Excerpt
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Ann Hornaday is a film critic for The Washington Post, and joins me now.
Well, Ann, what’s interesting about that first performance for me is, it seems to start with a kind of Hollywood construct. That famous director Howard Hawks, he’s looking for, trying to shape a type, but Lauren Bacall manages to make it more than that, right?
ANN HORNADAY, The Washington Post: Oh, it’s mythic in all of its contours, because you’re right. It was that kind of straight from Shraff kind of narrative about, you know, get me the right girl.
And, of course, it was his wife Slim who suggested then Betty Perske, Betty Bacall, that he look at her. And then he did mold her. And I think one of the contradictions of her career is that she did come to personify this ideal of independence and flintiness underneath this amazing panther-like sensuality.
And a lot of that was created by Hawks. He was the one who suggested that she lower her voice, which she exercised every day to lower. He was the one who helped her perfect the look. So it was very much a collaboration.
No comments:
Post a Comment