Best Actress 1973

[Reza]

I first saw Streisand in 1976 - The Owl and the Pussycat - on tv in Amsterdam. I think the first time I saw her on screen in Pakistan was when What's Up Doc?, The Way We Were and For Pete"s Sake all came out back to back at the cinema around 1977 or 1978. First saw Funny Girl in 1981 on video. From Yentl onwards saw her films in real time and caught up with all the rest on tv or video.

However, I first became a fan through her singing thanks to a record I discovered at my house in 1970. The famous 1965 "My Name is Barbra".

An unusual star, a great voice and a very funny lady - Both Owl & Doc still hold up today even if the latter is due to the genius of Ms Kahn. Can't believe Sabin missed out on her films. Found his reason intriguing and had to go check it on Wiki. Still didn't get it.

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
As far as the reversals of 1946 -- it's odd, but winning wars doesn't seem to have a great positive impact on president's parties' holding power. The Democrats were wiped out in 1918/20, even after having been seen to win WWI. And the Dems weren't alone in losing power in the aftermath of the Allied victory: Churchill was swept out not long after V-E Day.

George H.W. Bush can attest to that as well in a minor key.

I did a small bit of research after I posted last night. Apparently there was a wave of strikes in 1945-46 that Harry Truman did not handle diplomatically at all. I don't know when the phrase "To err is Truman" was coined but apparently it stuck throughout his term.

[Mister Tee]

I saw Streisand come along in approximately real time -- I was a tad young for I Can Get It for You Wholesale, but was paying attention when Funny Girl made her a superstar overnight, and was well aware of her records and TV specials. And I have to say that I, too, was resistant to her. There were a lot of reasons for this: she was a Broadway baby in a time when modern rock was displacing that genre; movies were experiencing that 60s revolution but the ones she initially starred in (though her own politics were always lefty) played as hopelessly retro. And, I think I have to own up to this: in my early teen years, there might have been a touch of homophobia -- all the guys I knew who loved her, went to her Central Park concerts, were...different, in some way I couldn't quite define but felt I needed to shy away from. This was strictly a loathsome part of my early teenage persona, and let me assure you that I'm still friends with several of these guys (had lunch with a few of them just before the pandemic struck). But I have to acknowledge this was part of why I looked a bit askance at Streisand in those early years.

I hadn't seen Funny Girl when she won the Oscar for it (as I've noted here multiple times, the combo of my senior year in high school, with the big contenders -- Lion in Winter, Funny Girl, Oliver! -- playing reserved seat engagements, meant I went into that year's Oscars close to blind), but on principle I didn't like it.

When I finally saw the movie, in Spring 1970, I had to admit that she was phenomenally talented. Funny Girl was a hopelessly passe project by 1968 (you think The Way We Were resembled a 40s movie?), and the only thing that gave it distinction was Streisand herself -- her unapologetic Jewishness was something the screen had never really seen in a leading lady; it made the project feel somewhat less musty than it would have, otherwise.

On a Clear Day is well worth skipping (unless you want to marvel at how incredibly miscast Jack Nicholson is), but The Owl and the Pussycat is, by Streisand standards, a kind of hip movie. And What's Up, Doc? struck me at the time as one of the funniest movies I'd ever seen (viva Madeline Kahn!). Further down the line, Yentl was a lot better than I'd expected it to be -- though I caution that the few friends I recommended it to didn't thank me for the rec.

On the other topics: it's wild that James Woods has so many movies where he convincingly plays lefties -- not just The Way We Were, but Salvador and True Believer. And all the time, those ugly feelings were bubbling below the surface.

I'd guess that Streisand's line about FDR in The Way We Were '-- "I can't remember when he wasn't president" -- probably summed up how a lot of people felt. Think of how a lot of us felt when Obama's term was up, only add 4 more years, and remember that the post-1929 Depression was without unemployment insurance or a hundred other things Roosevelt forged into being, so he meant even more to many people's everyday lives.

As far as the reversals of 1946 -- it's odd, but winning wars doesn't seem to have a great positive impact on president's parties' holding power. The Democrats were wiped out in 1918/20, even after having been seen to win WWI. And the Dems weren't alone in losing power in the aftermath of the Allied victory: Churchill was swept out not long after V-E Day.

The strength of the Dem coalition post-FDR could be seen in Truman's surprise 1948 victory, which also included taking back both houses of Congress for the next four years. (And, in fact, post-1954, control of the Senate till 1980 and the House till 1994.)

[Sabin]

Greg wrote
Another movie to add to your Streisand repertoire is What's Up Doc? She is hilarious in it.

I've never seen Funny Girl. I've been told I should watch that one, The Owl and the Pussycast and What's Up Doc and after that On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Up the Sandbox, and Yentl. I've been told mixed things about The Guilt Trip but that it's not bad.

[Greg]

I'm not sure I liked The Way We Were but I liked it as an introduction to Barbra Streisand, who is just excellent.

Another movie to add to your Streisand repertoire is What's Up Doc? She is hilarious in it.

It seems so odd that months after the end of World War and the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats lost the House of Representatives and The Senate no matter how unpopular Harry Truman was.

Too bad that FDR did not keep Henry Wallace.

[Big Magilla]

I don't think I have a good grasp on what it must have been like to experience Roosevelt's death. It must have been a momentous occurrence. In The Way We Were, it's a sad day at the bar and a group of country club WASPs making jokes about Eleanor. It had to be more of a thing but I don't quite grasp the mood. I also don't quite grasp who was a Republican during the New Deal. Was it really country clubbers while Democrats were everyone else? Generally speaking, post-War politics is a bit of a mystery to me. It seems so odd that months after the end of World War and the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats lost the House of Representatives and The Senate no matter how unpopular Harry Truman was.

Roosevelt's death was a big deal. Stop me, if I've relayed this story here before, but my mother and my grandmother were out shopping at Alexander's in the Bronx and were perplexed that all the shop-girls were crying. Finally, my grandmother asked one of them what was the matter and she replied, "Our president has died." My grandmother responded with "I'm so sorry, he must have been a good president", thinking she was referring to the president of Alexander's. It was only when they got home and turned on the radio that they realized she was talking about the U.S. president.

[Sabin]

Well, nothing could have prepared me for a young James Woods as a young lefty urging Barbra Streisand to keep going to protests and meetings. Remarkable contrast to his disgusting present day self. Go back, James. Go back.

This is a mess. You can tell from the beginning. It feels like a story with a hundred masters but Barbra Streisand is the one that holds. Growing up, I didn't like Barbra Streisand. My mother played her music loudly all the time and to be perfectly honest it hurt my ears. As I grew older, I hated her. Now in 2021, I do genuinely wonder if my distaste of Barbra Streisand had something to do with internalized antisemitism or being a self-loathing Jew. I've discussed this with my sister and she was started to find she had the same feelings about Streisand as well. I think I've only seen her in The Mirror Has Two Faces and The Prince of Tides, neither of which did much at all to improve my impression of her. I think I was made to watch Yentl but I don't recall, but generally I have no memories of Barbra Streisand as anyone younger than an old Boomer.

My loss. She's just excellent here. She's basically a college social justice warrior, the type I've gone to great lengths to get to like me in my personal life. She's immensely charming: intelligent, funny, and a face that the camera loves. It's so interesting that for an actor with such a reputation for being self-conscious there isn't a shot where she doesn't pop. The fact that the movie is a mess might play to her favor because she's pretty much the only thing going on.

That and the fact that it's generally speaking about things that I really enjoy that seem to be slightly out of style today, which is to say movies about male-female relationships, political disagreements rather than allyship, feminism vs. chauvinism, the Jew as an outsider in a WASP world, and the futile desire for a common ground. And yet I wonder, was there a conscious choice in the filming to make it look and feel like a recreation of 1940s melodrama but with politics? That's what it felt like to me. There are stagings that feel right out of Old Hollywood. If so, Sydney Pollack doesn't quite pull that off. The story meanders too much, ideas come and go, and mostly I just wanted Katie to get away from Hubbel (he's a Republican, dammit!) who never convinces as anyone with a thought in his head. It's scene after scene of them trying to connect with each other followed by reunion montages which turn its already shallow politics to window dressing*. The early scenes the best because generally speaking movies that span several years have to keep finding new ways to put gas in the tank. HUAC in three... two... one...

