Frances

Jessica Lange was robbed of an Academy Award for her mesmerizing performance in the 1982 film, FRANCES, a relatively gripping character study/biography of the late 1930's actress Frances Farmer, who, after being ostracized from Hollywood, ended up being declared insane, institutionalized, and lobotomized, according to this screenplay. Not knowing a lot about the actress before the release of this film, I have never been sure of how factual it is (I always got the feeling that the Harry York character, played by Sam Shepherd, was fictional), but how many screen biographies are big on the facts? Sometimes facts are glossed over and/or ignored for the sake of preserving or igniting drama. Whether or not this is true is for those who knew Farmer to say. I did see an interview once with Farmer's nephew (?) who was very pleased with Lange's interpretation of Farmer and that is exactly why this film is worth seeing. Despite a meandering screenplay, turgid direction, and a feeling the movie is about 30 minutes too long, this movie is worth seeing for one reason and one reason only...the riveting performance by Jessica Lange. She is in virtually every frame of this movie and makes every single moment vivid and striking and achingly real. This film should be shown to acting classes on a daily basis...maybe the best performance by an actress in a leading role during the decade of the 1980's. Not a great film, but an amazing performance by a consummate actress that must be seen to be believed.

Whether or not the movie is entirely true, Jessica Lange gave an amazing performance. The transformation of Frances Farmer is shocking. Lange is a force on screen. Her natural beauty not only wins you over, but can scare you into believing that she is the character she is portraying. The story of Frances Farmer is sad. Sad for her and the people in her life. The overall theme of the Frances Farmer story is pride. Many times, she has the opportunity to run, but doesn't. To Farmer, she is running from nobody but herself. Knowing this, Frances is the life story of a woman trying to be her own woman. Whether or not we can say that this movie is 100% factual, we can agree that the Hollywood life can destroy you! Much like the Julia Philips story or the Dotty Parker (Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle) we can agree that the issue of Women's pride and their role in Hollywood has been showcased before, but not before Frances Farmer's story.

I hadn't really remembered who Frances Farmer was until this poignant film was made. This is a rags to riches to insanity true story of Farmer's life. Lange is supported by Kim Stanley who plays Frances' mother Lillian (both were nominated for a 1983 Academy Award!) and Sam Shepard, who plays Harry York. Frances Farmer was ahead of her time in the ways she opinionated herself and the outspokenness with which she lived her life. Treated very badly by the same studio system that made her a star and her own mother's betrayal, Frances' descent into madness and Lange's impeccable acting makes this movie a must to see and, perhaps, own.

The spectacular 8 hour limited series "Feud" made me revisit many of Jessica Lange's movies. Her performance is of such perfection that it reminded me how extraordinary she has always been. "Frances" is a shock to the system, unflinchingly so. The beautiful, sad, Francs Farmer in all its contradictions. Jessica Lange is absolutely mesmerizing. The movie suffers from what most biopics suffer from, A chronological succession of events and in the case of Frances Farmer, from bad the worse to much, much worse. The movie will drain you but the performance will keep you alert, alive, transfixed. There is more, Kim Stanley as Frances mother. An acting giant with very few film credits to her name. That alone makes "Frances" a collector's item.

Despite a lot of errors including one apparently fictional lover for Frances Farmer, the film Frances is a look at on oddball type movie star for her time.

Today Frances Farmer's activities for various causes wouldn't raise a sleepy eyebrow in Hollywood. Never mind being committed to an insane asylum. She'd more at home now in the film industry than in the studio system of the day. The system is personified here by Paramount Pictures executive Allan Rich who is a cross between studio presidents Barney Balaban and Emmanuel Cohen in the day.

But Jessica Lange truly becomes Frances Farmer the girl with a social conscience, truly who did not like the cheesecake image that Paramount wanted her to fill.

She also learned from her experience in the Group Theater that even liberal activists could be snakes. Clifford Odets with whom she had one torrid affair with and Harold Clurman manager of the Group Theater let her down. Odets's wife never seen emerges as a villain of sorts who gets her man back. Not is she mentioned by name, but it was Luise Rainer who was still very much alive and lived to the ripe old age of 104.

So in fact is Farmer's first husband Leif Ericksen never mentioned by name. He's given the fictional name of Dick Steele and he's a minor character and played by Christopher Pennock.

Sam Shepard is not real, he's an amalgam of several left wing activists from the Seattle area where Frances Farmer was from. But he functions as sort of an emotional balance, someone who Farmer could turn to when she was unable to cope with all the lies and promises of show business.

If there is an award for bit parts ever developed for the year 1982 it would go to Darrell Larson. He's a real bottom feeder stringer for gossip columnist Louella Parsons. He has two scenes with Lange and in the second she puts him down severely.

Lange and Kim Stanley got Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Stanley who could have done Frances back in her salad days plays her mother, a rather straitlaced woman who thinks her daughter must be crazy after all she and dad Bart Burns are the Ward and June Cleaver of the 30s, how could they raise a left wing radical. Ergo, she must be crazy. And Frances was going to stay in those asylums until she learned the error of her ways.

Jessica Lange fits Frances Farmer so well you forget this is a film biography and think you are peaking in on the life of Frances Farmer. As good as the film is I can't recommend too strongly that you read her autobiography Will There Ever Be A Morning? One of the most honest Hollywood stories ever written.