41. Barbra Streisand in 'Funny Girl' & Katharine Hepburn in 'The Lion in Winter' (1968)

  

Plot intro...s...

The Lion in Winter

England, 1183. Ageing, cantankerous King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) is concerned about which of his three surviving sons, Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) or John (Nigel Terry) will succeed him. When his estranged, scheming wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) arrives for Christmas celebrations, the court machinations really start to escalate.

Funny Girl

New York, early 20th century. Young, clumsy, sharp-talking Fanny Bryce (Barbra Streisand) wants to become a star of the stage. Insecure about her looks and ability, she often turns to comedy as a crutch. Stage impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (Walter Pidgeon) notices her ability and the film charts her rise to fame as well as her tumultuous marriage to gorgeous gambler Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif).

Paul says...

A winning tie at the Oscars is a rare and notable thing- it has (so far) only happened six times in its near-100 year history. This is the only time it happened in the Best Actress category, and the second and most recent time in any acting category (there was a tie for Best Actor in the '30s). The most recent was 10 years ago in the Best Sound Editing category between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall.

This tie could not have happened to a more dynamic and disparate duo. Hepburn had nearly 40 years of experience under her belt, two Best Actress Oscars (one from the previous year) and a lion-taming personality that kept the men in check (she would repeatedly call out Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins’ late arrivals after a night of drinking during the making of The Lion in Winter). Streisand, meanwhile, was a Hollywood ingenue. Just 26 years old (Hepburn was 61 at this point), she had made a name for herself in music and Broadway, originating the role of Fanny Bryce. But Funny Girl catapulted her to international stardom and now she is recognised, revered, idolised and imitated on the same level as Madonna, Cher, Liza and Dolly. It’s a very satisfying tie between two immensely iconic names.

But, of course, many people (including myself) can’t shake off the age-old question- who should have won? On one level, it’s irrelevant- they both won, they both deserved it, there doesn’t have to be just one winner, deal with it. On another level, it’s fun to analyse. Morally speaking, it should have been Streisand. As previously mentioned, Hepburn already had two Best Actress Oscars and was due to win another in the early '80s. Statistically speaking, however, it should have been Hepburn. Only members of the Academy can vote and membership is achieved through contributions to the movie industry. Funny Girl was only Streisand’s first movie therefore, at first, she didn’t have membership and couldn’t vote for herself. This would have meant that Hepburn would have won by one vote. But Academy president Gregory Peck rather cheekily fast tracked Streisand’s membership and she was able to vote, effectively causing the tie. 

But what do I think? (This question is, of course, why you’re reading this blog, surely). For me, Funny Girl is the superior of the two films. The Lion in Winter is great entertainment, it’s a campy, humour-driven depiction of 12th century England, displaying the dangers and intensity of court intrigue but at the same time mocking how farcical the whole process is. It is far more fun than more ponderous '60s period dramas such as A Man For All Seasons, Becket and Anne of the Thousand Days. It is laden with snarks, put-downs, deliberately convoluted plottings and melodrama. I especially enjoyed the way it depicted life in 12th century castles. Courtiers and servants all jostling, arguing and sleeping on top of each other. Dogs wander and defecate freely and everyone is surrounded by the drafts and darkness of these unhomely Norman castles. 

However, it’s over-long by about 45 minutes and its energy becomes exhausting. About half an hour in you quickly realise that the complicated machinations of the King and Queen, their sons and the King of France are so changeable, with every character being so disingenuous, that you’re not really supposed to know what’s going on- because even the characters don’t. Exactly which son is on whose side, who is lying to whom and why, all of this becomes irrelevant and you’re meant to enjoy the farcical chaos of the film. But without an involving plot, it all becomes cold, uninvolving and a bit pointless.

It also suffers (or benefits, depending on how you look at it) from the fact that Hepburn out-acts everyone. Yes, even celebrated actors Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. She runs rings around them. The film is fine when she is off screen, but it comes to life when she is on it. Whether she is insulting the King, breaking down over her traumatic life, or craftily manipulating, well, anyone, Hepburn epitomises one of the most formidable and powerful women in history.

Funny Girl, meanwhile, is a flawless gem for me. As a musical it’s fine. It gave birth to the song Don’t Rain On My Parade but other than that the music is not especially well known or enduring. But Streisand gives one of the funniest, most charming, most poignant performances I’ve ever seen. Every one-liner hits a bullseye, every act of physical comedy shows incredible talent and expertise (scenes such as Fanny’s ruination of a rollerskating musical number and her own rendition of the ballet Swan Lake left us both howling). And above all, Streisand depicts a woman going through a very powerful growth. 

We first meet Fanny, all grown up, when she delivers the infamous line to her reflection “Hello, gorgeous”, which is far more wistful and delicate than when people imitate it (Streisand said it to her Oscar statuette when she received it). Then we flashback to her youth. She’s sharp-witted but blunderous, impulsive and erratic (and hilarious). As heartbreak and maturity sets in, Streisand seamlessly adds in more dignity and tragedy to the performance. Later, when Fanny is fending off reporters who are trying to get the goods on her husband’s arrest, her one-liners are no longer coming from a place of joy and rebellion but from desperation and exhaustion.

So if I were a voting member of the Academy, it pains me to say it, but I’d probably have voted for Streisand. Not that I want to let down my girl Katharine but I think Streisand gives a performance that is truly unique and demonstrates a wide range of talents (acting, singing, dancing, comedy). If we ever do a top ten blog post, I have a feeling Streisand will be in there.

Highlight 

Lion in Winter: There is no particular scene or moment here, I just want to highlight Hepburn’s performance. It’s one of the best of her career (and, considering her career, that’s saying something) and it keeps the film ticking along.

Funny Girl: There are so many scenes and moments to choose from. The Swan Lake scene and Streisand’s beautiful rendition of 'People' get special mentions. But for me, it’s a later scene in which Fanny’s gambling and financially-stretched husband Nicky is given a business proposition. As the friend describes the proposition, the camera stays on Nicky’s reaction, with Fanny covertly in the background reading a magazine. It slowly becomes apparent to Nicky that this proposal is too good to be true and that Fanny herself has orchestrated it. Streisand’s stillness becomes increasingly conspicuous and Nicky’s emasculated anger fills the room. It’s a small but brilliant scene.

Lowlight

Lion in Winter: The length of the film is my biggest gripe. Either they needed a less frantic plot or slice off 45 minutes or so.

Funny Girl: Honestly, the film is wonderful and I have nothing to criticise it.

Mark

The Lion in Winter: 6/10

Funny Girl: 10/10

Doug says...

It’s the age-old question: Katharine or Barbra? You can hear the pitchforks of the adulating gays being sharpened ready for battle from here.

These are two very different films – one is an overlong but refreshingly gritty historical drama. The other is a bells-and-whistles musical with some amazing standards of modern musical theatre ('Don’t Rain on My Parade'; 'People'; 'My Man'; 'Funny Girl') throughout.

I’m delighted to say that Hepburn and Streisand are both phenomenal in their respective roles, and both fully deserving of this shared trophy. I don’t think I can pick a favourite of the two.

Streisand shines as Fanny Bryce in a performance that meticulously recreates the physicality and voice of the legendary comedienne Fanny Bryce. If you want to see the real Bryce, take a gander the early Best Picture winner The Great Ziegfeld where she stars as herself, bowls into a dressing room scene, wipes the floor comedically with everyone else on screen and then sings a very sad song with remarkable pathos.

Streisand has done her homework. The jerky gait, the sharp as a whistle comebacks – they all ring true in Barbra’s capable hands. She then pairs this character study with a real ability to show what Fanny is feeling, underneath the layers of performative comedy. When Bryce hurts, we see it beneath the rictus grin or playful demeanour. Streisand is also very, very funny. One scene where she’s allowed to watch her lover play poker, on the proviso she doesn’t react – we see her fully reacting with sheer nerves and terror, only to switch into a dead-eyed zombie as soon as her lover turns to look at her. It’s comedy perfection, with every single comedy beat achieved beautifully.

All this isn’t even touching on Streisand’s voice which is one of the greatest in 20th century theatre and film. She delicately sings, she belts, she allows emotion to pour through while astounding with her vocal gymnastics. One always feels that she’s taken this career extremely seriously. Not for Streisand’s vocal chords the casual damage of age – even in her 70s and 80s, her ‘instrument’ is an extraordinary beast (just look at her 2016 Netflix special).

So surely it should have been a clean win for Streisand in a virtuoso performance at the centre of a finely balanced and perfectly delivered movie musical? Not so, for here, with a bang and a crash, comes Hepburn with quite a different proposition: an exceptional performance in a very flawed film.

The Lion in Winter is soapy, melodramatic, about an hour too long and doesn’t really know what it wants to say. King Henry II is off shagging the young woman he also wants his son to marry (??), meanwhile his three sons all struggle for power. There’s a full positioning of Richard the Lionheart as gay, a cast including Anthony Hopkins, Peter O’Toole and Timothy Dalton and a lot of people charging around holding flaming torches or brooding on battlements. I do not consider it a particularly good film.

