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selenakHere I was, innocently chatting with a pal of mine, when it turns out she has only seen Susan Sarandon in Enchanted (and the Rocky Horror Picture Show). Since I tend to go overboard in dispensing information about people I admire and imagine some of you younglings might be in a similar position, this resulted in a post. Behold me going fangirl on Ms Sarandon, actress, activist, and continuing proof to Hollywood you can give leading roles to women over 40, 50 and now 60. Who only get sexier with age.
Wiki has a good summary of her life and career, which you can check out. And then we have Youtube, which allows me to demonstrate some aspects of her career.
One of my favourite bits in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (about Hollywood's presentation of homosexuality through the decades) is an interview with Susan Sarandon, talking about her role in the 1983 movie The Hunger, in which she plays a doctor who gets seduced by a millennia old (female) vampire, played by Catherine Deneuve. The original script had Sarah (Sarandon's character) being made drunk and drugged before having sex with Miriam, whereupon the spirited Ms. Sarandon called this bullshit and said this was Catherine Deneuve and you don't need other incentive for wanting to have sex with her, regardless of former orientation. Out went the drugging. I am actually not that fond of The Hunger as a whole, but the sequence in qhich Sarah meets Miriam still remains very watchable:
The role that made her internationally famous, however (well, excepting that early stint in the Rocky Horror Picture Show), was Annie Savoy in Bull Durham (1988). 'Twas a time where both baseball movies and Kevin Costner were fashionable, but don't hold those against her. Her character was both clever and unapologetically changed her boytoys each season, without the film punishing her for it. Have a scene in which she's arguing with Costner:
(Bull Durham is also where Susan Sarandon met her partner, actor and director Tim Robbins. They've been living together ever since and have two sons. In 2003 there was a post script to Bull Durham, as the 15th anniversary celebration at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was cancelled by Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey. Petroskey, who was on the White House staff during the Reagan administration, said Robbins's public stance against President Bush and the war represented "a danger". He didn't want him or Susan Sarandon present, and since they were two of the film's three stars... Kevin Costner, no liberal he, defended Robbins and Sarandon, saying "I think Tim and Susan's courage is the type of courage that makes our democracy work. Pulling back this invite is against the whole principle about what we fight for and profess to be about." Robbins later said that Costner, Clint Eastwood, and Jack Valenti were the only major Hollywood figures that stood up for his free speech rights in this case and noted that all three men are either Republicans or very conservative Democrats, adding that he felt there could be common ground between individuals with different political beliefs.)
Back to Susan Sarandon's film career. The movie where I fell for her was Thelma and Louise (1991) one of my all time favourite films. If you can, get the dvd which has two commentaries, not just the one by Ridley Scott but also the one by Callie Khouri (the scriptwriter), Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. (I reviewed it here.) It was the first female "buddy" movie I saw, full of interesting characters, and as American a road movie as can only be produced by a couple of Europeans. (The director being English, the composer German.) Have some scenes from Thelma & Louise:
One of the persistent myths about the film is that it achieves its feminism by bashing male characters, which is absolute nonsense. We get the full spectrum, from wannabe rapists and jerks via oafs and charming if amoral conman to decent guys and one near-saint. One decent guy is Louise's boyfriend. (He's also played by Michael Madsen in a rare non-villainous role.) Here's a scene which shows his and Louise's relationship. At this point, the road trip the two women started just for fun has already turned into being on the run, and Louise has asked her boyfriend to bring her some money without telling him why.
The next scene is somewhat later. Thelma (Geena Davis), who started out as the weaker of the two, a bossed around housewife, has gradually become stronger and now takes the initiative in a scene that illustrates the black humour of the film beautifully:
And then there is the famous ending. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid set the obvious precedent, and there are a couple of later examples (including the end of Angel: The Series), but with apologies to Butch and Sundance as well as Angel and friends, this is my favourite of the genre. The entire journey these two women have undertaken since the film started is summed up here:
Much as I love Thelma & Louise, though, my absolutely favourite movie with Susan Sarandon as the lead is Dead Man Walking (which Tim Robbins directed). She plays Sister Helen Prejean, and makes quiet strength and compassion immensely compelling, without presenting her character as flawless. The scene in which Sister Helen, who tries to save a convicted murderer from execution, meets some family members of his victims for the first time and realizes that in some ways she has made it easy on herself is immensely powerful. And all her scenes with Sean Penn, who plays the killer from the title, are fantastic. (The film never makes it easy on the audience or Sister Helen: Penn's character isn't innocent, nor is he a misunderstood woobie, and he's a bigotted racist on top of all other things. And yet even if you aren't already against the death penalty, you end up feeling for him.) I haven't found a clip from Dead Man Walking (youtube has the execution scene but in a horrible quality and with someone using different music for it, plus you need to see everything leading up to it anyway), but there is the music vid for Bruce Springsteens song Dead Man Walking which does use scenes from the film (and should please the Springsteen fans among you), so you can have a bit of an impression of what Susan Sarandon's performance is like there.
