Again: what is so wonderful about these divas is not just how they perform, and their voices – but their specificity – which is so much missing in today’s younger divas – who have a cookie-cutter aspect to their voices. But Bette? In the clip below – the song is pouring out of her – she is not controlling it – (like the weird slapping thing she does with her wrists, when she’s holding onto herself) – she’s obviously controlling her voice and what she does with it (the woman must have vocal cords of steel – just like Tina Turner) – but she is not controlling her experience OF the song. It appears to be happening TO her.
And man, that’s the kind of performing that gives me goosebumps.
Mark Rydell, director of The Rose, said that he felt such strong love for Bette Midler, to this day, that he almost wanted her to be set up as a protected national monument. “She should be protected. LAWS should be passed.” She had never before been asked to do anything along the lines of what she did in The Rose – and he said that she was not only willing to ‘go there’, but fearless in just saying “Yes” to everything he asked of her. At one point he said he went up to her, early on in filming, and gave her one simple note. He said, “In every single scene, I want you to try to fill the bottomless pit that’s inside of you. No matter what the scene is: try to fill that hole.”
Not everyone could take such direction. If you remember that performance, you’ll know how raw and almost unwatchable it is at times, it’s uncomfortable to be in the presence of a person who has a perpetual bottomless pit inside. But that was the demand of the part. She was so fearless in taking his direction that when I went and heard Mark Rydell a couple years ago, tears filled his eyes when speaking of Midler, he still remained that moved by her.
This clip below – of Midler singing singing “You can’t always get what you want” and “I shall be released” is also one of the most incredible live performances I’ve ever seen.
