How was it??
-
LetThemEatCake01 — 10 years ago(May 04, 2015 10:48 AM)
Interesting. I honestly don't know how people think that scene is funny. I have laughed at Mommie Dearest, mainly the why can't you give scene, that's kinda hilarious but I never laugh at the wire hangers scene, that's scary.
-
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 05:30 PM)
People think it's funny for the same reason you think the other scene is funny, it's ridiculous and filmed like a horror movie. It's not really funny, but in the context of the film it's so weird you have to laugh at it because there's nothing else to do. It's definitely hard to take it seriously, at least it is to me.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 07:16 PM)
Well for one thing, Faye Dunaway didn't have to look like she did in that scene. They made her up like she was doing kabuki. She looked less than human, with a scary white face and bright red lipstick, with a stark black dress. She looked like a ghoul. That was definitely a stylistic choice, either by the director or otherwise. The lighting of the scene is like a horror movie, with the shadows and darknessJoan never turns on the big light in Christina's bedroom, we only see a shaft of light coming out of the bathroom.
The film didn't have to be that way at all. In the book, Christina said only that her mother smacked her over the head repeatedly and shook her by her hair and screamed "No wire hangers!" at her. She did not say anything about being beaten with a hanger on that occasion, nor did she say Joan launched into a delirious, coked-up tirade that was so over the top it was absurd. The other "horror" scenes in the movie are when she cuts off Christina's hair. It's done in a melodramatic manner, intended to invoke suspense, like a horror moviewe see Joan approaching long before Christina does, and we know Joan's going to do something awful when she catches her imitating her in front of her mirror.
The biggest horror moment of all is when Joan violently attacks an orange tree wielding a large axe, just like the real Joan did in the movie "Strait Jacket" when she chopped off the heads of her husband and his mistress. She's bleeding, so they even managed to get some blood into the movie, too, where there really didn't need to be any.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
LetThemEatCake01 — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 07:42 PM)
I'm sorry but you are mistaken. I haven't read the book but in Christina's interview with Donahue she specifically states that she went ballistic on one of her night rades when she found a wire hanger and she even stated that she started screaming and she specifically said that the only light that was on was the bathroom light. So if that is so then it wasn't shot like a horror movie but how she wrote it actually happened.
The hair cutting scene is also not shot in a horror movie fashion. If it had been shot that way we would have had menacing music on the scene, as well as super fast cuts between Joan's face, the scissors, the hair, christina's face as well as an acceleration in the music to cause a crescendo. That's a horror movie style/technique of shooting, and no such thing takes place. There is no music on the scene and it is shot very matter of factly, without any exaggerated manipulation from the editing, the closeups being done only for emphasis on dialogue, nothing more. So it wasn't shot as a horror movie at all.
I believe the axe tree situation actually happened to and was described by Christina in interviews and it is surprisingly similar to what they showed on the screen, and again, I don't see any horror tone or style in the actual shooting and editing of the scene. Like at all. -
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 08:31 PM)
Well, I did read the book.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 25, 2015 08:37 PM)
By the way, I'm amused by your pat generalization about what constitutes a horror movie style, and how if it doesn't fit that template it can't be a horror movie. I have seen hundreds of horror movies, all filmed in different ways. Some of them are filmed the way you describe. Many are not. It doesn't mean they're not horror movies.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
LetThemEatCake01 — 10 years ago(July 26, 2015 12:08 AM)
I doubt that. There are very very few horror movies made that don't follow the hitchcockian style of horror, very few, in fact there is no other style, the only one exception to that would be The Exorcist, which had an entirely new style. Movies like Antichrist people like to call horror, I guess that's the type of movies you mean, either way Mommie Dearest couldn't possibly be that style of film.
-
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 26, 2015 08:11 AM)
Wow! If James Whale were alive today, he'd be thrilled to know he held onto that horror standard that Hitchcock set for him. Then "The Exorcist" came along and brought that entirely new style with it. OK, I think I got it. Thanks for schooling me!
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
PrometheusTree64 — 10 years ago(July 26, 2015 05:38 AM)
I saw it when it came out in Sept 1981. The suburban theater was packed, and people howled with laughter throughout the picture.
The picture was camp, while the book was not. Yes, many of the scenes in the movie were also in the book, but it's the
tone
which varied so much.
I'm sorry but you are mistaken. I haven't read the book but in Christina's interview with Donahue she specifically states that she went ballistic on one of her night rades when she found a wire hanger and she even stated that she started screaming and she specifically said that the only light that was on was the bathroom light. So if that is so then it wasn't shot like a horror movie but how she wrote it actually happened.
But Christina has also said Joan wasn't made up with cold creme like the movie.
LBJ's mistress on JFK: -
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 26, 2015 08:40 AM)
I'm so jealous you got to see it during its initial run! I was 11 when it came out, and too young to care about Joan Crawford or understand any of the controversy surrounding the book or the movie. But I did see it on HBO the following year, and after that it was love.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
GroovyDoom — 10 years ago(July 26, 2015 09:36 AM)
HBO used to have a preview show hosted by Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. I distinctly remember the clip they showed from "MD" was part of the wire hanger rant, ending with her going "Christinagetouttathatbed!" Meara sort of gave this look afterwards like she was stifling a giggle orsomething.
groovydoom.blogspot.com -
stevenackerman69 — 9 years ago(June 06, 2016 01:16 AM)
So you and I were the same age at the time. But I didn't know about the film for years. Eventually I saw Roger Ebert's review and found out more about it as I got older and was more interested in films.