Saturday, July 03, 2021
Mommie Dearest
- Commentary: If this movie isn't the most controversial movie I own, it's very close to the top of that list. Check out the Wikipedia article on it linked below in the usual place and you'll see what I mean. By "controversial", I don't mean "universally panned". There are those who unabashedly love it (I belong in this category), those who four-square despise or dismiss it (think Roger Ebert in the review to which the title of this post is linked), and people who fall at all points in between.
It's not just the structure of the movie that provokes comment. Everything, including Faye Dunaway's performance (which even she has expressed reservations about), the audacity of basing it on a controversial memoir, the directing, the editing, the choice of material upon which the screenplay was based, even scene placement comes up for comment.
Well, sorry, everyone, I love, love, love this movie! I've been wanting to own it for awhile, despite the fact that I neglected to include it in Movies I've Seen, Do Not Own but Can't Forget. Ever since I began hankering for it, it's been in my "very pricey" category. Last week I noticed that, while still in that category, the price had dropped by five bucks (it didn't drop, at all, during any of those recent, much ballyhooed sales on certain purchasing sites), so I decided, okay, I'm going for it.
I received it yesterday. Watched it last night. Rarely have I been so satisfied with a purchase! The movie is so over-the-top that I was surprised to discover that, those scenes and moments I remembered previous to purchase, well, I'd remembered them exactly!
Truthfully, I'm sorry to read (in the article pegged to the title, above) that Dunaway has reservations not only about her performance, but, as well, the directing of that performance. I am not one of those who loves this movie because it's "campy", as it's been labeled numerous times, although I understand why it is so labeled. By the time this movie was initially released, Joan Crawford had become camp. She was partially responsible for this, considering the movie choices she made later in her life (think Trog and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the latter of which, in the words of the attached Wikipedia article: "...spawned a succession of horror/thriller films featuring psychotic older women, later dubbed the psycho-biddy subgenre...").
I don't consider this movie campy. I don't necessarily consider it to be the unvarnished history of Joan Crawford's life, either. It was, after all, based on a book written by an abused and conflicted daughter. But, let's face it, people. Those who lead lives that glitter, especially those who choose those lives, in part, because of the glitter they'll don, well, the "truths" of their lives will always partly distract, as well as attract. That is, in large part, why we, as members of the audience, are hungry to know more about them and doomed to never know the unglittered truth.
Here's the interesting part: If you own a copy of Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce © 2005 Turner Entertainment Company, check out the documentary profile included as a special feature, Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star. Although there is some information in the movie that is not addressed in the documentary (how she treated her first two children, for instance), nothing in the documentary refutes, or is refuted by, anything in Mommie Dearest. I can attest to this because, immediately after I watched the movie, last night, I was driven to watch the documentary, precisely because I wondered about this. The immediately previous link, by the way, is to a different article about the movie; here is yet another, full of interesting backstory. It looks like no one can get enough of this movie, which is fine with me because I thoroughly enjoyed it, last night, and expect to, again.
There are a couple of other articles at RogerEbert.com that meditate on the movie, while it was still in production, by Roger Ebert (although it was published after the movie was released and after Ebert's final review of the movie) and many years after it was released, by Angelica Jade Bastien. No matter what your reaction to the movie, they make for intriguing reading, especially the second article.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Faye Dunaway Joan Crawford Diana Scarwid Christina Crawford Steve Forrest Gregg Savitt Howard Da Silva Louis B. Mayer Rutanya Alda Carol Ann Harry Goz Alfred Steele Michael Edwards Ted Gilbert Jocelyn Brando Barbara Bennett Priscilla Pointer Margaret Lee Chadwick Xander Berkeley Christopher Crawford Belita Moreno Belinda Rosenberg Alice Nunn Helga
Here's the Wikipedia write-up for this movie.
Release Date: 1981
Directed by Frank Perry.
Labels: aging, biography2, coming-of-age2, dramaD, faye-dunaway, historical4, period6, popcorn-and-soda6
