Barbara Sukowa and more
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Sukowa could well lay claim to the “sexiest performance of all-time” moniker thanks to her work in Lola. This bewitching bombshell hurls herself into director Fassbinder’s melodramatic maelstrom of objectification, and comes out the other end kicking and screaming like a smutty banshee on a cash high. Sukowa’s explosive carnality is exhilarating to witness, if only because her character so clearly thrives on her status as a sexual commodity. As a result, her steadfast subservience to the Wirtschaftswunder paradoxically invokes her “capitalist dominatrix” side—one senses that no mere man (nor mortal) is gonna prevent her social ascendancy. Sukowa’s pint-sized firecracker is so brazen and brash in her erotic and economic impulses that she single-handedly redefines the femme fatale and turns gender conventions upside down. That’s sexy. 
SB
Performances in what many consider to be “pulp” films often get overlooked in the shuffle, but Towers’ role as Kelly, the repentant hooker trying desperately to go straight in a small town is a cut above the rest. Consider the film’s opening scene, in which a bald, enraged Kelly is assaulting a man (who we later will find out is her pimp) and taking his money (well, what he owes her and no more). Cut to a new woman with a gorgeous, full head of blonde hair who wants to work with the handicapped children at a local hospital. Kelly tries to set all of her wrongs right by convincing a young woman to not have an abortion, by talking another young woman out of a life of prostitution and then ramming the advance money down a shady Madame’s throat to ensure she will stay away, and by landing the most eligible bachelor in town, only to find out he is a complete freak who only loves her because he considers her a freak too. The material is deliriously lurid, and the film is bombastic in style, but Towers manages to find the soul in this icy, damaged siren, and ultimately, Kelly finds absolution and moves forward, but not before being put through the proverbial wringer by small-town idiocy. Watch for the scene in which she sings an eerie lullaby at a recital with her disabled charges, it is at once surreal and devastating . It will blow your mind, much like the rest of the tough-talking Towers’ powerhouse performance does—she reinvents the stereotypical B-movie performance here, while paying homage to the many archetypes Kelly borrows from. MM
Bergman said once about Ullmann “if there are limits [to her talent] I haven’t seen them yet.” Simply put, Ullmann gives one of the best performances ever committed to film in Face to Face, and the role of Dr. Jenny Isakson puts her limits to the test in each riveting scene. This is unsurprising, given she is one of the best performers ever captured on film. The actress has called her Academy Award nominated performance here the most difficult she ever did and one cursory viewing will show why: she carries this psychological thriller, is in almost every scene, and must play a woman unraveling with pitch-perfect modulation. This is a woman’s nervous breakdown from beginning to end. A lesser actor would have been utterly destroyed by this kind of high-wire act, which also requires her to play a dream version of the character, but the short-hand that Ullmann used with director Bergman enabled her tear into this emotionally harrowing part fearlessly and immerse herself in the cool details, rather than playing it as a hysteric for the entire film. Ullmann has said that her method consists of “observing, wondering, reading, and technique” and Face to Face is a beautiful culmination of all of these elements she commands. This is one of the only Bergman films to not see a proper US DVD release (Criterion? Please?). Because of that, there is an entire generation of cinema enthusiasts who are being robbed of seeing a true pioneer and legend, in one of the most full, harrowing performances. MM
Campion’s film about the deprogramming of Ruth (Winslet), a young Australian girl who returns home to her completely freaked-out family after defecting to a cultish Guru’s ashram in India is, at turns, an overly-ambitious mess, an already badly-dated tale of modern spirituality and yearning, and a kaleidoscopic-shot cascade of strong Campion-style feminist imagery; yet throughout the misguided film, Winslet’s compelling performance holds everything together like superglue. It isn’t often that younger actresses are given such depth of character and such intellectually challenging material to work from, and the alchemy unleashed by Campion and Winslet’s collaboration makes for a talky, unusual examination of the whims of a woman whose family still treats like a girl, the fear and destruction she causes with her selfish actions, and her stubbornness that keeps her from realizing what is truly right for her. The inspired casting of Harvey Keitel as her deprogrammer doesn’t always work, but Winslet is able to showcase her fearlessness in a dynamic way by literally stripping everything away and finding the core of a confused, exhausted young woman who makes bad choice after bad choice. Winslet gives yet another young woman a strong, intelligent voice and proves that she is the most complex, capable actress of her generation—that she is able to do fiercely intimate work like this in the shadow of blockbusters like Titanic speaks volumes on her dedication to experimenting and exploring her craft. MM
The exemplary performances Woodward gave under the direction of her husband Paul Newman, among them The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), The Glass Menagerie (1987), and her Oscar-nominated 1968 triumph Rachel, Rachel, are not, for the most part, available on DVD. This alone is an act that borders on sacrilege. But in the case of this 1968 adaptation, the unavailability is an outright act of treason that thankfully someone has finally corrected—Rachel, Rachel will finally see the light of day, via a proper DVD release, this week. Woodward gives what I consider to be her finest performance as a bristling school marm coming to grips with her erotic self, her dour family life and her wanderlust. Rarely do women get this kind of intimate dramatic arc, but in the ‘60s, Woodward and Newman must have really been ahead of their times: Rachel’s elegant, plaintive tone is achingly poignant. A film like this could not be made today and no one but Woodward could play this character—Rachel is a woman that people don’t really pay attention to, she is the everywoman. For a movie star like Woodward to actually be able to pull off that transformation with ease is a feat in itself. Rachel is not a pitiable spinster, though. She is a modern woman with evolving ideas about everything. The Newmans keenly document what must have been an exciting time for repressed women in small towns everywhere, like Rachel, who saw Women’s Lib begin to sweep the nation, and finally free them from having to play the roles society expected them to. MM
