apparently The Times of London asked Woody Allen to name his best films last month and his answers have had the internet all atwitter if not a twitter (I have yet to see Woody Allen "trend" even if he's contributed far more to society than, say, Justin Beiber).
Anyway, in case you didn't hear or would still like to discuss (Always up for a Woody!), the legendary writer/director/comic chose these six films as the cream of his crop. I've listed them in chronological order.
Woody's favorites
Zelig (1983)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Match Point (2005)
Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)
I find the list completely fascinating. I think how artists view their own work is always of interest even though I think, by and large, artists are not the best judges of their own work. Creation and criticism being two completely different skill sets (which is also what you can blame so many dumb Oscar honors on), especially about one's one work since there's no way to see it from a suitable distance
The obvious talking point is that Allen shunned what history has arguably favored as his holy trinity: Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters. I was aware even as far back as 1987 that Woody didn't think as highly of Hannah and Her Sisters as the public and Oscar voters did -- he was all about David Lynch's Blue Velvet in 1986 if I recall -- and thought he'd done something wrong with Hannah when it became popular. But that he wouldn't list his late 70s giants as his best does surprise me.
Oscar's favorite Woody Allen pictures Hall (5 noms/4 wins) Bullets (7 noms/ 1 win) Hannah (7 noms/ 3wins)
But then, no one seems to agree on these things. If you look around the web (Cinematical, Vanity Fair, Ken Levine, Awards Daily) everyone claims a different "best". To my mind that's a healthy argument that the man has made a lot of fine films, even if he himself doesn't think so stating
I've squandered an opportunity that people would kill for. I have had complete artistic freedom... There are a few better than others, half a dozen, but it's a surprising paucity of worthwhile celluloid.
It surely wouldn't kill him to slow down a little bit and fine tune his screenplays these days -- the concept is often better than the execution, now -- but I think he underestimates his early work.
The Best of Woody according to Nathaniel? This is how I'd personally rank them.
Nathaniel's favorites
Manhattan (1979)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Annie Hall (1977) (all three are perfection)
Husbands and Wives (1992) (disgustingly underappreciated due to the scandalous climate in which it premiered)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (also terrific)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (give or take a few others depending on my mood. But this one is just so rewatchable/funny.)
A lot of critics swear by Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) but I seem to have totally forgotten it. I cannot recall one single thing about it (???) A revisit is definitely in order.
You know what you have to do in the comments, don't you?
One hundred years ago on this very day 30s actress Gloria Stuart was born in Santa Monica. Happy birthday Gloria! Stuart made her name on James Whale's pictures like The Old Dark House (fun movie) and The Invisible Man before her screen career petered out in the 1940s. Then, über famously, James Cameron resurrected her to play the 100 year old survivor of Titanic. And the best part... she's still with us today!
Were you confused like Britney Spears when she tossed the Heart of the Ocean back into it in Titanic? Do you think Kate Winslet hopes to grow up to look just like her?
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
-Woody Allen
Since Gloria is not the oldest living Oscar nominee, it's list time. Who's still with us? (If I forgot anyone, do let me know in the comments.)
Celeste Holm (winner Gentleman's Agreement) is 93.
Joan Fontaine (winner Suspicion) is 92. Yes, it's true. She and sister Olivia de Havilland are still not speaking.
Tom Daly (5 time nominee) this Canadian producer nominated in short film and documentary categories just turned 92.
Joyce Redman (2 time nominee Tom Jones) is 91. [Trivia note: Tom Jones is the only film to have ever won three nominations in Supporting Actress. Pity that Robert Altman's Nashville didn't repeat the trick.]
Dino de Laurentiis (Thalberg winner and a producing winner for La Strada) is almost 91.
Michael Anderson (nominee, directed Around the World in 80 Days) is 90.
Ravi Shankar (nominee, the co-composer for Gandhi) is 90.
Ray Harryhausen (Gordon Sawyer Award recipient), the f/x legend, just turned 90.
