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In Reply to: Anne Bancroft, Actress Who Played Mrs. Robinson, Is Dead at 73 posted by Joe M on June 7, 2005 at 15:01:43:
She has said that she would rather have been remembered for her other roles.
Follow Ups:
I can't recall any of her roles that really stood out - which ones would you consider great?To me she will remain an actress with an under-utilized potential, with plenty of grace, taste and style, but not much in a way of true achievements. She was always pleasure to watch in her smaller roles, but I am at a loss as far as her best, or great ones.
That is where TRUE acting resides. Film acting is an exercise in editing as much if not more so than ability.The theater is also a far better and more intellectual form of artistry than film. I, not long ago, viewed a one person play (The Shape of a Girl) that ran for about 70-80 minutes. This young girl on a spartan stage manages to evoke feeling of cathartic proportions that few - very few films can muster. And this is hardly some big name known play. The play was and still is geared as an anti-bullying message but non-preachy.
There is life to the stage to the play that no dead film screen can provide -- unfortunately the play needs an intelligent audience who have imagination as they are required to give of themselves in viewing. Given the fast growing Jerry Springer community it's a shame that the play is dwindling while Ace Ventura Pet Detective rakes in hundreds of millions.
Brando pointed out that it was easy to become bored and repetitious in the theatre. He added that if you think film acting is easy, try to perform some earth-shattering emotion with 60-70 crew members standing around, all the time aware that if you move your head one half inch to your left, you are either out of focus or perhaps even out of the shot.Want to know what Brando considered REAL acting?
Go to an office where someone has just gotten a promotion..."Aw gee, thanks, Boss..." Brando wondered why people were interested in his views of the mechanics of acting when everyone acts all day.
Certainly not to me --- so I don't really have much interest in what he had to say about the subject. Most Hollywood actors who are any good end up on the stage --- John Malkovich makes movies to suppliment his stage work and his studio --- The movies pay his bills. He also happens to be one of the best movie actors.Brando was a Star -- that is different from acting. To me Brando was one of the most overrated actors in the industry.
Most real actors prefer the stage -- which isn't to say that film acting is easy but film acting also lets you do 300 takes to meet the director's vision...it's no-pressure compared to the stage - and bad actors and bad performances can be altered in the editing room pieced together until you have something.
I think those actors who are in it for the art and not just the money will agree that the stage is the palce to be.
Incidentally it is one of the better performances I have ever seen -- from a relative unknown. Film -- Cartoon acting.
Her most accomplished role was that of Helen Keller's teacher Annie, which she played both on stage and in film, for which she was awarded an Academy Award.
One of a handful of actors to win both the Tony and Oscar for the same role on Broadway as well as on film (Miracle Worker)...If you haven't seen MW I highly recommend that you rent it... both Patty Duke and Bancroft were incredible in it...I love The Turning Point, although in my opinion it was really Shirley Maclaine's film and she was robbed of an Oscar that year...RIP Anne... you were a class act!
...I love it because it has wonderful dance footage in it...Baryshnikov at the height of his abilities, plus Antoinette Sibley, Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins (briefly, all too briefly), Alexandra Danilova.But honestly...TTP really is a soap opera set in the ballet world. The story positively creaks. And that cat fight...yech.
MacLaine and Bancroft do good work...what a pair of pros...but...I skip through the film to the dance scenes.
every time I watch it in spite of the soap opera story...
Really.Bancroft's iconic roles would have to be Annie Sullivan in the Miracle Worker (film & Broadway) and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. Her best Broadway role may have been her first, in Two For The Seesaw, opposite Henry Fonda. She won the Tony for it, and another one two years later for her stage perfrmance in Miracle Worker. SHe would go on to win as Oscar for the role as well.
But it's her role as the wife in Jack Clayton's The Pumpkin Easter that may have been her finest performance on film. Hardly anyone has seen this movie nowdays, and I personally haven't seen it in about 10 years, but I remember Bancroft in this film vividly. Peter Finch plays her casually philandering husband in this tale of loneliness and failed marriage. Bancroft plays the kind of woman, wrapped up in her children and her role as wife, that I normally have little sympathy for...but her acting in this part breaks my heart.
(I think director Jack Clayton is over-due for a revival. He made some fine films: Room At The Top, The Pumpkin Eater, The Innocents [a personal fave of mine and one of the best ghost stories ever filmed, based on Henry James], Our Mother's House, and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne [great roles for Maggie Smith & Bob Hoskins].)
The best role of Bancroft's late career was probably the Broadway run of Golda.
But you're right - Bancroft's potential was never fully exploited in movies. She was gifted, intelligent and had a strong screen presence, maybe too strong. I always felt she had a particularly expressive face - she could speak volumes without ever opening her mouth. She was beautiful but not your typical screen goddess. Hollywood never really learned how to use her and neither did the young turk directors emerging in the 60's (Mike Nichols excepted). Bancroft herself seemed mostly uninterested in playing the game, especially after she marrie Mel in 1964 (I think it was 64). She never quite found a home in independent film either. After the 1960's she seldom had first rate material to work with.
Here are other Bancroft films where she is quite good:
Seven Women, John Ford's last (flawed but interesting) film. She plays a liberated physician working in China.
Young Winston, where she plays Winston's adored mother. This was Richard Attenborough's (sp) second or third film, and I enjoyed it at the time, especially Simon Ward as the youthful hero.
The Elephant Man. Bancroft in just a cameo.
84 Charing Cross Road, opposite Anthony Hopkins.
Agnes Of God. She's goood in it, but I don't like the film. Ditto 'Night Mother, although this is more Spacek's movie.
nt
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