Mary Alice in Sparkle (1976) - Supporting Actress Sundays

It's the "Sunday After" here at StinkyLulu.

Jennifer Hudson has now entered the Supporting Actress pantheon. The return of Supporting Actress Sundays is still a whole month away. Might, then, be a good idea to use this meantime as a warm up of sorts. So, during March, StinkyLulu'll use each Sunday to profile some interesting but unnominated actressing found at the edges of a movie from each of the years under consideration for April. (Cast your vote for the roster of April's Supporting Actress Sundays in the poll toward the top of the right column.) And what better way to kick things off than reflecting on Miss Hudson's recent win by finally screening the legendary cult classic Sparkle, a film that's been near the top of StinkyLulu's "must see" list for more than 20 years.

In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker observed, "One of the best things to emerge from the film version of Dreamgirls is the release of an even better movie, 1976's Sparkle, now on DVD for the first time." As Tucker and virtually every recent commentator on Sparkle has observed, startling but superficial similarities do seem to link the two pieces: A group of inner city girl singers make a showing at a local talent show (where the MC misstates their name when introducing their debut performance). The group achieves some success but the personal problems of group's sexually confident lead singer seem to be holding the group back. After a shocking turn of events, the shy but pretty youngest member of the group takes over as the headliner and becomes a pop diva sensation. Toss in the ambience of the shadier side of the music business; a couple of charismatic men who may or may not be good for the girls; stage it with a nearly all-black cast? Like, I said superficial but startling similarities.

But this is Supporting Actress Sundays, not an excuse to lapse into some glib argument for/against the musical biopic as a "retread" genre OR to spiral into the deathly vortex of yet another authenticity debate. Rather, StinkyLulu'd rather appreciate Sparkle's endurance along a kind of continuum. (Click on each of the "red dress" pics above to catch a whiff of what I'm on about.) The folks developing Dreamgirls for the stage were obviously influenced by Sparkle. (And you too may have unknowingly caught some Sparkle, lovely reader, if you happened to notice the early 1990s pop group, En Vogue.) Curtis Mayfield's "Something He Can Feel" recurs as the most thematically complex song in the film, somewhat surprisingly emerging as Sparkle's pop anthem. Mayfield's tune is as catchy and as powerful as 1976 Best Song nominees "Evergreen" and "Gonna Fly Now," and it remains a disappointing testament to Oscar's short-sighted snobbery that this extraordinary track got dismissed as Oscar dug to the edge of eligibility to nominate an obscurity like "A World That Never Was" (from Half A House).

But having said all that, for StinkyLulu's purposes, there's an even more compelling point of continuity between Dreamgirls and Sparkle: a character named Effie, performed here with soulful, scene-stealing acuity by...

...Mary Alice in Sparkle (1976).

approximately 12 minutes and 46 seconds on-screen
15 scenes
roughly 13% of film's total screen time

Sparkle's Effie doesn't sing, shimmy or sparkle. As played by legendary stage actress Mary Alice, Sparkle's Effie is the mama. The strong, long-suffering single mother who's worked tirelessly as a domestic to support her three daughters and who now watches their arrival to womanhood (and the music business) with wary pride. Effie is a character loaded with "strong black woman" clichés (the script is, after all, by that master of nuance, Joel Schumacher) and Effie's mostly scripted to, alternately, regard her children with quiet concern or get up in their face and tell them what's what. Mary Alice -- an actress who has made a career spinning such banalities of "badly written blackness" into fully inhabited characterizations -- builds something amazing with this thinly scripted character. And it's simply marvelous to watch her do it. Consider the scene in which Mary Alice's Effie assesses her eldest daughter's new beau, the neighborhood bigshot Satin, as she also finally sees her daughters perform on stage. (Click image below to be routed to video.)

