A slyph of a star
26/05/08 20:42 Filed in: Cable
Guys
There's never really been another
actress quite like Audrey Hepburn. There have been slim actresses,
pretty actresses, petite actresses and talented actresses in
abundance since she made her first major appearance in 1953 as the
starlet ingenue of Roman Holiday, a hilarious lark of a
film that couldn't possibly be made today.
It's the princess and the pauper in high gear, a frothy, impossibly
romantic confection that depends on an unlikely confluence of
compacts that don't exist anymore in today's world, the most remote
of which is a journalist with a conscience who keeps a secret that
could bring him fame and fortune. Hepburn would win the Oscar for
the role, her first major part in a Hollywood film.
The very next year, she married an uncute fellow actor, Mel Ferrer, a serious thespian with whom she won her first Tony award in the Broadway production of Ondine.
Today, Audrey Hepburn is best known for the glamorous yet down to earth profile she cut as a UNICEF cultural ambassador, travelling to downtrodden countries and bringing media attention to the poor and suffering.
But remembering Hepburn that way doesn't really capture the astonishing presence she had on film in her prime. What started as a tolerant husband's duty to his wife, viewing a collection of Hepburn films I bought as a Christmas gift in 2006 became a shared pleasure.
Donna is constantly charmed by the simpler pleasures and more sophisticated plots of films on the cusp of moving from the carefully staged propriety of black and white to the tentative whimsy of colour, but Hepburn's films transcend such casual distinctions.
The actress' precise oval shaped face, so easily transformed by
attention to her eyebrows and hairstyle (was there ever such a
difference between a ponytail and a close cut?) drew out the best
in her cinematographers, who lavished their best efforts on
lighting her.
In the denouement of Roman Holiday, as she stands revealed as Princess Ann, royalty of an unnamed domain, there is a delightful moment when Hepburn turns in telephoto closeup to listen to a question from the reporter Joe (Gregory Peck). There are no less than five distinct lights on Hepburn's head and shoulders, each designed to pick up and highlight an aspect of her beauty. I paused the DVD and pointed each of them out to Donna, slowing down for her appreciation something I saw and recognised instantly.
There are similar moments in Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Funny Face, pivotal moments of the plot when the honesty and truth of the film turn on a word and a look from Hepburn. She doesn't disappoint and her cinematographers pay her the ultimate accolade by framing her face with a care and attention that speaks of the essential romance carried on from behind the lens and spotlight.
Regardless of what you think you remember, you haven't seen Audrey Hepburn until you see her in the best of her early films and see the blossoming of a talent, unhindered by a remarkable beauty, that spoke of a toughness of spirit far greater than her tiny frame might seem capable of containing.
Postscript:
Just saw My Fair Lady, one of Hepburn's more memorable roles in a film and the one that really cemented in my mind that her lasting charm as an actress is the "transformation," the change from a dowdy duckling to a elegantly attired swan.
Despite the famous score by Lerner and Loewe, the truly remarkable thing about My Fair Lady is just how horrible the story (based on the play Pygmalion) underlying the film actually is. Even allowing for the very different social mores of 1964, the character of Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is unremittingly misogynistic. Higgins is a svengali inspired by Machiavelli.
Harrison's commitment to the character is professionally thorough (and won him an Oscar), but the final plot twist, which delivers a transformed but (despite well performed scenes of fierce independence by Hepburn) conspicuously unliberated Eliza Doolittle into the home and untender care of the male lead is a bitter twist after the inspiring theatrics which preceded it.
Recommended:
Roman Holiday (1953)
Sabrina (1954)
Funny Face (1957)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
The very next year, she married an uncute fellow actor, Mel Ferrer, a serious thespian with whom she won her first Tony award in the Broadway production of Ondine.
Today, Audrey Hepburn is best known for the glamorous yet down to earth profile she cut as a UNICEF cultural ambassador, travelling to downtrodden countries and bringing media attention to the poor and suffering.
But remembering Hepburn that way doesn't really capture the astonishing presence she had on film in her prime. What started as a tolerant husband's duty to his wife, viewing a collection of Hepburn films I bought as a Christmas gift in 2006 became a shared pleasure.
Donna is constantly charmed by the simpler pleasures and more sophisticated plots of films on the cusp of moving from the carefully staged propriety of black and white to the tentative whimsy of colour, but Hepburn's films transcend such casual distinctions.
In the denouement of Roman Holiday, as she stands revealed as Princess Ann, royalty of an unnamed domain, there is a delightful moment when Hepburn turns in telephoto closeup to listen to a question from the reporter Joe (Gregory Peck). There are no less than five distinct lights on Hepburn's head and shoulders, each designed to pick up and highlight an aspect of her beauty. I paused the DVD and pointed each of them out to Donna, slowing down for her appreciation something I saw and recognised instantly.
There are similar moments in Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Funny Face, pivotal moments of the plot when the honesty and truth of the film turn on a word and a look from Hepburn. She doesn't disappoint and her cinematographers pay her the ultimate accolade by framing her face with a care and attention that speaks of the essential romance carried on from behind the lens and spotlight.
Regardless of what you think you remember, you haven't seen Audrey Hepburn until you see her in the best of her early films and see the blossoming of a talent, unhindered by a remarkable beauty, that spoke of a toughness of spirit far greater than her tiny frame might seem capable of containing.
Postscript:
Just saw My Fair Lady, one of Hepburn's more memorable roles in a film and the one that really cemented in my mind that her lasting charm as an actress is the "transformation," the change from a dowdy duckling to a elegantly attired swan.
Despite the famous score by Lerner and Loewe, the truly remarkable thing about My Fair Lady is just how horrible the story (based on the play Pygmalion) underlying the film actually is. Even allowing for the very different social mores of 1964, the character of Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is unremittingly misogynistic. Higgins is a svengali inspired by Machiavelli.
Harrison's commitment to the character is professionally thorough (and won him an Oscar), but the final plot twist, which delivers a transformed but (despite well performed scenes of fierce independence by Hepburn) conspicuously unliberated Eliza Doolittle into the home and untender care of the male lead is a bitter twist after the inspiring theatrics which preceded it.
Recommended:
Roman Holiday (1953)
Sabrina (1954)
Funny Face (1957)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
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