Solidarity, or: The boy in the green bandana

Posted on January 14, 2026 by sheila

In 2011, as a hopeless protest in response to the the arrest of Iranian director Jafar Panahi, one of my faves, I came out of my shell blog-wise and hosted an “Iranian Film Blogathon“. So many people participated and I hosted all of the pieces here. I threw it together quickly and the response was overwhelming. I felt so helpless, and what could I do from afar, except … keep talking about the injustice of it all.

I’ve never stopped. If you’ve been around these parts, then you know my posts about Jafar Panahi. Since that original arrest, and the 20-year ban on filmmaking, Panahi has kept making films – in secret. Smuggling them out of the country (because of course they won’t play there). He was imprisoned again in 2022, the year the Woman Life Freedom protests began. He was in the worst prison in the country where they put political prisoners. He was tortured. There was a Covid outbreak. People were killed. He was released almost a year later. During his imprisonment, we at the NYFCC gave him a special award – another hopeless despairing gesture – but publicity is important. I was honored to write the essay on him for the program.

He is my artistic hero.

He was released from prison, of course. And promptly made It Was Just an Accident, which is out now, and is a masterpiece. I have no idea how he swung this but he has come to the United States, for the first time in 25 years, attending film festivals (where the film has racked up awards). It’s been surreal, seeing him here! Of course the Islamic regime back home – don’t call it the Iranian regime – has put out yet another call for his arrest. Despite this, he plans on returning. He is so brave.

I don’t even know what to say, but I actually met him this past week at the NYFCC awards dinner. We gave him “Best Director”, the first time an Iranian has won that award. Not only did I never think I’d get to meet him – because he hasn’t been allowed to leave Iran for about 20 years – there were times over the past decade and a half where I have had to steel myself for the possibility that they might in fact kill this man. This is how badly they want to silence him. Well, they have failed. Tyrants always fail in the end, but not before they do a lot of damage.


Jafar Panahi and his interpreter, the woman in red, on the red carpet at the NYFCC awards dinner, January 6, 2026. Photo taken by, and I can’t even believe I’m saying this, yours truly.

I got to talk to him (through his interpreter), I got to thank him for his work, tell him I wrote the piece on him for the program a couple years ago, and how happy I was to see him “in person”. He said to me, “You have given me three awards over the years and this is the first year I’ve been able to join you.” It was incredible. When he went up to accept his award, the whole place got to their feet. I admit I was in tears. He and his work mean SO MUCH to me.

My solidarity is with the Iranian people, who have been fighting for their rights for 40 years. My solidarity is with anyone who fights for the freedom of the individual. If they come for you, they come for me. Solidarity with others is the only game in town, bitch.

I wrote this piece a while back about a moment in Panahi’s 2006 film Offside, which speaks to my feelings, about what is going on in Iran, and also what is going on here.

The Boy in the Green Bandana

In Jafar Panahi’s entertaining yet pointedly critical film Offside, about five or six girls who dress up as boys in order to enter the Tehran soccer stadium for the World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain (filmed in 2005 during the actual soccer match in question). Girls are not allowed to enter stadiums. But they are soccer fans. Fanatics, even. They do what they have to do. One by one, they are busted by the eagle-eyed security guards, country bumpkin boys a little awestruck by the big city, and rounded up into a pen behind the stadium, while they wait for the Vice Squad to take them away.

Serious subject, yes? Yes. But Panahi’s touch and tone is one of mockery and levity, even more devastating in its ability to critique, the film moves at a zip zip zip pace (and if you ever get a chance to see it in a theatre with an audience: do it. It plays like a bat out of hell). Many of these awesome girls have no other credits to their name. In the film, they strain and lean against the barriers trying to hear what’s happening in the soccer game, arguing with the guards about how stupid it is to not allow girls to go to games.

They’re trash-talking smart-aleck city girls – who were brave enough to put on boys clothes and paint the colors of Iran on their faces and try to bust into a space where they’re not allowed – and the more traditional security guards are shocked but intimidated. Serious heated conversations between the girls and the guards suddenly cease when the roar of the crowd reach them – and the girls all start clutching each other in excitement about this or that play. They force the intimidated security guard to go around the corner and give them a play by play what is happening. He’s overwhelmed. He’s not strong enough to throw his weight around. He is no match for these girls. He does what they say. And stands at the corner, peeking at the game, and narrating it like a radio announcer.

In the film’s best scene, one of the girls – who plays on a girls’ soccer team and is probably the biggest soccer fan in the bunch – has to go to the bathroom. the guard says “Sorry. No bathrooms for girls in the stadium.” The girl begs and pleads. It’s an emergency. Does he want her to piss her pants right there where they stand? He finally caves and takes her off to go to the bathroom – but he makes her put a huge poster of one of the soccer players over her face. She doesn’t want to. It is so stupid to make her do this. She and the guard argue about it.