Mickey Rooney (Honorary Oscar and 4 time nominee) is 89.
Carol Channing (nominee Thoroughly Modern Millie) is 89. "Razzzzzbbberrries!"
Hal David (winner "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is 89.
Deanna Durbin (Juvenile Award winner) is 88. She was only 18 when she won her Juvenile statue (shared with Mickey Rooney) but she retired from the screen just nine years later.
Mihalis Kakogiannis (3 time nominee, all nominations from Zorba the Greek) just turned 88.
Eleanor Parker (3 time nominee Caged) just turned 88. She's best remembered today as the (not totally) wicked would be stepmother in The Sound of Music but that doesn't paint the whole picture at all. Isn't it time for renewed interest in her career? Smart cinephiles think so.
Blake Edwards (Honorary Oscar and nominee for Victor/Victoria), aka Mr Julie Andrews, is almost 88.
Norman Lear (television giant who was Oscar nominated for writing Divorce, American Style), one day younger than Blake Edwards, is also almost 88
Jackie Cooper (nominee Skippy) is 87. Trivia note: He is the youngest Best Actor nominee of all time, having been up for the prize when he was but 9 years old. He's likely to keep that Oscar record. The closest anyone ever got was Mickey Rooney -- also on this list -- at the age of 19.
but I couldn't stop there. Partially because I missed a handful of people. Partially because I definitely have undiagnosed untreated OCD. Carpal tunnel syndrome here I come. It's a top 40!
Arthur Penn (3 time nominee, directed Bonnie & Clyde) is 87. I know I've given this book a million plugs but you must read "Pictures at a Revolution" for a detailed fascinating account of how that landmark movie was constructed. Choosing a director wasn't the least bit simple. And directing Warren Beatty isn't so simple either. Penn did it twice.
Valentina Cortese (nominee Day for Night) is 87. She holds the extremely rare honor of a supporting acting nomination from a foreign language film. Those are so very infrequent.
Franco Zeffirelli (2 time nominee, director of Romeo and Juliet), another Italian (!), is 87.
Charles Durning (2 time nominee, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) is 87.
Glynis Johns (nominee The Sundowners) is 86
We're glad she got that one last burst of mid 90s comedy gold in While You Were Sleeping and especially The Ref. Well done, Sister Suffragrette ♪ ! Unfortunately,she's been little seen since.
Arthur Hiller (Hersholt Huminatarian winner, nominee for Love Story) is 86.
Ron Moody (nominee Oliver!) is 86. For a recent article on this underappreciated sixties musical, click here.
Stanley Donen (Honorary Oscar) is 86. He's one of the best musicals director, most famous for that thrilling barn sequence in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the entirety of Singin' in the Rain.
Sidney Lumet (Honorary Oscar, plus 5 time nominee)just turned 86 last week. His classics include 12 Angry Men, Network, The Verdict and Dog Day Afternoon and he's also the man behind the extremely undervalued Running on Empty (1988). The best part is that he's still active. He recently made Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
Eva Marie Saint (winner On the Waterfront) turned 86 today, so we'll bookend with this other birthday girl. Happy birthday, Eva! Don't forget your gloves when you leave the party tonight.
Big screen actress icons I had to pass up for this list included Jane Russell, Maureen O'Hara, and Esther Williams. All are still among the living but none were ever Oscar nominated and haven't been given Honorary Awards. What a world, what a world. Christopher Lee, is another biggie that's never been nominated. He still works so consistently at 88 that it's possible they'll yet find a way to nominate him. Next up for Lee is Martin Scorsese's The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Carol Channing for Exit Music!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Further Reading? Try this substantial Gloria Stuart tribute at Ehrensteinland and if you're in LA, please note that AMPAS will be honoring Stuart's centennial at the Samuel Goldwyn theater on July 22nd. *
When people think about Diane Keaton in the 70s, there are probably a couple of stray thoughts for The Godfather but 8 times out of 10 they're thinking of Annie Hall (1977). The same year that she entered the cinematic pantheon as that neurotic androgynous fashion plate, she nailed another role: the grade school teacher with a dirty mind in Looking For Mr. Goodbar.
