Frances
1982 Directed by Graeme Clifford
Synopsis
The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.
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Released in 1982, FRANCES is a biopic of famous actress Frances Farmer who was an odd character indeed. She was played by Jessica Lange in a pretty brave performance. She was by most accounts a bright young woman with pretty out-there ideas for a girl from the Midwest. She was apparently a leftist and communist at a raw time in American politics -- the 1930s and 1940s. She wanted to be a serious actress and wasn't bad, but she was an alcoholic and suffered from various mental illnesses -- or so the film and some biographies tell us. She had a passive-aggressive mother (played by Kim Stanley). The film follows her career's fits and starts as well as her commitment…
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An interesting enough story, but is bogged down by monotonous melodrama.
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Jessica Lange & Sam Shepard. It's a great albeit largely fictionalized account of Frances Farmer's life. She's pretty effing fascinating without all the liberties the writers took. Lange, per usual, is great.
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Released in 1982, FRANCES is a biopic of famous actress Frances Farmer who was an odd character indeed. She was played by Jessica Lange in a pretty brave performance. She was by most accounts a bright young woman with pretty out-there ideas for a girl from the Midwest. She was apparently a leftist and communist at a raw time in American politics -- the 1930s and 1940s. She wanted to be a serious actress and wasn't bad, but she was an alcoholic and suffered from various mental illnesses -- or so the film and some biographies tell us. She had a passive-aggressive mother (played by Kim Stanley). The film follows her career's fits and starts as well as her commitment…
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I have a soft spot for Jessica Lange. And this intense bio-pic together with Tootsie from the same year are the one two punch that cinched the deal for me. She could do anything and I'd watch... She won her first oscar for Tootsie, and she was so sweet in the film it was a joy to watch-so she deserved it ,of course. But she should have won best actress for FRANCES. One of the saddest stories ever filmed. It just made you want to kick that horrible mother of hers(played by the equally intense Kim Stanley), in the teeth! If anyone ever deserved a lobotomy it was that abomination. Grrrr...
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I came across this yesterday on cable and forgot how electrifying this film was with it's scalding performances of Lange and Kim Stanley. Frances Farmer the actress whom this film is based was a Paramount star on the rise in the golden age of cinema; and the victim of the ravages of mental illness. When watching this film you are engrossed in the performances by it's two leads. Kim Stanley plays the Mother of all stage Mothers and chews Frances up and spits her out to the barbaric treatments of the mental health field of the early 20th century. What makes this film all the more chilling to watch is the comeback of Kim Stanley. Stanley's life mirrored that of…