Barbra is no longer Evergreen.

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:11pm

I’m about to utter blasphemous words to some. Godhelpme.

Barbra Streisand is not a very good actor.

There, I’ve uttered it. Why, you ask, do I make this pronouncement, thereby offering myself up for vivisection?

Yesterday, I was channel-surfing, and ran across Streisand’s 70s opus A STAR IS BORN. (Truth be told, I saw the movie title on the video TV guide thingy, and thought I’d be greeted with the Garland and Mason. Foolish me.) I clicked over to see the last 20 minutes – where John Norman Howard is caught with some groupie, and Esther Hoffman Howard walks in and sees them, and there’s that big fight scene, and they end up boinking, and then they go out to that uber-70s cottage they built out in the desert, and John Norman Howard gets up and roars off in his sports car and wrecks and dies, and Esther Hoffman Howard mauls his body with grief, and then she’s back at their L.A. mansion and hears a tape of him, and cries and drools with grief, and then Esther Hoffman Howard goes on stage and sings a medley of one of her songs and one of his songs, and it’s all touching and very Behind The Music rock’n’roll. And she looks like an idiot trying to "rock out" during the last number -- kind of like "Yentl Goes Spice Girls" or something.

And what really surprised me was how my tastes have changed. I remember when that film came out – I was in early high school – and everyone was just ooh-ing and ah-ing over it. We all owned the soundtrack. “Evergreen” was played ad nauseum on radio stations.

I was struck at how BAD Barbra is. Maybe it was her ‘fro. Whatever it was, she was so over the top and….well “victim-like”, and little or no subtext. Erg. And another thing about Barbra – she’s really a “one note samba” when it comes to her projects, isn’t she? The recurring theme in most of her work is “ugly girl gets good looking guy who treats her like crap, which she probably feels she deserves because she has a big nose.” FUNNY GIRL. FUNNY LADY. THE WAY WE WAS. THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES. A STAR IS BORN. I’m sure there are more. To be fair, there are exceptions, but methinks she’s beaten this horse to death…all this unlucky in love stuff.
Updated On: 12/8/03 at 12:11 PM

[orion59]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:17pm

Barbra really needs to quit acting and stick to singing or just do musicals. I love her voice but, her acting is horrid. That version of A Star Is Born completely destroyed what was a great movie when done with Garland and Mason. Nuts was movie that may have been good with a different star. The Mirror Has Two Faces...the only thing that saved that movie was Lauren Bacall

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:18pm

I was just thinking about her version of "A Star is Born" the other day. I thought I was the only one who felt the same way about her. What a relief!!! Thanks for sharing.

[magruder]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:21pm

So funny you should mention this. I stumbled on Barbra's Star is Born too, yesterday. I was stunned at her wooden line readings. Still, she can be quite good in the right vehicle, and she's in much better form in Funny Girl, The Owl and the Pussycat, What's Up, Doc? and The Way We Were.

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:24pm

Magruder, you bring up a good point, especially re: WHAT'S UP DOC (that is the one with Ryan O'Neal, the screwball comedy?) I thought she was pretty good in that..and I've got to think that it's because she wasn't doing that "ugly girl victim" stuff. She had the power in that movie, she was funny.

[magruder]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:27pm

What's Up, Doc? is a really wonderful movie. I mean... Barbra warbling "You're The Top" and "As Time Goes By," Madeline Kahn in peak hysteria mode, a chase through the streets of San Francisco, and Ryan O'Neal in his underwear... What more can a person ask for?

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:29pm

The great Ms. Kahn made that movie for me...I don't think I remember a single thing Barbra said, but I still can hear Madeline's outraged "I am not A Eunice Burns, I am THE Eunice Burns!"

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:31pm

There are actresses and there are personalities. Barbra is a personality.

When we watch FUNNY GIRL, we are not thrilled with Fanny Brice's story, we're enchanted by Barbra's life and talent.

What's Up Doc? caught her at her most beautiful (that ironed hair??? STUNNING!) and probably most confident.

But then came STAR IS BORN.

See what taking yourself too seriously and a bad perm can do?

Posted: 12/8/03 at 12:32pm

Now don't get me wrong: I love a lot of what Barbra has done but I think her acting could best be summed up by what happened at a UK press conference during promotion for Yentl..

When asked about her future plans she said she wanted so badly to one day act on stage Hedda Gabler and Cleopatra and all the great stage roles (a comment she had been saying since 1964)..but no one has ever asked her to play those roles..

A reporter then went:

"..but Ms. Streisand, you are a very,very wealthy woman...could'nt you just rent out a small theatre..hire a cast..hire a director... and mount a production of Hedda Gabler yourself?"

Barbra stared at him like he just took a dump on her art deco rug....

[Horsey!!!]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 1:18pm

Robbiej:

Just for the record, Barbra's hair wasn't "ironed" for "What's Up Doc." Her hair is NATURALLY straight and was artifically curled during her "afro" period in the 70's (just like Joyce Dewitt.)

And to others:

Barbra has turned in some God-awful performances on film and has done the same on some recordings. She has also shown that she is capable of brilliant, tour-de-force acting as proven in "Funny Girl," "Up The Sandbox" and "The Way We Were."

[newyorkuniq]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 1:31pm

I am a huge huge Barbra fan. She is a brilliant singer and has many great moments on film: Funny Girl, Yentl, The Way We Were, On A Clear Day etc. and some bad moments. A Star Is Born is def. not her best performance,but to say that she can't act just because of one movie is a bit dramatic.

[BwayLover]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:11pm

I am also a huge Streisand fan, but I can be objective- not everything she has done is brilliant. BUT - I sincerly don't agree with the notion that she is a bad actress, and certainly not in A STAR IS BORN. Personally I find her crying scene over JNH's body extremely moving, and their fight, though a bit staged, is great. What you must also remember about this movie is that its director, Frank Pierson, wasn't a very good one- and they literally had no guidance at all.

I think her performance in NUTS should have won an Oscar, and would have, if her name hadn't been Barbra Streisand.

And about the Hedda Gabler comment....Please. We can say the same thing about every actor or actress working today! The whole idea of the creative process is for it to be a collaboration, and I totally understand what Barbra meant by that comment- she is looking for the respect those kind of roles would bring her,and the fact that people see her able to perform them- and that's why she will never just produce them herself. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Updated On: 12/8/03 at 02:11 PM

[sparky310]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:18pm

well then please name one actress who has not done roles that werent best suited for them...i think evergreen was not her best but it is an awesome leap to make that she cant act...if she couldnt she would never have survived this many years in a business so fickle and so vicous..although she has a tremedoous gift for singing...i personally believe she can act even if you dont.

[orion59]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:25pm

I don't think she pulled off the role she was playing in Nuts, at least not consistantly. Yes there were some decent acting moments, when she needed to be hard and cold but, in the scenes where the character had to be more vulnerable and was beginning to face what had happened to her as a child, Barbra wasn't believable. That role was written as an automatic Oscar nominee and, in the case of all roles written that way, the actor can play it with honest emotion and have the performance come out strong and realistic or they can over play. This is what i think happened in Nuts. Barbra pushed for the drama and the Oscar performance and completely went over the top at times.

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:28pm

Sometimes I get the feeling Barbra is more concerned with her back lighting and key lighting than the actual performance. You ever noticed that in MIRROR she always has this luminous glow on the back of her head -- even standing in the middle of a snowstorm?

And a word to the posters that are having visceral reactions to criticisms of Streisand, warranted/unwarranted they may be: I think you may be getting a little over-emotional about her. Don't -- she doesn't get over-emotional about you, her fans (except when she stands to make money off it). Well, perhaps her website audience. Updated On: 12/8/03 at 02:28 PM

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:29pm

I wouldn't go so far to say that she can't act. But it seems that she's able to be her best work in projects that are tailored to that "ugly duckling becomes beautiful swan who also sings the song in the final credits."

And please stop embellishing the melodies of the songs you sing. I can hardly recognize some of them.

Unfortunately, it seems that she's reached at state when nobody is ballsy enough to say to her..."Babs! You're getting a little to old for those roles! It's time to evolve!"

I'd really love to see her do something along the lines of Elizabeth Taylor's blant rejection of glamour in "Virginia Wolff." What would Barbra really loose taking a risk like that?

Her Best Peformances:

Funny Girl
What's Up Doc


Real Stinkers:

A Star is Born
For Pete's Sake
The Main Event

[orion59]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 2:38pm

I think What's Up Doc was her best non musical. The off beat, wacky, Lucille Ball type of comedy role suited her well at that time. Other than that one movie, i have never seen her in a non musical where I thought she was good. I liked her in Funny Girl and Hello Dolly because the acting didn't really need to be all that great. it was the music that made those movies singing is Barbra's one true talent. i don't really consider A Star Is Born to be a musical, it's more a movie with music in it.