When we first meet Theresa, a professor (Alan Feinstein) is reading her personal paper about "confession" aloud while she fantasizes about having sex with him. Later that evening she's at his apartment grading his papers and he praises her for her understanding of syntax and grammar. Not exactly what she had in mind when she took the T.A. job. Theresa was thinking of something along the lines of T & A.
He asks if she's in pain (she has a bad back), and she responds, "Isn't it obvious?"
"Nothing about you is obvious..." he answers in what might qualify as the most perceptive thing anyone will ever say to Diane Keaton in a movie not directed by Woody Allen.
But what is wrong with Theresa's back? The question annoys her since the professor is holding her when he asks it, but his embrace isn't the carnal one she'd prefer. She backs away from him, and begins to walk around the room.
Polio. When I was six. Left me with a limp til I was eleven. That's when they operated to straighten my spine. Scoliosis they said.
Her monologue is interrupted here with the jarring sound cue of an x-ray flapped on to a light box.
At this point the director Richard Brooks flashes to a younger version of Theresa who interjects in tearful fear, "Papa. Papa." The interruptions continue, though they're visual rather than verbal now. "After that..." Theresa begins, but rather than hearing her explanation (at first) we're seeing a montage of soundless still images of Theresa's childhood: a nightmare of casts, x-rays, shame and misery. Seventies movies were so blissfully experimental with their film grammar, even when they had actresses as riveting as Keaton and could have coasted with unimaginative close-ups.
I came home wearing a plaster cast. They put me on a bed downstairs in the living room where everyone could watch, day and night. For one whole year and two days. They prayed a lot. It was God's will they said.
I never did understand what terrible thing I did, you know, to make God so angry?
What's fascinating about Keaton's performance throughout the scene is the way she's conveying, rather unexpectedly, both the distant physical memory that defined her and a calculated manipulation of her physical present. The memory is emotional but the reciting is equally physical as she paces and pivots. She's constantly recalibrating the space between herself and her potential lover and maybe even bridging the distance between her immobile young self and the sensual adult woman she wants to be. Is she using this story and moment for sympathy (she claims she doesn't want it) or merely buying time to work up her sexual confidence? Possibly both.
The professor tries to interrupt her, but she doesn't let him.
No. No. I hate people feeling sorry.
I'd rather be seduced than comforted.
And with that, purpose vocalized, she's snapped back to the movie's opening scene; Theresa is totally focused on the man before her as an object of carnal pleasure. He chuckles, moving away from her advance and a flicker of self-doubt and confusion crosses her face. But Theresa is not moving through the room anymore. She's planted her feet. She unzips her blouse. Soon enough, mere moments after he zips her back up in half-hearted protest, he's unzipping her again. Keaton punctuates this expertly played scene by placing her hands expectantly on her hips, with some impossible combination of bitchy vixenish triumph and arguably virginal thrill.
He's hers. For the night. Many lovers to follow.
Even if Annie Hall had not existed (god forbid!), you could still make a case for Keaton as 1977's Best Actress. In truth, since we're on the subject, I prefer Diane Keaton's dramatic characters to her comedic ones, Ms. Hall excepted of course. It's that 'la-di-da' persona that stuck, but Keaton is underappreciated as a dramatic force. There's an inimitable erotic fire in her best work, despite a screen persona and physicality that more readily draw attention to neurotic fussiness.
I have to take a break from reading Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America by Peter Biskind. I recommend it, particularly if you're interested in 1960s/70s Hollywood, but it's disheartening, too. Warren Beatty comes off as extremely talented (knew that) but quite insufferable (didn't imagine that, for someone so charming) and the tales of movie-making within force you to marvel that any movie gets made ever, it's all so touch and go with contracts, creative differences, scheduling conflicts, personal pettiness, financial complications and those lusty personal lives that we as moviegoers sometimes live through vicariously for better or for worse.
