I was staring at a beautiful statuesque woman of about 65. She was so lovely, and there was something familiar about her. I was in a snooty part of London, the kind no one I know, especially me, would ever be able to afford to live in. The woman turned to her companion and said, in a magnificent powerful voice, "Look! See how the flowers unfold in the sunlight." I was stunned -- no one normal speaks that way, so dramatically, so passionately about a flower, then I realized, the woman was Vanessa Redgrave.
From that moment forward, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I poked my friend and whispered excitedly -- "Look it's Vanessa Redgrave! I want to say something to her!" My friend (Carol Ackley, traitor expat who has moved back to the USA and left me behind) was sanguine. "Yeah, I think she lives around here." I kept walking, but slower and slower, while I kept looking at her.
Now Vanessa R's new play, The Year of Magical Thinking, has come to London. It's taken from Joan Didion's book about how depressed she was after her husband died, and how shocking she found the grieving process.
We're going to see it next week with Mrs. Williams from the Foreign Office, first blogged about here.
From The Year of Magical Thinking:
Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We know that someone close to us could die. We might expect to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect to be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy – cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
See how the flowers unfold in the sunlight
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Anyone who has not seen the movie *Atonement* (novel by Ian MacEwan)is missing a profound treat---Ms. Redgrave only appears at the end, playing the elderly version of the protagonist Briony Tallis, but she blows everyone else off the screen! And I'll always remember her as Guinevere in the *Camelot* movie...didn't care for her ranting at that Oscar performance, when she hollered about "Zionist hoodlums," but hey, it was her moment and she could say what she liked, I reckon...
...I think she's older than 65, though---somewhere in her 70s I believe.
Okay, you knew this was coming...
Not only is Vanessa Redgrave the woman who complained about "Zionist hoodlums," in 1980 she said, "The State of Israel must be overthrown. There is no room for such a state."
Well, I always think actresses are kind of stoopid and are best enjoyed viewing at the movies or on stage and not taking their opinions seriously. I remember getting so annoyed when Vanity Fair gave Sean Connery pages and pages of room to vent his political opinions like they mattered to anyone else.
Everyone I know who has read this Joan Didion book has loved it.
I'll confess to not being someone who likes fiction (in the last five years, 3/320 books I have read were fictional, and I would need to go into my library to try and see if I could find them, because I can't remember their titles- so it doesn't stay with me, either).
So, as a non-fiction reader, is this book still worth checking out?
E- I totally agree, and of course I think it applies to actors as well. I like to hear Sean Connery speak, but I never listen to what he is saying. Let me simply say I am not his biggest fan, but I like his voice and acting.
Hi ZH! I think that actors do themselves, and their admirers, a great disservice when they use their celebrity status to rant. I suppose I'm an artistic purist---I want to love the actors' performances, see them immersed in their characters, but knowing too much about their offscreen politics, sex life, hygiene habits, etc. can ruin a play or film for me. I have to wonder what good Ms. Redgrave thought she was doing, spouting that stuff about the state of Israel? I still love her performances, but...
Now wait, Eliz---not all actresses are stoopid. Look at Jodie Foster---got her a degree from Yale. Meryl Streep? Gwyneth Paltrow is pretty sharp, too. But you don't see them on the covers of tabloids, or blathering about politics, because they have that rare commodity called "good breeding". Woefully lacking in most celebrities, I admit!
Thank you, Papist Hoodlum (we hoodlums must stick together).
And I agree with you 100 percent. I don't care which politicians actors endorse, I don't care what their positions are on gun control or how much they love the National Rifle Association. I just want them to act and shut up.
It's not that I deny their right to express their opinion; of course they have the same rights to freedom of speech as anyone. I resent, though, the suggestion that their opinion somehow matters enough to fill up pages of magazines or take up time on the evening news.
ZH, one of the saddest moments of my tabloid-reading life (I ridicule Eliz for reading such trash but do it myself all the time:):) was when I read that Matthew McConnaughey does not shower often and does not use deodorant. POP! went the bubble of my fantasy of playing Blanche to his Stanley Kowalski in a Broadway revival...sorry, no can do that rape scene with a man who...stinks. Don't care how good his muscles look! So I suppose my advice to celebrities (not that they're listening to me) would be: shut up and act, as you so wisely said!
OK, we can say that we don't want to hear actors' political opinions, but I must know about their secret plastic surgery or any other secrets that they want to hide from John Q Public. Enquiring minds want to know....
Lisa, I have only read an extract of the Year of Magical Thinking but it was 'powerful stuff,' as my creative writing teacher used to say. My friend Mrs. Williams has read the whole thing, and she really liked it.
But wait---isn't Joan Didion the one that named her daughter Quintana Roo? As in Kanga-Roo? Celebrities should beware of using weirdo names for their kids, lest they start a trend. I know I just complimented Gwyneth Paltrow, but I must say that she disappointed me by calling her daughter after a FRUIT, and then giving her son the name...MOSES. Yeah, he was a wise leader and brought them Israelites to the Promised Land and all, but---UGH what a name to grow up with.
Eliz, yes to the plastic-surgery "secrets," but do you really have to read their confessions? Anyone with 2 good eyes can see who's had lip collagen, boob implants, eye lifts---it's SO obvious, every time. What I love best are the unretouched pix of surgery gone bad---ha ha HAAA!
But Schaden, Quintana Roo died too. My friend Mrs Williams just called to see how Katie is and she told me a friend of hers had just seen this play w/out realizing that all the time Vanessa talks about Quintana Roo, that she will die later. She said she came out weeping and emotionally wrenched (is that word?) so Mrs W is not sure this will be the best choice of play for me. I said if we felt like opening our veins halfway through we could always leave since we know what will happen.
Also, BWJ, celebrities DENY plastic surgery all the time so we really need those pages in the National Enquirer where a doctor analyzes pics and deduces what they have had. The public has a right to know!!
Quintana Kanga ROO died too!!!?? (Oops, that sounds like the opening lines of a Dr. Seuss book) Wow, no wonder Joan Didion be havin' her a grief. Double grief. Whoa...anyway, yeah, the celeb surgery reports always makes good readin'. What I really love is when they appear for interviews with "no make-up," or perhaps just a "touch of clear lip gloss." OH RIGHT. You know they never leave their Beverly Hills chateaux without a quart of concealer and loads of mascara...
...and don't you just pray for the day when some honest person will write a letter to the *People* mag editor and say, "I LOVE reading about Britney Spears' ongoing trainwreck of a trashy life---what can you expect from south-Loozyanna swamp trash?" But no...they only publish letters from people who are "praying for her". No fun!
Yeah, and then they say how Goldie Hawn has recently begun to lose her looks -- they never mention that she's a chain smoker, no one can keep youthful when their skin is subjected to that.
Goldie Hawn is a scary example of an ingenue who just couldn't let it go...she should play the lead in "Sunset Boulevard" about that old actress who tries to recapture her young allure. What was her name...Norma Desmond?
I so enjoyed reading your post about seeing Vanessa Redgrave. She is one of my favorite actors and she seems like such a classy lady. Did you actually go up and talk to her? It must have been so exciting to see her in person.
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