At a recent screening of Arthur Penn's classic 1967 bullet fantasia Bonnie And Clyde, I realized how much more I was getting out of Faye Dunaway's face in seeing the film on the big screen. Pensive, skeptical and terrified all at the same time, Dunaway's cold terror burns in the film's opening shots and provides much of the film's conflict. She seems bored by her own beauty at the beginning, then thrills to the opportunity to hit a crime spree with her new beau Clyde Barrow (a young and dewy Warren Beatty), but it isn't long before the fun loses its edge: she provides the film's conscience, and when she kicks Gene Wilder out of their car after he announces he is an undertaker, her stonewalled expression gives the film its fatalism. It's no surprise, then, that Dunaway's highly successful career throughout the seventies would be marked by an undercurrent of dread that would inevitably lead to unrecoverable disaster. In Little Big Man, she is a sinful prostitute who is disappointed to discover that debauchery is no fun; in The Thomas Crown Affair she is the film's only asset as a woman who indulges in a love affair while constantly wondering about the limits of her moral control; in Chinatown she is constantly haunted by dirty secrets of her past; in Three Days Of The Condor she succumbs to being kidnapped by Robert Redford as if she always knew all along that something terrible would happen to her; and in her Oscar-winning performance in Network, she is the most successful career woman in the world who is driven by a relentless fear to stay ahead of the game. It was unavoidable that Mommie Dearest would result from all this tension; Dunaway finally decided to let her reserve go and give herself over to unguarded, joyful expression, and what was meant to fly high as soap-opera rich melodrama sadly landed as embarrassing camp. The once-great star's top-flight career found itself instantly in rubbles, as if the conscience she brought to intelligent movies of the seventies had no place amid the corporate-minded, Reagan-era greed that followed. She appeared in films but none of them were reputable until she had one more chance with Barbet Schroeder's alcoholic drama Barfly in 1987;by now, however, the tension was gone and what remained was a defeated, middle-aged woman who gave in to her own self-destruction while letting co-star Mickey Rourke hold together the film's conflicts. I recently saw her in scenes from a zero-grade science-fiction film where she played a scientist whose gene experiments had turned her into a giant worm. Let's hope this woman's impressive resume is soon rediscovered for a new generation; an entry on Imdb lists her next project as the role of Maria Callas in Master Class, which she is also directing. Perhaps Bonnie Parker will finally be rescued from the grave and use that worried gaze to make movies think again.
Warren Beatty), but it isn't long before the fun loses its edge: she provides the film's conscience, and when she kicks Gene Wilder out of their car after he announces he is an undertaker, her stonewalled expression gives the film its fatalism. It's no surprise, then, that Dunaway's highly successful career throughout the seventies would be marked by an undercurrent of dread that would inevitably lead to unrecoverable disaster. In Little Big Man, she is a sinful prostitute who is disappointed to discover that debauchery is no fun; in The Thomas Crown Affair she is the film's only asset as a woman who indulges in a love affair while constantly wondering about the limits of her moral control; in Chinatown she is constantly haunted by dirty secrets of her past; in Three Days Of The Condor she succumbs to being kidnapped by Robert Redford as if she always knew all along that something terrible would happen to her; and in her Oscar-winning performance in Network, she is the most successful career woman in the world who is driven by a relentless fear to stay ahead of the game. It was unavoidable that Mommie Dearest would result from all this tension; Dunaway finally decided to let her reserve go and give herself over to unguarded, joyful expression, and what was meant to fly high as soap-opera rich melodrama sadly landed as embarrassing camp. The once-great star's top-flight career found itself instantly in rubbles, as if the conscience she brought to intelligent movies of the seventies had no place amid the corporate-minded, Reagan-era greed that followed. She appeared in films but none of them were reputable until she had one more chance with Barbet Schroeder's alcoholic drama Barfly in 1987;by now, however, the tension was gone and what remained was a defeated, middle-aged woman who gave in to her own self-destruction while letting co-star Mickey Rourke hold together the film's conflicts. I recently saw her in scenes from a zero-grade science-fiction film where she played a scientist whose gene experiments had turned her into a giant worm. Let's hope this woman's impressive resume is soon rediscovered for a new generation; an entry on Imdb lists her next project as the role of Maria Callas in Master Class, which she is also directing. Perhaps Bonnie Parker will finally be rescued from the grave and use that worried gaze to make movies think again.