The Making of 'Frances' - article

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Wow...Great Article. