Rambling Rose is a 1991 American drama film set in Georgia during the Great Depression starring Laura Dern and Robert Duvall in leading roles with Lukas Haas, John Heard and Diane Ladd in supporting roles. Rambling Rose was directed by Martha Coolidge and written by Calder Willingham (adapted from his own 1972 novel of the same name).[2][3]
Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, daughter and mother in real life, were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, making them the first mother-daughter duo to be nominated for Academy Awards for the same film or in the same year.[4][5][6] The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Martha Coolidge won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director.[7]
film rambling rose
The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 100% approval rating, based on 20 reviews.[8] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the storytelling and performances, summarizing the film as a "beauty."[9] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "The movie is all character and situation, and contains some of the best performances of the year, especially in the ensemble acting of the four main characters."[10] On his TV program with Gene Siskel, both critics gave it a thumbs up.[11] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B, extolling the performances, particularly Dern.[12] He wrote that, "No young actress today can play emotionally hungry postadolescents with such purity and yearning."[12]
Willingham has adapted his own novel "Rambling Rose" in a film that has finally opened in an area theater. It, too, is in that eminently American genre, the remembrance of glandular secretions past. It's very Southern and, beyond that, very '50s (think of "The Long Hot Summer" and all those Tennessee Williams numbers). It's one of the last genres I ever thought I'd see again, much less revived in a good little movie.
It's a loose, ramshackle film with no desire to disguise the origins of its plot in a novel. Some of Willingham's dialogue is hilarious. (Think of the peach-grove arias on TV's "Designing Women," subtract all the sitcom brass and phoniness and you have some of the dialogue in "Rambling Rose.")
14. OCTOBER SKY (1999)Dern is quite beguiling as a young teacher who inspires her students to pursue their dreams. A young Jake Gyllenhaal plays one of her students who is inspired by the launch of the Sputnik rocket to take up rocketry. This film received quite positive reviews and became a sleeper hit of 1999.
12. A PERFECT WORLD (1993)This Clint Eastwood film featured Kevin Costner in a rare villainous role, playing an escaped convict who kidnaps a young boy. The twist in the story is that the young boy actually begins to like his captor and the life he is being shown with him. Dern plays a criminologist trying to solve the case.
3. SMOOTH TALK (1985)Dern earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her first lead role in this film that was initially done for PBS but was released in theaters due to its high quality. Dern got very strong reviews for her role as a teenage girl anxious to explore her sexuality. Her desires lead her into a relationship with a dangerous older man played by Treat Williams.
2. RAMBLING ROSE (1991)Dern plays a troubled woman who is taken in as a servant by a wealthy family so she can escape her desperate life where she is being forced into prostitution. The film found a place in Oscar history when Dern received a Best Actress Oscar nomination and her mother Diane Ladd also received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the film.
Rose finally finds "Mr. Right" and moves out of the Hillyers' house but not out of their lives. Years later when Buddy (John Heard) returns to visit his father, it's clear that her rambling spirit has had an indelible impact.
Rose's story ("I've been wandering in the wilderness, lost") might have happened anywhere. But it happens in Georgia and has rhythm in its shoes. The film is like a work of art that exists outside movements and influence, perfectly formed. Containing poetic qualities, there is danger of it slipping between the cracks.
Willingham writes like a prince. Pure gold. Coolidge directs with intelligent sensitivity, allowing argument to infiltrate the web of nostalgia and take an edge off sorrow. The film avoids cliche at every point, despite nodding references to familiar icons. Rose is both victim and catalyst. She knows not what she does. "Sex ain't nothin' but a mosquito bite."
Laura Dern plays her like a child remembering what it is to be a lady from listening to someone talk of an actress in a film she hasn't seen. When she swings down the street in her handmade cotton dress and thick raised heels to dazzle the young blades with imaginary glamour, she imitates catwalk postures, utterly out of time and scarlet brave. Her performance, unlike Robert Duvall (Daddy) and Diane Ladd (Mother) who are rock steady, teeters on the brink of self- conciousness, but triumphs in the end with a vulnerability that is both vital and captivating.
Martha Coolidge's outstanding film about a wayward young womantaken in by a family in 1930s America and given the chance to change her waysdidn't really attract much attention upon its release in 1991, despite a movingperformance from Laura Dern and an excellent turn by Robert Duvall as thefamily's father. Excelling at this sort of thing since time immemorial,Elmer Bernstein was the most qualified composer for the job, with a whole stringof scores for this type of touching drama under his belt over the previousdecades.
