Babs as director

by Cláudio Alves

Barbra Streisand is a powerhouse in every sense of the word. Her long career has encompassed many facets of show business, from night club singer to Broadway sensation, from Oscar-winning actress to successful producer, and so on. Considering we've been discussing 1991 for the past couple of weeks, it seems appropriate to consider Streisand's legacy, not as a music or movie star, but as a director. That was the year that she released one of her dream projects, The Prince of Tides, which was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Streisand, however, was left out of the directing lineup despite an aggressive campaign and much publicity. The snub stung and robbed Streisand of the honor of becoming the second woman to be nominated for that award, after Lina Wertmüller in the 1970s. 

Still, while it's difficult not to see AMPAS' decision as a blatant rebuke of Streisand as a director, one has to wonder if she'd have deserved the nod. After all, 1991 had a stellar, and historic, Best Director lineup...

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Smackdown '91: Juliette, Jessica, Diane, Kate and Mercedes Ruehl

The Supporting Actress Smackdown series picks an Oscar vintage -- 1991 this time -- and explores. 

THE NOMINEES Oscar went with two sentimental favourite veterans (Jessica Tandy and Diane Ladd) and three first-timers (Juliette Lewis, Mercedes Ruehl, and Kate Nelligan) who were having hard-to-ignore years. This shortlist was full of characters: a chatterbox octogenarian, an agressively needy video store owner, a sexually mercurial teenager, a monstrous southern matriarch, and a proto-feminist in the deep south.

THE PANEL  Here to talk about the performances and films are, in alpha order, entertainment journalist Mark Harris ("Pictures at a Revolution", "Five Came Back"), Tony winning actress Nikki M James (The Book of Mormon, The Good Fight), Tony nominated actor Rory O'Malley (The Book of Mormon, Hamilton), Vanity Fair's deputy editor Katey Rich, Drama Desk winning actor Nick Westrate (Casa Valentina, Turn: Washington's Spies), and your host at The Film Experience, Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

1991
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...

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Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020)

by Nathaniel R

We have long dreaded this day coming so it's with heavy hearts that we share that the iconic Olivia de Havilland has passed away. We have celebrated her several times here at The Film Experience, most notably in 2016 with a multi-film retrospective for her Centennial. Having been a true screen immortal for the past (gulp) 80 years, it was hard to picture this woman as an actual mortal. Pictures of her happily bicycling in Paris in her centenarian years were popular around the web but all things eventually end. The Oscar winner, who had just celebrated her 104th birthday on July 1st, died peacefully yesterday in her Parisian home...

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Martin Scorsese: Master of the Remake

by Cláudio Alves

As a general rule, remakes don't represent a particularly respected type of film among cinephiles. Concerns about lack of originality abound, as do questions of necessity and the way remakes can lead to the obscuration of older movies. That being said, to characterize every remake as a mercenary minded waste of time isn't fair to the filmmakers involved. Moreover, it can result in the unfair dismissal of interesting cinematic propositions. Remakes can recontextualize past narratives, respond to aesthetics of yore and comment upon them, reinterpret texts and revitalize forgotten styles, deepen pre-established themes or even make us look at a classic through new eyes. They can also highlight the specificities of different artists' visions, exposing how their particularities shape the same raw material. Not all remakes are good, but we can say that about every kind of film project.

Some directors have shown a particular aptitude for this type of project, like Luca Guadagnino with A Bigger Splash and Suspiria. Still, we're not here to talk about that epicurean delight or the transfiguration of Dario Argento's post-Giallo masterpiece. Our subject, today, shall be Martin Scorsese and his mastery of the remake… 

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Comment Party: Best Actress, 1991

by Nathaniel R

Remember Bette's dream project "For the Boys"?

We've probably done TOO much 1991 before this next Smackdown! Apologies for those of you without a particular affinity for that year but you've only got one more day of this to get through. We thought it might be fun to briefly discuss the Best Actress race of that year before the Supporting Actress Smackdown event tomorrow.

OSCAR NOMINEES

• Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise
• Laura Dern, Rambling Rose
• Jodie Foster, Silence of the Lambs ★ 
• Bette Midler, For the Boys
• Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise

If I remember the year correctly this lineup was basically a done deal ahead of time but for the fifth slot...

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