[tpdc]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 6:44pm

I have liked a lot of Barbra's work. I think she has given some fine film performances. Sadly, most of them were early in her career. When she received the AFI award, she remarked in response to the sudience reaction to the clips from her films that obviously she should have done more comedy. She was great in THE OWL & THE PUSSYCAT and WHAT'S UP DOC. Her comic flair even helped HELLO DOLLY and ON A CLEAR DAY. I didn't care very much for TALE OF THE ALLERGIST'S WIFE on stage but I thought at the time that Barbra should snap up the film rights for herself. Apparently, she was approached about starring in a film version but declined.

[TheaterBaby]

Posted: 12/8/03 at 10:41pm

LOL If you thought her version of "A Star is Born" was bad, try watching "All Night Long."
A lot of actors have done some bad acting, or made poor choices as far as films, but I don't think there's any denial that she is an icon in many mediums.
I'm a huge Barbra fan, but compared to Judy's version of "A Star is Born", even I was dissapointed in Barbra's version.
There are very few Barbra movies that I don't enjoy, and it's not just because she's a personality. I am actually able to get past Barbra and see a character in a movie. I think she's one of the greater actresses.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 9:26am

It's just too bad that Barbra came along just as movie musicals went out of fashion. The last 30 years were a drought for the genre other than the occasional successes like Little Shop of Horrors or Chicago. Who knows what wonderful things could have been found for Streisand or Julie Andrews or Bette Midler if the form hadn't fallen into desuetude? I still think if there was one actress for whom a film version of Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard would be worth doing, it would be La Streisand.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 9:58am

I agree with MusicMan re Sunset. She might've really brought that off, because she could've used her own admitted insecurities and narcissism, blended like a DNA molecule, to get inside Norma's anxiety. But she'd need to give herself over to someone like Mike Nichols, an actor's director, and stop, finally, worrying about which side of her face was being photgraphed. (The nadir of that syndrome was her appearnace on Rosie O's show, when the entire set was moved, and Rosie lied and pretended it was her choice...) She'd blow the Webber scores off the screen. It's not really too late -- better Norma than, say, MAME. I'm tired of watching her try to look beautiful.

Which brings me to NUTS. I'm shocked to read so much enthusiasm for that performance. I remember snickering at the thought of Barbra as a top shelf call girl, charging 500 bucks to do what Monica L. did for free. Glibness aside, I couldn't "buy" it, and found it strange leap of faith on her part.

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 10:13am

Auggie, you ROCK!

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 10:47am

On one level, it is sad that Barbras' rise coincided with the decline of the movie musical. But she could have kept it chugging along very nicely had she desired (as awful as YENTL may seem now, it did make money). While she was still viable box office, proiducers were willing to star her in musicals. It's just that right after YENTL, Barbra seemed to gradually lose enthusiasm for making ANY kind of film. And for all her talk about just being a director, she hasn't shown much excitement for doing that, either. By the time of the MIRROR HAS TWO FACES, she turned into a parody of herself.

NUTS was unintentional camp from the start. I remember the audience at the late lamented Regency theater tittering when she maked her first appearance in the lineup of inmates...with about fifteen baby spots giving her frizzy hair an angelic, star-like halo (It's not as if she's Loretta Young, fer Petes' sake). By contrast, the scene where Barbra the spike-heeled vixen enters the bar with every man at the bar turning around and practically giving her wolf-whistles elicited loud guffaws and derisive laughter as if to say "Honey, the only way you'd elicit THOSE looks would be if you walked into the Spike."

I used to think that she'd relax a bit with age and marriage. Maybe recapture her sense of fun and not be such a hyper-nitpicking 'perfectionist' (would that she be so picky over her choices of material!). But instead she's gotten crazier and even MORE vain and self-deluded. I hoped for MAME, or SUNSET...or even a character part. But she has too much star vanity and yes, insecurity to allow herself to do a role. And to allow ANYONE to direct it.

I am resigned to her never making another film.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 4:55pm

Master LcZ, very well said.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/9/03 at 7:28pm

Master, I'm renting NUTS and taking another look. You're right -- seeing it with an audience (I was on the Upper West Side) was an 80s experience.

One irony not lost on any of us: Now, she could play "Dolly" and find new, real pathos and power in the role -- tossing out the odd Mae West touches she used out of desperation in her 20s. She's the right age, and it would tap her comedic and dramatic strengths without a lot of straining.