Most curious to me is that the book has reignited the Julie Christie obsessing I was doing when Away From Her was around rather than renewing my lifelong Beatty drooling. Beatty has been out of the big picture for a decade now. I wanted to fall back in love since I haven't seen him in so long, apart from occassional red carpet trips to escort The Bening. Instead, I keep waiting for Julie Christie -- a supporting player -- to return to steal more scenes. She's so fascinating. It's almost like she's the 60s/70s version of Garbo. But instead of running away from stardom, she drifts in and out of it like some indifferent hippie muse.
Beatty & Christie made three films together, making her his most common screen partner (Gene Hackman equals that record but he was a supporting player). All three Beatty/Christie films were in the 1970s (McCabe and Mrs Miller and Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait) and are well worth watching. Between them those films have 14 Oscar nominations and two statues. Even after their last film together, Christie remains a spectral presence. Beatty dedicated his Oscar winning classic Reds (1981) to her.
Curiously, Beatty don't seem to have anything like affection for McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) and it reads like neither star was happy on set. I have an admittedly limited working knowledge of the western genre (not my favorite) but McCabe is in my top ten for sure [editors note: other favs... using "western" loosely I suppose are Red River (1948), Giant (1956), Hud (1963) and Brokeback Mountain (2005)]. It's yet another reminder that actors don't always know what's best for them. McCabe is a total classic. Whether or not the stars understood what Altman was after, they're both terrific in it.
As a repeatedly self-confessed french cinema enthusiast it embarrasses me to admit this but I'm relatively unfamiliar with Eric Rohmer's filmography. I wanted to note his passing here anyway because he's such an icon of the French New Wave. Rohmer was just a few months shy of his 90th birthday when he died earlier today in Paris.
Rohmer's most famous movie is arguably Ma Nuit Chez Maud (My Night With Maud). It was nominated not just once for an Oscar, but twice consecutively: Best Foreign Language Film for 1969 (it lost to Algeria's "Z") and Best Original Screenplay for 1970 (Patton took the prize). [note: They've since changed the rules to insure that Best Foreign Film Nominees from one year are ineligible for Oscar consideration in any category the following year should they get theatrical distribution. The most recent famous example of this situation is the Chinese film Hero... which many felt would have received technical Oscar nominations had it not been a Foreign Film nominee the year before it was actually released Stateside.]
If you're more familiar with Rohmer's career than I, pay tribute. What's your favorite from his filmography? I'd also suggest reading The Auteur's Notebook for a lot more on Rohmer and his films.
Today's stars! Well not literally today's but November 18th. Get a little history. Celebrate one of these cinematic entities today in whatever way occurs to you.
Senors Gilbert, Hemmings and Infante
1836 W.S. Gilbert of 'Gilbert & Sullivan' legend. If you've never seen Mike Leigh's exceptional biopic of this creative giant, Topsy-Turvy, drop everything right now and do so. 1908 Imogene Coca beloved comic actress, mostly known for TV roles 1917 Pedro Infante Mexico's biggest movie star ever. Here he is singing. Pedro Almodóvar fans will recognize this one immediately
1939 Margaret Atwood, best-selling much-awarded author. Strangely Hollywood doesn't seem to have taken to her in a big way. The Handmaid's Tale (1990) starring Natasha Richardson is one of the few adaptations 1939 Brenda Vaccaro, Midnight Cowgirl and she of one of the oddest Oscar nominations of all time... seriously, have you seen Once Is Not Enough? Here's StinkyLulu's look at that Oscar year. 1941 David Hemmings, actor. Star of Michelangelo Antonioni's riveting Blow-Up (1966). Also: Camelot, Barbarella and Gladiator... 1942 Linda Evans, silver helmeted TV diva, Mrs. Blake Carrington. 1952 Delroy Lindo Spike Lee regular, the voice of "Beta" in Up and fine stage actor -- recently saw him on stage with Garrett Dillahunt. 1953 Alan Moore, eccentric comicbook genius: From Hell, Watchmen, etc... 1960 Kim Wilde ♪ youjustkeepmehanginon 1960 Elizabeth PerkinsWeeds has cast a long shadow backwards but remember when she was Wilma Flintstone or Demi Moore's bitchy BFF in About Last Night or Tom Hanks's girl in Big? 1968 Owen Wilson to me he'll always be Hansel. And Eli Cash. (mmmm, The Royal Tenenbaums). That scene where he describes the rules of Whack Bat in Fantastic Mr. Fox is pretty choice, too. "It's real simple..."
