Recasting 1983 (supporting): "The Big Chill"

Not long after I started my original recasting project in mid 2020, I started preparing my list for which supporting roles I thought would be fun to tackle. Part of the fun of doing all this is revisiting movies I enjoy, as well as experiencing some that I've never seen. I knew Glenn Close had been nominated for her supporting role in The Big Chill, so I thought I'd check it out to see if it'd be something worth considering for this series. To my surprise, it's been a film that I've since revisited a handful of times, as I've thoroughly enjoyed its smart screenplay and excellent performances from the cast. The soundtrack is also one of the best of all time. 

Something else that surprised me was that I ended up preferring the role of Meg, originated by Mary Kay Place, to Close's. And it's ultimately the one I chose for this week's selection. A bit of plot background: Seven 30-something college friends reunite for a weekend in South Carolina following the suicide death of another member of their close-knit group. Among the friends is Meg Jones, a successful, single lawyer who feels her biological clock ticking and wants badly to have a baby. She sort of sizes up her four male friends, deciding which of them she should ask to sire her offspring, no strings attached. 

I found a quote from director Lawrence Kasdan in which he describes what he thinks The Big Chill is about: 

The Big Chill deals with members of my generation who have discovered that not everything they wanted is possible, that not every ideal they believed in has stayed in the forefront of their intentions. 'The Big Chill' is about a cooling process that takes place for every generation when they move from the outward-directed, more idealistic concerns of their youth to a kind of self-absorption, a self-interest which places their personal desires above those of the society or even an ideal.

I found this to be an interesting and likely accurate summary. I suspect part of what drew me to the film was that I'm not that far off from being a similar age as these characters, and have had many of the same experiences they describe and depict in the film. It's wild to think about my close group of friends from undergrad and grad school, and the extent to which our lives have either diverged or stayed on a similar path, regardless of geography. The excellent ensemble of actors cast in this movie were able to convey a real sense of history and camaraderie. The tone is funny and at the same time kind of bleak, with the vacillating between ovations of love for each other to castigation and accusation. Aside from the somewhat lonely place the character of Meg seems to be coming from, there's so much to do for all of these characters, as they're interacting with so many sub-groups of friends in their group over the scope of the weekend. Were Meryl to have had the chance to participate, she would've shared individual scenes with Glenn Close, Kevin Kline (coming off their pairing in Sophie's Choice), William Hurt (fifteen years prior to One True Thing), and Jeff Goldblum, in addition to the above scene with Tom Berenger. 

The Big Chill was generally well-received in 1983. While Close was the lone acting nomination (losing out to Linda Hung in The Year of Living), the film was nominated for Best Picture, and Kasden shared an Original Screenplay nod with Barbara Benedek. I maintain that the role of Meg is the most interesting of the three in the friend group. And I'm not alone in that sentiment. Both Close and co-star JoBeth Williams are reported to have commented that they would have preferred to portray Meg in the film. But the director already had them both in mind for the roles which they ultimately ended up plahing. It would've been fun to see the layers Meryl would have brought to the character. And what she would've brought out of her co-stars! 

For my 1984 selection, I'm bumping up a film that was released in early 1985, with a role that is arguably a lead one. I'll share my rationalizations for why it's appropriate for this current project in my next post. 

Recasting 1982 (supporting): "Annie"

Following a string of six dramas to start this supporting recasting project, I thought it was high time for a change of pace. John Huston's 1982 musical comedy Annie seemed the perfect project for a more light-hearted turn. If I'm being truthful, I had this movie in mind from the very beginning of my recasting selections. The first time I remember seeing it, my mom had taken my sister and me to her co-worker's home. They had kids similar in age and were probably the only family we knew in town who had a VCR in the early 80s. After Mom came home one day with the cassette tape of the film's soundtrack, it was over. As someone who's liked to sing from a young age, I did my best to emulate the kids' voices in all their high belts and harmonies. My sister and I basically burned a hole in our parents' silver stereo playing that tape over and over, much to my dad's chagrin. Forty years later, I'm still a huge fan. 

I concede up front that the film isn't a masterpiece. But it's got a pedigree of directing, acting, singing and dancing credentials that anyone would've been hard pressed to surpass at the time. Huston is well-known for The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, and Prizzi's Honor, and the ensemble cast he assembled included Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters, and Ann Reinking (who starred in the role for which I'm recasting Meryl). Everyone probably knows the story of Little Orphan Annie, who's invited to stay with billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Finney) for a week in Depression-era New York. I rewatched the film recently and I couldn't help but be sort of appalled at the notion of a ten year-old getting to stay in a mansion and then just dumped back at the orphanage without anything being done more long term for or her or her fellow orphans by this seemingly benevolent billionaire. I was too caught up in the music and that fact that the orphans were somehow all acrobats as a kid to really think of it that way. And it's not like it's hard to predict that Annie's going to get adopted at the end anyway. 

Reinking portrays Grace Farrell, Warbucks's private secretary. She's a sort of a prim and proper character with a big heart. More interestingly in the role is that she has some song and dance sequences that I don't think we've ever really seen Meryl do. Meryl has sung plenty of times, but has not really performed the kind of choreographed dance numbers for a stage-to-screen musical like this one. Reinking was Bob Fossey's girlfriend at one point and was a star on the stage (see All That Jazz). Her dance skills no doubt are what made her a natural for the part. 

I watched a Bobbie Wygant interview with Reinking around the time of the film's release in which Reinking talks about the role being a bit beefed up from the stage version. Grace is a woman in her thirties in the Thirties, unmarried and working in a rather important job. That wasn't exactly common at the time. And when she inevitably grows attached to Annie, the "family unit" arc develops, reinforced of course by the romance that buds between her and Warbucks. There's an inherent conflict in that dynamic that adds a bit of heft and potential backstory to work with in the character, along with the fun part of singing and dancing. I bet Meryl would've had a ball in scenes with Carol Burnett (who deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance as the drunken Miss Hannigan). 

The film wasn't a huge blockboster and received mostly mixed reviews from critics. In fact, it was nominated for a handful of Razzie Awards, and poor little Aileen Quinn (Annie) won for Worst Supporting Actress (while simultaneously getting nominated for a New Star of the Year at the Golden Globes). Burnett also scored a Globe nod for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. The picture did end up landing a pair of Academy Award nominations, for Cinemotography and Original Song Score or Its Adaptation and Adaptation Score (whatever the hell that is). Despite its somewhat disappointing performance, I maintain that it's a very entertaining movie (particularly for kids around the orphans' age), and an excellently acted one. 

Recasting 1981 (supporting): "On Golden Pond"

Jane Fonda purchased the film rights to Ernest Thompson's 1979 play, On Golden Pond, with the specific intention of having her father star in it. She and her father, screen veteran Henry Fonda, apparently had a similarly strained relationship that paralleled the lives of the father and daughter depicted in the story. The screen version was filmed in 1980, and was released in late 1981 to critical acclaim and major box office success. Katharine Hepburn famously co-starred in her last Oscar-nominated role (a performance for which she also won). 

It's a bit difficult to imagine a scenario that might've included Streep in the role of the younger Fonda. But as I've commented numerous other times in my pair of recasting projects to date, stranger things have happened. It's been documented that Jimmy Stewart was interested in acquiring the rights prior to Fonda having secured them. I've also read that he was offered the lead role of Norman, but I find that more difficult to believe, considering Jane Fonda had her father in mind for the part from the beginning. Had Stewart snuck in before the younger Fonda had, Hepburn would also seem like a natural choice as his co-star. She and Stewart had starred in the 1940 film, The Philadelphia Story, which just so happened to be filmed forty years to the month prior to On Golden Pond. And then it could've been anyone's guess who would've ended up portraying Chelsea, Norman and Ehthel's somewhat estranged, only child. Why not Meryl?

One of the obvious first questions that comes to mind is that of age. The character of Norman is about to turn 80 when he and his wife, Ethel (Hepburn) return to their summer home on a lake called Golden Pond somewhere in New England. While Henry Fonda would've technically only been 75 during filming, that's still a pretty big stretch to expect to see his character's only child to be around 30 (Streep would've turned 31 a month prior to filming). Ethel is supposed to be in her late 60s, which is a bit more plausible, if atypical for most American families in the mid 20th century. But if the story were changed ever so slightly to have Norman turning 75, we'd have a pair of parents whose estranged daughter was born when they were in their early forties. As mentioned, that wasn't common back then, but even Meryl's own parents were in their mid to late 30s when they had Meryl (the oldest of three), with her father being in his early forties when he fathered his last child. If we imagined that same scenario for Norman and Ethel, it actually might add some interesting backstory as to why Chelsea and her father didn't always see eye to eye. Had the couple perhaps either not wanted children when Chelsea came along, or had struggled for a long time to conceive only to have a girl, there are some inherent complications and potential resentments at play that could've fueled the actors' performances. The same could be true if Dabney Coleman remained in the cast as Chelsea's boyfriend (then husband), Billy Ray, who is seventeen years older than Meryl. Not to get too Freudian, but some might suggest that seeking or being interested in the romantic affections of partners much older is not an uncommon feature in folks who had a detached or strained relationship with their father. We don't really get a concrete sense of that for Chelsea and Norman in the film. Were they to play it in a way similar to what I suggest here...who knows? It would not only allow for fewer raised eyebrows in response to the age gaps, but possibly even enhance our understanding of the characters' motivations, fears and regrets.

