This is not the first (Hester Street, Julia, Romancing the Stone) nor the last time I'll be "adjusting" the original release year for a film in this recasting project. While Stephen Frears's widely popular adaptation of Les liaisons dangereuses was originally released in 1988, I've chosen it to follow Gorillas in the Mist. I just couldn't pass up this film and role.
It's not that wild to imagine the film being released in 1989. According to IMDb, shooting didn't begin until May of '88, wrapping in August. Very few films these days are ready for release only four months later. In fact, knowing this filming schedule, I'm rather surprised it wasn't held until 1989. I think I'm justified in my choice to include it for my recasting, at least based on a release probability standpoint.
1989 marks the start of what I've often quoted from Aussie Mike Burge's 2012 article as Meryl's "wilderness years." The period of '89-'94(ish), where we saw a bit of a departure of Streep's work from the often suffering non-American to some, shall we say less "high-brow" fare. Personally, I'm not a fan of the work in this period, and although I know it was a deliberate decision for Meryl based on the geography of her family (or so she's been quoted), I'd have preferred her to continue with roles similar to those she generally throughout the 80s.
With that in mind, I'd recommend anyone who's interested to know what will not be included in the next five years of my recasting project to refer to my 2014 "reimagined" look at this period. Those films will remain in that universe of thought...with one very minor exception, which will not be revealed until the conclusion of this current project.
Which brings us back to Dangerous Liaisons. Glenn Close's leading role as the conniving Marquise de Merteuil was one of the most highly praised of her career. The film takes place among the 18th century French aristocracy. It's a bit of a convoluted plot, but suffice it to say that de Merteuil is trying to get back a lover who has spurned her by having someone else seduce her ex-lover's soon-to-be new wife.
John Malkovich portrays the dastardly Vicomte de Valmont, but balks when challenged to seduce the young girl (played by a very young Uma Thurman), saying it's too easy. Instead, he sets his sights on the pious Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Merteuil agrees to a night with him if he succeeds. An intricate series of plots and plans takes place, where not surprisingly, everybody pretty much ends up getting hurt or killed. Merteuil is ultimately shamed publicly at the opéra for her schemes, with the crowd booing her out of the theater.
I made a point of rewatching the film recently. I'd remembered so little of the actual plot and performances. One of the most memorable things for the this time around was how specifically the character of Merteuil articulates the plight of women in her position:
It's an interesting, if sad, existence. With so few opportunities for making your own way women, in her view, were often consigned to manipulation. Or perhaps, as Meryl once put it in her 2011 commencement speech at Barnard:
"Women are better at acting than men. Why? Because we have to be. If successfully convincing someone bigger than you are of something he doesn't want to know is a survival skill, this is how women have survived through the millennia."
I expect that's pretty accurate. And I was pleasantly surprised by this being an undercurrent to the film's plot. Without it, the character of Madame de Merteuil might have come across as a little too one-dimensional.
The film was widely praised by critics. It earned seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Lead (Close) and Supporting (Pfeiffer) Actress. It snagged three wins for Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design (duh) and Art Direction, with this last win one of the most deserving I can recall. The sets are absolutely gorgeous.
Prior to Close's loss a couple year's ago to Olivia Colman, her role in Dangerous Liaisons is likely the closest she came to nabbing that little golden guy. Many at the time considered her the front runner. Alas, Jodi Foster took home her first of two Oscars in three years for her role in The Accused (1988). Had Close been up against Jessica Tandy in '89 instead, I wonder if she might have squeaked it out.
From the time I was a small child, I've been fascinated by the great expanses of the African wilderness. Nature shows on public television and eventually the Discovery Channel were a frequently viewed programs in my home. Of greatest interest were those which depicted large cats, but really anything featuring animals in Africa was interesting and exotic to me.
It wasn't until much later that I was able to really appreciate the work of naturalists like Jane Goodall, David Attenborough, and Dian Fossey. The last of these names is of course the subject of the 1988 drama, Gorillas in the Mist.
