MrMidwest---It's been about 25 years since I saw the play on Broadway, but I'll try to explain why the film was such a letdown. Starting with the cast! One of the thrills of the play was the acting brilliance of Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Ashley "butting heads" as adversaries on stage. Two powerhouse performances.
In the film, they drastically "watered down" the role of the psychiatrist, and I thought Jane Fonda "walked" through it, looking like a Sears Fall Catalog model. All of the grit and fire from Ashley's characterization was missing. And it wasn't just the acting choices (or lack thereof) that Jane made. It was that many, if not ALL, of her monologues were CUT from the film. While we all know actors can't get away usually with facing the camera and doing a monologue, a cinematic device (like the one used in Amadeus, where Salieri's monologues were turned into his "confession" in the asylum) should have been used.
Imagine how the movie Amadeus would play if all of Salieri's confession monologues had been removed. We wouldn't know his inner turmoil, his struggles with mediocrity, with talent and with faith. It would have cost F. Murry Abraham his Best Actor Oscar, and probably the film's Best Picture Oscar. You can't cut them and have anything left of substance.
It's the same thing with the psychiatrist's monologues in Agnes. You lose everything essential to the story without them.
And Anne Bancroft was WAY too "quaint" and "grandmotherly" as the Mother Superior. Geraldine Page gave a much more powerful, layered performance. She scared you as well as fascinated you.
The only one I thought that did comparable work to what had been done on stage was Meg Tilly as Agnes.
I hope you get to see it on stage one day, with a cast of killer actresses. Then, you'll see just how much depth and intensity was missing from the film version.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 11/18/07 at 10:36 AM
