Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 14, 2017 23:14:57 GMT
Seriously, I love these extended discussions and dialogues, so thank you for them. As I've written before, I don't think we really disagree here. Good acting is good acting, and believability a very important feature thereof (even if, in my opinion, not the most important).
Thus Stanwyck's break with her own--shall we say?--"persona" (and I know that's not the most apt word, as "persona" probably better refers to the individuals to whom you referred earlier who make the roles them instead of making themselves the roles) ends up leaning more towards reality than artificiality, as in All About Eve and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? for Bette and Stella Davis and The Great Man's Lady for Barbara. (I must confess I'd never seen--or even heard of--the latter.) This is (I think--correct me if I'm wrong) the unity of performance and performer on which you wrote so eloquently before.
Perhaps it is that unity which breaks the boundaries of reality and artifice that is naturally a part of cinema. Hmm... Food for thought.
I hadn't heard of The Great Man's Lady either, until I saw it a year or so ago. It's not normally the sort of thing that's up my alley: a saga of western expansion and empire-building spanning decades, full of pioneers, prospectors, politicians, railroad barons and gamblers - as well as hardship, tragedy, betrayal and redemption - that I found surprisingly satisfying. Based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns and directed by William Wellman, it adopts an epic tone in spite of its 90-minute compactness, and also features Joel McCrae, Brian Donlevy and a raft of familiar character players (Thurston Hall, Lloyd Corrigan, Irving Bacon, George Chandler and Mary Treen among them).
Did you catch that image I posted earlier of Stanwyck in her centenarian makeup? Remarkable for '42, huh? She rather resembles Grandma Moses (appearing below for comparison).