"Hello - I'm Rose", which opens the album, collatestogether the film's main themes, a lovely summary of Bernstein's ideas for thefilm, from the moving main theme to the more sprightly music for the film's morelighthearted moments. These lighthearted moments provide arguably the pickof the setpiece cues, but it is Bernstein's ability to effortlessly reflectchanging moods that shines through, particularly in the outstanding"Revelation", which moves from a somewhat upbeat opening to become asombre and grim portrayal of human anguish. The theme continues in"Love", in which beauty and sadness compete for attention in classicBernstein tradition. "That Scruffy Looking Man" is a wonderfulpiece of darkly comedic music, reflecting the movie's place and timeperfectly. "Safe Home" is a true gem of a track, only a minutelong - but what a minute! A cheerful, celebratory little piece, it'ssimply a delight.
Rambling Rose is a score of rare charm, a delightfulcompanion to Bernstein's other, celebrated scores for adult dramas. It'svery difficult to resist his graceful style of composition for this type ofmovie, taking in the range of emotions so well. It also contains some ofhis richest and most moving pieces of music - the last minute or so of"Compassion" is as beautiful as anything you'll hear, leadingperfectly into the three cues which make up the score's incredibly moving finale("Rose and Buddy", "Goodbyes" and "So LongRose"). Music as impassioned and dignified as this is very rare inthe modern age of filmmaking by committee where everything has to be as loud andinane as possible, which makes this score even more refreshing and joyous. Recommended without reservation.
Author Calder Willingham is largely forgotten as an author and is not much better remembered as a screenwriter, although his screenwriting credits include "The Graduate," "Little Big Man," and "Spartacus." He was the favorite screenwriter of legendary film director Stanley Kubrick; the two collaborated on a number of films.
Originally set up by Joe Roth (then head of 20th Century Fox) as a star vehicle for Madonna, who pulled out when scheduling conflicts arose with her role in Abel Ferrera's Dangerous Game (1993). Joan Allen, Kim Basinger, Halle Berry, Laura Dern, Sherilyn Fenn, Bridget Fonda, Jodie Foster, Daryl Hannah, Helen Hunt, Anjelica Huston, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Demi Moore, Kathy Najimy, Tatum O'Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Meryl Streep, Marisa Tomei and Sela Ward were then considered before the part went to Geena Davis. It was then that a leaked fax from Madonna to Roth emerged in which she sarcastically blasted his decision to dump her for a non-Italian actress. It transpired that Roth had privately expressed doubts about Madonna's ability to carry a movie, comments which had made it back to the star in question, hence her sudden departure from the project. Original director Jonathan Kaplan soon followed, to be replaced by Martha Coolidge, with whom Davis had worked two years previously on Rambling Rose (1991).
Martha Coolidge's previous film, Rambling Rose, was produced by Geena Davis's future ex-husband, Renny Harlin, who at the time got involved with that film's lead actress, Laura Dern. Dern subsequently became involved with Davis's previous ex-husband, Jeff Goldblum, whom she met on the set of Jurassic Park. Coolidge's then-husband Michael Backes was also a technical advisor on that film.
A former model and dancer at the famed Copacabana nightclub, this lithe blonde actress made her film debut in Something Wild (1961). After appearing in various soap operas, stage plays, and low-budget films, she won critical praise as the waitress Flo in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975), for which she won an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Frequently cast in films as a mother, she and real-life daughter Laura Dern both won Academy Award nominations for their roles in Rambling Rose (1991). Ladd had previously earned an Academy Award nomination for her work in Wild at Heart (1990).
Our Oscar-obsessed time machine takes us back to post Depression / pre World War II Hollywood when You Can't Take It With You beat Jezebel to the Best Picture prize. To discuss those two films as well as The Great Waltz, Of Human Hearts, and Merrily We Live, and the Best Supporting Actress race, TFE's Nathaniel R and Cláudio Alves are joined by the actors Steven Weber (Wings, Jeffrey) and Britney Young (GLOW) and Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson. Topics include: screwball comedy, jukebox musicals, and Hollywood's obsession with the Antebellum South. 2ff7e9595c
Σχόλια