David Denby
"Wire hangers? Wire hangers?…. " If you should hear these lines (or "… Tina, bring me the ax!") coming from the apartment next door, do not be alarmed for your neighbor's sanity. He is merely entertaining friends with Faye Dunaways's big moments from Mommie Dearest: Here is Dunaway, as Joan Crawford circa 1945, making one of her inafamous "night raids" on the bedroom of her adopted children, Christina and Christopher. Her face covered in cold cream, she looks like a Kabuki madwoman as she lovingly caresses the fluffy pink dresses in Christina's closet. But then, in a bit of acting that scales the heights of wretched excess, Dunaway's face slowly changes into a mask of fury, her eyes glinting, her lips curling horribly. The offensive, disgusting metal object has been discovered under one of the delicious little dresses….
“…. [W]hatever Faye Dunaway, campaigning for an Oscar, may say to interviewers about her admiration for Joan Crawford, only the most gullible could believe she feels much sympathy for that lady. Acting high on the hog, she plays Crawford as a grotesque harpy--a monster….
“…. Here and there the film makes a few perfunctory attempts to understand Joan Crawford's cruelties, but the emphasis is on Grand Guignol spectacle, with Dunaway shrieking, thrashing, groveling, wielding an ax or a gigantic set of pruning shears--carrying on, in fact, much as Joan Crawford did at the end of her career, when she became a parody of herself in pictures like Strait-Jacket.
“Here and there Dunaway captures something ghastly about Joan Crawford--the sheer strength of will that went into those squared shoulders, upraised face, and devouring smile; the grand-style phoniness that made Crawford, after her vivacious early performances, almost unbearably irritating, even laughable. Dunaway's re-creation of Crawford (at times the physical resemblance is amazing) suggests that nothing about the star was genuine but a drive for power. Certainly she doesn't indicate any respect for Crawford as an actress, and she overplays even the smallest domestic scenes, as if to suggest that Crawford, always performing, had lost all sense of what a human being was. No, there's no admiration for Crawford here….”
David Denby
New York, September 28, 1981
“…. [W]hatever Faye Dunaway, campaigning for an Oscar, may say to interviewers about her admiration for Joan Crawford, only the most gullible could believe she feels much sympathy for that lady. Acting high on the hog, she plays Crawford as a grotesque harpy--a monster….
“…. Here and there the film makes a few perfunctory attempts to understand Joan Crawford's cruelties, but the emphasis is on Grand Guignol spectacle, with Dunaway shrieking, thrashing, groveling, wielding an ax or a gigantic set of pruning shears--carrying on, in fact, much as Joan Crawford did at the end of her career, when she became a parody of herself in pictures like Strait-Jacket.
“Here and there Dunaway captures something ghastly about Joan Crawford--the sheer strength of will that went into those squared shoulders, upraised face, and devouring smile; the grand-style phoniness that made Crawford, after her vivacious early performances, almost unbearably irritating, even laughable. Dunaway's re-creation of Crawford (at times the physical resemblance is amazing) suggests that nothing about the star was genuine but a drive for power. Certainly she doesn't indicate any respect for Crawford as an actress, and she overplays even the smallest domestic scenes, as if to suggest that Crawford, always performing, had lost all sense of what a human being was. No, there's no admiration for Crawford here….”
David Denby
New York, September 28, 1981
posted by Intersections28 - David Gibson at
3:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home