OSCARS '82: Frances
“Normal people scare me.”
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of gaslighting, mental illness, emotional instability, alcoholism, institutional abuse, lobotomy, sexual harassment, misogyny.
There was bound to be one rotten movie in this bunch, and it looks like we’ve found it. It’s pretty inconceivable that Hollywood, who loves making movies about itself, could miss a prime opportunity to show the life of one of its most tragic casualties. And yet this film is bound and determined to be as middling and mediocre as possible It takes an already sketchy story and fabricating even more elements so that a real actress’ life is shamelessly exploited just as much as she was when she was alive. Even those attempting to “tell her story” don’t care about the truth and gravity of what it meant, other than the actress portraying her. And when you factor in the most basic, low-level competency in writing and directing, you’re in for a 2 1/2 hour slog. We’re talking about Frances this week on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!
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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.
Excerpt taken from “Main Title” from the motion picture soundtrack to Frances. Composed and conducted by John Barry. © 2005 Beyond the Sea Limited, 1982 Fifth Continent Music Classics (FCMC).
Excerpt taken from “Discovery of India” from the motion picture soundtrack to Gandhi. Composed by Ravi Shankar. © 1982 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.; ℗ 1982 RCA Records.
