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The screening of Rambling Rose<\/i> requires a longer essay, which I will write when I am not so busy. Martha Coolidge was at the Fest to present her film, a movie Mitchell and I saw in its first release in Rhode Island. After we saw the movie back then, we went out and had a HUGE conversation about it, a conversation we still remember. <\/p>\n
Robert Duvall has a moment in the film I’ve always considered his best work (and that’s saying something, when you think of his career). During that conversation a million years ago, Mitchell broke the moment DOWN, describing how it operated, the layers of it, how Duvall went deep in the first phase of the moment, and then he went deeper, and then finally he went to the core, the core of himself, and in there there is shame, and guilt, and love, and pain … The moment happens TO him. He doesn’t “act” it. He ENDURES it. <\/p>\n
At any rate, I was determined to ask her a question about that moment, and I did. And her ANSWER … The second they moved on from her answer to the next question I looked at Mitchell, who was sitting there in tears (we made spectacles of ourselves throughout the festival), and he whispered, “That was the most satisfying answer to a question EVER.” We were in awe. We then whispered excitedly to one another about all the new information we had received about this moment we have been talking about for almost THIRTY YEARS. <\/p>\n
She gave us anecdotes, she gave us her plan for filming that moment, she told us how “Bobby” wanted to do it, and the effect that had on Diane Ladd, how they broke up the scene in order to GET to that moment … It was a generous and detailed and process-oriented answer and so revelatory about Duvall. How well he knows his own instrument. <\/p>\n
I thought I was in an alternate universe, especially since Mitchell and I saw this film together in 1991, had a hugely profound conversation about that moment of Duvall’s, and then so many years later, I get to ask a question about that moment – and Mitchell happens to be sitting next to me<\/em>? Cosmic tumblers clicking down … <\/p>\n It was maybe the most satisfying moment of the festival for me. For us. The two weeping excited people in the 3rd row, who have been best friends since we were teenagers, talking about acting with the same enthusiasm now as we did then.<\/p>\n \n The screening of Rambling Rose requires a longer essay, which I will write when I am not so busy. Martha Coolidge was at the Fest to present her film, a movie Mitchell and I saw in its first release in … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/31154087_10155692276442632_7719575116031459328_n.jpg\")
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