Posted: 11/9/23 at 3:25am
Well. Sort of - but Streisand would rather have not had the movie at all than be directed by another person? That’s on her!
Posted: 11/9/23 at 5:11am
As much as I love BS, she has always fared better with a strong director in order to rein in her excesses.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 6:56am
Let me add, that it would have been fascinating to see what she would have done with it. If he had died ten years ago, it might have come to fruition.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:08am
Sondheim did not like Barbra as a performer.
Maybe he just didn't want this movie to happen and used this as an excuse.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:09am
I admit I'm curious, but ultimately think he made the right call. And no other top tier director would touch it because they know she'd just try to direct it herself.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:16am
I haven't read Babs' bio yet, but my understanding is that she wanted to do it in the aughts when she was probably too old for the role. She was also kicking around the idea of doing a film of Ballroom at one point.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:29am
She spoke about movies she was interested in making on Howard Stern. Sondheim told her she can only act or direct in Gypsy, but not both. "There are things in life that you can't have" she said, "it was very hard for me". I am probably a bitter jaded cynic knocked back by the harsh realities of life, but I got a smidge of schadenfreude from seeing such a privileged member of the elite finally learn this lesson. Oh, to have such problems.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:40am
As much as I admire Sondheim and recognize him as a true genius, he really did make some awful decisions regarding his work, in his later years and this is just another example of that. To think Streisand couldn’t handle double duty on a film is a bit laughable when she’d done it three times already, especially when you listen to her talk about how well planned out her vision was.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:46am
Jordan Catalano said: "As much as I admire Sondheim and recognize him as a true genius, he really did make some awful decisions regarding his work, in his later years and this is just another example of that. To think Streisand couldn’t handle double duty on a film is a bit laughable when she’d done it three times already, especially when you listen to her talk about how well planned out her vision was."
This makes me think he simply didn't want the film to get made.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 10:59am
I'm old enough to remember when Arthur Laurents was the villain of the Barbra/GYPSY saga and Sondheim didn't care.
It may be that both Steve and Arthur didn't feel she was an appropriate Rose, and were trying to be diplomatic about it.
She is obviously a highly capable director, and could be a very capable actor in the right roles, but there's also a ton of persona stuff and other baggage that came along with every Streisand project. She also had a tendency to talk about projects for years and then they never happen (such as THE NORMAL HEART) –– and I think Hollywood sexism is only one small reason of why they didn't get off the ground.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 11:00am
Wasn't it widely believed that Laurents was the holdout for this getting made. Just goes to show that none of us knew what was going on.
To think the Sondheim deprived us of what would have been the perfect bookend to Barbra's career. I'd love to see her direct it still, but I can't see that happening.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 11:34am
"There are very few people who can act and sing at the same time... this may shock some people, I felt that very strongly when I saw Barbra Streisand do Funny Girl. She acted it wonderfully, and then she sang it wonderfully... but when she was singing it she was singing it, and when she was acting it she was acting it... to do the two things simultaneously is what is needed" Stephen Sondheim, 2004
Posted: 11/9/23 at 11:41am
We're seeing only her side on this- I think Sondheim started picking up clues while working with her that her version would be indulgent if she did both.
When you have the director and the star as the same person they start getting carte blanche and Sondheim loves loves collaboration. What if her idea was not the best idea in the room? Well, too bad. She's the star and the one behind the camera.
It's less a community of Sondheim, a director, the Rose, a team, working to find it together. He probably didn't want it to be "it's just me and her" that probably didn't interest him. Why not have an interesting director? Why not give a great character actress a chance at Rose? It's not about CAN she do it, it's about what would bring the work forward the best.
And Barbra is an enormous powerful force of her own.
I really really get it.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 12:11pm
I find her covers of Sondheim songs, despite a few good ones, are generally way too self-indulgent with too much garnish as if she doesn't trust the material.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 12:17pm
Tag said: "I'd love to see her direct it still, but I can't see that happening."
Amy Sherman-Palladino holds the right now, so I doubt Barbra will ever do GYPSY now.
Scott Rudin tried to get her to do it onstage for an ultra-ultra-limited run for the purpose of filming it for release, but she wouldn't hear of it.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 12:21pm
rattleNwoolypenguin said: "When you have the director and the star as the same person they start getting carte blanche and Sondheim loves loves collaboration. What if her idea was not the best idea in the room? Well, too bad. She's the star and the one behind the camera. It's less a community of Sondheim, a director, the Rose, a team, working to find it together."
I think people are giving too much credit to Sondheim. He never loved or cared deeply about GYPSY, and if Arthur or someone else had a good reason for doing (or not doing) it, he probably would have just gone along with it. Same with WSS.
As the songwriter of a film, he would never be a key creative force or collaborator. That's just not how it works in filmworld, whether she was starring + directing or just one of those.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 12:34pm
What you say is true, Ermengarde... but this is Sondheim. He was treated like a God on the set of the recent West Side Story. I see your point, though. It's not like Charles Hart was the mastermind behind the Phantom of the Opera movie.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 1:09pm
Having read the screenplay (or at least its second draft), we were indeed deprived of a great film.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 1:15pm
Dancingthrulife2 said: "I find her covers of Sondheim songs, despite a few good ones, are generally way too self-indulgent with too much garnish as if she doesn't trust the material."
Agree.
"Children Will Listen" sung by her is too schmaltzy and cloying out of context
That song works best IN the context of Into the Woods after you've heard the witch's arc of "Children Should Listen" at the beginning of Stay with Me, and "Children Won't Listen" in Lament before it finally lands on the poignant "Children WILL Listen"
Her "Send in the Clowns" isn't simple enough either.
Updated On: 11/9/23 at 01:15 PM
Posted: 11/9/23 at 1:41pm
Is killed really the right word? Every time I come across this thread title I'm picturing Sondheim pointing a smoking gun at the lifeless body of one of Barbara's cloned dogs.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 1:47pm
Jay Lerner-Z said: ""There are very few people who can act and sing at the same time... this may shock some people, I felt that very strongly when I saw Barbra Streisand do Funny Girl. She acted it wonderfully, and then she sang it wonderfully... but when she was singing it she was singing it, and when she was acting it she was acting it... to do the two things simultaneously is what is needed" Stephen Sondheim, 2004"
Wow. I appreciate you sharing this. I think he's flat-out wrong, and for the record, I'm no big Streisand fan. But I definitely think she acts her songs, at least in her musicals (I never listened to any of her pop albums or watched her t.v. specials).
It's funny, he talked at the time of The Broadway Album about what a great artist she was (though they argued over a lyric change she wanted to make for "Putting It Together) because she saw that "Send in the Clown"s had always lacked a transitional verse--covered in the show by dialogue--to take it from one emotional point to another. But I guess she never appealed to him as a performer.
Posted: 11/9/23 at 2:01pm
she saw that "Send in the Clown"s had always lacked a transitional verse--covered in the show by dialogue--to take it from one emotional point to another. But I guess she never appealed to him as a performer."
"what a surprise, what a cliche"
yeah I hate it. The entire rest of the song is so beautifully subtle and dark and lives in Desiree's voice and that added bit there is so "HERE'S THE THEME LET'S HIT THE NAIL"
Posted: 11/9/23 at 2:24pm
Wasn't it that it was indeed Laurents who said she couldn't do both? Then, when he passed she thought Sondheim would be fine with it. But partly out of respect, but also because he agreed, he doubled down on it?
I could be misremembering, and maybe the memoir says otherwise. But that's how I remember it.