   

I'm not sure how thrilled Meryl would've been to be in a bathing suit for some scenes, but I imagine she'd have been great at the back flip. Part of what has made this film so appealing to me over the years is how closely its setting resembles much of my upbringing. My parents have owned a cabin in northern Minnesota since I was a child, and so many of my summers were filled spending time on boats, in the woods, on porches, in lakes, and around campfires. The cinematography is extremely nostalgic, as it so well captures the essence of lake culture in the great American forests of the North and Northeast. I actually didn't see this movie until I was an adult, but young Billy Ray Jr. (Doug McKeon) does such a splendid job that the first time I watched it I was almost immediately drawn into his experience. 

As mentioned above, On Golden Pond was a huge hit in 1981. In addition to it being the second-highest-grossing film of that year, it was nominated for ten Academy Awards (including Best Picture). Hepburn and the senior Fonda both won in lead as well, with Thompson scoring a win for Best Adapted Screenplay. It would've been amazing to see Meryl opposite Katharine Hepburn (who probably hadn't made her negative comments about Meryl being her least favorite actress by that point yet). I wonder if that would've changed if they'd worked together, as it seemed to have changed Hepburn's less than stellar impression of Jane Fonda prior to when they filmed. I'm sure I've mentioned this somewhere else in this blog at some point, but Meryl was the frontrunner that year for her lead performance in The French Lieutenant's Woman. I would love to have seen the final tallies in her category. Had she squeaked it out over Hepburn, and things played out the same way over the next thirty years of awards, Hepburn would've finished with three lead wins and Streep would be sitting at three lead and one supporting wins. Jane Fonda was nominated in supporting that year as well (Maureen Stapleton won for Reds), and after already having two lead wins for Klute and Coming Home, Hepburn famously phoned Fonda after the ceremony (which Hepburn did not attend of course) and quipped, "You'll never catch me now!"

Recasting 1980 (supporting): "Ragtime"

In a 2015 interview for Ricki and the Flash, Meryl Streep was asked a question about whether there was ever a project she really wanted to do but ultimately turned down because it was the right choice for her family. It's the first question in the interview and comes within the first minute:

Meryl provides the example of when she had been cast in a movie called Ragtime, which she dropped out of after finding out she was pregnant with her first child, Henry. I had already planned to include this film in the 'supporting' version of my recasting project by the time I saw this clip. And I honestly don't even remember how I happened to come across the interview, but after doing so, I was even more confident in my choice. We don't learn for which role Meryl had been cast, but I suspect it was likely for the part I originally intended to select, that of "Mother." Mary Streenburgen ultimately portrayed the character in the film. 

It's not too difficult to imagine why Meryl would've been interested in a film like Ragtime. Adapted from the novel by E.L. Doctorow and directed by Miloš Forman, the film takes place in the 1910s New York. It primarily follows an African American ragtime piano player, Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Howard Rollins), and his struggle for justice after racist city firemen vandalize his vehicle without punishment. The plot intertwines a few storylines, one of which is when Mother's maid finds an abandoned black baby in the garden and Mother convinces her curmudgeony husband to let her take in both the baby and its mother, Sarah (Debbi Allen). Coalhouse just happens to be the baby's father. 

   

Another of the storylines involves Mother's brother (Brad Dourif, who starred in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next) falling for a starlet, Evelyn Nesbit, (Elizabeth McGovern), and eventually becoming sort of radicalized in helping Coalhouse and his group of friends/fugitives in a violent standoff against the police. Throughout all of this, Mother cares for the baby, including when Sarah dies from an assault at a rally. Policemen confront Father and Mother about turning over the baby, essentially as a way to draw Coalhouse out from hiding, but Mother holds her ground. After Coalhouse is shot dead, we see Mother riding away from her husband with Tateh (Mandy Patinkin), a director with whom she'd had a bit of a spark after meeting him while he filmed a scene with Evelyn (his new star) on the beach in Atlantic City. Mother leaves with Coalhouse and Sarah's young baby in tow. 

