{"id":84806,"date":"2014-06-07T16:28:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T20:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=84806"},"modified":"2014-12-21T14:29:15","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T19:29:15","slug":"she-has-a-large-family-about-20-at-last-count-gena-rowlands-on-angelina-jolie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=84806","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;She has a large family \u2026 about 20. At last count.&#8221; &#8211; Gena Rowlands on Angelina Jolie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/V-_cmOB2iRk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Gena Rowlands&#8217; introduction speech to Angelina Jolie&#8217;s receiving of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2013 Governors Awards. Jolie was one of three recipients, and unfortunately, they separated out these awards from the actual Oscar ceremony, a mistake, I think. But let&#8217;s not focus on that. Gena Rowlands is my favorite actress. I am so happy that Criterion asked me to write something about her for their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.criterion.com\/films\/28032-love-streams\" target=\"_blank\">upcoming release of <i>Love Streams<\/i><\/a>. I had no idea that she and Jolie were friends, and when this clip surfaced, I watched it avidly like some sort of forensic psychologist.  Gena has that effect on me. How <i>perfect<\/i> that they are friends. It makes no sense, it makes perfect sense. Gena Rowlands&#8217; speech is old school, with the glass of wine on the podium. Her glamorous hair and nails, her glasses, her lipstick. She always looks fabulous. And I love that she always, always, no matter the occasion, has her own sense of timing. She speaks with her own rhythm, always.  <\/p>\n<p>And I think my favorite line in her speech is: <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And she has to keep that smile on Brad&#8217;s face \u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Old-fashioned. And true. I love the delighted laughs from Pitt and Jolie at the comment. <\/p>\n<p>And just in case you didn&#8217;t see Jolie&#8217;s speech, it&#8217;s a doozy. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2ATgxOp31oI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nIn regards to <i>Maleficent<\/i>: <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1.png\" alt=\"screen shot 2014-01-20 at 5.56.02 pm\" width=\"916\" height=\"387\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-84808\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1.png 916w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1-100x42.png 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1-200x84.png 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/screen-shot-2014-01-20-at-5.56.02-pm1-400x168.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 916px) 100vw, 916px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n[SPOILERS TO FOLLOW]<\/p>\n<p>Early in the film, Maleficent is betrayed by her childhood friend and first love. In order to become King, he knows that Maleficent must die. So one night, when they&#8217;re sitting by the stream, peaceful and happy, he feeds her poison that knocks her out. While she is asleep, he cuts her beautiful huge wings off, and brings them back as a trophy to show he has done the deed. Later, much later, she awakes. She is not sure what happened. She doesn&#8217;t know she has been drugged. But slowly, with dawning horror, she realizes\/senses that something is different.  As she sits up, she feels the lack, the absence.  She crooks her head over her shoulder to glance at her back, and we see the stumps jutting out of her back where her wings used to be. What then happens is a cry of pain and anguish so piercing, and so real and agonized, that I recoiled from it, almost physically.  She screamed out her loss, and her terror, and the moment went on \u2026 and on \u2026 and it was, frankly, unbearable. I never recovered. That wound haunted the rest of the film. There is all kinds of resonance there, all kinds of associations, with the casual brutalization of women&#8217;s bodies, and her cry of pain echoes all of that. I don&#8217;t believe in assigning biographical meaning to fictional roles: it is a huge pet peeve of mine in much writing about actors. &#8220;He was abandoned by his mother &#8211; therefore all of his roles explore that.&#8221; Please. Acting is make-believe. Much of it comes from the imagination. Learn a little bit about the craft of acting before you spout off.  However, it is certainly true that we, in the audience, bring knowledge to the theatre &#8211; that&#8217;s part of how we respond to stars (sometimes it works in the actor&#8217;s favor &#8211; other times, like with people wrapped up in tabloid nonsense, it is a detriment &#8211; we can&#8217;t dissociate ourselves from the tabloid stories.)  But Jolie screaming and crying, in a manner so real it&#8217;s almost amazing that the moment made it into the movie, it&#8217;s that upsetting, made me think of her double mastectomy. I mean, it&#8217;s impossible to not think of it. I didn&#8217;t think of her real-life surgery DURING the moment, because what was going on with her onscreen was far too all-encompassing for me to think much of anything. But afterwards, when I couldn&#8217;t get the moment out of my mind, I thought about it. I want to be clear that I am not assuming she &#8220;drew on&#8221; that experience in creating the role, or any such malarkey. I have no idea. She&#8217;s an actress. She uses her imagination and her empathy and Stanislavski&#8217;s &#8220;magic if&#8221;, whatever you want to call it, to do what she has to do in any given part. But it was a powerful moment on multiple shifting levels, and it is something she obviously would be at least aware of.<\/p>\n<p> Fairy tales are specific and yet universal. And Jolie&#8217;s moment there was both specific and universal. It was specifically itself (Maleficent wailing out the loss of her wings, as well as the betrayal of someone she trusted), and it was also operating on that universal plain (<em>This is what happens. This is what we fear. This is what is out there.<\/em>)  Very few actors today can maneuver fearlessly and easily on that plain of both specificity and universality. Back in the day, the Golden Age day, actors were more comfortable in that realm, at least the great ones were. Stories were written tailored to their respective personae. The John Waynes and Katharine Hepburns and Jimmy Cagneys and Barbara Stanwycks. It&#8217;s the ability to be both totally alive in the moment and also totally aware of the archetypes\/icons\/images you are bringing to each role, and how your persona fits into that. It is a consciousness of <i>who you are<\/i>, and that is just not the style of acting anymore. The style of acting today, the work that gets most congratulated, has to do with transformation and being <i>different<\/i> from role to role. Jolie is not about that. And she&#8217;s smart to resist the trend. <\/p>\n<p>Angelina Jolie has always reminded me a little bit of Joan Crawford in that respect, and that is a total compliment. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732.jpg\" alt=\"Joan Crawford 050732\" width=\"659\" height=\"871\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-84814\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732.jpg 659w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732-75x100.jpg 75w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732-151x200.jpg 151w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Joan-Crawford-050732-302x400.jpg 302w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 659px) 100vw, 659px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\nLike Crawford, she manages her career and her image like a pro. Like Crawford, she understands her persona to such an intimate degree that her choice of roles has rarely been &#8220;off&#8221;. There are a couple of misses, but in general, Jolie is on top of her own material. She doesn&#8217;t work a lot. So many of these young actresses today <i>work too damn much<\/i>. I get the anxiety of why they do that, and I understand the impulse, and, granted, very few of them have the weirdo wattage that Jolie does. Jolie is very careful about what she appears in, just like Crawford was (in her heyday, that is), and also understands who she is.  I&#8217;m not talking about her personal life. I don&#8217;t care about that stuff, and it&#8217;s part of her genius that I don&#8217;t care. All I care about is the work. Who are you as an actress? How do you work? How do you use your work to express yourself?  <\/p>\n<p><i>Maleficent<\/i> is not a perfect film, and I didn&#8217;t like what they did to the actual story of Maleficent (meaning, how they wrapped it up). But the middle section of the film, after that horrifying moment of awakening without wings, when she descends into bitterness, rage, and then comes to understand and embrace her own evil, is fascinating. Entertaining. Every move, every gesture, every flicker of the eye, is both planned and organic. (Not to be tried by amateurs.) It is a highly choreographed performance and yet feels completely conscious and alive. She has this way of making little sniffing sounds of disdain or a little &#8220;hm&#8221; to herself when she sees something interesting, or annoying, or a situation that she could manipulate. She slits her translucent bright green eyes, assesses it all, and murmurs to herself, &#8220;Hm,&#8221; none of her features moving. This is extremely intricate work. This is an actress in TOTAL control of the effects she wants, and yet the performance still is not mannered, artificial. How do you be in control without seeming like you are in control? Again, amateurs shouldn&#8217;t even attempt it. <\/p>\n<p>To quote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=65075\" target=\"_blank\">Sean Connery on playing James Bond<\/a>, &#8220;It is a role for a professional.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Indeed. She kills it. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4.jpg\" alt=\"Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4\" width=\"620\" height=\"334\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-84813\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4-100x53.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4-200x107.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Maleficent-primo-trailer-italiano-e-foto-del-fantasy-con-Angelina-Jolie-4-400x215.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gena Rowlands&#8217; introduction speech to Angelina Jolie&#8217;s receiving of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2013 Governors Awards. Jolie was one of three recipients, and unfortunately, they separated out these awards from the actual Oscar ceremony, a mistake, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=84806\">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":[2326,195,129],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84806"}],"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=84806"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84914,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84806\/revisions\/84914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}