Post by dirtypillows on Dec 1, 2020 4:21:38 GMT
Jane Fonda's Bree Daniel, on the other hand...
Fonda is way too cold and rigid. She isn't a real and organic actress, as talented as she was. She was the Streep of the 70's. She play acts. She apparently wanted Streep for Milford's role in Coming Home - 78' but she wasn't available.
I watched California Suite - 78' last night, have seen several times and find it enjoyable despite its myriad of flaws. What a snarky, snide and nasty bitch her character was here. Despite Simon's over-written, smart alec, yet witty dialog/exchanges, this role did Fonda absolutely no favors whatsoever. I'm not surprised the warm and boyish looking Alan Alda character left her. She might have thought at the time that playing a successful, intelligent and catty business woman who could hold her own with men, was a step in the right direction for women's empowerment at the time. She just came over as a controlling and manipulating shrew. Doing Nine To Five - 80' must have been a breath of fresh air for her. Even that said, she is still left in the dust behind the more breezy and natural Tomlin and Parton.
I do find Jane Fonda a cold and rigid presence in general. I'm not too familiar with her pre-Barbarella output, though I thought she was good in the 1962 "Walk on the Wild Side". And I didn't like "Coming Home" (Jon Voight was good) or "California Suite" or "Julia" that much, and I thought that Fonda gave uninspired performances in the first two and was somewhat better in the 1977 movie.
Though I've never found Jane Fonda or her acting style similar to Meryl Streep. Streep is an excellent mimic and acts from the outside in, whereas Fonda just seems tense most of the time. And as more or less lukewarm as I am regarding Jane Fonda, I thought she has been excellent on the screen exactly twice - in "Klute" and, especially, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Fonda seemed to be drawing on something inside herself - anger, maybe. And I don't believe it was a coincidence that the two characters she played in these two movies, Bree and Gloria, were cynical and embittered people themselves.
I kind of feel sorry for Jane Fonda herself. Her dad, Henry, seemed like am ice-cold person and her mom committed suicide when Jane was an adolescent. (Supposedly, she found out about her mother's suicide when a classmate maliciously handed her a movie star magazine with that featured a story on her mother's suicide. What a horrifying way to find out sonething like this!) It's my feeling that Jane's biggest liability as an actress is her inability to relax.
I agree with what Pauline Kael said and that was that there wasn't a moment where you could detect a false moment in Fonda's characterizations. She was completely dedicated to these two female characters.
I agree with what you said, re: 9 to 5. While Parton and Tomlin, in particular, were the ones that got the laughs (excluding all the very funny supporting characters), playing 3rd banana in a funny, sometimes silly in a straight up comedy must have been a real breather for Fonda, who appeared to have no problem taking backseat to her two more naturally funny co-stars.
