Get to Know Lisa Rosman Through Her Various Works

‘Far From the Madding Crowd,’ Close to Perfect

Given the number of period dramas churned out every year, it’s surprising how few are any good. Many are dull as dirt; many are bodice rippers with delusions of grandeur; and many take so many anachronistic liberties that you wonder why the filmmakers bothered at all. A new adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel Far From the Madding Crowd seems a dismal prospect, then. Why try to top the deliciously hamstrung magic of the 1967 Julie Christie version? And how can modern Hollywood capture the glorious complexity of Bathsheba Everdeen, a 19th century literary heroine so legendarily independent that Suzanne Collins named the protagonist of The Hunger Games after her? (Granted, that’s not a selling point for everyone.)

I should have known director Thomas Vinterberg wouldn’t attach himself to anything trite. Originally known as one of the founders of Dogme 95, the avant-garde Danish film movement launched to eradicate big-studio pretensions, the director’s most acclaimed work from that era is “The Celebration”–a harrowing, deeply affecting portrait of a dysfunctional, well-to-do family. More recently he directed “The Hunt,” which boasts unusually rich visual and narrative detail as well as a preoccupation with the same themes that consume Hardy’s work: class politics, insular communities, and the grim unavoidability of fate. For a classic love story, “Far From the Madding Crowd” is awash in harsh realities only partly offset by the natural buoyancy of its protagonist. Continue Reading →

Kind of Blue: Jazz Cinema’s Mixed Bag

Great films about jazz are unhappily rare, perhaps because exactly what makes the musical genre wonderful–its complexity, its lack of pandering, its gorgeous esoterica–are qualities that are anathema to Hollywood. In the absence of a great Duke Ellington or John Coltrane biopic, here are some selections that, in one way or another, do offer a love supreme.

A Great Day in Harlem (1994)
Jean Bach’s documentary about the story behind the legendary photograph of the same name is a study in “the little engine that could” artistry. A pastiche of home movies and interviews with everyone from Art Blakely to Sonny Rollins to Dizzy Gillespie, it recalls the Esquire magazine shoot in which many of jazz music’s greats rather improbably gathered in front of a Harlem brownstone on a 1958 Sunday morning. With a running time of 60 minutes, it delivers just enough nostalgia, though some might prefer a greater emphasis on the featured artists rather than the merits of the image itself.

Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
Diana Ross stars as Billie Holiday in this conventional yet affecting biopic about jazz’s most tragic female star. Focusing on Lady Day’s heroin habit as well as the backstory of her controversial “Strange Fruit,” this film spares no genre cliché. But as a vehicle for Ross, who channels Holiday’s sorrow with an uncharacteristic gravitas, it offers unparalleled pleasure. Plus: Richard Pryor in his first onscreen performance.

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Fake It Til You Make It

Back’s still injured but yesterday was a Talking Pictures taping day and I’m too stubborn to cry uncle. So after days of sweatpants and icepacks and salt baths and Big Mama Thornton, I rallied and put on an Audrey Hepburn-on-acid dress and red lipstick. Black pumps, even. It’s all about the fake-it-til-you-make-it, ladies and germs.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy