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Movie Day: “The Danish Girl”

November 28, 2015

danish girl poster

Since moving from Santa Barbara, I’ve really missed the Cinema Society I belonged to there. It enabled me to see screenings of major films that were often followed by Q&As with directors, producers and actors. Luckily, I discovered the Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester, became a member and have been enjoying the screenings there. Today’s was “The Danish Girl” after which director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech,” “Les Miserables”) fielded questions from board member and New York Times book reviewer (and former film critic) Janet Maslin.

“The Danish Girl” was based on the novel by David Ebershoff, which, in turn, was based on the actual diaries of Danish landscape painter Einar Wegener, who became Lili Elbe, the first ever recipient of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. Married to portrait painter Gerde Wegener when the movie begins, theirs appears to be a happy union in every way – until Gerde’s model is late for a sitting and Einar fills in, putting on women’s stockings and posing in a woman’s costume. The very act touches off feelings Einar had been having since he was a child – feelings that he tried very hard to ignore. But then he starts wearing Gerde’s clothes and going out in public as a woman, and what began as a game between two bohemian artists  grows into a chasm between them. Einar “identifies,” as the transgender movement would put it today, as a woman – as Lili – and after seeing doctors who tell him he’s crazy, finds one willing to perform the complicated surgery.

The story is a powerful one and its two leads play brave souls – “transgender” wasn’t even a term in the 1920s, after all – and I applaud the filmmakers for even getting their project financed and produced. As befitting a movie about two painters, the cinematography is very painterly. We see lush shots of landscapes and costumes and European settings. I only wish the emotional connection had been there too. It was all very tidy and tasteful, and the focus was on appearance (Lili looks in the mirror a lot as she’s transitioning into a woman) instead of an inner transformation.

Eddie Redmayne, who won last year’s Best Actor Oscar for “The Theory of Everything” and will likely get a nomination this year, makes a very pretty female, but his quivering lips and coquettish gazes nearly drove me nuts. Faring better was the actress cast as Gerde, Alicia Vikander, who walks away with the movie in my opinion. Her Gerde is feisty and loving and confused and angry – all the emotions you’d expect when confronted with the loss of the man she thought she knew. She, Tom Hooper and the movie will get nominated, I’m betting; it’s the kind of picture the Academy loves to nominate.

During the Q&A, an audience member commented that the movie seemed to fetishize the quest for female beauty over the sexual tug-of-war going on inside Einar/Lili, and he said the movie “left him cold.” My jaw dropped when he said that, because I’d never heard someone criticize a film with the director sitting right there. But the truth is he echoed my own sentiment about “The Danish Girl.” I’m glad I saw it, but in the end it left me cold too.

Filed Under: Mainly Jane Tagged With: Alicia Vikander, Eddie Redmayne, Jacob Burns Film Center, Janet Maslin, sexual reassignment surgery, The Danish Girl, Tom Hooper, transgender

Movie Day: "Les Miserables"

December 8, 2012

 

Today I was lucky enough to have a Cinema Society screening of “Les Mis” ahead of its Christmas Day opening. I’d write something but I’m still emotionally drained; I literally sobbed during much of the movie.

Okay, I’m not really that overcome. It just feels that way.

Let me start by saying I am not a fan of musicals – not musical theater and not movie musicals. I get irritated when people break into song in the middle of a scene; it’s always seemed artificial to me. Maybe it was all those childhood years when my parents would drag me into the city to see shows like “My Fair Lady” and “The Sound of Music.” Who knows. The point is I went into today’s screening sort of dreading the 2 1/2+ hour experience, despite Les Mis’s legions of devotees and the rapturous early reviews of the film.

From the opening scene I was hooked. I mean seriously hooked. Hugh Jackman is so much more than a hunky song-and-dance man. He’s an actor who tells a story with every song he sings as the runaway convict. Similarly, Russell Crowe, though not as accomplished vocally, brings a “Gladiator” style muscular quality to his role – the perfect opponent for Jackman. And Anne Hathaway is absolutely heartbreaking as the unwed mother who sings “I Dreamed a Dream” and made me convulse into tears. The movie sags a bit after her character departs. She will walk away with Best Supporting Actress. There can be no debate.

After the film, which received a standing ovation from our audience, we had a Q&A with director Tom Hooper, who’d come to Santa Barbara before when he was on the circuit for “The King’s Speech.” He explained why he decided to go with a “song-through” approach, instead of breaking up dialogue with songs, and I thought it was totally the right choice, despite my aversion to opera. Cast member Eddie Redmayne, the young British actor who was so winning in “My Week with Marilyn,” was also along and he told hilarious stories about his audition, the number of takes required for each song (99% of the actors sang their numbers live, as opposed to lipsynching), and how intimidated he was after the entire crew had watched Hathaway deliver her big number and it was his turn for his.

The movie has its flaws, among them the length and the relentless close-ups of the actors, but it’s fabulous entertainment and I couldn’t recommend it more enthusiastically.

 

Filed Under: Mainly Jane, Movies, Music Tagged With: Anne Hathaway, Cinema Society, Eddie Redmayne, Les Mis, Les Miserables, Russell Crowe, Tom Hooper

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About Jane Heller

Jane Heller is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her fourteen breezy, witty novels of romantic comedy and suspense are now entertaining millions of readers around the world, along with her two books of nonfiction.

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