The Sheila Variations

Thanks so much for this review! Lange: tend to agree. I think she is quite charming in Tootsie and more than adequate in Postman and a couple of others, but in later years she got mannered, fast. But she is so good in Frances.

I love your blog and to be honest, I have no freaking idea why I keep forgetting to blogroll it. Do forgive me! I am going to update my post for today.

Years ago I saw a "list" in the Washington Post Style section, one of those throwaway type things, and they asked Clint Eastwood to list some of his favorite performances, and some that he disliked. He listed Jessica Lange in "Frances" as something he didn't like, that he thought it was fake and forced.

I've never seen that movie myself, but I thought that was sort of odd, given that he's the man who directed Jessica Walter in "Play Misty for Me", which is certainly an over-the-top performance, major chewing of scenery. (Though I think Jessica Walter was superb in that, and I always thought that she should have played the Senator in "Silence of the Lambs" instead of Diane Baker, whom I always thought was an awful actress.)

I liked Jessica Lange in "Tootsie" and the Patsy Cline movie, but I suspect it was more that I loved that movie, and Patsy Cline's music, so much.

Fake and forced? He must be out of his mind. Maybe it just made him feel uncomfortable - it certainly is not easy to watch. It's brutal, you know?? You want to shoot this woman to put her out of her misery. It's raw - ferocious - almost like a Greek tragedienne.

And you know - I loved Lange in Tootsie, too. She was lovely, sweet - and she had an aura of depression which I find quite appealing. Like - she's not a typical leading lady, if you know what I mean.

Tempe - I LOVE your wishful re-casting of the senator in Silence of the Lambs - how fascinating. You seem to have a very good eye - what are some other examples of parts you would re-cast? I love talking about crap like that. :)

Tempe,
That's fascinating, what you wrote about re-casting Walter. I never would have thought of it, but now that you mention it, it almost seems kind of obvious.

I read somewhere that Gerard McSorley was originally cast to play the role of Captain Queenan in The Departed, but had to drop out for some reason. Not to sniff at Martin Sheen, but I cried for DAYS when I read that. I don't even want to think of the different kinds awesome that would have been. That guy is *intense*. I can barely control myself when I talk about him.

Great post(s), and great discussion. I used to be quite taken with Jessica Lange's acting--especially in Frances and Tootsie. In Tootsie, the scenes where they go to her father's farm for the weekend are really nice, and Lange is very appealing in those shots. I have realized that Sidney Pollack is as responsible for the attractive nature of Lange in those scenes as Lange is herself, and I agree with other commenters that her work has become very self-conscious.

I love Tempe's comments about Jessica Walter being a better fit for the Senator in Silence of the Lambs. Those are fun things to ponder.

I seem to remember reading that Eastwood knew Farmer personally, and that was the reason he didn't like Lange's performance, but when I tried to find any information about them, I came up empty. Maybe I am creating that memory in my head.

DBW - that would certainly explain it, if he knew her.

Cary Grant worked with Farmer (in a not very good movie) - and felt that she lacked professionalism, which really bothered him. He didn't respect her for letting her personal life get in the way of getting to the set on time, or whatever.

I turned off Lange pretty early - when I saw Crimes of the Heart. I thought her work was unbelievably lazy in that movie. It was especially obvious to me because Diane Keaton and Sissy Spacek and Tess Harper were so good. There was Lange, and she seemed adrift - and instead of having coping skills as an actress to ground herself in that character - she relief on tricks, and self-conscious "oooh, I'm sad and edgy" behavior (like cutting her bangs with a razor blade). I was like: wow, she really doesn't know how to work. Not REALLY, not like other actresses do.

And for me that impression of her as kind of lazy has continued. Lazy might be a mean way to say it. I think it may more be just a matter of not having the talent of, say, a Meryl Streep or a Susan Sarandon - women who never seem as adrift as she often does - because they have natural gifts that can protect them, even when they are in CRAP.

I think Lange always has an eye on herself - she's always watching to see what impression she puts off - with the huge glaring exception of Frances - where she was channeling some Medean source of rage. hahaha

And Tootsie, too - where she was sweet and lovable.

Well....now I really MUST put "Frances" on my Netflix list, just to see what all the hullaballoo is about. And I am now seriously reconsidering the Eastwood perspective. This was something I read in a short blurb in the Washington Post, years ago. They used to have short features in boxes in the Style section, like asking some screen beauty to list other screen beauties. But then, Eastwood has certainly never been considered a "woman's director", he's no George Cukor. Off-hand I don't recall him directing any really juicy parts for women in his films.