Finally, a happy 35th birthday to Chloë Sevigny who has never been shy about wearing suits, birthday or otherwise, in her rampage through fashion and film. It seems strange to me that this actress who debuted in the savage Kids and was no stranger to provocations (Brown Bunny, Boys Don't Cry, Gummo) would end up best known for television work (Big Love) ... but at least her excellence is within a semi subversive TV show.
Next Up: Mr. Nice starring Rhys Ifans and Barry Mundy starring Patrick Wilson without his balls. Won't anyone leave Patrick Wilson's private parts alone?I'm talking to you Kate Winslet, Malin Akerman, Ben Shenkman and especially Ellen Page !!!
Celebrating the birthdays cinematic: actors, actresses, and other filmtypes. If it's your big day, a happy one to you as well.
The Penguin and The Secretary
Today's B-Days 11/16 1908 Burgess Meredith two time Oscar nominee. But no, not for the Penguin in Batman: The Movie. Those honors came back to back in his late 60s for Rocky and The Day of the Locust. 1964 Harry Lennix best known for his TV work in shows like Dollhouse and Commander in Chief but he's cut an imposing figure in the movies too (Titus, the Matrix trilogy). But yes Dollhouse was cancelled last week. sigh. 1967 Lisa Bonet mostly retired actress, Huxtable, one of Marisa Tomei's besties 1970 Martha Plimpton. My friends have this thing where they cast the book they've just read for their book club each month. It's their tradition that they have to give 80s teen film star turned ubiquitous Broadway thespian a role in every film. And why not? 1977 Maggie Gyllenhaal incredible actress, give or take, um,... No, I'm not ready to say it. I love you, Maggie!
Two more from Cougar Town! And I don't mean the sitcom (which I enjoy by the way) And I don't mean that as a pejorative either. Italian beauty Valeria Bruni Tedeschi turns 45 today. She's made American films like Munich and A Good Year but remains most vivid in French cinema. Films include: 5x2 (fine work there), Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Actrices and Queen Margot. And yes, her boyfriend is ubiquitous French actor/sex symbol Louis Garrel who is 26.
I also want to say a quick word of praise for Missi Pyle, turning 38, who has been an ensemble player in a ton of comedies (Galaxy Quest, Big Fish, Dodgeball, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc) and does a lot of TV guest work. She was recently hilarious as boozy cougar "Charlene" in the long-delayed Spring Breakdownwith Amy Poehler and Parker Posey. The movie is not half as funny as the cast list suggests but it has its moments and many of them belong to her. Well done. Missi also just recorded an album with another actress Shawnee Smith (the Saw movies) called Smith & Pyle "It's OK to be happy". Judging by the lyrics and video blogs, they're selling comedy with their country music. *
MattCanada here with another week of homo classics. Since I started writing this weekly column about a month ago, I have focused on films which have not been Oscar contenders and not featured the actresses which Nathaniel, me, and all the readers of this website respect (read: worship in a cult-like fashion). So on to Cabaret!
Liza Minnelli's Oscar winning role as Sally Bowles may well be the gayest Oscar win of all time. Now I am not a big Liza fan, actually I actively dislike her in anything else, but in Cabaret she gives one of the most amazing performances in the history of cinema in the greatest movie musical of all time. Not to be hyperbolic or anything, but Liza's Sally and Cabaret are earth shatteringly good. Liza is hardly the only reason to love Cabaret. You can get almost as much pleasure out of Joel Grey and Marisa Berenson's performances, as well as Michael York's Dietrich-esque bone structure. The Kander and Ebb songs are musical standards by which all other songs should be judged, and Bob Fosse's direction is flawless and endlessly inventive. The costume design, art direction, cinematography and editing are all incredible*. All of this make Cabaret one of those rare films where all of its components brilliantly fit together.
