{"id":184717,"date":"2023-01-18T12:04:03","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T17:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=184717"},"modified":"2023-06-04T15:48:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T19:48:07","slug":"backting-the-continuing-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=184717","title":{"rendered":"Backting, the continuing story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>William Wyler knew Bette Davis could say more with her back than most actresses can say with their faces. This is why Davis plays the majority (literally, it&#8217;s got to be about 75-80%) of <i>The Letter<\/i> with her back to the camera. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.filmcomment.com\/blog\/present-tense-back-ting\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I wrote a whole piece for Film Comment about it<\/a>.) So here they are again &#8211; William Wyler and Bette Davis &#8211; creating so many &#8211; SO MANY &#8211; great backting moments. It&#8217;s so DELIBERATE, so POWERFUL.<br \/>\n<P><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting3-e1674061336489.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"520\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184722\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting3-e1674061336489.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting3-e1674061336489-200x149.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting3-e1674061336489-400x297.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting3-e1674061336489-100x74.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-e1674061328211.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"523\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184724\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-e1674061328211.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-e1674061328211-200x149.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-e1674061328211-400x299.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-e1674061328211-100x75.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-2-e1674061319470.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"523\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184723\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-2-e1674061319470.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-2-e1674061319470-200x149.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-2-e1674061319470-400x299.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-2-e1674061319470-100x75.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-4-e1674061368687.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"523\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184721\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-4-e1674061368687.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-4-e1674061368687-200x149.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-4-e1674061368687-400x299.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-4-e1674061368687-100x75.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting5-e1674061408254.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"513\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184719\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting5-e1674061408254.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting5-e1674061408254-200x147.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting5-e1674061408254-400x293.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting5-e1674061408254-100x73.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-6-e1674061417897.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"520\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-184718\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-6-e1674061417897.jpeg 700w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-6-e1674061417897-200x149.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-6-e1674061417897-400x297.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/backting-6-e1674061417897-100x74.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><p>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<small><em>Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here&#8217;s a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.venmo.com\/u\/Sheila-OMalley-3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">my Venmo account<\/a>. And I&#8217;ve launched a Substack, <a href=\"https:\/\/sheilaomalley.substack.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you&#8217;d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Wyler knew Bette Davis could say more with her back than most actresses can say with their faces. This is why Davis plays the majority (literally, it&#8217;s got to be about 75-80%) of The Letter with her back to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=184717\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,4],"tags":[2695,269,2200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184717"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184752,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184717\/revisions\/184752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}