I assume this blog is coming to an end shortly.  I enjoyed our class so much.  Thank you to everyone!  This was my first class after an eight year break.  Thanks to Dr. Kaufmann for laying out the course in a way that made it fun to learn.  Thanks to my brother Karl for taking this class with me.  This class was "Yar", for sure! (For anyone that missed that on the midterm, it meant 'quick to the helm' in our film "A Philadelphia Story." I think "yar" will be replacing the word "tight" in my vocabulary.)  Cheers!

The Women of Joel and Ethan Coen

            Joel and Ethan Coen are unique in that both brothers typically work as a team when directing, writing, and producing their films, but even as a pair, they exhibit a certain style throughout their films.  They deal in similar characters, situations, music, and theme as their film careers progress.  One of the major recurring details of many of their films is a strong female role.  These strong characters come in a variety of types from feminists, to police officers, to the elderly, to children, to women who can’t get pregnant, and women who can’t seem to stop having children.  O Brother, Where Art Thou, The Big Lebowski, and Intolerable Cruelty are three very different films that exemplify how the Coen’s female characters navigate through a man’s world in very different ways to obtain their desires.

O Brother seemingly portrays three men escaping from prison in order to find a treasure that will soon be covered by the flooding of a reservoir.  Based on Homer’s Odyssey, O Brother depicts similar struggles endured by Odysseus through the eyes of its character Ulysses Everett McGill, but in a very different fashion.  Set in the mid to late thirties, O Brother allegorically uses a one eyed man to represent the Cyclops, three singing women to for the Sirens, and the Baptists representing Homer’s Lotus Eaters (Rowell, 244-5). 

            Unlike the Odyssey, O Brother, revolves not around the journey, but around Penny, Everett’s ex-wife.  His reason for breaking out of prison is to stop her from wedding her fiancé.  Set in the backdrop of the nineteen thirties, women had little choice but to find a man to support them.  Basinger points out in Woman Chases Man (1937) that Miriam Hopkins has to prove herself in some form of masculinity by telling a potential employer that she left her fiancé to pursue a career in a man’s world (451).  So too does Penny by divorcing her husband after he goes to prison for fraud when he attempts to practice medicine without a license.  With seven children, she is forced to seek someone who will provide for her family.  She subsequently tells her children that their father was killed by a train.  Upon their reuniting, Everett attempts to steal her away from her new fiancé by telling her that he has traveled far to be with his wife and daughters to which Penny replies, “Vernon (her fiancé) here’s got a job.  He has prospects.  He’s bona fide.  What are you?”  He tells her that that she can’t marry him, and she says, “I can, I am, and I will tomorrow.  I got to think about the little Warvey gals.  They look to me for answers.  Vernon can support them, and buy them lessons on the clarinet.  The only good thing you ever did for the gals was to get hit by that train” (O Brother, Where Art Thou).

            Here, Penny is doing what she can to survive in a world that oppresses women.  The Coens like to point out that even when men think that they run the world, women still do a fair amount of controlling.  Everett later exclaims, “Woman is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man” (O’ Brother Where Art Thou).  He knows that he will have to conform to her wishes if he stands a chance to win her over.  Later he tells her, “I want to be what you want me to be.”  She refuses his advances until he is proven to have prospects.  Even though Penny finally has all the control at the end, she is shown walking her seven children, each holding onto a length of twine that hearkens back to the chain gang at the beginning of the film.  Even though she has some power, she is still imprisoned by her gender (Rowell, 256-7).

            The Coen’s female character in The Big Lebowski, Maude, is a very strong and independent character that prides herself on the absence of men in her life.  It does help that she comes from money, and it is very interesting when it is revealed that her father has no money of his own.  Jeffery Lebowski assumes that her father has all of the money judging from his house, accomplishments, and position of authority, yet the money belonged to Maude’s mother.  Maude gives her father an allowance because he likes to present himself in a particular fashion, but he is at the mercy of the foundation run by her.  Her emasculated father also parades around his young trophy wife and porn actress, Bunny, as a badge of honor until she demands too much of his money.  Maude despises Bunny, not because she is married to her father, but because she goes against everything that Maude believes in.  Maude doesn’t believe in needing to obtain a man by means of sex, yet for the purposes of having a child, she is ultimately left no choice.

            Maude also resorts to stereotypical assumptions of men when talking to Jeffery.  She assumes that men have a problem with the word “vagina,” but don’t have a problem referring to their own male member with a variety of slang names.  When asked if he liked sex, a puzzled Jeffery refers back to the conversation about his rug.  She has a difficult time baiting him into making sexual advances towards her, which seems to dispel her assumptions about him as a man.  Even after dropping Jeffery’s robe and standing naked over him, saying, “Jeffery.  Love me,” he replies, “My robe.”  It would appear that he is somewhat uninterested in sex outside a drug induced hallucination when he is drugged by Jacky Treehorn.

            The role reversals in this film show how far Hollywood and society has come to view women.  Regardless of the sexually uninterested Jeffery, he still fears castration at the hands of the Nihilists.  Man’s worst fear is also reiterated in their conversation with Larry the car thief.  The male member is an extension of masculinity, but it is unclear if it has much sexual relevance for Jeffery.  Of course given the opportunity for sex, he doesn’t pass it up, but he doesn’t actively solicit it.  Maude on the other hand, knows that women only have to ask, but it isn’t until Jeffery is deemed suitable for procreation that she pursues the act.  He initially assumes that he got lucky until she reveals her true intentions.  “What did you think this was about, fun and games?  I want a child.”  She further exerts her independence by saying, "Look Jeffery, I don’t want a partner.  In fact I don’t want the father to be someone I have to see socially, or will have any interest in raising the child himself.”  This independence is in stark contrast to Bunny who owes a lot of money to known pornographers, and is owned, in a sense, by these people as well as her husband.

