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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On my Top Ten List, February 11, 2001
'Frances' is, quite frankly, one of the most powerful films I have ever seen, and definitely one of the most compelling tales I have seen on film. I saw this movie 17 years after it was first released, but a story such as this loses none of its' power with time, and I was moved, touched and amazed at the life of Frances Farmer, upon whose life this film is based.First of all, let me say that I saw this on DVD. The DVD version of the movie is crystal clear, though the sound could have been sharper. Colors are crisp and vibrant, and the director's use of film in certain places to create a '30s effect is well-transferred. The only sore point is that there are no extra features on the DVD other than the scene selection. Perhaps a documentary on the star's life would have complimented the movie, but I'm not really complaining. That such an excellent film is available on DVD is gift enough. The life of Frances Farmer remains one of the most shrouded-in-secrecy tales to come out of Hollywood. Even her autobiography, it is said, was actually written by her 'best friend' Jean Ratcliffe, who doesn't even feature in the movie. I knew none of this when I first stumbled upon this film, which made the horror of the events it contained that much more gruesome and intolerable. For audiences who couldn't stomach 'Hannibal', I have news for you. 'Frances' is a film that deals with true horror, and for that reason this is a film that I will not see again. It affected me too much. The film starts with Frances' Seattle days, when she was a schoolgirl who won the essay contest with her stunning view of religion and life called 'God Dies'. Jessica Lange's spoken version of the poem is gripping and sets the tone for the rest of the film. To be honest, Jessica Lange playing a 16 year old sounds unbelievable, but she pulls it off. Her transformation from schoolgirl to budding actress to tantrum-throwing firebrand is utterly compelling, and confirmed to me that she is indeed one of the best actresses we have in our company today. Frances Farmer, according to the movie, was hopelessly controlled by her mother, and to some extent, her soft-spoken father. The unspeakable horrors in this film include the selling of Frances to the mental institution by her mother, something that I could not quite get over. And yet, through it all, the film suggests that Frances is sane, and it is the rest of the world that views an uneven temperament as something that one should be punished for, or even worse, lobotomized. Much has been written of Farmer's supposed lobotomy, and the film insists that it did indeed happen. Farmer herself, in her later years, was known to have told her friends that it did not. Whatever the true story, it cannot be denied that the inhuman treatment that met this girl was shocking and condemnable. Jessica Lange is perhaps the only actress I have seen on film who has managed to tow the line between restrain and over-the-top so well, as she does here. Her scenes in the mental institution are breathtaking, because it reveals to us what true acting really consists of. Yet, at the same time, it seems as if Lange doesn't really act the part of Farmer. She IS Farmer, for all of the movie. This is at once both curious and remarkable, because no matter how hard I think, I cannot recall a single actress in a true-story adaptation who has managed to convince the audience that they ARE the person they are playing. Alas, Farmer's relationship with her mother, whom she keeps strangely going back to (proving that familial ties can sometimes be the noose around ones' neck) is where Lange hopelessly excels. These scenes are traumatic to sit through, and I must admit I had a tougher time sitting through this than I did during "Dancer in the Dark". The fascinating thing about this movie is that it reminds us that there was nothing really wrong with Frances Farmer, other than her being an opinionated and strong-willed young woman, who wanted to take control of her own life. But in the '30s, this was blasphemy, at least to the circles that Farmer stemmed from. Jessica Lange's masterful potrayal of a woman torn between love for family, and love for ones' own sense of Self is something that I will not easily forget. The scenes in the mental asylum are the ones that are hardest to swallow. And to think that these events actually occured! Frances was repeatedly tortured, raped by orderlies and soldiers who were snuck in, and subject to eight hour stretches of hyrdrotherapy every day (something the film does not show, as it would have been way too graphic to handle). At the end of it, Frances Farmer spent seven years in the mental asylum for no apparent sin. The film does not portray her as a martyr or glorify her, which made me respect it as a body of work even more. It also hints that the lobotomy made Frances 'emotionally calmer', but Lange's subtle performance post-operation hints to us that there was serious emotional and physical damage done. The tilt of her head, the way her face shifts lower toward her neck and thrusts up in spasms every time she tries to talk - these are all signs that Frances Farmer was raped and mutilated and lobotomized from within, and would never again be the same person. Curiously, the movie does not deal with the years after Farmer's release from the hospital. Incredibly, she was supposed to have returned one last time to Hollywood and hosted her own TV show. Even her death was a mystery. Cancer of the oesophagus, it was said. Whatever the truth, we can safely say that Frances Farmer was one of Hollywoods' greatest victims, and a fine example that sometimes family can be the worst thing that happens to us. I strongly recommend this film to all lovers of drama and serious film-making. This deserved more recognition when it came out, and needs to be made more easily available. The DVD edition is in widescreen, with stereo sound. Easy scene access is the only additional feature.
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