Spoilers herein.
The holy grail of acting is the multidimensional performance, but this is almost impossible to pull off. Many conditions must coalesce, and only a few actors can rise to the challenge: Penn is the current master with PS Hoffman coming up.
This film takes another, more elegant and though novel, more satisfying approach. Many good actresses are involved. The dimensions are separated into five threads which we are helped to rebraid through the careful efforts of those actresses.
What we have is one prototypical character portrayed five different ways, by actresses that have radically different acting styles. Each focuses entirely on her own weaving, but it is clear that they are aware of the others. Hunter's mouth during the baglady's harangue deliberately quotes Close's during the tarot session. Hunter's stagger after the abortion has a couple steps in there from Close's demented mother. Flockhart's dying lover has some literally copied breaths taken from Hunter's abortion...
No medium is quite like film. All art is a conversation between the artist and the recipient. But only in film is there an explicit party interjected -- the actor -- who can represent either the viewer, or the artist, or neither, or both (or themselves). In addition to the multidimensionality of the actors' roles, the writing here places the actors in shifting stances, shifting through all the choices listed. There is no self-reference; that would distract. everything is focused on me and Garcia, and the connection is manifold.
And what focus! How close to the bones of womanhood can one get? How deeply into the mysteries of connection can one go? Connections between lovers of course, but the feminine nature of the connection that film can afford us between writer and our inner selves. Not since Polanski have I seen such sculptural direction with women. I wish we could see just what was the dialog between director and actress to coax such bare, clean performances.
The writing too. Screen writing is the hardest thing to do when you want to be true. You've got to be fake in just the right way to appear true. Flat truth always is fake. Only the most deft artifice can be true. Only the truly delicate writer can be deft with a woman's heart, which after all is the nexus of truth. Only the writer who knows all the tricks of the film stage can remove the wires and let that honesty fly.
We have here a new talent. You really must see this film.
(Whatever Ms Flockhart is doing on TeeVee is certainly a waste.)
The holy grail of acting is the multidimensional performance, but this is almost impossible to pull off. Many conditions must coalesce, and only a few actors can rise to the challenge: Penn is the current master with PS Hoffman coming up.
This film takes another, more elegant and though novel, more satisfying approach. Many good actresses are involved. The dimensions are separated into five threads which we are helped to rebraid through the careful efforts of those actresses.
What we have is one prototypical character portrayed five different ways, by actresses that have radically different acting styles. Each focuses entirely on her own weaving, but it is clear that they are aware of the others. Hunter's mouth during the baglady's harangue deliberately quotes Close's during the tarot session. Hunter's stagger after the abortion has a couple steps in there from Close's demented mother. Flockhart's dying lover has some literally copied breaths taken from Hunter's abortion...
No medium is quite like film. All art is a conversation between the artist and the recipient. But only in film is there an explicit party interjected -- the actor -- who can represent either the viewer, or the artist, or neither, or both (or themselves). In addition to the multidimensionality of the actors' roles, the writing here places the actors in shifting stances, shifting through all the choices listed. There is no self-reference; that would distract. everything is focused on me and Garcia, and the connection is manifold.
And what focus! How close to the bones of womanhood can one get? How deeply into the mysteries of connection can one go? Connections between lovers of course, but the feminine nature of the connection that film can afford us between writer and our inner selves. Not since Polanski have I seen such sculptural direction with women. I wish we could see just what was the dialog between director and actress to coax such bare, clean performances.
The writing too. Screen writing is the hardest thing to do when you want to be true. You've got to be fake in just the right way to appear true. Flat truth always is fake. Only the most deft artifice can be true. Only the truly delicate writer can be deft with a woman's heart, which after all is the nexus of truth. Only the writer who knows all the tricks of the film stage can remove the wires and let that honesty fly.
We have here a new talent. You really must see this film.
(Whatever Ms Flockhart is doing on TeeVee is certainly a waste.)