            The idea of leading men around by their penises is also examined in Intolerable Cruelty.  Marilyn marries Rex Rexroth for the sole purpose of exploiting his penchant for philandering.  She plans to “have [her husband’s ass] stuffed and mounted” (Rowell, 317).  However, it is understood by him that there is a mutual agreement between he and Marilyn that exists, making this type of behavior acceptable for both of them, yet she never indulges.  She hires a private investigator to obtain hard evidence against her husband as a means of divorcing him and keeping a sizable portion of his estate.  Marilyn’s is financially motivated and doesn’t appear to have much use for men unless there is some sort of payoff for her. 

The Coen Brothers depict her as a woman who is an expert at manipulating men until they present her with a challenge.  Rowels describes, “If husbands are routinely unfaithful cads or sexual perverts, women are financiers of sorts looking for ‘venture capitalist’ husbands” (318).  Rex Rexroth hires Miles Massey, a highly successful divorce attorney notorious for winning divorce settlements and leaving the opposition penniless.  Despite Rex Rexroth’s precarious position, he wins the case sending Marilyn out the door with nothing.  During the proceedings, she becomes aware that Miles is interested in pursuing her romantically.  She sets out to exploit this interest for her own personal gain again.  This time, she succeeds in marrying Miles and thwarting the prenuptial agreement they had both signed by tricking him into thinking that she was so rich that she didn’t need his money.  Her revenge lies in the settlement she is about to get in her divorce as well as his broken heart.

Women in this film are depicted as man eating and money hungry.  Sex is meaningless.  Marilyn friend Sara says, “Getting laid is like playing financial Russian roulette” (Intolerable Cruelty).  Sara is perpetually sick with a stomach ulcer and has difficulty enjoying her wealth.  Once a person has become rich, they become imprisoned by the wealth and condemned to celibacy.  It asks the question whether one could be happy with wealth alone.  When the Miles and Marilyn do get together each having significant wealth, love becomes difficult to believe when it has been completely absent throughout the film (Rowll, 324).  Traditionally, it has been thought that men will give love to get sex while women will give sex to get love.  In this film, women are willing to give sex and the illusion of love to get money and then throw the other two out.  It is woman taking charge and refusing to get screwed for something that requires more screwing to maintain it.  With money, one becomes self-sufficient and independent.    

The Coen brothers enjoy women of power in their films.  Holly Hunter’s character in Raising Arizona is a police officer who marries a convict and then demands that he steal a baby for her.  Francis McDormand in Fargo plays a pregnant police officer pursuing some very dangerous criminals.  Hailee Steinfeld is a strong child in True Grit pushing an old U.S. Martial across the country to find her father’s murderer.  The list goes on and on.  The Coens continue to include these characters in their films to make the point that regardless of time, circumstance, location, and age, women have power on some level in all situations.  In this regard, Joel and Ethan are broadening the possibilities for women in Hollywood.

Works Cited

Basinger, Jeanine. A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960. Hanover,

            NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

Coen, Joel, dir. The Big Lebowski. Writ. Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen. 1998. Film.

Coen, Joel, dir. O Brother, Where Art Thou. Writ. Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen. 2000. Film.

Coen, Joel, dir. Intolerable Cruelty. Writ. Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, and John Romano. 2003. Film.

Rowell, Erica. The Brothers Grim, The Films Of Ethan And Joel Coen. 1st. Lanham: Scarecrow

Press, INC., 2007.

Fargo Questions for the Panel

1. The people portrayed in the movie were overly nice to almost anyone they met. They were constantly head nodding to emphasize their agreement or approval or endorsement of something and said,“yah” and “you betcha,” it seemed every time they spoke using a sing-song manner. Well... almost everyone except Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud that is! I know the Coen brothers grew up near the Twin Cities. Was their portrayal of the local citizens even close to reality?
2. The chief of the Brainerd police, Marge Gunderson, was an extremely complex character. At first blush she seems a little plain and well suited to a sleepy Minnesota town. However, once she visits the crime scene she quickly and correctly works out the triple murder sequence of events and realizes the one clue about the car indicating that the license plate was from a dealer’s car. Do you think Gunderson was a little out of place in a town like Brainerd?

Frances McDormand - Fargo (1996)

Frances Louise McDormand was the leading lady in the Coen Brothers’ film Fargo. She was born in 1957 in Chicago. A Canadian Disciples of Christ Minister by the name of Vernan McDormand and his housewife Noreen adopted and raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh; Monessen, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of three adopted McDormand children.

Frances earned a bachelor’s in Theater from Bethany College in 1979 and a Master’s from Yale’s School of Drama in 1982. Her career started in theater, but she soon obtained prominent roles in movies with the first starring role being Blood Simple in 1984. She ended up marrying the filmmaker later that year, Joel Coen. Since, she has frequently collaborated with her husband and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films. She once lived in an apartment with Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegal and Holly Hunter. Frances and Joel have one adopted son, Pedro, who was born in Paraguay, 1994.

Despite winning critical acclaim for her performance in Blood Simple, it would be four years, until a cameo in the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona (1987) and other various small roles, before she would be featured in another major film production. In the meatime, McDormand’s stage career flourished, and she received a Tony nomination for the 1987 Broadway production of ‘A Streetcar named Desire’. She also did periodic television work, co-starring on the short lived detective drama Legwork (1987) and appeared in a recurring role on Hill Street Blues.

In addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award four times - Mississippi Burning (1988), Fargo (1996), for which she won the Best Actress Award, Almost Famous (2000) and North Country (2005). Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the opposite of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, Frances McDormand dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo.

Her Oscar-winning role in Fargo as Marge Gunderson was ranked #33 in the American Film Institute's Heroes list in their 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains, and is ranked #27 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of all Time

Recently she has worked in Madagascar 3 (2012), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon (2011) and Burn After Reading (2008).




