Re: Aggie's Place -- Open 24 Hours
Posted: September 9th, 2009, 4:50 pm
Professional Tourist:
You said, "I've thought that she was naturally a very neurotic person and that her displays of emotion were genuine as such -- although I have recognized that she could slant a story and otherwise dissemble in the effort to produce desired reactions in others,"
Actually you used a better word than I did with neurotic than phoney. It's true her neuroses came through as cracks in her character. Between her saying things without telling the complete story, whining about how she could have been more, and mooning around after Cotton she makes the audience dislike her instead of pity her. But after seeing many Aggie roles, I think she meant to leave that impression of dislike over pity, I don't think she liked Fanny a lot.
What you said about the chunks missing, perhaps YouTube does it that way, but that is exactly why I dismiss Citizen Kane. There are many things about the characters I don't 'get', and I believe those points were left on the cutting room floor. The movie was already over-long, so editing cost a lot of back story. With MA Welles uses the same sort of sharp cut from one scene to another, but the backstories on all of the characters are there, even though not in depth, at least enough to understand each characters' reasons for action. It may only be a line or two in conversation, or the narrator giving a clue, but the MA characters are easier to understand.
In any case, Agness is always a pleasure to watch, no matter if she's being the poor farmers wife in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, or the Countess as in The Opposite Sex.
You said, "I've thought that she was naturally a very neurotic person and that her displays of emotion were genuine as such -- although I have recognized that she could slant a story and otherwise dissemble in the effort to produce desired reactions in others,"
Actually you used a better word than I did with neurotic than phoney. It's true her neuroses came through as cracks in her character. Between her saying things without telling the complete story, whining about how she could have been more, and mooning around after Cotton she makes the audience dislike her instead of pity her. But after seeing many Aggie roles, I think she meant to leave that impression of dislike over pity, I don't think she liked Fanny a lot.
What you said about the chunks missing, perhaps YouTube does it that way, but that is exactly why I dismiss Citizen Kane. There are many things about the characters I don't 'get', and I believe those points were left on the cutting room floor. The movie was already over-long, so editing cost a lot of back story. With MA Welles uses the same sort of sharp cut from one scene to another, but the backstories on all of the characters are there, even though not in depth, at least enough to understand each characters' reasons for action. It may only be a line or two in conversation, or the narrator giving a clue, but the MA characters are easier to understand.
In any case, Agness is always a pleasure to watch, no matter if she's being the poor farmers wife in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, or the Countess as in The Opposite Sex.
...The main reason: Being exposed since my very early childhood to many MGM films of all kinds from the 1950s (The Swan, The Glass Slipper, Green Fire, Many Rivers to Cross, High Society, The Opposite Sex, Royal Wedding, Designing Woman et al)...scarcely any film from the 1930s and few films from the 1940s...