'Crimes of the Heart': The Other 'Steel Magnolias'

Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy. 

Crimes of the Heart is for people who love Steel Magnolias, who can't bring themselves to change the channel when The First Wives Club plays on cable, and who can't resist a small handful of emotive, big-name actresses playing off each other courtesy of a witty, womanly text. Now that I have the attention of what I'll dare to guess is about 89 percent of you, allow me to resurrect this twangy, dysfunctional black comedy, which turns 25 this year. Directed by Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy), it's one of those films whose title is so generic you'd swear you've seen it a dozen times, and yet its drop into the proverbial cracks has all but erased your knowledge/memory of it.

The film's official release-date birthday isn't until Dec. 12, but it's fresh in my mind because I just caught a fine stage rendition of playwright/screenwriter Beth Henley's source material – a Pulitzer Prize-winning work that draws its power from Henley's keen ability to mash the comic and the tragic with the frequent spikes and dips of a heart monitor (think Rachel Getting Married with more irony and fewer shattering tears). The story takes place in Hazlehurst, Miss., where the MaGrath sisters – Babe, Lenny and Meg – are reuniting at their childhood home under characteristically eccentric circumstances. Babe, the youngest, just got out of jail for shooting her husband in the stomach (she “didn't like his stinkin' looks”). Lenny, the melancholic eldest, just turned 30 and is nursing her pent-up sexual frustration with cookies and self pity (a shrunken-ovary problem makes her think she's useless to men). Meg, the rebel, has returned from L.A. with nothing to show for her singing-career ambitions but the after-effects of a nervous breakdown.

What's more, Lenny's horse was just struck dead by lightning, nosy and pushy cousin Chick is nagging outside the screen door, the girls' granddaddy/surrogate father is ailing in the hospital, and then there's the memory of the suicide of their mother, who, years ago, hung herself along with the family cat. You get the picture.

At first, it seems this movie – which is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube, btw – doesn't have much to offer in regards to justifying the play being committed to film. Despite its undeniable retro charm, the Plain-Jane opening is super indicative of the film's subsequent obscurity, from its credits (which could make a Power Point presentation look masterful) to its score (best described as low-rent Kenny G.). It doesn't take long, however, for the hooks to dig in. Turns out Crimes is quite the watchable little gem, thanks mainly to its four lead stars: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and a marvelous, neglected old Victorian that serves as the tack-tacular setting.

Diane Keaton as Lenny

The actress who portrayed Lenny in the stage version I saw was by far the funniest cast member because she was able to nail her character's emotional volatility and spastic, hysterical neuroses. Naturally, this is a role for Diane Keaton...

Keaton, Lange and Sissy's Oscar-nominated work after the jump.

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Costuming Helena, Finding Sherlock, Winning Oscar

INTERVIEW
As one half of the first costuming team I ever noticed as a young movie fanatic, interviewing JENNY BEAVAN was a special treat. She's currently enjoying her ninth Oscar nomination for her work on The King's Speech. This is her third solo nomination. She and her former partner John Bright costumed the Ishmael Merchant & James Ivory period dramas that I grew up obsessing over: A Room With A View, Howard's End, Maurice and the like. When Jenny and I spoke to discuss her current Oscar run for The King's Speech, however, it was less period drama and more modern comedy. "I'm guessing as to what you're saying" she told me while technical difficulties had us both comically shouting into our phones / computers until the situation was resolved.

We began at the beginning.

Merchant/Ivory is after all, a very good place to start, both for a young film buff in the 80s and a costume designer embarking on a huge career in the movies.  "That was my start in the whole thing," Beavan recalled, noting that the films were great fun to do.

The Merchant & Ivory Days
John Bright's name was peppered throughout her conversation. In fact, she had just seen him earlier that day. I had long wondered why they stopped working together. "We were known as Jenny Bright and John Beavan," she says about their close partnership. "I mean, he is just one of my absolutely best friends and also my most important collaborator. Believe me we're still collaborating. Just not so officially."

As it turns out Bright owns and runs Cosprop, a hugely important costume house which specializes in period wear,  an enormous job in and of itself though he still does the odd film. I mention how much I love his work on the ravishing The White Countess (2005) with elicits a barrage of superlatives from Beavan. "Absolutely brilliant!" 

Howards End (1992), a masterpiece.

We discuss a particular moment in Howards End that I'm very fond of. The Schlegel sisters (Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham-Carter) walking home one evening run into Mr Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins). One can't get enough of the beauty of that movie. The clothes are so modest but there's such sensuality to them and something so resonant and bohemian about the sisters. Beavan credits the screenplay with the specificity that makes character costuming easier and the actresses with the film's modernity.

Beavan, having logged a lot of time in costume dramas, thinks there's real power with staying utterly within period. If you step away from the period, she explains "it looks wrong and then you get a sort of worry in the audience."  Producers, particularly the America ones, she shares, don't like to see hats in the movies. And sometimes you just have to use hats. "Everybody wore hats up until the 1950s in England!" she says with feigned exasperation.

My grandmother would never go out without a hat on. She wouldn't have felt dressed.

After the golden period of the Merchant/Ivory films, Beavan's official partnership with John Bright ended and  the designer got a chance to "fly a bit more my own." That's what one might call an understatement.

READ THE REST for thoughts on Helena Bonham Carter's style, "finding" Sherlock Holmes and more.

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"I'm an excellent driver"

Yes, readers, the blog goes right here. Everything's now in one place. (Well, everything except co-productions which alternate location like Best Pictures From the Outside In and such.)

Fake Jew, Real ScientologistNick, Mike and I are proud to bring back "Best Pictures From the Outside In" series for its 20th episode (the halfway mark). The films are Gentleman's Agreement in which Gregory Peck poses as a Jewish man to write a scathing expose on anti-Semitism and Tom Cruise plays a cocky jerk who suddenly finds he is with family (no, not in that way) in Rain Man.

If you're new to the series and need a refresher, here is the index to all 20 episodes. Nick, being the overachiever that he is, also keeps a tournament list a readers poll and ranks all the winners.

Please join in the conversation of that episode at Goatdog's blog. There's so much to discuss. Do you love the 80s time capsule of Rain Man. Do you like being lectured to by Gregory Peck? Mike sums both films up in an animated 2 minute recap, I share my theory on how Tom Cruise inspired Twitter (no really) and Nick overshares his Scientology (not really).

P.S. I think you should know that Bull Durham was totally robbed of an Oscar nomination in 1988 and Black Narcissus (which we recently wrote about) was robbed in 1947. What were they thinking?