Information gathered on www.imdb.com and www.fandango.com

"Exaggerated" Woman in a Man's World

I argued that we might include Jackie Brown as one of Basinger's "exaggerated women" and that the opening sequence demonstrates her movement between the unreal and real categories as she descends from moviestar Pam Grier to late-for-work Jackie Brown.
   I noted Phyllis in Double Indemnity as a woman in a "man's" film, and the same can be said of Jackie Brown, even if the film bears her name.  Unlike Phyllis, however, I don't think Jackie is inherently dangerous to anyone who comes in contact with her.  I don't think, for example, that Max needs to worry about her.  The fact that he survives the final encounter unscathed more or less proves that.  Max certainly doesn't blame her, as he says, "I'm 56 I can't blame anybody for anything I do."  He had accepted the danger he knew helping her would entail--and knows the danger doesn't come from her (unlike Phyllis), but from her situation and her struggle to extricate herself from it.
      Melanie might be a better candidate for femme fatale if we felt the need for one.  She's clearly looking out for no. 1 and actively working against Ordell.  Significantly, Louis is trustworthy--even if not bright enough to be of much use when it's needed--and immediately reports Mel's treachery.  Mel is no Phyllis.  She seems more a danger to herself than others.  Interestingly, what does her in is her insistence on flaunting her superiority to the men and open defiance of their orders.  It's hard to imagine Phyllis getting shot as the result of a tiff over parking, though it's also the nature of Tarantino's more mundane and ultimately more chaotic cinematic world.
   Notice also that Jackie's deception is more sleight of hand magic than outright deceit.  One of the surprising elements of her plan is that she tells everyone what she's doing (except for the crucial part of course where she fails to hand over the cash, or at least the bulk of it).  Remember Ordell's dismay when she mentions that she's divulged Ordell's plan to the Feds--yet convinces him it's the only course that will accomplish his aims. Again, unlike the usual femme fatales, who always play their cards close to the vest, Jackie holds hers for all to see.  Her game is more a three card monte which has everyone looking everywhere except where the money really is.  
    Some of this is predicated on perspective:  if this were Ordell's story, for example, she could be seen as the femme fatale, though from that view she's more of an adversary from the beginning (he does initially try to murder her after all) than the alluring woman who leads him to his doom.

Pam Grier Bio

Pam Grier was born Pamela Suzette Grier on May 26, 1949 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was born to Clarence Grier, an Air Force mechanic, and Gwendolyn Samuels, a nurse. When she was younger, her family moved around a lot - spending some time in England - before settling down in Denver, Colorado where Pam grew up. The family lived in a rough neighborhood there. Grier is of mixed heritage - African-American, Cheyenne Indian, Hispanic, Chinese, & Filipino. She has never been married and does not have any children.

Grier's film debut came in 1971 in the film Big Doll House as a prison inmate. Prior to that, she was in a couple beauty pageants, including the 1967 Colorado competition for Miss Universe where she placed third. Her breakthrough role came in 1973 in the film Coffy, as a nurse turned vigilante who goes after drug dealers when her sister becomes addicted. The film's slogan is "the baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town". Later on, she starred in Foxy Brown as a high-class hooker seeking revenge after her boyfriend is murdered. Another notable film is 1975's Sheba Baby. During this part of the 1970s, Grier was a staple of the "blaxploitation" genre of films that highlighted the society ills that still were happening in black neighborhoods - drugs, violence, prostitution - well into the civil rights era and beyond. After the film genre was no longer popular, Grier had a low period in her career with few notable films.

During the 1980s, Grier was in Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) with Paul Newman and Above the Law (1988) with Steven Seagal. She also had roles in the television shows Crime Story and Miami Vice. In 1988, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which she talks about in her 2010 memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts (written with Andrea Cagan) and is currently in remission.

In the 1990s, Grier's career was in another low period without any standout roles. In 1996, she was in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks. Her career was revitalized in 1997 with the release of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, where she is an airline attendant who gets caught in the middle of drug and violence issues. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. In the 2000s, she had roles in the television shows The L-Word and Smallville.

In 2010, Grier released her aforementioned memoir, in which she gave details about her personal life that had not been shared before. When she was young, she had two incidences of sexual assault which she had not discussed prior to writing the book. Grier's memoir also talks about her former paramours, which include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Richard Pryor, and Freddie Prinze.

References:
Pam Grier - IMDb
Pam Grier - Biography.com
Pam Grier - New York Times

Photo Source:
Pam Grier - MSBush Wikispaces (Link from Google Image Search)

Mike Nichols and Silkwood with Meryl Streep

Have you ever wondered who Mike Nichols was or what the movie Silkwood is all about?  Spanning from 1931 till the present 2012 we will find a connection between the Director and the Film, which was made in1983.  Mike Nichols was the director of the American motion picture film “Silkwood” that stared Meryl Streep, Cher and Kurt.

Mike Nichols an actor, American motion picture film, television, stage director, writer, producer and comedian; was born in Berlin, Germany November 6, 1931 with the name Michael Igor Peschkowsky. His grandparents had moved to Germany in 1917 from Russia as Jews and were allowed to leave Germany during Hitler’s rule just before the war started, due to a treaty with Russia (Beloff, 2007). As an immigrant at the age of seven he and his family sought a better life in the United States. As a child he attended a school with poor boys and wealthy girls, so he remembers.  His first recollection of a film was a classmates mother gave them tickets to “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which he was so enthralled with he didn’t even get up or talk during either of the two intermissions (Nichols Director, 2012). His father a doctor and a mother who was always ill and in the hospital, he lived a disconnected life, always searching for a connection to parents.  His father died due to radiation contracted while treating patients, not knowing what the effects of radiation would due (Berloff, 2007). 

