I'm glad she was at least able to still be working so recently.
I'm headed to a funeral tomorrow for a lady who used to sing with a band I've played with on and off for the past tennish years; she had Alzheimer's, and in the end it's a blessing that she's passed peacefully.
I'm sad to say I was unaware of her or her work until I saw your notice. An extraordinary photo of her accompanying the obit you link to -- such character! It's just immediately apparent. I instantly liked her and wished I had known her work as it was unfolding. And I recognized her, too, but then later when I saw a selection of photos from her career, it wasn't at all clear that I had ever seen her, and yet you'd think I must have. Strange! I have Peeping Tom, but have never seen it; my Archers survey has proceeded very slowly I'm afraid. After reading the obituary, I decided I most want to see her in Hotel du Lac. What are your favorites?
I don't know where I saw her first; I really noticed her with Patrick Garland's A Doll's House (1973), where she plays Kristine Linde to Denholm Elliott's Nils Krogstad and the two of them almost steal the show from Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins, which is no small feat. Ibsen sets the two of them up as clouded mirrors of Nora and Torvald, old lovers separated once by economics and reunited by bad timing. Her offer of employment at Torvald's bank comes at Krogstad's expense, the first honest job he's been able to hold since his "mistake" that he was never charged with and no one will let him forget. You can see it pleases Torvald to award her this small financial security even as he withdraws it from another; she seems a model employee, reserved, self-possessed, hardworking, no loose ends in her background and certainly no sideswipes with the law, so he can feel just and munificent, rewarding the right kind of people and seeing that the wrong are properly punished. The fact that she's a widow only furthers her respectability as far as he's concerned. To Kristine, though, her marriage was indistinguishable from prostitution: seven years with a man she didn't love just to support her brothers and her mother, before he died and left her with nothing, "not even grief." The man she did love was Krogstad. And when he questions, scathingly, whether she's only re-entered his life to get Nora out of debt with him, she meets him with an unflinching answer: "A woman who's sold herself once for the sake of others doesn't make the same mistake again." That's the one line on which Massey flares up, and it convinces. I think Kristine could very easily be a plot device; she's the spark in the plot threads, Torvald's excuse for firing Krogstad, the immediate effect of which is the calling-in of Nora's IOU and shortly the disintegration of the Helmers' marriage, though she is also Krogstad's reason not to go through with the blackmail. Played by Anna Massey, she's a woman who's spent years keeping her eyes down and her mouth closed; not to be read easily, but not a dissembler, either. Her conversations with Krogstad are frank and direct, devoid of tit-for-tat seduction or moral appeals or any of the strategems of melodrama. She calls herself a drowning woman, but she's more like driftwood to the hand, scarred and buoyant. After that, I'd watch the actress in anything.
Meant to write at the time to thank you for this! That very evening or the next day I ordered a copy of Garland's A Doll's House, and it arrived the day before I left for Readercon, but I haven't watched it yet. Embarrassed to say I've never read or seen a production of that play, so this film will begin my education in Ibsen's work. I at least have copies of this one and Peer Gynt, so. Culture lying in wait!
And Peeping Tom! You've seen it a second time, then, or even more? It keeps getting better? I still wonder what you would make of the two versions of Kieslowski's A Short Film About Love, with their mutually contrary endings, or his Red. I suspect all three films contain homages to Powell's.
Three times; it's still brilliant. I really love that film.
I have to admit, I find the theme disturbing. But that's probably a good reason to see it, right there. And your love for it after three viewings is a major, decisive recommendation. I guess I will to watch the rest of what I have of Powell's work in reverse chronological order, after all.
All right; I'll watch Kieslowski!
I think you might grow to love his work; and would love to hear what you make of it. The original, shorter version of A Short Film About Love is Episode VI of The Decalogue, about a young man in his late teens spying on, and falling in love with, his neighbor in a highrise tenement in Warsaw, a woman in her 30s. The lead actress, Grażyna Szapołowska, was so upset with Kieślowski's ending to the episode that she imagined her own ending and then convinced Kieślowski to film it too! Which became the ending of A Short Film About Love, which is twenty minutes longer than the version in The Decalogue. Both versions are excellent, and their contrary endings are highly provocative in juxtaposition.