I'm not sure I liked The Way We Were but I liked it as an introduction to Barbra Streisand, who is just excellent. I might want her to get away from Hubbel but her love for him is quite moving. I can understand this film being a rallying cry for Jewish girls for decades. And if I didn't like the bulk of the movie, the final scene is good enough to make me grateful enough for the ride.

*Unrelated, I don't think I have a good grasp on what it must have been like to experience Roosevelt's death. It must have been a momentous occurrence. In The Way We Were, it's a sad day at the bar and a group of country club WASPs making jokes about Eleanor. It had to be more of a thing but I don't quite grasp the mood. I also don't quite grasp who was a Republican during the New Deal. Was it really country clubbers while Democrats were everyone else? Generally speaking, post-War politics is a bit of a mystery to me. It seems so odd that months after the end of World War and the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats lost the House of Representatives and The Senate no matter how unpopular Harry Truman was.

[Sabin]

Apparently, Peter Bogdanovich was offered it. Maybe he would've been a better fit.

[Big Magilla]

There was a book, but as Tee says, it may well be a novelization of Arthur Laurents' screenplay. According to Laurents' Wikipedia page, it has an original publication date of 1972, the year before the film was released. Wikipedia also shows a book for Laurents' The Turning Point published in 1977.

Here's some information on the book with a picture of the cover of its second edition, published with Streisand and Redford on the cover. It apparently has had five editions to date.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/181 ... ay_We_Were

The film starts out well and ends with a famous scene that I won't spoil for those who aren't familiar with it, but in-between it's a bit of a mess. Still, it remains the best thing Streisand has ever done on screen.

[Mister Tee]

Was the book The Way We Were anything terribly special and was the film seen as a disappointment at the time?

I'm not sure there was a book -- it's referenced some places, but the nomination with the WGA was Drama Written Directly for the Screen. Maybe it was a novelization published about the same time as the movie's release? In any case, it wasn't a well-enough-known book for people to have expectations based on it.

The film was, though, seen as a critical disappointment -- basically because it was the first major studio treatment of the blacklist era (which Laurents had lived through), and general opinion was that, though the subject was certainly covered, it was the weakest part of the movie.

But the film became a huge hit -- way bigger than test screenings had suggested -- because of the core romance. It was kind of The Graduate in reverse: instead of the schnook winning the beautiful princess, it was the less-than-beautiful dame landing the blonde god (albeit not permanently). This is the reason the film has endured in the culture.

Don't be scared off the movie, though. It's not without value. There are scenes in it I actually quite like (which I'll be happy to discuss with you after you've seen it). And the romance is potent enough to carry things. The opening line of Pauline Kael's review was "The Way We Were is a fluke -- a torpedoed ship full of gaping holes which comes snugly into port." That matches my reaction pretty well.

[gunnar]

It looks like The Way We Were was a box office success, bringing in around $50 million (fifth place that year) against a budget of $15 million. Critical response at the time seems to be mixed. It made the top ten films for the National Board of Review and Ebert gave it 3 stars, though others weren't as favorable.

I watched the film back in 2015 and I thought it was pretty good overall.

[Sabin]

No idea where else to place this...

I'm apparently watching The Way We Were this coming week. I'm not terribly excited at the prospect. I did a little research into the film. Apparently after the film's release, Sydney Pollack admitted that the film was not good and accepted full responsibility for the outcome of the film. Was the book The Way We Were anything terribly special and was the film seen as a disappointment at the time?

[Reza]

Jackson getting nominated for a comedy (and winning) after years of playing dramatic parts is akin to Albert Brooks winning so much acclaim today for his dramatic role in Drive after playing primarily comedic roles. The Academy seems to love an actor changing gears.

[ksrymy]

Good to know. Linda Blair outacts Burstyn.

Yes but Jason Miller outacts them all.

[nightwingnova]

Good to know. Linda Blair outacts Burstyn.

Btw, The Exorcist is bland and almost tells us nothing until about an hour and 15 minutes into the movie. Then it is interesting and good.

Just saw The Exorcist. Burstyn gives an adequate performance of a nearly empty role. Don't understand the love here.

We had a ballot-stuffer a month or so ago and that's why Burstyn has so many votes. Discount 8 of her votes.