He later became a citizen of the United States in 1944. His formal education was at the University of Chicago in 1550-53 and later studied acting with a renowned instructor Lee Strasberg in 1954 in New York (Beloff, 2007). During school he met a lady named Elaine May in which they became very good friends and soon turned their comedic fascinations and anomalies into a traveling comedy production. As the years progressed he developed a love for directing productions as he learned from Lee Stasberg. 

Within his personal life, he has been married four times and has three children.  His present wife, whom he married in 1988, is news anchor:  Diane Sawyer (Mike Nichols Director, 2012). His career has spanned 60 years, with a large arsenal of awards and recognitions including one of a handful of celebrities to have garnered the coveted quartet of an Oscar(2), Grammy, Tony (7) and Emmy(2) throughout his career.  Receiving the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003; chairing the emeritus non-profit organization Friends in Deed, founded in 1991 to provide support for individuals of life –threatening illnesses (Berloff, 2007).  As a developed writer, Nichols wrote:  Women are from Pluto, and Men are from Uranus (1996), Real Men Bealch Downward (1993), and Life and Other Ways to Kill Time (1988) (Berloff, 2007). 

Nichols decorated with directing and producing awards, numbering 35 plus; his accomplishments contained 16 Broadway acting and directing series; 17 films, and 3 TV movie series that  won him a wealth of awards.  A list of  comedy productions include:  Barefoot in the Park (1963), Luv (1964), The Odd Couple (1965, Plaza Suite (19680, The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1971), The Real Thing (1984) and Monty Python’s Spamolot (2005), The Gin Game (1977) and the latest Death of A Salesmen (2012) (Britannica,2012).  His films include: Who’d afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), Catch-22 (1970), Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), edge (1990), Wolf (1994), The Birdcage (1996), Closer (2004), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) (Britannica, 2012).   His works in TV included Wit (2001), Angels in America (2003) (Britannica, 2012). 

His focuses within his productions have a common denominator of “absurdities and horrors of modern life relative to his personal relationships” (Mike Nichols Director, 2012).   Marked with a cynical commentary on contemporary life, Nicholas typically often underlined his movies with humor (Britannica, 2012).  As J. Rank commented in his article, so well written, “In clubs, recording, radio, television or Broadway, Nichols aimed at literate, self-awareness with the audiences, gleeful anatomized family relationships, with men and women dueling in post-Freudian combat, by turns straying from the marriage bond and clinging to it for dear life” (Rank, 2012).  Nicholas was a skilled Broadway director devising a particular flair for innovative stage business and eliciting unusually polished performances (Rank, 2012).  Generally dissections of the American psyche; Nicholas begins several of his comedies, and then evolves into mordant individual characters isolated from the landscapes of their lives.  Manufacturing illusions to shield themselves against the realities of society whose values they alone perceive as neurotic or murderous (Rank, 2012).

            Nichols movies are normally pure fiction, yet in the movie Silkwood,  he changed his standards and moved into reality, being closer to the surface of the plots (Rank, 2012).  Silkwood is a movie he directed with writer Alice Arien and Nora Ephron.  He co-produced with Buzz Hirsch, Joel Tuber, Larry Cano, Michael Hausman and tom Stovall (Silkwood, 2012). The main actress is Meryl Streep playing Karen Silkwood, who a twenty- eight year old laboratory technician was working at Kerr-McGee, an Oklahoma plant, producing fuel rods (Maychick, 1984). She died under mysterious circumstances surrounding a car crash, after contracting and being diagnosed, with contamination of nuclear radioactivity. Unsolved is her death, centering around the mystery of  hushing her outspoken voice as she was spreading word throughout the factory and state  about the dangers of nuclear energy. Her co-star is Cher playing her girlfriend and roommate, as well as Kurt Russell playing her boyfriend and second roommate.  In the movie she is a mother, yet her children live with their father. 

            Viewers all had a different opinion about the movie, about who Silkwood was.  A great deal of special interest group painted her as a woman with a halo around her head a savior, a martyr for telling what she believed the truth. Others, believed she was not completely clean and clear of all her faults, nor was she telling the truth, due to not having her children in her life, as well as her promiscuity in relationships. Karen’s parents didn’t understand the entire situation, nor thought Meryl played their daughter, as intelligent as what they thought she was in life. The acceptance of movie viewers, due to Meryl Streep’s performance, gained movie mainstream reviews in the first month of release.  In the end, the movie cost twelve million dollars to make back in 1983, which is what it made within the first month. January 11, 1984, The U.S. Supreme Court decision to reinstate the ten-million dollar award against Silkwood’s employer, The Kerr-McGee Corporation was finalized, thus this helped the box office grossed sales. The actors and actresses felt very strong about the movie due to the deep stake it played in the actual safety of lives across the country centering around the dangers of nuclear radioactivity these plants have on society’s health and longevity.

            In conclusion, Mike Nichols as a well decorated and diverse actor, comedian, director, producer, and writer has had a fascinating, and wonderfully filled career with lots of individuals who have touched his life in so many ways unimaginable, reaching to so many in society.  He has brought rip roaring laughs, sad tears of the harsh realities of life, yet opened people’s eyes up to the possibilities that are.  Whether in a negative or a positive place, in this world we can all share a story with one another, and find perhaps ourselves or someone we know lingering in the shadows on stage of a screen.  Silkwood is a movie not for the faint at heart, yet it shows the hardships people endure to have a job in this world whether they like it or not, they have a job that pays the bills. Should a person keep working in a place that deems dangerous situations on their employees without their knowledge, or do we all have a choice to be told the truth?

Works Cited 

Beloff, Ruth. "Mike Nichols." Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 June 2012.

