the polish baroness really freaked me out! the performance was outstanding; i mean, everything the gestures the attitude.. everything was brilliant about her; this character made a powerful impression on me; the actress was amazing
just wanted to share that
maybe someone agrees :)
I completely agree. I've read criticism of Miss Kedrova's performance on the basis that it is too sentimental and bathetic. What people need to remember(especially the young 'uns who didn't live through the Cold War)is that in those days, people were desperate to escape from the Communist bloc, and would do just about anything to make it to the free West. When seen in this light, the "overacting" of Miss Kedrova is understandable.
By the way, if you'd like to see Lila Kedrova in another beautifully acted role, check out Zorba the Greek. She's just as affecting there.
thanx and i will; i don't understand why some people would call the performance too sentimental. it's anything but, just like you said it shows a perfectly reasonable desperation, and it was that sincere feeling of desperation that attracted me the most; anyway thanx again i'll be sure to watch Zorba the Greek
shareThis episode in the film was brought to Hitchcock by his screenwriter, Brian Moore, a novelist who had developed the tale of the forlorn baroness as an unpublished short story.
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It is a real shame that Mr. Hitchcock didn't even bother to give Kedrova's character a real closure. Perhaps he only hired her becayse she had just won an Oscar - Julie Andrews and Paul Newman are in "Torn Curtain" simply because they were the biggest stars at the box-office then.
shareIt may seem pedantic and irrelevant in virtuously republican America, but she was a Countess, which outranks a mere Baroness!
I'm sure the lady would have been hurt to have been so undervalued!
I had came to this board specifically to post my impressions on Lila Kedrova's acting, but having already an existent thread on the theme I will post them here. She was marvelous, so emotional and realistic. Countess Kuchinska is such a tragic, moving and pathetic character that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. Oh, that scene when she holds back the police so Paul Newman and Julie Christie can escape is really painful. "My american sponsor", she says devastated.
shareI love how she's referred to as an old woman. Lila Kedrova was 48 in this! I'm 48 now, and thank God, 48 has sure changed over the years!
shareI found Kedrova overly theatrical and annoying, and the introduction of her character into the film at that point (when the movie was going down the tubes really fast) seemed just to add insult to injury. Why should we care about this random lady when we don't even care about our two protagonists? I didn't care for Zorba the Greek either, and I think Miss Kedrova played a major part in that as well.
"Great, but why do they always use so much blood? Ruins the realism, don't you think?"
I totally agree. The character AND her performance completely destroy this movie, which isn't that good to begin with. It's like in the middle of a Berlioz concerto the suddenly start playing Schubert. No good, no good!
shareAgreed. The movies stops dead in its tracks during this long and pointless scene.
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A hundred points to you for using the word "bathetic", good Sir!
B .... I .... L-L-T .... E-T-L-E-YYYYYYY Bill Tetley!
An outstanding performance indeed that worked on the many levels of her character. Bravo
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She was spot on and blew Newman and Andrews away in a small part. She could have been a great silent star and I say that as a compliment to her visual emoting.
shareYes, I agree with you 100%. Her performance was an outstanding, albeit too briefly on the screen. Lili Kedrova very skillfully portrays a Polskaya Pani, ie, Polish Noblewoman, down on her luck in the colourless German Democratic Republic.
The attention to her costume design, ie, her brightly tinted scarf, set her apart from all the Proletarian Comrades of East Berlin.
Too bad that the film had a bad continuity snag with her considerable luggage. Just where did it go, after she got off the bus?
I felt the scene was unnecessary. We already knew, from the existence of Pi and the screaming lady on the trials of living on that side of the iron curtain and the desire for people to get to W. Germany. The scene seemed out of place in the movie and ruined the pacing. It felt like a deleted scene, regardless of the woman's acting.
shareI'm glad to see I'm not the only one who felt that way. The entire scene should have been cut. It basically squandered any tension built up from the previous scenes on the bus.
shareI felt like the scene just went on and on. Maybe it was part of it to get across how much so many people were stuck depending on someone else for favors.
sharei agree with all posters on lila kedrvoas performance and also the statement that she could have been a great silent star.
she was plausible in THIS film, and hitchcock wanted her to be the symbol of the people that wanted to defect, but FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, its absolutely arrogant to say that everyone in east germany wanted to flee! there were about 16 million people LIVING THEIR LIFE there, and you cannot ignore that.
in germany now there are plenty and plenty of things to criticize as in virtually every state on this planet, but at least here you can actually express them wherever you wan to (in a moderate way). so yes, east germany was a judicature, but not everyone went through the streets crying.