However it is watchable, for one very simple reason: Katharine Hepburn, in one of the best performances I’ve seen from her. Do you love Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones? Of course you do. Well, here’s her predecessor.

Hepburn’s Eleanor of Acquitaine is ferocious. She is determined that her favourite son will be king. She wants to be free of the imprisonment her husband keeps her in. She also wants – above all else – to make him hurt. Eleanor in this play veers between jovially making all those around her terrified, and showing her vengeful teeth in full howl, and god does Hepburn lean in. She’s jealous, angry, upset, scared and powerful.

Hepburn manages the whole thing with ease – from the triumphant beginning to the triumphant end. Her husband and sons may be bruised and aching but she sails back to prison laughing. It’s exceptional – to manage the flood of feelings and the way she manipulates everyone around her and make it all seem feasible and gripping.

I think we’re all aware Katharine Hepburn is one of the greats – particularly this late point in her career where it feels like she did a Meryl Streep (post Devil Wears Prada) and re-entered the cinematic arena more able to showcase her own individual skills. This film cements her as one of the most amazing talents working in this era – and she does all that without changing her accent a jot. An American Eleanor of Acquitaine? Sure!

Highlight

Funny Girl: Barbra’s ability to capture Fanny Bryce is just wonderful – particularly her performance of the standards Bryce herself used to sing. It’s a gorgeous tribute from a-then upcoming legend to a historical one.

The Lion in Winter: There’s so many lines that Hepburn elevates through her performance, but this exchange stuck out, beautifully delivered with so much rage, fear and pain:

Henry II: Is it rich, despising me? Is it rewarding?

Eleanor: No – it’s terrible.

Henry II: Then stop it!

Eleanor: How? It’s what I live for!

Lowlight

Funny Girl: I do miss the comedy in the second half when it becomes more of a romantic drama.

The Lion in Winter: The film itself isn’t very good. It’s a shame as when Hepburn isn’t on, the quality and engagement drops hugely. 

Mark

Funny Girl: 10/10

The Lion in Winter: 5/10 

35. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

A special photo to celebrate NYE 2017/18, and also because we're at Doug's parents' without our Oscar statuette!

Plot Intro

The hot desert land of Arabia in 1916 is ruled by various warring Arab tribes, and an invading force of Turks from the North. Into this situation is sent Lieutenant T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole). After an inspirational meeting with one of the major Arab leaders, Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness), Lawrence teams up with Ali (Omar Sharif) and Auda (Anthony Quinn) to unite the Arab tribes against the Turks and gain control of their land- whilst also resisting the interference of the British Empire…

Paul says...

We end 2017 with another “epic”, but not as we know it. Our first was probably 1931’s Cimarron which was extremely Homeric in its linear episodic structure and its use of adventures and escapades to portray the heroism and development of the leading man. We then saw the titan of all epics, Gone With the Wind, in 1939, before seeing a lull in the ’40s. And then the '50s gave us The Bridge on the River Kwai (which had the same director as Lawrence, David Lean, as well as Alec Guinness) and Ben-Hur. I have written briefly about how Ben-Hur is more reflective of the epics of the time- hallowed, reverential, artifically beautiful, complete with religious overtones and unquestioning allegiance to the lead hero. The beauty of Lawrence of Arabia is that it takes the epic into new territory - in fact, into the very territory that Gone With the Wind nearly broke before the war depleted production values in Hollywood. The epic now involves flawed heroes. Small, humane stories set against a colossal backdrop. Gone With the Wind had Scarlet O’Hara’s spoilt cunning, while Lawrence of Arabia has Lawrence’s mental instability and disobedience.

And for the most part it’s awfully captivating. David Lean revels in views of the Arabian desert (also nicknamed “the sun’s anvil”), transforming it into a world that is magnificent and picturesque, but also alien and more dangerous than a jungle rife with carnivores. The first half of the film covers Lawrence’s initial travels over the desert and his battles not only with the contentious Arab tribes but also with the far more terrifying forces of nature. When he goes back into the most sun-scorched part of the desert to save a comrade who has fallen off his camel, it is made vividly clear to the audience that this seems impossible, so his success is breathtaking. 

Meanwhile, the humane side of things is carried expertly by Peter O’Toole in his career-establishing performance and first of a whopping eight Oscar nominations for Best Actor (he never won). It’s hard to believe that Marlon Brando was considered for the part - an actor far too rough-around-the-edges for such a role. O’Toole is elegant, flippant, but also vulnerable and easy to support as a result. It’s a nuanced but infamous performance, mostly because he pretty much outshines a troop of far more experienced actors around him (Alec Guinness, Anthony Quayle, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins).