Document URL
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=true&sortBy=&displayGroups=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK2587514824&userGroupName=inspire&jsid=97939bad5cd0d91815b272391ed69589

Gale Document Number: GALE|K2587514824

Gallaway, Stephanie.  “Director Mike Nichols On His 60-Year Career: Trouble Always Seemed Glamorous”. The Hollywood Reporter Online, 18 May. 2012. Web. 5 June. 2012.  <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mike-nichols-death-salesman-career-322677>.  

Maychick, Diana.  The Reluctant Superstar: Meryl Streep. New York: St. Martins Press, 1984. Print.

 “Mike Nichols”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.  Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 05 June. 2012.  <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414197/ Mike -Nichols>.  

“Mike Nichols Director – Films as Director:, Publications.” J. Rank. Web. 5 June, 2012. <http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Mi-Pe/Nichols-Mike.html>.  

Rank, J. “Mike Nichols”. Film Rank. Film Rank Online. Films 101, 2012. Web. 25 May. 2012. <http://www.films101.com/d11219r.htm>.

 
“Silkwood”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica

Questions for Panel for "Jackie Brown"

-Tarantino said the film "only cost 12 million to make."  How does this compare to other films in 1998?  Is the action good enough without a huge budget?

-The orginial of this film used a white woman to play Jackie.  Why was a black woman chosed this time around?

(Working) Women's Film

With Silkwood we noted a marked transformation of the woman's film in a modern incarnation that reflects the presence of women in the workplace.  The women in these films, such as Norma Rae and Erin Brockovich, in addition to being shown balancing family and work, have a cause they seek to accomplish over the course of the film (better working conditions or a legal suit).  Unlike Jan Morrow's work in interior design, in Pillow Talk, Karen is an ordinary factory worker (even if at a uranium processing plant).
   In Silkwood Dolly provides the necessary feminine company to complement Karen's relationship with Drew.  We noted how the women make the decisions in Jezebel.  Here that's not the case, but Dolly and Karen's friendship provides a more reliable emotional core to the uncertainty of Karen's romance.  

Silkwood Panel Questions

1. Given the fact that Silkwood was a flirty, trashy, not give a sh** employee in the beginning of the movie; in your opinion, what caused her to step up and accept union responsibilities?


2. Winston was caught altering the x-ray negatives by Silkwood. Do you think that he was acting alone to keep production moving, or that Kerr-McGee knew about his actions, or directed him to do so?


3. Who would benefit by putting plutonium in Silkwood's urine collection cups?


4. Silkwood wants to see her kids over the upcoming weekend, but forgets to ask for time off. What kind of mother do you think Silkwood was?

Hepburn's Oscars (National Portrait Gallery)

This is somewnat out of sequence, but a friend just sent me this photo of Katherine Hepburn from the National Portrait Gallery.  It does show the unequaled accomplishments of one of our leading ladies, Katherine Hepburn. It also provides an interesting portrait of the evolution of Oscar.  

Jane Fonda- Personal Life

There have been ten biographies written about Jane. Jane stated that the first nine books were written by men who were threatened by her. The tenth biography was a way for Jane to tell her story her way. The biography titled, “The Private Life of a Public Woman” the biography is said to explain Jane’s struggles with self-doubt, vanity, and her “sacrificing everything for the men she loved.”  Jane had three marriages, first Roger Vadim 1965–1973, Tom Hayden 1973–1989, and lastly Ted Turner 1991–2001. She has two children, Vanessa Vadim and Troy Garity. Jane is an actress, model, dance and work-out instructor, and activist.

Jane Fonda was born “Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda” in New York in 1937 to actor Henry Fonda and New York socialite and widow of a wealthy industrialist, Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw. Jayne was originally named after the third wife of the English King Henry VIII to whom she is distantly related to on her mother’s side. Jane is of Dutch and English decent. Jane’s mother wanted her to be a boy, since she had a daughter before Jane, who she named Frances. Jane’s mother finally had a son when Peter Fonda was born. Peter and his daughter Bridget Fonda are actors. Frances died in 2008.

Jane’s mother suffered from postpartum depression and was in the hospital for several weeks following Peter’s birth. Her depression turned to manic mood swings and got even worse when Henry Fonda enlisted in the Army. Henry was enlisted for two years. Jane’s mother spent these two years either in a state of “frenzied activity” or in her bedroom which she kept completely dark and would only allow Peter inside. Jane stated that she would sneak into her mother’s room on occasion and find her staring “wildly at her reflection in the mirror.” Jane said that her mother would catch her and say. “Lady, if I gain any extra weight I’m going to cut it off with a knife!”When Henry Fonda returned from the Army, he announced that he wanted a divorce from Frances and that he was in love with another woman. In an autobiography by Peter, Henry was described as a cold, narcissistic man who never gave love or approval to his many wives or children.

In 1950 Frances Ford Seymour was suffering again from mental illness and was committed to the Craig House Sanitarium for the Insane in Beacon, New York. Jane and Peter remember their mother brining a porcelain box with her as a keepsake. It was later learned that this box held a razor blade when Frances committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor from ear to ear on her 42nd birthday while in the Sanitarium. Jane was twelve at this time.  Later that year, Henry married Susan Blanchard, another socialite. There married would end in 1956.

Jane remembers a better time in 1956 when her family spent the summer in a large rental house in Cape Cod. This is when Jane began to explore with acting during the summer with her father. She and Henry acted together in a community production at the Dennis Playhouse. Unfortunately for Jane, Henry married a 23 year old countess the year after, in 1957. Jane was 19 years old at the time and was studying at Vassar. Due to her father’s marriage, Jane wanted to escape so she dropped out of Vassar to move to Paris to study painting. It was in Paris that she began modeling for Vogue. It is said that her father was very proud of her modeling career and as he was working on Broadway, he would bring the magazine, showing it to everyone and saying, “Look at how beautiful my daughter is!” This was the time when her career really began. Her biography states the tragedies Jane endured enabled her to channel her emotions into acting and made her incredible career.  Henry divorced the countess in 1961 and married Shirlee Mae Adams who he stayed married to until his death in 1982.

Marilyn Monroe: Life & Acting Career

Marilyn Monroe was born in 1926 in LA as Norma Jean Mortenson to a life as an orphan.

At the age of 7, she met and lived with her mother for nearly a year until her mother was admitted into a mental hospital.

A good friend of her mother's, known to Norma Jean as Aunt Grace, adopted her. But not long after due to financial trouble, had to send her to the Orphan Asylum - the Los Angeles Children's Home Society.

Over the course of her life as an orphan, she lived with 9 different families, most in which were poverty stricken. In one home, she was sexually molested by an older man.

When Norma was 13, she was mistaken for an 18 year old due to her womanly figure. One day, a 21 year old boy asked her to the beach for a date. With no swimsuit, she decided to barrow her little "sister's" swimsuit. It was too small on her, but Norma had no other options. Once she got to the beach, all the boys stared and whistled at her. It was then that she realized that she was not the ugly orphan girl that nobody wanted.

However, her new-found beauty got her too much attention for her liking.  Her Aunt Grace suggested that she get married to fix the problem.  Since her 9th orphan family was about to move away, Norma took this opportunity to take Aunt Grace's advice to get married to Jim Daugherty at age 16. The most significant portion of this marriage was that it ended her orphan status forever. Although there were no problem in the relationship, they decided to get a divorce because of the lack of love a marriage should have (Norma was 19).

After the divorce, Norma decided to pursue a modeling career.  During this time, Norma also paid to take as many acting classes that she could. Acting was her dream.

In 1946, she signed her first contract with 20th Century Fox. The studio man suggested that Norma Jean get a name change. He suggested "Marilyn." She went to ask Aunt Grace for advice, and she suggested she use her mother's maiden name "Monroe." And Marilyn Monroe it was!

Her first films were very small roles in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim and Dangerous Years in 1947. After these films, Fox decided not to renew her contract saying that she was "unphotogenic."

Columbia Pictures picked her up for a small role in Ladies of Chorus in 1948 where she sang two numbers. Columbia Picture dropped her as well.

After being dropped as an actress, she went back to modeling to make a living for herself. In need of $50 to pay for bills, she agreed to pose for a nude photo for a calender - which eventually became a Play Boy centerfold.

John Hyde, and important talent scout from William Morris Agency, picked her up. He got her a role in MGM's The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. However, MGM dropped her after this role because they said she was unphotogenic and had no star potential - something she had heard before.

John Hyde did not give up on her and found her a part in 20th Century Fox's All About Eve which eventually resulted in a 7 year contract for Marilyn.

Both The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve were both small roles, but fans remebered Marilyn as the "ditzy but very sexy blonde."

Marilyn landed a larger role in Love Nest (1951). After this film, the public started to get to know Marilyn as an actress and life what they saw.  As Denny Jackson stated in one of her biographies, she had an "intoxicating quality of volcanic sexuality wrapped in an aura of almost childlike innocence" that the audience liked.

Don't Bother to Knock (1952)
Monkey Business (1952) where her platinum blonde hair became her trademark.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) & Niagara (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar and became an instrument to draw people to the box office.
How To Marry a Millionaire (1953)
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

In 1954, Monroe married professional baseball player for the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio. Although they fell in love, they divorced 274 days later.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) which showcased her comedic talent and contained one of the most memorable film moments when the wind from a subway below blew up her white dress.

After this role, Monroe decided to broaden her range as an actress and take serious roles, not just "sexy dumb blonde" roles. Therefore, she started taking acting classed at the Actor's Studio in NY.

Her performance in Bus Stop (1956) showcased her ability to act in a dramatic role and lead her to her first Golden Globe nomination.

Her performance in the smash hit, Some Like it Hot (1959) led to a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy.

In 1959, Monroe married the playwrite Arthur Miller, and unlikely marriage that ended in 1960.

The Misfits (1961) was Monroe's last completed film.

Monroe also had a part in Somethings Got to Give in 1962 by 20th Century Fox. But because of her absences which led to delays in production, she was fired. Although rehired, the film was never completed due to her death in 1962. She died to an overdose of sleeping pills at the age of 36.

Altogether, Monroe's 30 films made more than $200 million.

Marilyn Monroe is number 6 on the American Film Institute's List of 50 Greatest American Screen Legends for females. This list of 25 males and 25 females is chosen by 1800 leaders across the film community out of 500 actors.

"Not men, not money, not love, but the ability to act." -Marilyn Monroe

Works Cited

Monroe, Marilyn. My Story. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000. Print.

The Internet Movie Database. Amazon, 1990. Web. 14 June 2012.

Character Arcs

Klute presents a complicated character arc, from numb professionalism to feeling person, though one that could be compared to Jan Morrow's in Pillow Talk, who must also allure a reluctant male into a relationship/sex (only implied of course in the latter film).  Jan isn't suffering from the same numbness that Bree is, but both are prefer their single state.  Somewhat counter to expectations, Jan seems perfectly happy alone, while Bree seems alienated and lonely.  Further, both conclusions are implied rather than explicitly shown.  With Pillow Talk, the conclusion is unmistakable for the time since we hear Brad (Hudson) is "pregnant";  with Klute we're left to decide for ourselves if Bree can control her self-destructive nature and Klute can be flexible enough to accommodate her.     The key is that both films present the growing strains of changing gender roles/rules for both men and women.  It's also significant that it begins much earlier than many might assume--not in the seventies, but by at least the late fifties, if not earlier (women had been working in significant numbers ever since WWII).
   As I mentioned, some categorize this as a film noir (if we assume noir can be considered a genre outside of a particular historical period).  I think it's more accurate to consider a noir woman's film (an oxymoron perhaps but it's not without precedence, as Mildred Pierce demonstrates)--or at least that's what it became when Bree Daniels became the focus of the film.  

Klute

Released in 1971

Directed by Alan Pakula

Starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Charles Cioffo

Co-starring Roy Scheider and Jean Stapleton

Unknown, uncredited: Veronica Hamel and Sylvester Stallone

Released Jan. 1 with box office receipts of $8 million, total domestic box office of $12.5 million compared to the Avengers which has made $552 million.

The movie received 11 awards nominations including an Acadamy award nomination for Best Writing and Best Actress nomination and win for Jane Fonda. Fonda also won 4 other awards for her Best Actress performance.

Some other movies released that year include: A Clockwork Orange, Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Dirty Harry, Diamonds are Forever, The French Connection, Carnal Knowledge, Shaft

John Klute is the title character, a small town policeman who comes to New York City to find his best friend. He naturally seeks out a hooker to help him with his search. The hooker, Bree Daniels, played by Jane Fonda is trying to get out of the business and go straight.

Roger Ebert said the movie should have been named Bree, for Jane Fonda’s character, because that character is at the center. The film examines the relationship between Klute and Bree, but Ebert also considered it an awkward thriller. He felt that Pakula was overly concerned with plot and thought the movie was too schizophrenic to scare anyone very much. Ebert said the scenes between Fonda and Sutherland are very good and says Fonda has a nervous intensity that makes you want to watch her. He says “Intelligence. I suppose that’s the word. In “Klute” you don’t have two attractive acting vacuums reciting speeches at each other. With Fonda and Sutherland, you have actors who understand and sympathize with their characters, and you have a vehicle worthy of that sort of intelligence. So the fact that the thriller stuff doesn’t always work isn’t so important.”

Roger Greenspun of the New York Times agreed in part with Ebert saying the movie should have been titled Bree. However, he does disagree saying the effect of the subjective camera and despite the sharp edges and dramatic spaces and cinema presence somewhat like Citizen Kane, the film “suggests a tepid, rather tasteless mush.” Greenspun said the acting was semi-improvisitory and that Jane Fonda was successful in this. He felt that everyone else just talked a lot. He said Sutherland, who barely talked, was given the latitude to be a romantic figure, but had all the “mysterious intensity of a youthful Calvin Coolidge.”

The movie was described by Variety as a “suspenser without much suspense” and claims that Klute was notable for presenting Jane Fonda as a much-matured actress in a role demanding that she make an emotionally-unstable professional prostitute interesting. Variety said Fonda’s performance was the only rewarding element.

From the feminist viewpoint, Bree is going from self-sufficiency to dependency on a man. She is struggling with the emotional tug of war between giving and loving and the fear of loss of self, which is a common female conflict. This film is about the duality of Bree – the loving and vulnerable Bree vs the manipulative and defensive Bree. She is torn between her need for independence and her want of love.

For Bree, the closer she gets to losing control emotionally, the closer she gets to losing her life. For her losing control is losing her life. She sees giving love as giving up her control.

References

Ebert, Roger. “Klute.” n.p. Web. 5/18/12

Giddis, Diane. “The Divided Woman: Bree Daniels in Klute.” Women of the Cinema. Eds. Karyn Kay and Gerald Peary. New York City: E.P. Dutton, 1977. 26-36. Print

Greenspun, Roger. “Klute.” The New York Times. n.p. Web. 5/18/12

The Internet Movie Database. n.p. Web. 6/5/12

The Numbers. n.p. Web. 6/5/12

Variety Staff. “Klute.” Variety. n.p. Web. 5/18/12

Written by Andy Lewis and David P. Lewis

Film Director Alan J. Pakula

Mr. Pakula was born in the Bronx on April 7, 1928. His father was the co-owner of a printing business. He was expected to take over the business, but he convinced his Dad into becoming a screen writer. He attended Yale University and majored in drama. He worked at the Leland Hayward Theatrical Agency and fell in love with show business. His first job in Hollywood was at Warner Brothers in the cartoon department. In 1950, he became an apprentice to Don Hartman at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and the next year moved with Hartman to Paramount, as a production assistant. He moved on to producing and only began directing in 1969.

Mr. Pakula made different kinds of movies with a style that emphasized and explored the psychology and motivations of his characters.  He had great interest in psychology, particularly how men deal with their fears, ''A man who is in control, and inside there is a frightened child,'' he said in an interview several years ago with The New York Times. ''That interests me. Why? You can draw your own conclusions.''

Mr. Pakula directed 16, produced 18, in his career. In 1957 his first film, ''Fear Strikes Out,'' starring Anthony Perkins, a study of the talented but troubled baseball star Jimmy Piersall, whose career was hindered by his mental illness. In 1962 To Kill A Mockingbird (producer): it won Oscars for Gregory Peck and the screenwriter, Horton Foote. In 1963 film he helped produce, ''Love With the Proper Stranger,'' which won several Academy Award nominations.  In 1965, “Baby the Rain Must Fall” (producer) and “Inside Daisy Clover” (producer). In 1967, "Up the Down Staircase" (producer), and in 1968 “The Stalking Moon” (producer). In 1969 his first picture directed, “The Sterile Cuckoo (director/producer): Liza Minnelli won an Oscar nomination for her role.

The following is a list of his other works:

1971 Klute (director/producer): Jane Fonda won an Oscar for her starring role.

1973 Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (director)

1974 The Parallax View (director/producer)

1976 All the President's Men (director)

1978 Comes a Horseman (director)

1979 Starting Over (director/producer)

1981 Rollover (director)

In 1982, “Sophie's Choice” (director/producer/screenplay): Meryl Streep won one of her Oscars for her role as Sophie, a tormented Nazi concentration camp survivor, The film was also ranked #1 in the Roger Ebert's Top Ten List for 1982 and was listed on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).

Then he moved on with more incredible titles:

1986 Dream Lover (director/producer)

1987 Orphans (director/producer)

1989 See You in the Morning (director/producer/written by)

1990 Presumed Innocent (screenplay)

1992 Consenting Adults (director/producer)

1993 The Pelican Brief (director/producer/screenplay)

1997 The Devil's Own

Mr. Pakula was nominated for an Oscar for “All the President's Men” (1976) and for his screenplay for “Sophie's Choice,” (1982) but he never won.

He was always highly supportive of his cast, he had a reputation as an 'actor's director'. Pakula planned and talked through scenes thoroughly before shooting, and made a large number of takes. He was always highly supportive of his cast, he had a reputation as an'actor's director'.

He directed 8 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Richard Farnsworth,Jill Clayburgh, Candice Bergen and Meryl Streep.Fonda, Robards  in “All the President’s Men” (1976) and Streep won Oscars for their performances in Pakula's movies. He was also the President of jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978.

The most autobiographical film he made was ''See You in the Morning,'' which was about a divorced man like himself, and his marriage to a widow with several children. Mr. Pakula's first marriage, to the actress Hope Lange, ended in divorce.  He was married to his second wife, Hannah Cohn Boorstin, from 1973 until his death in 1998.

Mr. Pakula was 70. He was killed instantly after his car swerved to a fence after a metal pipe came flying through the windshield from another driver that brought the pipe toward the windshield had struck his head. The police do not know where the long pipe came from. He is survived by his second wife, Hannah Pakula, three stepchildren and five grandchildren.

When he worked with Liza Minnelli on"The Sterile Cuckoo" (1969), he said, “One of the happiest times inmy life was during "The Sterile Cuckoo," mostly because of Liza. I'venever seen anybody get more joy out of working and it's contagious,” andanother one was, “I am oblique, I think that has to do with my own nature. Ilike trying to do things which work on many levels, because I think it isterribly important to give an audience a lot of things they might not get aswell as those they will, so that finally the film does take on a texture and isnot just simplistic communication.”

Taken from iMDB, Harrison Ford, who had starred in Mr. Pakula's last movie, ''The Devil's Own,'' (1997) called Mr. Pakula ''a natural guide to inner realms. As a writer and a director, he was always concerned with evolving emotionally. He was an elegant man.'' Also Julia Roberts, who appeared in his movie ''The Pelican Brief,'' (1993) said: ''He would allow you your time and the freedom to find things in the material. He knew when to give me my space or when to squeeze my hand. He was a psychiatrist and a director.''

Works Cited:

iMDB.com (2012). The Internet Movie Database: Alan J. Pakula. Taken from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001587/bio

New York Times (2012). Movies: Alan J. Pakula Film Director, Dies at 70, taken from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/20/movies/alan-j-pakula-film-director-dies-at-70.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

The Telegraph (2012). Alan J Pakula, taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7624467/Alan-J-Pakula.html

Unreal Woman

Basinger places Monroe, along with Greta Garbo and Hedy Lamar, in the category of Unreal woman, a category that represented what men wanted.  The Real woman category, on the other hand, represented what society wanted and was played by actresses such as Ginger Rogers, Myrna Loy, and Jean Arthur.  Most of our other women (Hepburn, Davis, Stanwyck) fit in Basinger's Exaggerated Woman category, which is a mixture of the real and unreal--women who, in Basinger's view, were women who women need.  

  In hearing Monroe's story, we realize the dangers of being an Unreal woman, that Monroe wanted to exceed the roles she's most remembered for, but had difficulty convincing producers and the public that she should.  In a sense her life fit into the pattern we've seen with the pattern of our earlier characters who finally learn to choose their proper role.  In Some Like It Hot, it's Joe (Tony Curtis) who finally learns to be human as he watches Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) sing she's "through with love."

Marilyn Monroe's birthday was June 1.  We've celebrated many more of her birthdays since her death (Fifty now) than she ever had in the thirty-six she celebrated.  Doris Day, who we watched in Pillow Talk, was born two years before Marilyn, but still continues to celebrate her own birthdays (April 3).  In the popular imagination they fit in opposite places, yet in the films we watched both Monroe and Day played women who must coax apparently "reluctant" men into sex (though we never actually see such happen of course).  We could conclude both were "safely" sexual, Marilyn only barely so and Doris very so.  Both are icons, yet both suffered in different ways for being so.  As we know, but rarely admit, it's much better to worship icons than to be one.

Reviews of "Some Like it Hot"

I will be discussing how the film Some Like it Hot was received by the public.  The film opened on March 29, 1959, but even before the opening of the film, people were skeptical of the movie.  It was said that David Selznick did not think the combination of gangsters and drag queens would play to audiences (Gehring).  In fact, during the showing of the first preview, most of the audience got up and left (IMDB).  Afterwards, many of Billy Wilder’s friends and peers gave him suggestions of what to keep and what to cut (IMDB).  When asked what he would add or cut, Mr. Wilder said: "Why, nothing. This is a very funny movie and I believe in it just as it is. Maybe this is the wrong neighborhood in which to have shown it. At any rate, I don't panic over one preview. It's a hell of a movie" (IMDB).  In fact, the second preview was shown at Loew’s Theatre and the audience gave a standing ovation (IMDB).  The film opened to rave reviews, but many complained that the film was too long (Variety, NY Times) and it was nothing but one joke being “milked like a dairy” (Variety).  In fact, the movie was banned in Kansas because the cross-dressing was “too disturbing for Kansas” (IMDB).  This movie is also one of the few to be censored by the Roman Catholic Church (IMDB).  In today’s society, however, the film is considered a classic, and the American Film Institute has listed it as its number one comedy of all time (Gehring).  It has also been said to be Monroe’s greatest film (IMDB).