I have to admit that despite my own interest in natural history, I remember the previews for this movie more than the movie itself. I was nine when it was released in theaters, and I'm sure it would've been far too adult for me to have attended in person. It wasn't until college that actually ended up seeing it for the first time, and I watched it again a few months ago in quarantine when I decided I was going to include it in my recasting project.
Directed by Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter, Nell), Sigourney Weaver portrayed Fossey on screen. While I consider Meryl's performance in A Cry in the Dark to be the best of any actress that year, Gorillas would've been a great get. Fossey was an American primatologist who studied mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Her account of her work in the eponymous 1983 book serves as the source material for the screenplay.
The film follows Fossey as she arrives in Africa, having pestered famed anthropologist Louis Leakey in the U.S. for a job in studying the gorillas. She's driven out of the Congo due to political unrest and moves across the mountains to Rwanda, where she's able to finally make some progress on her studies. There's of course a romantic subplot between her and photographer Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown), but the main focus really is Fossey's increasingly fanatical defense of her primate friends against money-hungry poachers.
Pretty bad-ass. It's probably not much of a spoiler for a biopic to reveal that Fossey is brutally bludgeoned to death in the end. Theories abound as to who may have done it or orchestrated it, including the possibility of the Rwandan government itself.
In several reviews of the film, critics, while overall tending to praise the film and Weaver's performance, often bemoan the lack of emotional depth into which the actress is allowed to dive. Specifically, many have cited the fact that Fossey's "mental state" was more precarious than depicted in the film. She was rumored to have detained poachers she "caught," having beaten one of them in the genitals with burning nettle leaves. Yikes. I think it's hard to say if this sort of gentler take on Fossey was a super deliberate choice in the script, or a combination of that and both the directing and choices from Weaver. I speculate as to how Meryl may have influenced all of that, for the betterment of the picture, of course.
The film was a box-office success and received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Weaver, in what she has since described as her best work. It won zero. Weaver however won TWO Golden Globes that year, for Best Actress in a Drama for this film, as well as in supporting for Working Girl. I'd have to check for sure, but the only other time I can recall that happening is when Kate Winslet won for both The Reader and Revolutionary Road. It would've been a fascinating character for Meryl to interpret, nonetheless. And she would've been able to speak gorilla on screen! For real. Weaver learned, like Fossey had, to verbally communicate with real gorillas. Not too many roles these days that require that particular skill. Alas, Meryl has yet to venture beyond perfecting the delectably diverse speech patterns of homo sapiens.
My guess is not many people are aware of Polish director Yurek Bogayevicz's 1987 drama Anna. Neither was I until earlier this year, when I came across its title doing a little research for this recasting project. Having read the film's synopsis, I quickly became intrigued by the title role, brilliantly portrayed by the great Sally Kirkland.
It's true I'm a sucker for a new accent. Anna is a former Czech actress who defects to the United States after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Considered "aging" in her early 40s, she struggles to find work in New York. When Anna and her on again-off again partner Daniel take in young actress who just arrived from Czechoslovakia (Paulina Porizkova), a bit of an All About Eve scenario ultimately ensues, with the lovely young protégé stepping into her mentor's former spot in the limelight.
1987 was a big year lead actresses! Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Cher in Moonstruck, Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, Barbra Streisand in Nuts, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon joining Cher in The Witches of Eastwick, Diane Keaton in Baby Boom, and of course Meryl in her Academy Award-nominated performance in Ironweed. But out of all those fantastic roles and performances, while there are several I'd get a kick out of seeing Meryl portray, Anna seems to be the best fit for this year.
Coming off of a somewhat comic performance the year prior in Crimes of the Heart, the role of Anna would have been a great dramatic role. It was based on the life of Polish actress Elżbieta Czyżewska. While not exactly a biopic, it provides a backstory of how Anna left Czechoslovakia, having giving birth in a prison after having almost killed a man in Prague.
There are a few threads of Sophie in this, of course. I hesitated a bit at first including this film in my recasting, thinking Meryl would've been too young for the role. Kirkland portrayed a 44 year-old. Had Meryl filmed this around the same time she did Ironweed (early '87), she would've been just about to turn 38. Not a lot of actresses are going out of their way to portray women older than they need to. But Meryl has never really demonstrated that vanity. She's lucky enough not to have had to worry quite as much about that back then. It's really been about the role for her, and that's what has provided her such great longevity...not being predictable and not being afraid to appear "un-pretty." Just take a look at her roles from 1986's Heartburn and Ironweed:
Streep in Heartburn
Streep in Ironweed
Not exactly glamorous turns. Thirty years ago, pushing forty was a little more dubious than it is nowadays for film actresses. I think this role may have been one with which Meryl would've identified, even if she had been a tad younger than the part called for.
Kirkland deservedly won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and went on to earn her only Academy Award nomination for the performance, ultimately losing out to Cher for the aforementioned Moonstruck.
Coming off a pair of heavy dramas, 1986's adaptation of Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Crimes of the Heart, offers a bit of dark comedy in continuing this recasting. Directed by Australian Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy), the film has been described at times as Hannah and Her Sisters set in the South. I had definitely considered that film for this latest installment. But ultimately, Crimes of the Heart's Gothic setting and its incredible ensemble put it over the top for me.
I would recast Meryl in Sissy Spacek's role of Rebecca "Babe" Botrelle. She is the youngest of a trio of sisters in Mississippi who are reunited after Babe is apprehended for shooting her abusive husband. A huge draw for me is the fact that, very much like Agnes of God, Meryl would have gotten to be part of a powerful ensemble of mostly women. I've always wanted Meryl to work with Jessica Lange (who plays middle sister Meg), and while I'd prefer to see them in more of a duel lead scenario (think Thelma & Louise or an adaptation of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer), this would've been a perfect opportunity for the two of them to share the screen. The great Diane Keaton completes the circle of Magrath sisters, portraying wallflower, Lenny (Lenora).
The role of Babe isn't an enormously challenging one on the surface, but there's plenty to do here. She's a bit of a space cadet, and feels suffocated by her controlling husband. In what today would likely be a far more controversial subplot, Babe forms a sexual relationship with a 15 year-old African American boy in town (sidebar--I'm slightly less scandalized after reading that the age of consent in Mississippi is 16). Rather than push for Babe's imprisonment for having shot him, he instead insists the boy, Willie Jay (portrayed by Gregory Travis) be sent out of town. This is a far more devastating consequence for Babe, and she, like her mother before her, attempts suicide. I wasn't able to find any better clips of Spacek's best, scenes, but this old video from Siskel & Ebert actually covers a few great points and showcases the ladies together.
I can't help but think of another Pulitzer Prize-winning play that involved the reuniting of three southern sisters: August: Osage County. We get the plain Jane who never left town, the sort of free spirit whose facade of cuteness masks a troubled inside, and the one who managed to get out and who, while also troubled, likely has the most rational take on the family's history of issues. While they are brought together for different reasons in the two stories, both of course involve the sisters' struggles with their dysfunctional parents, in particular their mother.
In Crimes, the Magrath matriarch makes headlines for having eccentrically hanging both herself and her cat. In the aftermath, the sisters, with their father not in the picture, were raised by their "Old Grandaddy." Lenny, in a foreshadowing to the character Keaton would play exactly ten years later in (also starring Meryl of course) Marvin's Room, takes on the burden of helping to care for him as he slips ever closer to death.
Something I found interesting about this movie is that the three leads, while super effective in their roles and collective chemistry, tend to be a bit typecast. Last year I posted a great video where Meryl's career is dissected to help articulate "why we love" her. There's a section in it where she is compared with several of her peers. Examples are given about how Meryl's role diversification over the years has helped her longevity. When Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek are mentioned, the sort of pigeonhole into which the three have historically been placed shows up pretty acutely in Crimes of the Heart: Keaton is neurotic, Spacek is Southern--again, and Lange is the sexy one. But it still works for me.
This is the second consecutive play adaptation in my recasted Meryl filmography (three if you count the fact that A Passage to India was adapted to a play first from the novel). It's also the second straight film for which there is an tight nucleus of women at the heart of the story. The film received positive reviews from critics. And while it was a box office disappointment, Spacek scored a nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the Oscars. Tess Harper was nominated in supporting (playing the awful cousin and neighbor, Chick Boyle), as was Henley for her beautiful screen adaptation.
From the outset of my plan to recast Meryl in a lead role each year dating back to the late 70s, Norman Jewison's 1985 drama Agnes of God has been on the list. The more obvious choice for a great role released the same year might have been portraying Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams. After all, Streep pined for that role, and it's one of the few she's publicly bemoaned not having secured.
But I feel this current project is something different. Back in 2014 when I completed my "reimagined" history of Streep's screen work, I inserted her into roles for which I wish she would've done. A sort of "perfect" career in my view, which included roles for which she was interested or considered, but ended up not portraying, for whatever reason. This latest iteration primarily considers parts that generally never had Streep attached or rumored. And it affords me an opportunity to fine-tune my reimagined history in the future, since I'm able to consider roles that I may have inelegantly squeezed into my previous project that really don't make a lot of sense from an actual schedule standpoint. It therefore might now seem more reasonable that I'm not choosing Sweet Dreams for '85. I expect this rationale will be even more evident in the roles I choose for the period of '88-'94, considering it was the greatest impetus for my original look back at Meryl's filmography. I can only imagine anyone who might be reading this blog for the first time thinking, "Are you friggin' kidding me with this detail?" Alas, no.
Which brings us to Agnes of God. I likely first saw this movie when I was seven or eight...probably on cable somewhere. I grew up Catholic, went to a Catholic school, had nuns as teachers. There was a convent next door to our playground. And the movie adeptly captured a way of life with which I somehow felt familiar. Some of you may be wondering which role I'm thinking of for Meryl. Good question. While I love the fact that this is such an intimate story centered on a trio of women, I see Meryl in Jane Fonda's role of Dr. Martha Livingston, a chain-smoking psychiatrist in Montréal assigned to evaluating a young novice, Agnes, who's suspected of killing her newborn daughter.
From the get-go, I wondered if Meryl may be a bit too young for this role. Fonda is about twelve years older than Meryl, and the character seems to be a well-respected and established professional in her field. Livingston also mentions, when asked by Agnes why she has not had children, that she no longer menstruates. Meryl was 36 when this movie came out...probably not the demographic for which menopause is a common thing. However, I rationalize that away with a little help from the screenplay. A little background on Dr. Livingston is that her mother is in a long-term care facility with dementia. She confuses Martha with her deceased daughter, Marie (who incidentally died in a convent). During a visit from Martha, her mother mistakenly thinks it is Marie, not Martha, who has come to visit her. In a bit of a rant, she complains to "Marie" that Martha is "going straight to hell" for having married a "son-of-a-bitch Frenchman" and having had an abortion. We therefore learn a bit of history regarding our main character, and perhaps a bias she may have against Catholic doctrine.
So, I think it would've been an easy and potentially more interesting adjustment in the script for Martha, when answering Agnes's question about children and saying she no longer can, to explain that she had to have a hysterectomy when younger (due to a botched abortion). I know that's probably getting way too into the weeds, but bear with me and how my mind can't get past little hangups like that. Besides, Meryl and Jane didn't look all that different around that time:
Streep in 1984's Falling in Love
Fonda in 1985's Agnes of God
Back to the film. Alongside Fonda, the magnificent Anne Bancroft (OMG if only Meryl could've worked with her!) plays--in my estimation--a mother superior who, for better or worse, is unable to completely suppress her secular sensibilities.
The chemistry in the back and forth between the two actresses is intense and palpable. And I should say now that there are obvious parallels between this film and Doubt. Meryl of course does not play the nun in this situation, but a former wife and mother who is now a mother superior going up against a threat to her order, it conjures similar feelings. In certain ways, however, Agnes of God, for me, is even more compelling.
That brings us to the great Meg Tilly, who plays the titular role of Agnes. Not unlike Amy Adams in Doubt, Tilly, to a much larger degree, is able to convey pure innocence. With Agnes, her naiveté borders on imbecility. But there's enough nuance in Tilly's portrayal and her characterization from playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier (based on his original 1979 play) to make us wonder to what level she really knows or doesn't know what's really happening around her.
Dr. Livingston makes a special connection with Agnes, trying to get to the bottom of how her child dies. More specifically, Livingston wants to know how Agnes became pregnant in the first place (like all of us), what Mother Miriam (Bancroft) knew, and whether or not Agnes is "an innocent" chosen by God for sex-free conception (yikes), or simply a sheltered girl with a history of abuse who doesn't possess the ability to comprehend the fact that she's been raped.
Heavy stuff. It's a tricky subject which I expect Meryl probably would find enticing. The film is noir-ish, which we know Meryl doesn't like. But I've never really thought of it as a shadowy crime movie. I tend to think Meryl might have provided a little more nuance in regard to Livingston's "non-believerism." Fonda plays a great antagonist to Mother Miriam and the Catholic Church, but I don't really get much sense of conflict or (ha) "doubt" in her portrayal. She's got her mind made up, and that's that. I'm probably very much like her as a person, but for the film and role, it would add an element of interest if we saw a little bit more space for the other side in her character. And did I mention that she gets to speak a little bit of Canadian French?
The movie wasn't super well-received by critics (43% on Rotten Tomatoes), but both Bancroft and Tilly were (VERY deservedly) nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. I still enjoy watching the movie to this day, and would love to have seen what Meryl may have brought to the role of Dr. Martha Livingston with her performance.
I've probably mentioned this in previous posts, but part of the fun I'm having in deciding which films to recast Meryl has been in seeing a few things for the first time. David Lean's 1984 epic adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, A Passage to India, is one such case. The film appealed to me because I couldn't think of anything Meryl's done on screen that takes place in Asia. And of course that it was a highly acclaimed film by a prominent director. After taking in a viewing of it early on in this quarantine, I decided it would be a good fit for my list.
The story takes place in the 1920s during the time of Great Britain's rule over India (known as the British Raj). Adela Quested (portrayed by Judy Davis in an Academy Award-nominated performance) is on her way to India with her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Mrs. Moore (portrayed by Peggy Ashcroft in her Academy Award-winning performance). The two pine for closer interaction with the Indian population, which, during the burgeoning Indian independence movement at the time, was becoming more separated from the colonialist community.
The two women (Meryl of course would play Adela) befriend a local doctor, Aziz Ahmed (Victor Banerjee), who offers to guide them on an excursion to a local cave site.
Long story short, Adela is seen running from a cave all bothered and bloody and she, after a some sort of "calming" injection from a treating physician, claims Aziz attempted to rape her (which we know he didn't because we see him watching her run out of the cave).
The role of Adela may not seem particularly brilliant on the surface, but there's a conflict in her character that I expect Meryl may have found appealing. Judy Davis apparently won the part when she met with Lean and said that what happened in the cave was that "she can't cope with her own sexuality, she just freaks out." There's a romantic chemistry between Adela and their Indian guide, Aziz--something that would've been completely out of the question for a woman in her position in that day and age--plus the the fact that she isn't particularly fond of her betrothed, Mr. Heaslop.
A clash of cultures develops when Dr. Aziz goes on trial for the attempted rape of Adela. Prejudices run rampant, with the rich little white girl pitted against what the colonialists consider, despite Aziz's standing as respected physician, a savage member of a primitive society in need of domination. Adela eventually breaks down on the stand during Aziz's trial, withdrawing her claims when she realizes she was mistaken.
It's the kind of story with a level of "difficulty" that Meryl tends to favor. It challenges preconceptions of non-Western culture and dared to even hint at the possibility of an interracial relationship. I realize this wasn't unheard of in 1984, but for the characters in this film and especially understanding the time period in which the novel was written, it was rather controversial stuff. I think Meryl would've done a brilliant job with some of the more ambigous aspects of Adela's character: her lack of clear memory of the incident, her struggle with what was likely an unspoken and perhaps subconscious attraction to Aziz, her disinterest in an almost arranged marriage.
The cinematography reminds me of the large-scale foreign feel we see in 1985's Out of Africa. Although this film is not quire the scale of Africa, it sort of fills the slot of a similar-feeling destination, compared to the Western fare up to this point in the my recasting.
The film was highly praised critically, and earned eleven Academy Award nominations. In addition to the aforementioned supporting win for Ashcroft, Maurice Jarre won fir his compelling score.
I expect that quite a few people who read the headline for the post are thinking, "for real?" I had originally planned to recast Meryl in Debra Winger's role in Terms of Endearment for 1983, but for a few reasons it just never sat super well with me. Meryl might have been a little too old for that part (not a deal-breaker though, considering she believably played Shirley MacLaine's daughter in Postcards from the Edge). I was interested in the fact that the movie was so wildly popular and well-received. Both Winger and MacLaine were nominated for lead Oscars. But having watched Terms again recently, nothing particularly struck me as something I haven't seen from Meryl before.
Which leads me to Romancing the Stone. One of my self-imposed "rules" for this project is that I want the recasting to (at least somewhat) fit into a realistic filmography that Meryl would've done, given the recasted roles into which I insert her from years leading up to my current choice. If we look at the movies I've chosen thus far: Hester Street, Closer Encounters of the Third Kind, Julia, American Gigolo, Reds, Frances. They're all very serious. It's seems fitting that Meryl might want and/or need something a bit lighter.
I realize I'm moving the film's release up by a year--it was originally released in early 1984. Michael Douglas wanted to produce the film and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Death Becomes Her, Forest Gump), despite box office bombs up to that point, was essentially given a last chance. And he didn't disappoint.
The film portrays Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), an out-of-love romance novelist who yearns for the same passion she imbues in her heroines. Her sister has been kidnapped in Colombia, and Joan uncharacteristically departs New York with a treasure map she possesses as the ransom. Things get off course quickly upon her arrival, and she pays an American smuggler (Michael Douglas) to escort her to Cartagena. Along the way we get secret police, gunfights, car chases, mudslides, emeralds hidden in creepy ceramic bunnies, hands bitten off by crocodiles, drug-dealing fanboys, and of course, a budding romance.
It all sounds pretty cheesy and a little cheap, perhaps. But I love it. There's enough sort of quirky, nuanced comedy that seemed to sophisticate what could've felt like typical car chase-like screenplay. I watched it many many times as a kid. My mom really got a kick out of the movie, and we must have had it taped from TV. I can remember feeling immersed in a very foreign-feeling place. It doesn't get much more different for a rural Midwestern kid who'd never left the state than imagining what it would be like braving the jungles of South America. It appealed to me much the way Raiders of the Lost Ark had and, to perhaps a greater extent, its sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I've read a few blurbs how some consider Romancing to be a knock-off of Raiders, but in fact, the film was written in 1979, two years prior to the screen debut of Indiana Jones.
As far as the actual role goes, it's fair to say Joan Wilder goes on a journey. It's not just the wild events she has to endure on her quest to reach her sister. The de-glammed cat lady who has a habit of making herself cry gives way to a sexy heroine who fights and wins against the more powerful bad guy. I expect the shoot had to be quite the romp. And as I previously alluded, after a the stent of roles and stories Meryl would've been a part of up to that point in her career, an action-packed blockbuster may have been an attractive prospect. Most, including myself, consider The River Wild to be an action movie. Yes, there's action, but it pretty much revolves around one big event: white water rafting. It's arguably more of a thriller than it an action movie, for which throwing Meryl into a story like Romancing the Stone is even more fun to consider.
Moviegoers and critics just so happened to love this movie too. Against its $10 million dollar budget, the film grossed over $115 million worldwide. It won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress (Turner) Musical or Comedy, and currently holds a strong 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, and spurred a successful sequel in 1985. Needless to say, its commercial success would've provided Meryl even greater freedom to choose from whichever projects happened to catch her eye in the near future.
Last Saturday, I decided to watch the film I've chosen for reacasting 1982: Frances. It had probably been six or seven years since my inaugural viewing of the movie, apparently having made Joe join me in assessing what many consider Jessica Lange's greatest screen performance. Had it not been for Meryl's performance in Sophie's Choice the same year, Lange likely would've come away with a Best Actress Oscar.
Only a few minutes into the movie the other night, I found myself Googling the person on whom the movie is based, actress Frances Farmer. I was immediately taken aback to learn that I just so happened to be rewatching Frances on the 50th anniversary of the eponymous woman's death.
Holy crap it's a depressing film. Granted, the character of Frances requires an actor to showcase the very extremes of human emotion, from light banter to absolute loss of control. The role tends more toward the latter, and I've learned that some of the items from the book on which the movie is based (such as the scene where Farmer receives a frontal lobotomy), are in fact fabricated.
The story basically follows Farmer as she makes her way to Hollywood (she wants to eventually end up on the New York stage). Her tendency to question certain artistic choices doesn't exactly ingratiate her to the big studio bosses. She turns to drinking and is sort of gaslighted as a "crazy" person, ending up committed to institutions against her will. It's a great study in the often-volatile relationships between stars of the Golden Era and their vicariously living mothers (here deftly portrayed by Kim Stanley).
It's easy to see why Lange was nominated. While a performance exploring the pendulous behaviors of someone suffering through mental illness has become something close to a calling card for her, in '82 she wasn't necessarily known for it yet. I admit I wondered a few times watching it again if I could really see Meryl doing it. Lange is singular in her portrayal, and it would be a huge stretch. But again, that's sort of why I'm choosing many of the roles I'm choosing in this recasting; it's fun to speculate on how Meryl would negotiate a few more risky parts.
There were a great many actresses interested and ultimately considered for the role, Meryl included apparently. According to IMDb, Lange won out in the end over Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn. The film was decently reviewed by critics but did not make back its budget.
Meryl was likely better off with Sophie, of course, but Frances would've been a wild ride.
Hot off an uncharacteristically steamy role in 1980's American Gigolo, I'm inserting Meryl into Warren Beatty's drama, Reds. The film was based on the lives of American journalists John Reed (Beatty) and Louise Bryant (originally played by Diane Keaton), and their involvement in the Russian Revolution during World War I.
This role seems right up Meryl's usual alley: period piece, biopic, vast scope, political message. In the early stages of her (real) career, she likely didn't have the chops for such a big project--Keaton was a more established leading lady at that point. But again, we're creating our own version of Meryl's filmography with this recasting, so we'll assume that given her résumé from the few years prior to this potential project, she was prime for a sweeping epic alongside Hollywood royalty.