The guard wins this battle, so off they go to find the bathroom.

So you are treated to the absurd sight of a guard and this weird little person with a huge “mask” on trotting through the stadium (and remember: it was filmed during the actual game, on the fly). Humorously, as he hustles her through the stadium, she – who is in so much trouble, having been arrested – keeps stopping to peek over the crowds to see what’s happening on the field. The guard loses her behind him because she’s stopped, and he has to race back and yank her in line. I love her. Yes, I am arrested but FIRST THINGS FIRST, what’s going on on the field? The guard goes into the cavernous bathroom and orders every man in there to leave. The men are like “who do you think you are??” but the guard throws his weight around and the guys all leave. The poor girl, now hopping up and down in agony (with a huge poster wrapped around her face), races into one of the stalls while the irritated security guy stands guard at the doorway.

While she is doing her business in one of the stalls, a small group of rowdy boys enter the bathroom. They’re in a hurry to get to the urinals. They don’t want to miss a moment of the game. The guard stops them. “Sorry. you can’t come in here.” The boys : “The hell we CAN’T. Get out of the way.” (The class issue is present as it always is in Panahi’s films. These are all city kids and the guard has been shipped in from his family farm: he feels inferior to these more sophisticated people he’s supposed to boss around.) The guard holds his arms out to stop them from passing by and a scuffle ensues. It is five or six against one. The boys try to push him out of the way. They all start fighting.

It is at this moment that the girl – poster wrapped around her head – comes out of the stall. She is a sight to behold. I mean … one look at her and you think …. “wtf” – which is what all the boys do. First of all, it’s instantly obvious to them what is going on. She’s a girl. In a stadium filled with thousands of men. She may be wearing a baggy flannel shirt and baggy pants but … come on, that’s a girl. But … why … how … and what’s with the poster head …

The situation is humorous but it is also dangerous. Everything pauses. She’s already in danger. What might happen now? These are young guys, vibrating with testosterone and energy and they are segregated away from girls in their lives and a girl is right there in front of them. What if … I mean, it’s a distinct possibility. Things could get out of hand. The guard freaks out because now HE might get in trouble for allowing this girl to wander around willy-nilly in a sea of heaving men. He starts pushing at the boys to leave. The scuffle starts up again. Their fighting is blocking the doorway. She can’t squeeze past. She stands there, not sure what to do. She feels trapped and terrified. But everyone’s in the way. No way out. It’s a perilous moment for her.

The boy with the flag wrapped around his head like a bandana notices in a glance what’s happening, and he’s in the middle of fighting with the security guard, but he sort of leans his body inward, pushing the rest of the bodies in the scuffle inward, which gives her a small corridor in which to escape. And he gestures at the space he opened up like: “There you go.”

And she flees.

It’s a moment of kindness, yes, but it’s also a moment of something much more important: solidarity.

The hierarchy is clear: he is “above” her in status even though they’re about the same age, but that “status” hasn’t infected his spirit or psyche. Status/hierarchy may be imposed from above, but his small gesture of, “Go on, you can get by behind me” is eloquent. He’s not corrupted.

The boy might be perceived as an enemy since he’s a boy, and he can go into the stadium and do whatever he wants. But he’s not an enemy. He lets her run by him, he makes room for her. No one should keep her from escaping, no one should keep her from her freedom.

This moment, for me, is like Bernstein’s glimpse of the girl in the white dress on the ferry in Citizen Kane: “I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”

I think about that boy in the green bandana all the time.

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“Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall

Posted on January 14, 2026 by sheila

“How else can a black writer write than out of his black experience? Yet what we tend to overlook is that our common humanity makes it possible to write a love poem, for instance, without a word of race, or to write a nationalistic poem that will be valid for all humanity.” — Dudley Randall

It’s his birthday today.

Dudley Randall’s sense of mission was a guiding star. He wanted to create opportunities for Black writers, he wanted to create a platform for them. And he did. What Randall created still exists today. Extraordinary.

Randall was the son of a preacher and a teacher. These professions stood as powerful examples to him, infusing everything he did – his sense of mission, again. He started writing poetry very young, and was published very young (13 years old and a published author!). He graduated from high school early. He got his degree at Wayne State, and then went on to get a Master’s in library science. (As the daughter of a librarian, let’s hear it for librarians.) He served in the South Pacific in WWII. He learned many languages and traveled widely. Since he was fluent in Russian, he translated many Russian works into English, and often it was the first time these poems/books appeared in English translation. Randall held down a job as a librarian all this time. He wrote poetry about the Detroit world he saw around him, the auto workers, the bag ladies, churchgoers, the downtrodden, the flashy.

Randall’s most long-lasting legacy came out of his own poetry, at first, but expanded into something much bigger. In 1963, he founded Broadside Press. He ran the press out of his own home, with limited to no funds, and he ran it for 20 years before selling it. Broadside continues in existence today. (You can read the story of Broadside Press – and look at the archives – here.) Randall’s Broadside Press – similar to Harriet Monroe’s Poetry magazine – was the first to publish many poets who couldn’t get published elsewhere because their work didn’t “fit” with the mainstream. Many of the poets first published by Broadside would go on to become legends. The late Nikki Giovanni called Broadside a “midwife” to the Black poetry movement.

Over the course of Randall’s tenure, Broadside published over 60 books: poetry volumes, criticism, memoirs, you name it. Authors who got their start at Broadside did not forget what Randall had done. When Gwendolyn Brooks wrote her autobiography, she chose Broadside as her publisher (even though she would have gotten much more money from bigger publishing houses).

Randall was Detroit’s first poet laureate. There are scholarships issued under his name, buildings are named for him.

Here are two of Randall’s poems. The first is a heart-breaker about the assassination of President Kennedy. The second is about the bombing of the church in Birmingham, Alabama. Randall felt strongly about the importance of Black experience but he also felt strongly about the universality of art, and how those things were not mutually exclusive.

Dressed All in Pink

It was a wet and cloudy day
When the Prince took his last ride
The Prince rode with the governor
And his Princess rode beside.

“And would you like to ride inside
For shelter from the rain?”
“No, I’ll ride outside
Where I can wave and speak to my friends again.”

The Prince rides with the governor
His Princess rides beside
Dressed all in pink
As delicate as roses of a bride

Pink as a rose the princess rides
But bullets from a gun
Turn that pink to as deep a red
As red red blood can run

For she stoops to where the Prince lies still
And cradles his shattered head
And there that pink so delicate
Is stained a deep deep red

The Prince rides with the governor
The Princess rides beside
And her dress of pink so delicate
A deep deep red is dyed.

Ballad of Birmingham

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”

“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”

“My strongest motivations have been to get good black poets published, to produce beautiful books, help create and define the soul of black folk, and to know the joy of discovering new poets.” – Dudley Randall

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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“To me, survival is the game – that’s the hardest part. I just wanna play music.” — Dave Grohl

Posted on January 14, 2026 by sheila

“How Kurt could even think we’d make a ripple in this ridiculous mainstream world of polished pop music was beyond me. It was beyond everyone. It made absolutely no sense. It was simply unimaginable. It was the type of hopeless, shallow aspirations that we had been conditioned to reject, ultimately relieving us of any intention other than to just be ourselves.” — Dave Grohl

At this point, my “relationship” with Dave Grohl (born on this day), is decades-long. I was there when Nirvana hit. I was swept away by Nirvana – and all their ilk – and cried when Kurt Cobain died. My sadness about the demise of Nirvana felt personal. It was like I had to say goodbye not just to Cobain but to Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl too. It was like, “Oh well, that’s all over now.” I don’t know why I didn’t consider that of course these were young men, the survivors of Nirvana, and they’d go on to make more music. But Nirvana … It was so hard to let them go. I’ll never get over it.

I have a visceral memory of my sister telling me Dave Grohl had come out with a “solo” album. Of course it wasn’t a solo album, it was the debut of his new band Foo Fighters, but … we didn’t have enough information to know that yet. The internet wasn’t pouring us into the rumor mill 24/7. We just heard whisperings, inklings. I remember saying, “WHAT?” It was like a miracle. Light from the caves. Hyperbole required. Maybe you never loved something that hard, maybe you never felt like something died – something big – when a beloved figure dies … OR maybe it wasn’t Kurt Cobain for you, maybe it was something else. And that’s fine. But for me, for so many others, Nirvana MEANT something. Just like River Phoenix MEANT something. Phoenix and Cobain died just months apart: a watershed moment for Gen-X kids and young adults (particularly for those of us who were in the arts). Maybe these losses weren’t to the level of “The Day the Music Died” … but it was OUR Day the Music Died. So Dave Grohl, from seemingly out of nowhere, put out this rough-sounding album – and his band was called … wait, WHAT was his band called again? What the hell does Foo Fighters mean? I bought the album on cassette tape the week it was released.

What a thrill it was to listen to that first album for the first time. When I hear any of those songs again, I still remember the first time. If you’re not Gen-X – OR if you were one of those people who looked around at everyone crying when Kurt Cobain died and thought, “These people have lost their minds” (if you recall, much of the commentary was like this) … all I can say is: Maybe have some curiosity about what other people are going through, particularly younger people, and maybe consider that those “kids” know exactly what it is they are crying about?

It wasn’t just exciting that Dave Grohl emerged from Nirvana and still wanted to make music. What was even more thrilling was … HE was now the front-man. AND he was playing guitar and singing. AND he wrote the songs. Nirvana was, of course, a trio – and each of them were famous – but … you know. Cobain was the magnet, the light, the charismatic troubled center. Grohl said once in an interview that Nirvana was really “heavy” – the vibe was heavy, the fame was REALLY heavy – and the first Foo Fighters album was a way for him to shake off the heaviness. You can FEEL it in those songs. The release and catharsis. That long-haired boy playing drums in Nirvana had all THIS in him. Who knew??

What is even more amazing is that the Foo Fighters are still here. They are the opposite of a nostalgia act, a way for people to channel their grief about Cobain or some such. I realize I’m Gen-X, and Nirvana is still a core memory. I have said this before: the Foo Fighters have a sound that is often as aggressive as Nirvana’s, but positivity fuels it, not anguish and rage. I am not dissing anguish and rage. I need artists to express those songs, and Cobain was a genius at it. But positive aggression is rare! When I say “positivity” I don’t mean it the way it’s normally meant today – so maybe I need to find a different word. “Positivity” has been co-opted by every single emotional fascist on TikTok who want to regulate literally every individual’s response to every single individual moment. Nothing but “positivity” is allowed! No thank you. It’s the 1950s smiling-white-family-white-picket-fence conventionality and consensus-building-requirement in another form, but equally as bossy and conformist. When I say positivity I mean: an emotion and a drive on the side of life, of joy, of openness, of fluid and free emotions, of possibility. To me, that’s what the Foo Fighters sound like. And that’s all Dave Grohl.

I want to link to a piece my brother wrote about The Colour and the Shape, their second album, the one that launched them into the stratosphere (the first album being more like a tentative introduction). Bren included it on his 50 Best Albums list, and he says much of what I feel and much more articulately. Because that album … I honestly listened to it too much. I had to take a step back. I know the track listing by heart, because you actually listened to ALBUMS back then. Anyway, here’s my brother’s wonderful piece:

50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley, #18. Foo Fighters, The Colour And The Shape

And now for some clips. They’re a little bit off the beaten path but I love them. Grohl was part of one of the heaviest bands ever – and nothing can take away my adoration of Nirvana – but it’s like he wriggled out of the chains of the kind of fame Nirvana achieved – wriggled out of the codependent anxiety between Nirvana and its fans – to find a new kind of freedom. He plays with Queens of the Stone Age (talk about HEAVY). He sometimes plays with Tenacious D. He appeared in a Muppet Movie. He’s all over the place. He’s free. And I’m happy for him. So two of these clips are Dave Grohl supporting other artists, and fan-boy-ing OUT, which I love.

First up, though, a clip Grohl isn’t even in. You might have seen this. 1,000 drummers gathered in a field in Italy, to play “Fly” – as a way to lure Foo Fighters to come play in their area (which they never had before). It’s awe-inspiring and – again – even without the Foo Fighters’ presence – maybe even BECAUSE of the absence – the joy in the music is almost palpable. Not the joy of the musicians, although that’s present too, but the joy in the SOUND.

Next up: Dave Grohl playing sideman to Rick Springfield, and he’s so into it he makes me laugh out loud. He is so excited to play “Jessie’s Girl” and is just so INTO supporting Rick Springfield, and it makes me feel like sometimes the world works out, sometimes it’s a good place, of tribute, honor, memory, collaboration, and personal triumph.

I have deep affection for this clip, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters performing “The One” at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Everyone looks cold. They’re outside. February 2022 was so close to 9/11, I still remember how deeply this joyful sound – and the joyful crowd – touched me to my core. For months I had been living in chaos, we all were, but New Yorkers more so. I can’t put into words what I felt watching Dave Grohl, his breath showing in the icy air, singing this joyful loud song:

And here’s Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney singing “I Saw Her Standing There”.

1. This is my favorite Beatles song. I made my choice at age 8 and I’m sticking to it.

2. WATCH DAVE GROHL. In the piece I linked to above, my piece, I compared him to Paul McCartney! So first, there’s the opening: Dave Grohl crouched beside McCartney, grinning and cackling with excitement like a little kid.

3. Once the song starts, keep watching Grohl. He’s so into it! He’s US, in other words, and yet he’s also famous and he’s also onstage. I remember a funny comment made by one of my Red-Sox-fan family members in the world-changing year of 2004 about first baseman Kevin Millar: “He is the closest thing we’ll get to having a Red Sox fan ON the team.” It made me laugh out loud because it was so true. And Dave Grohl is a superstar, but in this moment, he’s a fan. And he can’t contain himself. His vibe is almost like he’s doing air-guitar by himself alone in his bedroom. That’s how free he is onstage.

4. Listen to that audience sing along. It’s a Coliseum ROAR.

5. At around the 1:10 mark, Grohl comes back into the microphone. He does some harmony lines, but mainly he’s just standing there, playing, and staring right at McCartney, with a white-hot focus of “OH MY GOD YOU ARE PAUL MCCARTNEY.”

6. And then watch Grohl at around 1:24 on. I mean, that’s how we all feel, right? That’s what the song makes people feel like. From the moment the song was released to now, to beyond, that’s how the song makes you feel, that’s what you need to do when you hear it.

7. Paul McCartney steps back to give the stage to Grohl for the guitar solo. Look at the smiles on everyone’s faces. And please watch Grohl at around 1:57-1:60.

I don’t need art to be joyful. I like all kinds of art. Mournful art, cynical art, satirical art. But the ability to express joy like this – all of the guys onstage actually are in that zone, watch their energy, their smiles, their support of one another, their freedom – is precious.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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“When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway

Posted on January 14, 2026 by sheila


Bonnie and Clyde

It’s her birthday today.

I haven’t written all that much about Faye Dunaway – at least in a concentrated way – although I’ve seen all of her big and rightfully iconic performances many times. I think she’s a fascinating actress, in her courage and precision, in her absolute don’t-give-a-shit-about-being-likable bravery, very very rare in today’s younger generation of actors. Now we all want to SYMPATHIZE with Diana Christensen in Network, we want to know her BACKSTORY, we want to FEEL for her, poor woman making it in a sexist world. Okay, okay, that’s part of it. But we see Diana at the END of all that. She’s sacrificed her humanity, her capacity to feel for other people (if she ever had that capability to begin with. Maybe the point is: In order to make it like Diana has made it, you have to be that ruthless. No other options. People like Diana – truncated emotionally, limited, single-minded – are the ones who “make it”). Faye Dunaway didn’t care about sentimental-shmoopy backstory. Diana Christensen is a symptom of a large societal problem, but she is also its AVATAR.


Network

And Dunaway did not shy away from that. She loved Diana, she loved her strength and creativity. But she understood the woman’s ugliness too. Having an orgasm as she imagines the good TV ratings in her future – having an orgasm BECAUSE of good ratings (a moment “stolen” in an homage in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis – is one of the most bizarre and disturbing sex scenes in American cinema, and to have a gorgeous movie star play such a scene was evidence of how everything changed in 1970s film. It was Dunaway’s era. The 60s discovered her, the 70s let her LOOSE. Stanwyck could have played such a scene, would have played such a scene if she came up in another era. She and Dunaway have similar qualities. With all Dunaway’s beauty, she was drawn to ugliness.


Chinatown

I do want to take a moment to shout out a lesser-known film of hers, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, directed by Jerry Schatzberg and written by Carole Eastman (who also co-wrote Five Easy Pieces with Bob Rafelson – they were nominated for an Academy Award). There are some similarities between Five Easy Pieces and Puzzle of a Downfall Child, but Puzzle doesn’t have the cache of Five Easy Pieces because …. why. Dunaway is more remote than Jack Nicholson? No. That doesn’t hold water. Nicholson’s character in Five Easy Pieces is more “relatable” than Dunaway’s in Puzzle? “Relatable” to whom? I relate to BOTH. There are many many many women who can relate to Puzzle of a Downfall Child, so why should it be considered LESS relatable, just because it’s about a woman? At this point in our cultural history, we can not allow the male point-of-view to be considered the DEFAULT. Combat that attitude whenever you see it.


Puzzle of a Downfall Child

When I interviewed Dan Callahan about his book The Art of American Screen Acting: Volume 2, we discussed his chapter on Faye Dunaway (among other things), and he specifically referenced Puzzle of a Downfall Child, which capitalized on Dunaway’s very unique strengths: her otherworldly beauty (the character is a high-fashion model) and her strange dissociated quality.

The only other thing I’ve written about her is very close to my heart: I devoted one of my Film Comment columns to Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream , a nearly-lost film – and carelessly chopped up for its US DVD release – a film that has haunted my dreams for 20+ years, ever since I saw it during its 5-day run at the Chicago Art Institute. The film stars Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Lili Taylor and Faye Dunaway, with Vincent Gallo in a smaller but crucial role. Faye Dunaway got to utilize parts of herself in this film – her whimsy, her humor (Dunaway is not known for her humor!) – and also got to use the things she’s known for – glamour, on-the-edge emotional frenzies, repression, madness, sexuality.


Arizona Dream

It’s one of Dunaway’s best performances, and it’s a disgrace how this gorgeous film was treated – mis-read by critics – butchered by the studio – and still, to this day, nearly un-see-able in its original form (you have to keep an eye out for it on YouTube, sometimes the original version shows up there).


Arizona Dream

Faye Dunaway plays a lunatic matriarch obsessed with building a flying machine. She has a passionate love affair with the much-younger Johnny Depp. One of the thrills of my time in grad school was getting to ask Dunaway about this film. This film that almost nobody else has even seen. She got so excited when I asked the question. She literally bounced in her chair, and moved forward to the edge of her seat. (I wrote about our interaction in my piece.) She LOVED doing the film and was very upset about its failure.


Arizona Dream

It’s a dream of a movie, and Dunaway is a dream IN it.


Bonnie and Clyde

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

“As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I’ll sweep the stage. I don’t give a damn. I want the money.” – Kay Francis

Posted on January 13, 2026 by sheila

“My life? Well, I get up at a quarter to six in the morning if I’m going to wear an evening dress on camera. That sentence sounds a little ga-ga, doesn’t it? But never mind, that’s my life … When I die, I want to be cremated so that no sign of my existence is left on this earth. I can’t wait to be forgotten.”
— from Kay Francis’s private diaries, c. 1938

Kay Francis, ultra-glam and impenetrably confident, was a massive star of the pre-Code era, and in many ways representative of its pleasure-seeking freedom and its carefree disregard of propriety. Normal everyday concerns did not impact Francis’ persona. When compared to the other queens of pre-Code – Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, Miriam Hopkins, Jean Harlow, Ann Dvorak – Francis exists in her own atmosphere. Blondell, Harlow, Dvorak, Stanwyck … all lived in the world of hard knocks. They were tough, sometimes hardened by experience. Francis breezed through all of it unscathed. She was tall and willowy, clothes draping on her form with exquisite perfection. In the grim years of the Depression, Francis’ clothes had soothing capabilities. James Baldwin wrote about the pleasing properties of Joan Crawford’s back, and how that back made him see the world – and certain kinds of women – in a different way. In a harsh world, movie goddesses can lull their audiences into a daze of pleasure. The pleasure is momentary, but no less meaningful (and maybe even more so).

Francis was not an ingenue. Nobody this worldly and languidly self-pleasing could be an ingenue.

Francis’ fame did not translate into the more serious years of the 1940s and 50s, although she continued to work (in movies and on the stage), before retiring and becoming a near-recluse. The sea-change in her fortune started early: in 1939, she played Cary Grant’s unpleasant gold-digging wife in In Name Only, and her rival was an adorable warm-hearted Carole Lombard.

There are a couple of interesting things about In Name Only. In some aspects, Lombard played the role Francis would have played a mere 6 or 7 years earlier (albeit with a couple of quirks: she didn’t have Lombard’s adorable pliancy and sympathy). Francis didn’t play spider-women or femme fatales. If she stole your husband, it was just because she was so gorgeous: she wouldn’t fall in love with him or give you trouble in that way. And you could barely blame your husband if he messed around with Kay Francis. She wasn’t a dark-hearted schemer. But there’s more to it than that, especially in re: In Name Only and its status as an in-between-eras melodrama: 6 or 7 years earlier, “gold-digger” wasn’t an insult. It was an understandable strategy in the midst of widespread collective hardship. Yes, you could be too blatant about it (like Ginger Rogers in Gold Diggers of 1933 – but even there, she’s not presented as some grotesque beast, or hard-hearted – the way Kay Francis is in In Name Only. Rogers’ character is just sick of being poor.) The entire Gold Diggers franchise featured scrappy young women – teetering on the verge of outright prostitution – who were practical about what they needed to survive. It was 1932, 1933. Society judges those who haul themselves out of poverty by any means necessary only when it is fat with plenty. But by 1939, things had changed. War clouds were gathering. The Depression was over. And so in 1939 a gold-digging wife had to be un-loving and no fun at all, she had to be an obstacle in the way of our blameless leading man’s happiness. And Kay Francis, languid pleasure-loving inhabitant of the Pre-Codes, now got that role. It’s a bit eerie. In Name Only goes out of its way to condone Cary Grant’s infidelity: his wife is an unpleasant bitch, and Lombard is perfect. Cary Grant has to almost DIE in order for everything to turn out right. The decision has to be taken out of the yearning couple’s hands. Traditional conventional morality is present in In Name Only in a way unthinkable just 6 or 7 years earlier.

Francis flourished as an actress when convention didn’t make a dent in her consciousness.

For a time, Francis reigned as Queen of Warner Brothers. Her only rival was Bette Davis. Davis’ talent was more fluid and flexible, and Davis took more chances. Francis wasn’t the type to push. She’s a tricky one: what did she get out of acting? Who was she as an actress? Look at her diary entry opening this post. You can bet Bette Davis would never have said something like “I can’t wait to be forgotten.”

My friend Dan Callahan wrote a wonderful piece about Francis for Bright Lights Film Journal:

Francis’ detractors said she was a star just because women wanted to see what she’d be wearing next, but she was much more than that. Francis gives herself to the camera completely and you can read all of her emotions — she’s usually slightly out-of-it and weary, and this functions as part of her open-faced charm. Also charming is her most notorious drawback, a lisp that turned all of her r’s into w’s, which made her easy to mock.

Also:

George Cukor said that the great stars had a secret, and Francis’ face always seemed to carry a particularly wicked one.

Francis made many many movies, and I’ll just call out her two most famous:

Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (1932), with co-stars Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins.

Trouble in Paradise‘s atmosphere is one of amorality cloaked in such glittering charm it makes morality look bad. Morality is for chumps only. Marshall and Hopkins are thieves who work in concert, making their way through the playgrounds of the rich, with Marshall posing as a baron, the better to insinuate himself into the wealthy’s rarified air. He accidentally falls for his “employer”, a rich woman – Kay Francis – and this throws his primarily relationship with Hopkins into crisis. The grifters infiltrate Francis’ home, making themselves indispensable to her, all while keeping a close eye on what goes into the safe. The dialogue is so witty, the trio’s chemistry is crackling. Everything is funny and light and inconsequential and therefore weirdly emotional. When Billy Wilder talked about “the Lubitsch touch”, it’s this sort of thing he was referring to.

And then there’s William Dieterle’s 1932 Jewel Robbery. Like Trouble in Paradise, the action features grifters, jewels, and heists. William Powell plays an unnamed talented jewel thief, and Kay Francis plays Teri von Horhenfels, a gorgeously attired married Baroness, clearly more in love with her jewels than her husband. Or, she loves her husband because he keeps her draped in jewels. The distinction is irrelevant. Powell has his eye on Teri’s glittering neck, fingers, wrists … but there is undeniable chemistry between the thief and his mark, making Jewel Robbery a subversive delight. The two fall in love at first sight, literally while the robber is in the process of robbing a jewelry store where the Baroness is shopping. Teri looks like she’s delighted at the prospect of being robbed, especially by someone as charming as he.

But also, and this is key: The Baroness may be a rich woman, with a chauffeur and a life of luxury, but she’s as in love with jewels as the thief. Is there REALLY a difference between Francis’ rich woman and Powell’s jewel thief? Doesn’t Teri have more in common with the jewel thief than her husband? This romantic comedy involves a thief and a married woman, making it pure pre-Code. She’s married the whole entire movie. She never even contemplates divorce. William Powell’s thief, on the lam, de-camps to Nice, leaving the married woman he loves behind. It’s clear he’s not going to reform. He is going to continue on as before. In the final moment of the film, Teri’s husband tells her she needs to go away for a rest after her time of struggle. Teri says, without a hint of shame, that she’d like to take her rest cure in Nice. As the music crescendoes, she strolls towards the camera, looking RIGHT AT US, breaking the fourth wall, saying, in a daze of humorous mischief, “Nice! Nice!” She “sh”es us to keep her secret.

There’s a difference between immoral and amoral. Kay Francis was the latter. “Sh”-ing the camera acknowledges the complicity Francis created with her audience. We loved her amorality.

It’s hard to picture Bette Davis “sh”-ing the camera, staring straight at us, as she embarks on a life of crime alongside her criminal lover. We might recoil. The movie would judge her. This is nothing against Davis. I am just pointing out the difference to highlight Francis’ unique effect. Francis was “naughty” and was never punished for it. There’s a catharsis in this.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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“I look back on my life and draw one great generalization: IT WAS MY REFUSAL TO TAKE CAUTIOUS ADVICE THAT MADE ME.” — Jack London

Posted on January 12, 2026 by sheila

“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”

— Jack London’s Credo, The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916

Jack London was born on this day, January 12, 1876.

London was a magazine writer who achieved world-wide fame during his lifetime. Best-known for The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and To Build a Fire, he had a robust and busy career as a reporter and activist. Some of the more pointed activist stuff does not time-travel as well as his most famous works, but it all provides a great portrait of the fights of the Left – with others and with each other – during that era. He was a unionizer. He wrote a lot about class war. He spent his years as a teenager bumming around, pan-handling, working on ships (he traveled as far away as Japan), working in canneries. He did attend high school but he was essentially self-educated, and a voracious reader. He wrote for the high school newspaper about living through typhoons off the coast of Japan (not the usual school paper essay topic). He was determined to attend Berkeley and after busting his ass on the entrance exams, he got in.

But London always kept a foot in the wild side. While attending Berkeley, he hung out in saloons frequented by sailors and pirates and rough trade. These were his people. He would end up writing about all of them.

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“I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown

Posted on January 12, 2026 by sheila

It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s birthday today! Ruth Brown was born in 1928, one of seven children. Her father was a choir director, and she grew up surrounded by gospel, but she was drawn to chanteuses like Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan. As you can imagine, there was conflict in the home. Dad would not be happy to know his teenage daughter was sneaking out at night to sing torch songs in USO clubs. So Ruth did what she had to do. She ran away from home and never looked back.

She flailed for a bit – of course! She was 16, 17! She did some big-band-hopping, trying out for singer jobs, getting those jobs, getting fired, etc. She was already interacting with some now-legendary people, like Lucky Millinder and other band leaders. It seems everyone who heard her were impressed, but there wasn’t any certainty on where she might fit. People loved the voice, but couldn’t envision what she might do with it, what material she should sign. This took place in 1948-9, and it is the awkward transition period into the 50s. In a matter of just 5 or 6 years, all the kids wanting to be country singers switched to rockabilly, and all the kids wanting to be torch singers (Brown was one) switched to r&b. Some switched due to commercial/financial reasons. If you wanted to make a buck, you wanted to participate in the new trend. Some switched later in the game and it was clearly a jump-on-the-bandwagon thing (this happened a year or so into the wave). There was a lot of talent out there and the genres were rigid structures you had to fit yourself into. Wanda Jackson assumed she’d be a Grand Ole Opry country singer. Elvis thought he’d join a gospel quartet. Someone like Brown assumed she’d sing in jazz clubs like Billie Holiday. It was 1949. Nobody really saw what was coming, but Brown was in that first wave.

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“I’ll stay and look you straight in the eyes like all these normal people when I scream for my rights.” — Taraneh Alidoosti

Posted on January 12, 2026 by sheila

“I’ve inherited this courage from the women of my land, who for years have been living their lives, every day with resistance… I will stay, I will not quit, I will stand with the families of the prisoners and murdered and demand their rights. I will fight for my home, I will pay whatever it takes to stand up for my rights, and most importantly: I believe in what we are building together today.”
— Alidoosti’s Instagram post, before she was arrested

It’s the birthday of Taraneh Alidoosti, one of the most famous actresses in Iran, who was arrested in December 2022, and incarcerated in the notorious Evin Prison, where they put political prisoners. Her last two posts were of 1. a photo of her standing in public without a headscarf, holding a sign that said, in the Kurdish language, “Women Life Freedom” and 2. a post condemning the first execution, that of Mohsen Shekari.

Her arrest was significant. She was so well-known. She had a new film coming out. Her international profile is high.

I followed Taraneh on Instagram. She often posted about what was going on in Iran. It was clear where she stood on all the important issues. What was different was she was doing so from within the borders of the country. So many of Alidoosti’s contemporaries have chosen to leave Iran, and live in exile. She stayed. Think about her having 8 million followers. Julia Roberts has 10 million. That’s how famous Taraneh is. I feel it’s important to underline, particularly for Western-focused people, or for people who don’t watch foreign films, or whatever. No judgment, but there are MASSIVE stars in the world who have never set foot in Hollywood. Alidoosti is one of them.

The regime knew her arrest would make international news. Not only do they not care, the headlines are the point. Alidoosti was eventually released, and she looked thin and wan, albeit happy, in the pictures of her in the arms of her family when she got out. The problem persists.

More after the jump:

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“Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest. Wise government should avail itself of those passions, to make them subservient to the public good.” — Alexander Hamilton

Posted on January 11, 2026 by sheila

It’s Alexander Hamilton’s birthday … or thereabouts. The year is in question (he often lied about his age), but January 11 is generally agreed-upon as the day he came into this fallen world.

“Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both, therefore, ought to have power, that each may defend itself against the other.” — Alexander Hamilton

You know what Alexander Hamilton feared the most, so much so that he was criticized for being a monarchist? He feared the mob. He feared the blood frenzy of crowds. He stopped a mob on the verge of attacking the British loyalist president of what is now Columbia University. The crowd wanted to string the man up. Hamilton made a rousing speech against this sort of activity. This, of course, did not make him particularly popular with the blood-lust crowd. But as events eventually unfolded in France during THEIR Revolution, his attitude was more than prescient. It’s something humans will always have to struggle with: the battle will never be won.

So let’s get to it.

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“It’s a situation I’ve never been able to fathom. One minute, it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next — no one wanted me.” — Sal Mineo

Posted on January 10, 2026 by sheila

It’s his birthday today.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be a gay kid in the 1950s and see Rebel Without a Cause, particularly Sal Mineo’s performance as “Plato,” the lonely teenage boy, with a picture of Alan Ladd hanging in his locker, and a burgeoning crush on Jim (James Dean), whom he stares at in the high school hallway with a mixture of longing, hope, and fear.

That’s not subtext. That’s text. In a memo, the Warner Brothers censor warned:

“It is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.”

Too late, pallie.

I wrote a lengthy piece on Rebel Without a Cause here. The experience of Rebel remains as intense as the first time I saw it (and it had a huge impact on me as a teenager), only now it’s even more intense, considering the early and violent ends of its three captivating charismatic stars.

Mineo was nominated for an Academy Award for Rebel, and another Academy Award in 1960 for his performance in Exodus, directed by Otto Preminger, based on the best-selling novel by Leon Uris about the formation of the state of Israel. You’d think two Oscar nominations might have helped solidify at least the opportunities coming his way. But that wasn’t to be the case. Work dried up for him in the 1960s (similar to what happened with a lot of 1950s heartthrobs. The 60s were a very weird era for movies.)

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