Mary Alice's Effie benefits from the actress's ability to be simultaneously serene and formidable and it takes only a few quiet gestures for Mary Alice to convince StinkyLulu that her Effie could stop traffic with a sideways glance. But Mary Alice's Effie is no less substantial when speaking. The script obliges Effie to give each of her daughters "a talking to" and, in each, Mary Alice uses her raspy soprano whisper of a voice to reintroduce Effie with expertly unexpected line readings. In each of these three scenes, none of which last longer than a 90 seconds, Alice's Effie conveys her different relationship to each daughter, elegantly underscoring that Effie's not just "the mama" but also a complicated woman who's lived a complicated life. What's amazing here is how Mary Alice sidesteps the scripted stupidities without, somehow, judging the script itself. Not only does she make the lines work, but she does so brilliantly, investing each line with an honesty and clarity that defies their textual flatness. (Watch the dvd with the caption function turned on to see what I meen.) Moreover, Mary Alice takes what she needs from the "in-betweens" to build the parts of Effie's character that the script fails to provide, as when she silently rages during her eldest daughter's funeral. (Click image below to be routed to video.)

Mary Alice's performance as Effie provides a reminder of how good the actress could be on screen. (Over the years, she's developed a reputation for being somewhat prickly, even imperious, and has been accused of humorlessly "coasting" through certain projects.) But in Sparkle, it's shockingly clear how much Hollywood missed by disregarding not only Mayfield & Lonette McKee (the actress I anticipated profiling before Mary Alice stole all my attention) but also Mary Alice -- perhaps the most thrilling gem of the substantial bunch. Mary Alice's Effie is by turns strong, intense, dispassionate, strategic, loving, honest, kind and even astonishingly pretty. (The actress was in her mid30s when Sparkle was filmed; seeing her all fancied up in the film's final scenes proved a revelation.) Hers is a smart, humane performance -- excellent actressing at the edges that provides yet another reason to finally screen this deservedly beloved underground classic. Whether you loved or hated Dreamgirls, the experience of this year's Oscar cycle ain't complete without a visit to Sparkle. (Though StinkyLulu's not brave enough to undertake Glitter quite yet...)

Up next in StinkyLulu's warm-up "overlooked" series:
Julie Harris in Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967).

Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006) - Supporting Actress Sundays - Special Wednesday Edition

Few showbiz tropes thrill as reliably as the "star is born" narrative, with set-pieces so beyond cliché that it's a wonder they still fly at all. But, boy howdy, do they ever... From the national casting search for the perfect girl...to the "overnight" success of a trouper from the trenches...to the big second shot for the sweet kid who seemed to have missed out on her first chance at stardom...to the novice performer finding it within themselves to offer the showstopping, starmaking performance of a lifetime. Any one of these bits is usually enough to sucker StinkyLulu all on its own, but rarely do all these narrative threads weave so powerfully through a single performance as they do for...

...Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006).

approximately 59 minutes and 51 seconds on-screen
30 scenes
roughly 46% of film's total screen time

Jennifer Hudson's casting in the pivotal role of Effie seemed to StinkyLulu at once totally right and incredibly risky. The curvy cast-aside American Idol belter with pipes of steel who survived cruel Cowell cracks about her weight? Who better for the part of Effie, whose big voice, big body and bigger personality must be cast aside to allow the starry Dreams of others to rise? Hadn't Jennifer Hudson in some ways already lived the part? And hadn't Jennifer Hudson actually been singing Effie's anthem since the girl was like 10 years old? The choice seemed almost too perfect.

Almost. It's a surprisingly tricky acting task to make such a declamatory character as Effie work on screen. Effie is — to a fault — impetuous and direct. In her music and her dialogue, she's brash and sassy, unburdened with much in the way of humility or subtlety until it’s almost too late. Effie's songs are roof-raising epics, tent-poles for the emotional narrative of the entire piece, while the bulk of her character development (from naïve arrogance to abject humiliation to soulful redemption) happens mostly at the edges of scenes or off-stage entirely. But, while the songs are some of the best showcases for singer-actors written in the last few decades, the task of stringing those gems together comprises the work of characterization for Effie, and StinkyLulu wondered at the outset whether an inexperienced actor (like Hudson) could maneuver Effie's "in betweens" with the same clarity and passion as her "center stages." Would Hudson — in her acting debut — be able to craft the necessary emotional architecture to bridge Effie's big moments?

Upon first screening Dreamgirls, all of StinkyLulu's greatest hopes and biggest fears were realized in Jennifer Hudson's Effie. When at center stage, Hudson's Effie brings down the house again and again and again (the late afternoon ABQ audience of StinkyLulu's first screening burst into spontaneous applause for Hudson's Effie no fewer than three times) and yet...in the in-betweens? Hudson's Effie becomes a distressingly incomplete performance. Within the focal moments of the narrative and score, Hudson's Effie is captivating and often thrilling. In the in-betweens, it's mostly Hudson just standing there or awkwardly shoopadooping while wearing Effie's costume. It's a strangely discordant thing: Hudson's performance contributes some of the year's best screen moments while punctuating most of them with some of the most shockingly flat-footed acting StinkyLulu's seen in some time.

And for Lulu, the gaps in Hudson's Effie underscore one of the essential elements of actressing at the edges: working your character-ass off whether the camera's "on" you or not. Such actressing at the edges — little throwaway bits that sculpt the character's contours even (or especially) when such details are not the focus of the scene — are sadly absent in Hudson's performance. Such gaps become most evident when Hudson's Effie sings back-up and, here, the difference between stealing focus and being legibly "in character" becomes painfully clear. Hudson's Effie knows how to grab attention, but Hudson fails to convey Effie's discomfort, compromise and fury at being "put in back," especially when she's actually performing back-up.

As a quick example, consider Hudson's clarity in the recording studio scene for "Heavy" and compare it to her muddiness moments later when walking off the set during filming of the same song for tv. When she's got her own vocal line, Hudson shakes the foundation; when she must convey character in the midst or at the edges of other action, Hudson hits her marks but the character of Effie is less than legible. Compare this, then, to the luminous Sharon Leal, in a moment of a similar sort right after Jimmy (Eddie Murphy) has burned all his bridges and Lorell (Anika Noni Rose) has finally broken their relationship. As Lorell rushes to her position on stage, Leal's Michelle gives her friend a simple look of reassurance and strength as she also strikes a pose wearing her best glamor-back-up-girl smile — neither distracting nor disrupting the scene, but definitely illuminating Leal's characterization of the thankless role of Michelle. Hudson's performance hits Effie's heights with palpable power, but it's in these — the essential in-betweens of actressing at the edges — that Hudson's Effie stumbles and, not infrequently, falls.

But please, lovely reader, do not misunderstand: Jennifer Hudson's nomination is certainly worthy and, if Miss Hudson takes home the trophy as she's perhaps likely to, StinkyLulu will not be blogging and moaning about the injustice of it all. Indeed, StinkyLulu is of two minds about whether Jennifer Hudson's performance warrants this year's Supporting Actress prize. On the one hand, Hudson's Effie provided a handful of the year's most thrilling actressexual pleasures. On the other, it does pain Lu (and not a little bit) to have such a singularly starmaking performance just skip over the actressing at the edges that brings Lulu to this category with such single-minded devotion. Because, after all, Lulu does love it when the girls "put in back" seize their chance to shine without the benefit of a spotlight...

Previously:
Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine

5 Stinky Thoughts on Dreamgirls

The Stinkys just yesterday finally saw Dreamgirls, after weeks of wishing and days of pining for the opportunity to get to one of the two screens in the state of New Mexico (!) on which it was showing. The crowd was biggish, mostly Oprah's demographic, but with pocketfuls of queens sprinkled throughout. So so glad to finally have seen it, but rather than just piling on another review, it seemed better to just blather about the things on Lulu's noggin since seeing what is arguably the most anticipated movie of 2006.