In the film, Bryant is attracted to Reed's idealism, and ends up leaving her husband to join him in New York. The two have a tumultuous relationship, and Bryan ends up having an affair with playwright Eugene O'Neill, played by Jack Nicholson. Bryant grows increasingly radical, and ends up heading to Europe to be a correspondent during the war. She ends up reuniting with Reed, and they get caught up in the events of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Keaton plays Bryant with her usual exasperated quirkiness. I was drawn out of the plot a little at times, as Keaton comes off so modern to me, that it occasionally didn't seem like this was a setting in the early 20th century. Not that it's bad to forget the characters are from a long time ago, but it takes away form the scope of it all when they ever seem out of their era. Ditto that for Beatty at times. Maybe that's actually the way progressive journalists form that era sounded like?
It would've been fun to see Meryl negotiate the complexities of a woman with very independent thinking at that time. Add to that, I imagine the film was a bit radical in itself, as it depicted communism in a sympathetic light...not exactly something typical for American films in the 1980s.
The film was wildly popular with critics and earned twelve Academy Award nominations, including Keaton for Best Actress. It was also a modest success at the box office. Overall, participation in a film that was as well-received and high profile as this one would have only bolstered Meryl's already burgeoning reputation as one of the most sought-after leading ladies of her time.
With which movie would Meryl have followed her tour de force performance in The Rose? As I've mentioned previously, one of the more fun parts of this recasting project is that I get to choose some roles that are a riskier or generally less likely something Meryl would've done without some special circumstance.
Which brings us to 1980. Usually by the time somebody receives any acclaim for a performance, they're either already in the process of filming their next project, or have already completed it. So, any bounce Meryl or any other actress may have gotten from The Rose wouldn't affect her consideration for future roles until after she completed filming something else. This scenario reminds of when Meryl filmed the noir pic Still of the Night in the fall of 1981. Meryl was yet to receive acclaim for her first lead role in The French Lieutenant's Woman, and had likely been cast for Still of the Night months prior to the latter film's release.
Still of the Night was a bona fide stinker. Meryl is on record as having admitted it wasn't a good movie, and that she "hated" noir. But what if she had been able to participate is a noir film that was well-made, well-received critically, and a box office smash? Cue American Gigolo.
It's been reported that Meryl was actually offered the role of Michelle Stratton (originally played by Lauren Hutton), but declined because she did not like the tone of the film. I expect it may have been due to some of the overt sexual language, a scene where she'd be topless, and dealings with BDSM and homosexuality. Meryl likely had no personal issue with any of these topics, but for 1980 is would've been far more risqué to participate in a film of this nature. It's one of the first (if not the first?) scenes where a leading man does full-frontal nudity (a young Richard Gere in a role with a hotness factor that occasionally rivals Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise). Christopher Reeve and John Travolta both came close to appearing in the role.
The role itself isn't super amazing, but Michelle is a reasonably complex character in a sticky situation. She's a wife of a state senator. Their marriage isn't great, and she ends up meeting a gigolo in a restaurant (where she speaks French!). The two start up an affair, and of course, it's complicated by the fact that his livelihood is based on sleeping with other women, primarily older, rich ones. Hutton does a fine job in the role, but Meryl no doubt would have been able to bring more nuances to the part. I particularly would've like to see more regarding how she feels trapped in her marriage.
OMG that's basically the same hairstyle Meryl has in Still of the Night. Maybe it's a noir thing.
Gigolo was filmed in early 1979, so it would've been able to wrap before Meryl would even be showing with her first child, Henry, who was born in November that year. It hit theaters in February 1980, and earned $52 million at the global box office, against a budget of only $5 million. Reviews were modestly favorable, and the film has become lauded for its original score, which received a Golden Globe nomination. The theme "Call Me," performed by Blondie was a worldwide success, and went to number one. The song also garnered a Golden Globe and Grammy Award nominations.
All in all, the role in this picture would likely not go down as one of the best of all time, but it still would've been fun to see Meryl stretch her legs a bit, as well as be part of a particularly modern project-- considering the previous two roles for which I recast her in, along with three of the next four I'll be choosing.