in the film it is portrayed that almost everyone except the people of this obscure "oraganisation" was on the side of the volkspolizei (police) and even the students in the leipzig university eagerly helped to search for that scientist - well my mother was a student herself in leipzig (although about 10 years later than the film was released) and i'm sure the hell she would have done than searching for some armstrong man. not only she but her whole clique was trying to escape the suppressing organs by retreating to youth organistions held in churches, which was a protected place back then. she certainly wasn`t a revolutionary girl, and very few were, but there were things you could do - but for every little freedom (dressing the way you want, making art, listening to western music...) you had to pay a price - but it wasn`t a COLOURLESS life, if you didn't want it to be, as someone assumed. watch the german film "Sonnenallee" from 1999 it is quite an ok film that portrays youth culture in the GDR.
i also always thought of the GDR as colourless, mind you, but well, one has to go past that... i also think of north corea as colourless, but if it is any comparable to east germany then, still people are living there, loving, having passions and so on. by that i don't mean that thigs should just go on!! the contrary!
to go back to lilas performance; i enjoyed it very much and really felt for her - the american dream, the dull life, that it must have been for her - she looked and acted eccentric, probably it really was a hassle for her to live there. every now and then stopped by the police and things like that must have happened to her frequently.
for me, my own personal memorabilia of the GDR is only slightly mentioned in the movie - when paul newman is riding the tractor with the other secret agent, the agent says something like "they are capable of doing terrible things, you must be careful". back then probably nobody knew certainly, but torture was an instrument ahead for people that stood in the way of the goverment - i've visited a high-security prison turned into a museum after the wall fell with school a few years ago and it was an experience that struck me deep. i felt sorry for the countess in the movie, because she might have gone just to something like that. and armstrong was just plain stupid for going to that farm with a taxi and letting gromek follow him just like that. the professor could have ended up in a tiny dark room with nothing but a bucket inside it.
Feel the same way. What dictatorship does is you stop caring, you become dormant, you don't draw attention to yourself. You become and observer and you don't actively help those who are in power or those who are in trouble. You recede into the shadows, hoping you will never get noticed.
Anyone who has been bullied once or observed someone who's being bullied, knows that that is how you'd act in a dictatorship. It's sad the screenwriter didn't understand this psychology at all :(
(...)its absolutely arrogant to say that everyone in east germany wanted to flee! there were about 16 million people LIVING THEIR LIFE there, and you cannot ignore that.
I agree, she was magnificent. Her eyes plead so well. She's also very good in a similarly desperate role in Polanski's The Tenant.
shareFor me, she was the highlight of the movie. The life in her eyes! The emotions crossing her face!
I can see why someone might say the protracted scene changed the pacing of the movie, but I disagree with the judgment that that is bad. In scenes of duress, Hitchcock often drags time out. Here, we see Newman and Andrews, intent on meeting a deadline and finding their way through the maze of a foreign city, wanting to relate to her, but afraid of any delays. Of course, they are also suspicious of this strange woman. Is she really the desperate woman she appears to be? Is she an unintentional impediment to their escape?
And when she whispers, "My sponsors!", we feel that the remainder of her life hinges on the fate of the two Americans she just invested in. She gives a face to the millions who lived under tyrannic rule in East Germany and lets us know how high the stakes are for anyone behind the Iron Curtain.
I didn't care at all for the scene, not because of the actress but just because it ruined the tension. already we had just seen the lengthy bus sequence and the tension was the highest and the film stops for like 10 minutes while this random Countess holds the heroes for a coffee and discussion. And there's no mention of her after that.
"It's hard for me to watch American Idol because I have perfect pitch."
-Jenna, 30 Rock
I have to agree . . . I have no idea what that sequence is all about, or why it's even in the movie . . . unless it was just to give Lila Kedrova screen time?
shareIt added to the tension for me. They arrive in Berlin, have no idea where to go, and all of a sudden this random stranger appears and uses his name..."Professor Armstrong." So OK, then you think she must be another contact along the route, as they seem to pop up everywhere when you least expect it. So they go to the coffee shop...and slowly realize....she actually isn't their contact, she's just some random nut looking to use them to gain her freedom. But they are somewhat beholden to her now, as she knows who they are, and she can easily turn them in. So it does create tension for me.
And I wrote 'nut' on purpose, as the 'countess' comes across as somewhat neurotic. That builds the tension even more, because it seems she's not entirely stable and therefore perhaps somewhat unpredictable. You don't know what you're gonna get from her. But she still knows who they are. In the end she saves them, which was an interesting touch because I don't think you could have predicted she'd put herself on the line like she did.