Oddly, one of the performances he rated as one he liked was Maggie Smith in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", one of my all-time faves. And that's certainly a broad, theatrical performance, so it's not as though he only likes underplaying by actresses.

The thing about mentally casting Jessica Walter in SOTL came about because I always had a pet peeve of not liking Diane Baker. I used to see her a lot in episodic TV in the late 60s/early 70s, and she always played weak characters. So, to cast her as the Senator in SOTL was, to me, a huge mistake, especially since she definitely played it weak in her confrontation with Lector. Granted, she had the last word ("Send this THING back to Baltimore", one of my favorite lines ever, since I live near Baltimore, and have been known to use it IRL). But Lector definitely squashed her like a bug. And when I was watching Jessica Walter in my "Arrested Development" DVDs, I suddenly realized, yes!, SHE could have absolutely found the right balance between all the facets of that small part: the power and the brittleness, and the poise, and the ability to be vulnerable but then turn icy cold on a dime. Damn, I would have loved to see her in that part. Really, everyone else in that film was cast perfectly, and the miscasting of the Senator really deflated it for me.

One thing I would crave to see released on DVD is "The Group", the notorious (for the era) movie of Mary McCarthy's book. Lots of great female parts in there, and I haven't seen it in decades, but Candice Bergen made her debut in that, and Jessica Walter had a really great part, and some other wonderful women were in that.

I'll have to ponder my "ideal recasting" list, and I'll get back to you on that. I love/hate those moments when I'm watching something, and my mind screams "so-and-so would have been SO MUCH BETTER" in that part!

Tempe - I loved Meryl Streep in Eastwoods' Bridges of Madison County. That's one of my favorite parts she's played - but in my opinion, like you said, it is an exception. Women are kind of peripheral to his work, it seems. In general, folks, just in general. And I despised that Bridges of Madison County book so much that it actually makes me MAD to think about it. But she was awesome.

And I remember seeing Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when I was a kid - and Maggie Smith's performance was emblazoned on my memory. I love her!!

Yeah, and it's definitely worth it to check out Lange in Frances. It's a performance you won't ever forget. Brilliant. Scary. Unhinged. And not actress-y at ALL. You truly wonder if Lange herself will be all right at the end of the movie - she's that good.

And of course the brilliant Kim Stanley plays the monster-mother. Hateful bitch.

Red: completely agreed about loathing the "Bridges of Madison County" book. Ick. I hated it so much that I refused to see the movie, and I usually try to see anything of Meryl Streep's.

As for Maggie Smith and Jean Brodie...well, that was my first cinematic obsession, at least it was the first time that I had the opportunity to "exercise" an obsession, which means watching something over and over and over. When the movie came out, in 1969, I was living in Raleigh, NC, and was in high school. "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" started playing at a theater a few blocks from my home, and when I saw it I was MESMERIZED!!! So many parts of it: Maggie Smith's performance, of course, but I also identified very strongly with Sandy, the female student who "assassinates" Brodie. I looked like her, short, dark hair, thick glasses, solemn studious expression. And I also fell in love with the whole English school atmosphere. I wanted more than anything to be attending the Marcia Blane School for Girls in Edinburgh, instead of Broughton High School in Raleigh.

The upshot is that I saw this movie at least 18 times in a very short time-span. And that was sitting through it in a theater, multiple and sequential times. I'd pay the ticket fee (something ridiculously low, like 50 cents for a matinee), and they'd let me sit through two showings. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I went back and back and back, and watched it obsessively.

Well, the theater eventually switched to another film, and I stopped going back to see Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and then my obsession faded (mostly due to the wonderful distraction of discovering X-rated stuff like "Fellini's Satyricon", "M*A*S*H", Andy Warhol flicks, "Sweet Sweetback"). And I didn't see Jean Brodie again for at least a decade. But then I finally did, and it was so weird, because I knew the thing too well, I knew every single word of dialogue, and every shot, it was like living it again. It was almost too painful. I avoided it for years and years, and only finally watched it again a few years ago when I HAD to see the DVD with commentary by the director and Pamela Franklin.

My first cinematic obsession. I've had others since, some obsessive, but none in quite that way.

And one of my fondest accomplishments is that I wrote a fan letter to People magazine (or was it US?) about Maggie several years ago, and my letter was published!! Yay. (Which makes up for the time I chickened out of attending a Peter O'Toole book signing, because I was afraid I'd collapse into a blithering blob upon sighting him in the flesh.)