There are two recent Oscar wins that I want to compare to Cabaret and for different reasons. The first is the Best Picture win for Chicago. The film takes so much from Cabaret that it would be inconceivable visually without its superior precedent. The most blatant rip-off (or homage depending on how you see it) is "When You're Good to Mama" complete with the dancing behind the curtains from the end of Sally and The Host's performance of "Money Makes The World Go Round".
"Money Makes the World Good to Mama"
Both films are based on Kander and Ebb musicals, and therefore they have similarities which evince the auteurist credentials of the songwriter and lyricist. To a certain extent the seminal importance of Cabaret makes it unavoidable for Chicago to heavily reference it, but the visual similarities from Marshall's to Fosse's film are there. Chicago's Best Picture win, and its heralding of the return of the musical, can in many ways be seen as a celebration of Cabaret's brilliance.
The second recent Oscar win for which Cabaret provides a useful comparison is Jennifer Hudson's Best Supporting Actress win for Dreamgirls. Liza Minnelli's performance is musically flawless and provides two showstopping moments, the Torch Song "Maybe This Time" and the iconic closer "Cabaret". Jennifer Hudson's performance in Dreamgirls is musically astounding and her rendition of "And I Am Telling You (I Am Not Going)" is the highlight of the film. However, the difference lies in the performances which surround these musical moments. While Liza combines comedy, melodrama, and pathos in the service of conveying the the complex range of human emotions, Hudson can barely deliver her lines in character. Hudson deserved a Grammy, a performance like Liza's deserves the Oscar.
<--- 'beedle dee dee dee dee, Two Ladies':Michael York and Helmut Griem
Cabaret and Liza's Sally have become an ineluctable part of gay culture. Cabaret is the first critical and commercial success to deal with homosexuality in an understanding and mature fashion, making it a part of the texture of the film.
Its importance for the post-Liberation gay community of the Seventies I can only guess, but its continued reverence in gay culture would indicate that it was pretty important. Recently Kristin Chenowith performed "Maybe This Time" on Glee, showing the continued cultural cachet of Cabaret and its appeal to a gay audience (Glee + Chenowith + Cabaret is as camp as it gets).
"Maybe This Time" through the years. With Kristin Chenowith, Liza Minnelli and Natasha Richardson
While most Oscar wins for Actors playing gay characters are solemn and maudlin enough to make a funeral or Senate Hearing seem enjoyable, Liza brings humour and gravitas to a performance which is a highlight of gay cinema and the pantheon of Best Actress winners.
Lady Lucky: Liza won the competitive Oscar that had always eluded her legendary mother Judy Garland 'The World's Greatest Entertainer'
*Editors note: Cabaret holds the record of the most awarded movie to have ever lost Best Picture (the 1972 winner was The Godfather) winning an incredible eight Oscars, including three of the big six. Strangely, it was not nominated for costume design. Star Wars and A Place in the Sun are the runners up with six Oscars each. *
But Clayburgh's heyday was unquestionably in the late 1970s, when she became something like the screen embodiment of Modern Liberated Woman. Clayburgh will always be connected in cultural history to her zeitgeist moment in 1978 when she starred in Paul Mazurky's frisky Best Picture nominee An Unmarried Woman. In the film her husband suddenly leaves her for a younger woman and she starts dating again, becoming a sexually liberated woman as a single mother with the help of randy virile Alan Bates. Clayburgh was a possible winner, too, but Jane Fonda (who she had bested at Cannes tying with Isabelle Huppert for Violette), shared the campaign advantage of headlining a Best Picture nominee with a hot topic (Vietnam); Fonda won.
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