Like Gone With the Wind, this is a film that covers a lot of ground, though with a slower, more ponderous pace than its forerunner. And also like Gone With the Wind, the second half of the film is far inferior to the first. The first half is a relentless tale of adventure across the desert. The second is designed to show Lawrence’s descent into mental chaos and reasons for his exit from Arabia. Here, things become less engaging because a lot of character development is crammed into a shorter segment and the storyline and internal politics are more like edited highlights, losing the coherence of the first 2.5 hours. 

This doesn’t ruin the film entirely, however. I was dreading this one due to the intimidating length (between 3.5 and 4 hours depending on the DVD edition you might have). But it’s never boring, and what you will be watching is one of the most spectacular, large-scale movies ever made- it’s often found right up there in the top 10 or top 100 greatest films, so set aside an afternoon and copious amounts of coffee and give it a go. I dare you.

Highlight

Lawrence’s triumphant rescue of a fallen friend from the desert is the film’s most powerful moment for me. You can’t help cheer him as he conquers nature and proves his worth to the Arab tribes.

Lowlight

The film begins with Lawrence’s famous death in a motorcycle accident. I thought this would make the film into a circular structure and come back to it, but David Lean doesn’t, so the scene feels arbitrary.

Mark

8/10

Doug says...

I wonder at what point the producers and directors decide to sign off on a four hour running time. Because pragmatically it makes zero sense. You either have an epic storyline that won’t quite fit into four hours, or an overblown tale in need of serious editing - and actually something we’re seeing now is that television series are beginning to overtake cinema in terms of popularity, perhaps because the extended length of ten to fifteen hours allows audiences to access a story of careful and patient content, in non-intimidating hour-long chunks. 

Lawrence of Arabia very much falls into the first category. As Paul rightly says, it’s our second four hour film (after Gone With The Wind) and both suffer from having a beautifully measured, carefully paced first half, followed by a rushed second half as the creative team rush to cram the rest of the story in. But I disagree with Paul in some respects. 

Firstly, I think the downfall and spiralling out of Lawrence himself is fascinating. The first half sets him up as an invincible, if eccentric hero who is forced to do terrible things in the name of success. He has to execute several people in order to save his mission, and thanks to O’Toole’s excellent performance we fully understand the toll this takes. 

So when in the second half he suffers greater atrocities - including a very odd homoerotic scene where a police guard strokes his bare chest before ordering him to be beaten within an inch of his life - it makes perfect sense that he would start losing his grip. It culminates in a horrifying blood-drenched scene where he orders a perfectly unnecessary battle and is found at the heart of it, killing people with an unhinged grin on his face. It’s only his friend Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) who stops him and pulls him back to sanity. 

It’s just that this section is woefully unexplored, and there’s the feeling that the writers really struggled - ironically enough I think that this would make a stronger tv series, and that this breakdown would account for at least half of a full length series. I like a flawed hero, and I found the fact that we question whether he really is a hero as the film progresses to be even more compelling. A little research reveals that the real Lawrence was a pathological liar, most likely gay - in an era when it was illegal, and certainly a masochist - not necessarily the most well balanced of men! I appreciate they reflected this - I just wanted more.

Where I most disagree with Paul though is that he says O’Toole outshines everyone, whereas for me, I found O’Toole to deliver an excellent performance certainly, but actually his supporting players often steal the limelight - (putting aside the awkwardness of white actors wearing ‘tanned’ make-up for the moment). I finally get why people always say Omar Sharif’s name and sigh (he is gorgeous) and I loved his and Anthony Quinn’s performances as two rival chieftains of Arabic clans - in particular any moment where those two sparred was excellent. But ultimately the film’s best performance for me came from Alec Guinness. 

Guinness is becoming one of my favourite actors rapidly with each film of his that I discover. Here he plays a thoughtful older Arabic king, and he delivers his performance with such measured thought and drive that you cannot take your eyes from him. It’s a tour de force with only a handful of scenes across the four hours, and he clearly was an actor to be feared. 

Ultimately, the beautiful landscapes win out, as David Lean makes the desert the most prominent player, and the stunning isolated background is one of the main things I feel led this film to victory. It’s an uneven shapeshifter of a film, but far more rewarding that I would have thought - and just how blue are Peter O’Toole’s eyes?! 

Highlight

There’s so many moments, but Omar Sharif’s first appearance is superb. Just a dot on the horizon, he rides closer to the camera over a few minutes so it takes ages to see him. Fantastic cinematography and direction from Lean, and the first time you see Sharif’s chiselled jaw to boot. 

Lowlight

The second half feels rushed, and needed another two hours to fully tell the tale. One for a Netflix series perhaps? 

Mark

9/10