Jessica Lange: The Anti-Streep

I couldn’t agree with you more! Lange is an amazing actress and it is a crying shame that her talent has been wasted recently. A brilliant article!

Comment by Mark from Tennessee — November 1, 2006 @ 8:16 pm

It is indeed an excellent article on an actress who despite the Oscars is extrememly under-appreciated. I’ll never forget the look she gave her partner when she lost for Frances at the award show. However, King Kong was 1976 not 1979. Nitpicking, I know.

Comment by Daniel Cook Johnson from Chapel Hill, North Carolina — November 2, 2006 @ 1:37 pm

I have to say “Ditto” to all that Mr. Mazur put into words.  I was transfixed from the time La Lange appeared in the palm of Kong on the cover of my Weekly Reader in grade school.  The first movie I saw with her was Frances; thus was born a lifelong disciple of her artistry.  She can say more with the wave of a hand than most of the rest of the actresses working today combined.  I truly hope Bonneville and Neverwas brighten up the darkened theatres in the near future.  It would be a travesty to have even one performance of her fine artistry kept under wraps...remember the wait for Blue Sky when Orion Films went bankrupt?  The film languished on a bank vault shelf for five years, while director Tony Richardson succumbed to AIDS and of course Jessica went on to win the second of her Oscars.  I can’t wait to see what she does with Big Edie in Grey Gardens and with the role of the psychiatrist opposite Tammy Blanchard in the remake of Sybil.  Something tells me that the characterization of Sybil will take on a whole new layer of depth opposite Lange’s compassionate reactions to the what happens to her...such is the way this underappreciated artiste.  Witness her performance in Normal and you’ll be convinced of how much dignity and humanity she brings to even the most uncomfortable situations a role can require.  I shall forever remain smitten!

Comment by Doyle Hinson — January 14, 2007 @ 10:11 am

I have idolized Jessica Lange as an actress for the past 20 some years.  Her performance as Julie Nichols in “Tootsie was truly an outstanding performance” and deserving of an Academy Award, however, Frances was truly an extradordinary performance.  To be able to portay an individual in such pain and agony was remarkable. I really believe her performance was more deserving of the Oscar than Meryl Streep’s in Sophie’s Choice.  Jessica Lange has proven again and again her brillance as an actress.

Comment by Erin Kraft from Luxembourg — February 3, 2007 @ 9:39 pm

wow. that article was oh so depressing. me....me...i thought i was the only one, the only true devout obsessor, understander, relator, to jessica. i, at the ripe o’l age of 16 and three days, believed that i could be the only homo sapien sapien to truuuly comprehend all that ms.lange emits into each role. each raise of the right brow, each wrinkle in her fair forehead, and just why she decided to lay her right ring finger -there. i have always labeled my obsession as pure infatuation, that ever since three years ago when i came by a “Lifetime Original Movie” of “Hush,” i became enraptured in that complicatingly sensual way she ties you up in her complexity and rawness. and apparently, contrary to my belief, that film was “HORRENDOUS!” perhaps the film, but not her character. so, if a one sided relationship blossomed from the film, think of how i feel now hence i have discovered the truly great of ms.lange herself! the communication! the education! i, a youthful, ripe, fresh skinned gal with that same feathery blond hair and high cheek bones, have fallen deeply, deeply for what i have uncovered. knowing that others feel the same, only awakes reality more and more for me, yelling in my drum that i have even less a chance of actually tasteing her. if others feel the same, whose to say that they don’t see what i see, feel what i feel, take the same steps and risks as i? i’ve noticed a pattern in my life, of me falling in and out of crazed obsessions of older female actors. first twas julie andrews, then jamie lee curtis, now and for three years running-jessica. the latter has remained the longest. and why? i have come up with the diagnosis that because i lack such a strong, confident, fearless, mothering figure in my life, i have come to crave that person. and jessica, pours out all of these things with such brilliancy that it is know wonder that i have fallen head over flats.i, not permmited to see R rated films, oh so isolated, estranged, shackled, have not yet been able to see evry one of her films. (Rob Roy, All That Jazz, FRANCES, Cape Fear,Prozac Nation ....many more), still regard Frances as my favorite of all time. Because I have read, watched theatrical trailors, etc. And 9times out of ten, find myself in tears. I want that so badly. To know her, to be like her, to drowned into a character so deeply that your world becomes encumbered with an ir-sepearable mix of reality and fantasy. i can’t even explain it, i suppose i’m not sure positively of what i want, all i know is im in it deep, and i do not know what follows. Could anyone relate?

Comment by martha from virginia — February 6, 2007 @ 8:21 pm

Excellent article. She is a tremendous actress and I’ve always admired her for her accessibility as a person - a real woman inhabited by true emotions, not merely acting, but channeling her life experience through her characters. She has always been *real* and so incredibly sexy in her strong, farm-raised beauty. But one glaring omission I found was no mention of her and Nicholson in The Postman Always Rings Twice. A huge oversight IMO, as this is an amazing performance by Ms. Lange with her at the height of her youthful beauty and sensuality.

Comment by Ken from Wash DC — May 17, 2007 @ 11:42 pm