Target Audience: Victor / Victoria (1982)
Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 4:24PM by Nathaniel R
VICTOR / VICTORIA
Last month I had the pleasure of rewatching Blake Edwards 7-time Oscar-nominated musical comedy Victor/Victoria (1982). The occasion was to prep for a conversation with our friend Ben Miller for his podcast "Target Audience" in which Ben invites a guest to discuss a movie that they feel was made for them for all kinds of differing reasons, beauty being in the eye of the beholder...
The fun of the podcast is, if you ask me, the non-divisive joy of discovering how different you are than whoever is talking that week while simultaneously realizing how alike you are the capacity for loving a movie. Isn't it curious how art made by multiple people for audiences of millions can feel so personal and/or hit us in such a way that it kind of imprints until it feels like it's part of your identity?
My initial list of suggestions for the episode was looooong but I settled on Victor/Victoria because...
- musicals are the best movie genre
- Blake Edwards & Julie Andrews were on my mind due to that new documentary Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames
- The 80s was a decade that hadn't been covered much on Target Audience
- And finally it is my mandatory Actressexual duty to explain to people again that either Terri Garr (Tootsie) or Lesley Ann Warren (Victor/Victoria) were the rightful winners of the 1982 Best Supporting Actress Oscar; it's not "a crime to look at Lange" (as they so famously argued in one of the most hilarous movies of the Aughts), but it is a crime to give her an Oscar for Tootsie with those two performances in the room.
If you've never listened to Target Audience before and enjoy this episode, I have three recommendations. The episodes on "American Psycho" with Manish Mathur, "My Best Friend's Wedding" with Ronaldo Trancoso, and "West Side Story" with Fritz and the Oscars are all top notch conversations! If you have listened to this podcast before, recommend a favourite episode in the comments.
Otherwise you should obviously indulge in Victor/Victoria feelings in the comments. What do you make of its seven Oscar nominations?
Reader Comments (7)
I'm definitely not this films target audience,musicals are my least favourite genre alongside westerns/war movies,all that bursting into song and jolliness isn't really for me,horror and female centric dramas are my main genre loves.
I do admire that it is a fun film filled with top notch performances,i'm not someone who feels Warren or Garr needed an Oscar here though I would nominate Warren but not Julie Andrews,she never convinces as a man,i'm a a Kim Stanley/Jessica Lange in Frances voter.
Really great to read your posts again,your voice has been missed.
The opening credits, the score... crazy world full of contradictions like a child. That particular line was so formative.
I love Jessica in Tootsie and how the general tone shifts when she's around with her melancholic character. Having said that, I'm a Warren voter. She gets her own musical number and that hilarious meltdown that goes on for two or three sequences.
I'll stick up for Lange - i really like the way you describe her impact Peggy Sue - but I love Teri and Lesley Ann just as much.
Deciding between them would be my 1982 Sophie's choice.
I have long thought that veteran make up artist Harry Frampton and his team, son Peter and collaborator Paul Engelen, should have been nominated for Best Make up. There were only two nominees for the Oscar in its second year.
For me, I notice a subtle change from Victor to Victoria. The make up accentuates a more angular, masculine appearance in Victor while softening Julie Andrews’s features as Victoria to reinforce the illusion.
On a side note, 1982 was a watershed year for sparking dialogue about gender. Andrews was nominated for Best Actress as the cross dressing entertainer Victoria Grant, Dustin Hoffman was nominated for Best Actor as the cross dressing entertainer Michael Dorsey / Dorothy Michaels, and John Lithgow was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as the transgender retired football player Roberta Muldoon.
Finbar -- hear hear on Makeup. I'm so glad that category has at least started getting its act together expanding the number of nominees and not always going for prosthetics.
Peggy -- that's a good point about Lange. I do think she's really strong in Tootsie. It's just that Warren and Garr are giving masterclass comedy performances with sparks of true genius in some of their only-she-would-play-it-this-way choices.
Nathaniel, it's great to have you back!
I missed you and your posts deeply.
With all respect to all collaborators, but YOU ARE THE FILM EXPERIENCE!
About "Victor/Victoria", my comments are coming soon...
Nathaniel, always enjoy your words.
As the site's premiere Lange fan, I will always be great for her Tootsie Oscar win. But agreed that both Garr and Warren are deliriously inspired in their roles. I think Kim Stanley and Glenn Close are strong as well. One of my all-time favorite supporting actress lineups.
I rewatched Victor/Victoria recently, a movie I was obsessed with as a young person, and was shocked to feel that Julie Andrews is like *bad* in it. She's so studied and not loose in a comedy that requires a much more free central performance. It kind of bummed me out. But I will still always love the film.