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...You live!
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She survived it well; read her memoir. Also they had a son who writes, which I think is neat.
...You live!
I never said I didn't!
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Oh, but she was luminous.
*hugs*
Nine
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I had just seen her the previous week in a new Poirot, and was very glad she was working.
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I'm headed to a funeral tomorrow for a lady who used to sing with a band I've played with on and off for the past tennish years; she had Alzheimer's, and in the end it's a blessing that she's passed peacefully.
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I don't know where I saw her first; I really noticed her with Patrick Garland's A Doll's House (1973), where she plays Kristine Linde to Denholm Elliott's Nils Krogstad and the two of them almost steal the show from Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins, which is no small feat. Ibsen sets the two of them up as clouded mirrors of Nora and Torvald, old lovers separated once by economics and reunited by bad timing. Her offer of employment at Torvald's bank comes at Krogstad's expense, the first honest job he's been able to hold since his "mistake" that he was never charged with and no one will let him forget. You can see it pleases Torvald to award her this small financial security even as he withdraws it from another; she seems a model employee, reserved, self-possessed, hardworking, no loose ends in her background and certainly no sideswipes with the law, so he can feel just and munificent, rewarding the right kind of people and seeing that the wrong are properly punished. The fact that she's a widow only furthers her respectability as far as he's concerned. To Kristine, though, her marriage was indistinguishable from prostitution: seven years with a man she didn't love just to support her brothers and her mother, before he died and left her with nothing, "not even grief." The man she did love was Krogstad. And when he questions, scathingly, whether she's only re-entered his life to get Nora out of debt with him, she meets him with an unflinching answer: "A woman who's sold herself once for the sake of others doesn't make the same mistake again." That's the one line on which Massey flares up, and it convinces. I think Kristine could very easily be a plot device; she's the spark in the plot threads, Torvald's excuse for firing Krogstad, the immediate effect of which is the calling-in of Nora's IOU and shortly the disintegration of the Helmers' marriage, though she is also Krogstad's reason not to go through with the blackmail. Played by Anna Massey, she's a woman who's spent years keeping her eyes down and her mouth closed; not to be read easily, but not a dissembler, either. Her conversations with Krogstad are frank and direct, devoid of tit-for-tat seduction or moral appeals or any of the strategems of melodrama. She calls herself a drowning woman, but she's more like driftwood to the hand, scarred and buoyant. After that, I'd watch the actress in anything.
And I do love Peeping Tom.
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And Peeping Tom! You've seen it a second time, then, or even more? It keeps getting better? I still wonder what you would make of the two versions of Kieslowski's A Short Film About Love, with their mutually contrary endings, or his Red. I suspect all three films contain homages to Powell's.
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Please let me know what you think!
And Peeping Tom! You've seen it a second time, then, or even more? It keeps getting better?
Three times; it's still brilliant. I really love that film.
I suspect all three films contain homages to Powell's.
All right; I'll watch Kieslowski!
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I have to admit, I find the theme disturbing. But that's probably a good reason to see it, right there. And your love for it after three viewings is a major, decisive recommendation. I guess I will to watch the rest of what I have of Powell's work in reverse chronological order, after all.
All right; I'll watch Kieslowski!
I think you might grow to love his work; and would love to hear what you make of it. The original, shorter version of A Short Film About Love is Episode VI of The Decalogue, about a young man in his late teens spying on, and falling in love with, his neighbor in a highrise tenement in Warsaw, a woman in her 30s. The lead actress, Grażyna Szapołowska, was so upset with Kieślowski's ending to the episode that she imagined her own ending and then convinced Kieślowski to film it too! Which became the ending of A Short Film About Love, which is twenty minutes longer than the version in The Decalogue. Both versions are excellent, and their contrary endings are highly provocative in juxtaposition.