Thought #1: The Best Supporting Actress
The Best Supporting Actress performance in this film, without a doubt, comes from Anika Noni Rose as Lorell. (And, let it be clear, StinkyLulu sez that with Jennifer Hudson in the category -- see Thought#5 below.) To be sure, Hudson's Effie delivers showstopping number after showstopping number while Rose's Lorell mostly brings on the back-up BUT taking things note-for-note and step-for-step and beat-for-beat it's clear: Rose's Lorell is perhaps the most fully executed characterization in the film. Consider how the three principal Dreams bridge the "on-stage" musical numbers with their "off-stage" scenes. Hudson's mostly just "doing choreography" with Effie nowhere to be seen, at least until she's working in close-up. Knowles' confidently radiates Deena when singing and posing but becomes distractingly tentative when a dialogue scene begins. In electrifying contrast, Rose's Lorell is as vividly present and alive in every ensemble number as she is in every "off-stage" scene. Every one of Rose's "on-stage" oo-oohs and hip swirls and waving hand gestures show Lorell as clearly as her "off-stage" giggles, mediations and heartbreaks. Rose's performance is, quite simply, the best in film.

Thought #2: Faster! Louder! Flashier!
The backlash against Dreamgirls has begun, perhaps inevitably given the year of unrelenting hype. And while it would be frankly nasty if the timing of this backlash led to the film's being disregarded by the major awards, the consensus emerging among Lulu's critically inclined pals (exhibits A & B) is spot on. The pacing in this film is just awful -- unrelenting and exhausting. So many goodies just piled on the tray, with little chance to relax and savor the treats. (Thankfully, some of the production design -- the video montages, the album covers, the interiors, the photo shoots -- gave some time to catch up, but even that's rife with sensory overload.) It's like Hollywood now thinks a musical has to have more glitz than Chicago and more energy than Moulin Rouge! but what often results -- especially without the applause breaks that come in live theatre -- is an onslaught of entertainment so glib and so manic that it's just tiring.

Thought #3: Why're People Being So Mean to Beyoncé?
The queens have really had it in for poor little Miss Knowles, haven't they? It's not like StinkyLulu's a fan (at all) but...Knowles' performance as Deena is absolutely competent, with flashes of genuine power even. To be sure, Knowles is at her best in the musical numbers, where she's able to track Deena's growing confidence and style as a performer, and in wordless poses, where she ably conveys Deena's myriad insecurities and misgivings even as she discovers that she loves being in the spotlight. And, at a crucial moment, she acts circles around her more celebrated, newly "introduced" costar. So, while StinkyLulu would have rather seen the compelling Sharon Leal in the role of Deena (instead of in the thankless part of Michelle), Knowles' Deena is by no stretch the weakest link in this acting chain. (No, that honor belongs to the only Oscar winner among the principals.)

Thought #4: StinkyLulu Loves Loretta Devine
Why oh why oh couldn't there have been more cameos? Ken Page and Loretta Devine and Eddie Mekka and Hinton Battle all just whetted StinkyLulu's voracious appetite for more bit parts as quiet homage to great stars of the musical in the 1970s. (On a different tack, even seeing Jaleel White was a kick.) But it's just strange and wrong not to have Sheryl Lee Ralph somewhere in the mix -- like the reframed role of Deena's mother for example. And though it's hard to imagine Jennifer Holliday fitting on a movie screen -- perhaps as Curtis' Aunt? -- it's sad that the opportunity was missed...

Thought #5: Jennifer Hudson's Limits
Oh boy. All of StinkyLulu's greatest hopes and biggest fears were realized in Jennifer Hudson's performance as the iconic Effie. She brings down the house again and again and again (the late afternoon Albuquerque audience burst into spontaneous applause for Hudson's Effie no fewer than three times) and yet...it's a distressingly incomplete performance. And it basically boils down to the fact that, over and over and over again, Hudson gives next to nothing unless she's in close-up. Within the focal moments of the narrative and score, Hudson's Effie is captivating and often thrilling. In the in-betweens, it's mostly Hudson just standing there or awkwardly shoopadooping while wearing Effie's costume. Unless the camera's right up in her face, Hudson gives nothing -- least of all the necessary emotional architecture to bridge Effie's big moments. It's a strangely discordant thing: Hudson's performance contributes some of the year's best screen moments while also punctuating most of them with some of the worst flat-footed, boring and banal acting StinkyLulu's seen in some time.

So, lovely reader, do you have any Dreamgirls thoughts? Do tell...