OK that's sort of convoluted, and ultimately I think the character of Mother isn't exactly one for the ages. But she serves as sort of a lens through which some of the complex scenarios and questions that result from the film's storyline can be viewed--especially when one considers how they would've been interpreted by folks around the turn of the twentieth century. Mother is one of the few who not only empathizes with Sarah and Coalhouse, but she also, while herself a person of little agency as a woman at that time (even as a white woman), does what she can to do right by people. Were a woman of that upbringing to leave her home and husband with a Jewish divorcee and a black baby, it would not have been a socially supported thing to do. Father's attempts to convince Coalhouse to surrender weren't enough. I expect Meryl would've been attracted to that kind of moxie in a character. 

Something else I like about this movie is its wonderful ensemble cast. In addition to the above mentioned names, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Daniels and Fran Drescher all had minor roles. Perhaps most reknowned, however, was the presence of James Cagney in his last film role, portraying Commisioner Rhinelander Waldo. I'm also a fan of director Forman, not only for his Academy Award-winning directing in Cuckoo's Nest, but also for 1984's Amadeus, which is a favorite of mine. Ragtime was nominated for eight Academy Awards and received favorable reviews. Steenburgen missed out on a supporting nod (McGovern snagged one), but she was recognized with a nomination at the Golden Globes. 

The film was shot in the second half of 1980 with a release in November the following year. Knowing that Meryl had stated she dropped out of this film due to becoming pregnant with her son (who was born in November '79), it makes me wonder if it was originally scheduled to shoot in the latter half of 1979. No doubt that would've left Meryl unable to participate. Had she really wanted to star in it and was not otherwise committed to another project, it would not have been pregnancy that prevented her participating in 1980. In fact, The French Lieutenant's Woman (released late 1981), was likely wrapped by the fall of '81, as shooting started in May of that year. The likelihood is that production on Ragtime may have been delayed from its planned start date, but by the time filming was about to begin, Streep had been replaced or was no longer interested. Maybe we'll never know. For it to have worked for Meryl to participate with a 1980 release (and not be in the late stages of pregnancy--if that was her preference), filming would've likely needed to start in the spring of 1979. Meryl wouldn't have been showing likely until summer. But interestingly, and coincidentally, Steenburgen was pregnant during shooting as well, giving birth to her daughter Lilly only a month after filming was reportedly complete. 

Happy 73rd, Meryl!

Meryl turns 73 today. Wherever she is, I hope she's doing something she enjoys. Not to sound morbid, but each year that goes by now, I get a little sentimental when considering how much longer we can hope to see Meryl in new projects. Maybe it's a little more pronounced this year, as we have no future projects realistically in the pipeline (that we know of). I remind myself that this is nothing out of the ordinary for her. She takes breaks. Sometimes for a year or two. More than likely, we'll get some news within the next few months about her signing on to some new movie or a limited series. We also have Extrapolations to look forward to later this year. 

For all we know, we could be embarking on her greatest decade of portrayals ever. I'm here for it!

Recasting 1979 (supporting): "All That Jazz"

For anyone who read the preview to this supporting casting project, you might recall how I mentioned something to the effect that some of my choices for roles this go around may at times border a bit on the obscure. That's perhaps the case in my choice for 1979. Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz, saw a young Jessica Lange cast as Angelique, better known as the angel of death. We see scenes with Angelique and the main character, Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), as Gideon navigates his way through editing a film, directing a musical, and managing the complicated relationships with his ex-wife (Leland Palmer), his girlfriend (Ann Reinking in a role where she's bascially playing herself), and his teenage daughter. Gideon is the epitome of someone who's burning the candle at both ends, with his unwavering libido, chain-smoking, and pill-taking, and work addiction. His conversations with Angelique, despite them not being real, sort of serve as a link to reality for Gideon and his unavoidable morality.

   

There are unfortunately so few clips out there of Lange and Scheider in their scenes together. It's a shame because the character of Angelique is so different from any other in the film. She's a figment, and essentially the only character in the film who doesn't sing or dance. I found this video that breaks down the character in further detail. It's worth a view:

While death may come in the form of a woman for Joe, and the commentary in the video suggests that Angelique is the only "person" who seems to understand him, I found Lange's portrayal a bit funny and condescending. Which is a great combo when considering for which types of things Joe Gideon feels he's misunderstood...or at least for those he's annoyed that he's made to feel like he should be doing something different. It would have been fun to see how Meryl would've played that. It actually sort of reminded me of the dynamic between Meryl's Ethel Rosenberg and Al Pacino's Roy Cohn from Angels in America.

Lange has been on record as saying that she and Bob Fosse were great friends, and that he went to great lengths to make her role in the film a reality. With that in mind, I think it's pretty unlikely Meryl was on anyone's radar for a part like this. But it's tough to say for sure. Word gets around. Someone sees someone in a play. They tell their friends about it. Those friends might just happen to be big wigs in the entertainment industry. Who knows if Fosse was aware of Meryl in 1978. She'd already been nominated for a Tony. She had filmed a movie with Robert De Niro and had been John Cazale's girlfriend prior to his untimely death from cancer early that year. Stranger things have happened. And I would've preferred Meryl being linked to Roy Scheider in this film instead of 1982's neo-noir dud Still of the Night. 

I like this choice for Meryl partly because of the aforementioned uniqueness of the character. But also because I like the idea of her getting to be in projects with renowned directors. I can't imagine those types of influences doing anything other than enhancing one's performance and skills. A handful of the upcoming selections I make in this project were heavily influenced by this fact. In addition of course to the role itself and the setting or topic the film covers. All That Jazz is now considered a classic. It was a critical success, nabbing Fosse the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for a whopping nine Academy Awards, winning four. Incidentally, it was the last live-action musical to be nominated for Best Picture until 2001's Moulin Rouge!

My selection for 1980 is a film that was originally released in 1981. But I'm bumping it up a year to make room for my 1981 selection, also originally released that year. 

Recasting 1978 (supporting): "Coming Home"

It has been well-documented that after the filming of 1977's Julia, Jane Fonda had sought to cast co-star Meryl Streep in her upcoming Vietnam War drama, Coming Home. Fonda was evidently so impressed with Streep that she had her in mind for the role of Vi Munson, originally portrayed by Penelope Milford. Meryl proved unavailable, and Milford went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance. I had originally assumed that Meryl might have been too busy shooting The Deer Hunter (also 1978). As it turns out, however, Coming Home was filmed in early 1977 (The Deer Hunter mostly the latter half), but Meryl was committed to starring in a Tennessee Williams play. 

At first I was hesitant about choosing another Vietnam War-related movie to recast with Meryl, especially the exact year as The Deer Hunter. But it has been so long since I'd seen Coming Home that I'd forgotten how polar opposite the role of Vi is from Linda. It therefore seemed like a great choice to imagine Meryl diverging from the hapless, innocent, "waiting" Linda in The Deer Hunter to free-spirited, pot-smoking bohemian Vi in Coming Home. 

Vi meets Fonda's character, Sally, after both women's partners (Sally's husband, Vi's boyfriend) are deployed to Vietnam in 1968. To keep herself busy, Sally volunteers at the veterans hospital where Vi works, and she ends up developing a relationship with Luke (John Voigt), who is paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair following a combat injury. Vi also has a brother (Robert Carradine) who lives at the hospital, struggling emotionally after a brief stint in Vietnam as well. There isn't much out there in terms of clips of Milford in the role, but I found this one that has a few snippets from several scenes (start at 1:28):

I think it would've been fun to see Meryl play the scene where's she with Fonda after learning that her brother committed suicide in the hospital. Vi is the opposite of naive, and she's the type of character who seems like she'd have a pragmatic view of it all in the end. That doesn't mean she's not angry or sad, but she's not shattered or helpless. She's a good lens through which the audience can understand another facet of the horrors of war; her brother spent little time overseas, yet came back so messed up that he ended up taking his life. Vi behaves like a ticked off older sister who's little brother pulled some kind of stupid stunt. Her pain no doubt goes much deeper, but her tough exterior won't let that show just yet.  

Directed by Hal Ashby, Coming Home was a tremendously successful film, both commercially and critically. It was also one of the few to realistically depict the life and struggles of someone wheelchair-bound--particularly in love scenes. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards in total, winning three: Original Screenplay, and both Fonda and Voigt for their lead performances. Had Meryl not done that play, it would've been interesting to see for which film she would've been nominated, as it's an Academy rule that an actor cannot be recognized in the same category twice.