FX's "FEUD: Bette and Joan" starring JESSICA LANGE and SUSAN SARANDON (March 5th @ 10PM) — Page 8

I think the first five episodes were balanced, but the final three became, to borrow a phrase by Charles Busch, The Joan Crawford Reclamation Project. I don't really have a problem with this, because I wanted a better film/series about Crawford than the woefully misguided Mommie Dearest. I think Feud and Lange did her justice, a deeply flawed human and not some monster. I didn't think the "pity" was manufactured, the last scenes were basically true things I had read about her, and I see Joan as a genuinely tragic figure.

I'm pretty sure Joan Blondell was there just to give Kathy Bates a part and she was a hoot.

I disagree with you Matt about Hoffman. I don't think it's easy to play a deadpan character, and Jackie did a lot with subtle gradations in her voice and facial expressions.

I suspect the emphasis was shifted to Crawford because Ryan Murphy has a soft spot for underdogs, and Joan had become a punchline after Mommie Dearest, while Bette Davis was held in higher regard since her death. In other words, there wasn't anything to avenge or reevaluate about Bette like there was for Joan.

I think Bette, with all her cray, still wasn't as cray as Joan, which made her a less interesting subject. Sarandon conveyed Bette's frustration and work ethic , but failed to convey Bette's bitchy charm, that quality that made her a gay icon. I'm sure that's a tall order, but drag performer Charles Pierce did it.

Updated On: 4/25/17 at 05:20 PM

Oh, I felt the pity for Crawford was piled on by the truckload in the final two episodes. But I'm not as sympathetic and forgiving as many in my demographic for every tragic female figure. I grew up with a racist, ignorant, homophobic, manipulative sociopath who happened to be my maternal grandmother living in the bedroom next to mine from when I was 5 until I was 18. My capacity for forgiving manipulative and cruel women is very slight and I will admit my forgiveness and/or pity is difficult to earn. This series didn't convince me that the sentimentality and respect displayed towards Crawford was truly well-deserved. Others may disagree and place all the blame on the men of the Hollywood machine (who were even more deplorable than the women), but there are actions and behaviors that have to be owned and acknowledged and I felt the series somewhat attempted to lighten up the end with a more positive emotion. I just couldn't buy it.

When I was a child, Bette Davis was one of my favorite actresses. How did she live to 81 smoking cigarettes for years......Susan Sarandon didn't do it for me...

I think Joan Crawford was a fine actress but her drinking kept her from doing better work as she got older.

Miss Jessica Lange can do no wrong.....Her over the top performance was Great

At times I don't know who she was playing....Joan Crawford or Herself, but I enjoyed every minute of it

Jane2 said: "I only saw the last three episodes and agree with Matt about being too forgiving to Crawford. However, I'm remembering the "Mommie Dearest" story and believing how wicked she was. Did the series address this early on?



The series focused in her younger children, the twins Cindy and Cathy, who have always maintained that Joan was a wonderful mother and Christina was lying. I think Feud just wanted to avoid most of the Mommie Dearest stuff, as the focus was on Joan's relationship to Bette, not her kids. Feud never claims Christina was lying or anything, it just focussed on Joan's later years, instead of the forties or fifties which Mommie Dearest covered.

Thanks Carnzee!

Lange was otherworldly and will win the Emmy.

I'm also reading Joan's "My Way of Life". Perfect description!

Jessica Lange should be given a Nobel Prize for her performance, and Kathy Bates and Judy Davis should get showered with awards.

How could Sarandon flub even the final "Joan Crawford is dead? GOOD!" moment?

It's not that she nobly refused to do a Bette Davis imitation. It's that she failed to capture the inner fire carnzee alluded to. Such a lost opportunity.

^I agree. Sarandon miraculously avoided camp in that scene and wisely played it as if fighting Bette's underlying impulse toward sentimentality. And not without belated regret. Any other choice would have disastrously further slanted our already majorly skewed sympathies to Crawford.

Updated On: 4/27/17 at 10:56 AM

Add me to the voices of praise for Sarandon in that scene. I thought it was a wonderful choice that backed up the themes of the season and what had been built up over the episode (especially the scene in which Davis attempts to call Crawford but can't bring herself to speak)- it seemed like Davis realized far too late that she had no choice but to continue playing this part.

Hedda was decades older than both Bette and Joan, Judy is younger than both Jessica and Susan.

FEUD deals centrally with the travails of aging for women in Hollywood. Judy is so great one can overlook the irony,

But there is one.

OMG the dentist scene and the making of the monkey movie were hysterical. I also loved Crawford's hallucination involving the table sequence. Lange was quite good and very empathetic. She is a clear front runner.

Even with the show being over, we are still talking about it. This has been an incredible year for women on stage and on television especially.

So I join the chorus. Jessica had me in tears in the last episode and will definitely get some well deserved awards this year. Even the subtleties of the script, in her dream...walking into the dining room in bathrobe and long tussled hair, only to appear at the table with Hedda and Jack Warner, in full makeup and hair piled high on her head. That is fine damn writing.

I have to admit RM pulled off a definite winner; this is on par with The Normal Heart in unusually strong script, acting, design, cast...he can make great effing things when he's serious.

Updated On: 4/28/17 at 05:12 AM