In the newly dumbed down and still decending A2 Supplement in The Age comes a nicely written review of a bad book about a great actress. My all time fave I think. From the review:
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How, one wonders, could she not have wanted to give more sense of Bergman’s career highlights? Of the wonderful womanliness, comprising beauty, sexiness and tenderness? Of her way of inhabiting a role instead of just putting it on?
Think of the ardent bride gradually revealed in her vulnerability in Gaslight and the access of strength she finds at the last. Or of Henrietta Flusky’s long take in Under Capricorn, when she spills out the guilt and unpayable gratitude that have brought her to Antipodean befuddlement. Or, years later, the world-famous pianist faced with her daughter’s resentments in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata.
And in perhaps her most famous role of all, as Ilsa in Casablanca; how many actresses might so convincingly make us aware of the conflicting claims of passion and integrity? There is a feeling not just of a generous talent but of generosity itself at work in such performances.