As I said, she never stops getting good parts (and good actors to play against). One of the most recent examples: the HBO-procued Bernard and Doris, in which Ralph Fiennes plays her gay butler, and she plays Doris Duke. See them meeting:
Lastly, no post fangirling Susan Sarandon would be complete without showing her in her identity as activist, and public persona. Two examples:
A speech at the D.C. peace rally January 2007, which shows her at her passionate political best, and an interview about her life:
I'll leave you with two of my favourite Susan Sarandon quotes:
"I think the good news and the bad news is Hollywood`s not political. The only thing they punish you for is getting old and fat."
“Do you really have to be the ice queen intellectual or the slut whore? Isn't there some way to be both?”
Wiki has a good summary of her life and career, which you can check out. And then we have Youtube, which allows me to demonstrate some aspects of her career.
One of my favourite bits in the documentary The Celluloid Closet (about Hollywood's presentation of homosexuality through the decades) is an interview with Susan Sarandon, talking about her role in the 1983 movie The Hunger, in which she plays a doctor who gets seduced by a millennia old (female) vampire, played by Catherine Deneuve. The original script had Sarah (Sarandon's character) being made drunk and drugged before having sex with Miriam, whereupon the spirited Ms. Sarandon called this bullshit and said this was Catherine Deneuve and you don't need other incentive for wanting to have sex with her, regardless of former orientation. Out went the drugging. I am actually not that fond of The Hunger as a whole, but the sequence in qhich Sarah meets Miriam still remains very watchable:
The role that made her internationally famous, however (well, excepting that early stint in the Rocky Horror Picture Show), was Annie Savoy in Bull Durham (1988). 'Twas a time where both baseball movies and Kevin Costner were fashionable, but don't hold those against her. Her character was both clever and unapologetically changed her boytoys each season, without the film punishing her for it. Have a scene in which she's arguing with Costner:
(Bull Durham is also where Susan Sarandon met her partner, actor and director Tim Robbins. They've been living together ever since and have two sons. In 2003 there was a post script to Bull Durham, as the 15th anniversary celebration at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was cancelled by Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey. Petroskey, who was on the White House staff during the Reagan administration, said Robbins's public stance against President Bush and the war represented "a danger". He didn't want him or Susan Sarandon present, and since they were two of the film's three stars... Kevin Costner, no liberal he, defended Robbins and Sarandon, saying "I think Tim and Susan's courage is the type of courage that makes our democracy work. Pulling back this invite is against the whole principle about what we fight for and profess to be about." Robbins later said that Costner, Clint Eastwood, and Jack Valenti were the only major Hollywood figures that stood up for his free speech rights in this case and noted that all three men are either Republicans or very conservative Democrats, adding that he felt there could be common ground between individuals with different political beliefs.)
Back to Susan Sarandon's film career. The movie where I fell for her was Thelma and Louise (1991) one of my all time favourite films. If you can, get the dvd which has two commentaries, not just the one by Ridley Scott but also the one by Callie Khouri (the scriptwriter), Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. (I reviewed it here.) It was the first female "buddy" movie I saw, full of interesting characters, and as American a road movie as can only be produced by a couple of Europeans. (The director being English, the composer German.) Have some scenes from Thelma & Louise:
One of the persistent myths about the film is that it achieves its feminism by bashing male characters, which is absolute nonsense. We get the full spectrum, from wannabe rapists and jerks via oafs and charming if amoral conman to decent guys and one near-saint. One decent guy is Louise's boyfriend. (He's also played by Michael Madsen in a rare non-villainous role.) Here's a scene which shows his and Louise's relationship. At this point, the road trip the two women started just for fun has already turned into being on the run, and Louise has asked her boyfriend to bring her some money without telling him why.
The next scene is somewhat later. Thelma (Geena Davis), who started out as the weaker of the two, a bossed around housewife, has gradually become stronger and now takes the initiative in a scene that illustrates the black humour of the film beautifully:
And then there is the famous ending. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid set the obvious precedent, and there are a couple of later examples (including the end of Angel: The Series), but with apologies to Butch and Sundance as well as Angel and friends, this is my favourite of the genre. The entire journey these two women have undertaken since the film started is summed up here:
Much as I love Thelma & Louise, though, my absolutely favourite movie with Susan Sarandon as the lead is Dead Man Walking (which Tim Robbins directed). She plays Sister Helen Prejean, and makes quiet strength and compassion immensely compelling, without presenting her character as flawless. The scene in which Sister Helen, who tries to save a convicted murderer from execution, meets some family members of his victims for the first time and realizes that in some ways she has made it easy on herself is immensely powerful. And all her scenes with Sean Penn, who plays the killer from the title, are fantastic. (The film never makes it easy on the audience or Sister Helen: Penn's character isn't innocent, nor is he a misunderstood woobie, and he's a bigotted racist on top of all other things. And yet even if you aren't already against the death penalty, you end up feeling for him.) I haven't found a clip from Dead Man Walking (youtube has the execution scene but in a horrible quality and with someone using different music for it, plus you need to see everything leading up to it anyway), but there is the music vid for Bruce Springsteens song Dead Man Walking which does use scenes from the film (and should please the Springsteen fans among you), so you can have a bit of an impression of what Susan Sarandon's performance is like there.
As I said, she never stops getting good parts (and good actors to play against). One of the most recent examples: the HBO-procued Bernard and Doris, in which Ralph Fiennes plays her gay butler, and she plays Doris Duke. See them meeting:
Lastly, no post fangirling Susan Sarandon would be complete without showing her in her identity as activist, and public persona. Two examples:
A speech at the D.C. peace rally January 2007, which shows her at her passionate political best, and an interview about her life:
I'll leave you with two of my favourite Susan Sarandon quotes:
"I think the good news and the bad news is Hollywood`s not political. The only thing they punish you for is getting old and fat."
“Do you really have to be the ice queen intellectual or the slut whore? Isn't there some way to be both?”
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Date: 2008-08-15 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-14 10:01 pm (UTC)But yayyy for the Catherine Deneuve line, and for the older women parts.
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Date: 2008-08-15 03:19 am (UTC)However: it's rare someone has seen The Front Page, Billy Wilder version, since it gets overshadowed by His Girl Friday! Which is a pity because I think Hildy's original gender, i.e. male, makes for a both more disturbing and more honest depiction of just what Walter is doing throughout the story. And I agree she was excellent there.
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Date: 2008-08-15 03:59 am (UTC)Billy Wilder's The Front Page is DA BOMB! I know it practically by heart, saw in countless times in theatres (yup, that was BV, Before Video) & don't think any of the other versions come even CLOSE to its manic pacing and superb dialogue. ("Son of a bitch stole my watch" beats "Nobody's Perfect" easily in my personal pantheon of Famous Last Lines.) I prefer it even to One, Two, Three, even though that one has the equally classic "Herr Kapellmeister! More rock 'n roll!" TFP did a lot to consolidate my vocation as a journalist, with its picture of ferocious competitiveness, high jinks and low cunning, and huge respect for the tabloid hack's underrated competence. Years later, when I started working on Fleet Street, I got to see the booze-fuelled, adrenalin-charged tail-end of that era, and loved every minute of it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 05:32 am (UTC)Someone should write a post on Billy Wilder and the greatness of his films. Someone who is not me, due to lack of time. But I did write an essay on Sunset Boulevard about two years ago, as I recall. (Talk about great last lines. Also, still best "Hollywood on Hollywood" genre entry ever.)
Did you ever read some of BW's stuff from his Weimar days, i.e. the article about being a gigolo, for example? It's an odd experience, not because they aren't witty and well written, but because his voice is distinctly different before he came into contact with the English language. Very Tucholsky-influenced. Very Berlin. Whereas when you listen to the Wilder interviews Volker Schlöndorf made, which are in a mixture of German and English, his German voice is if anything still affected by Vienna, not Berlin at all, accent wise, and the way of expressing himself ditto, but most of all they reflect the American screwball comedy type of dialogue, not surprisingly.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 04:58 pm (UTC)You forget the Russians! Golly his Commies are FUN. Even better than the "I Got the Red Blues" trio of hapless Kommissars in Mamoulian's underrated Silk Stockings (which I far prefer to Ninotchka, Lubitsch's original, because that was far too much of a Garbo vehicle, and because the Cold War 50s gave Silk Stockings far better mordancy. I bet it was ultimately more faithful to the original Wilder-Brackett screenplay. Plus, ya know, Fred Astaire...)
BW's stuff from his Weimar days, i.e. the article about being a gigolo, for example?
NOOOOO! PLZ 2 BE POINTIN ME? Even if it only exists in German, I'm willing to make a serious effort. Ditto any Völker Schlöndorff.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-15 07:04 pm (UTC)NOOOOO! PLZ 2 BE POINTIN ME? Even if it only exists in German, I'm willing to make a serious effort.
At your service (http://www.amazon.de/Herr-bitte-einen-T%C3%A4nzer-Audio-CD/dp/3491910234/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218826297&sr=1-7). Read by Ulrich Tukur, no less. (Ulrich Tukur is one of our best actors.)
Volker Schlöndorff interviews Billy Wilder (http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Wilder-Speaks-Bodo-Kessler/dp/B000HKDEL0). (This one keeps switching between English and German, which btw mirrors my experience when interviewing emigrés.)
Wann fährt der nächste Affe?
Date: 2008-08-15 04:32 am (UTC)Re: Wann fährt der nächste Affe?
Date: 2008-08-15 05:23 am (UTC)Re: Wann fährt der nächste Affe?
Date: 2008-08-15 04:59 pm (UTC)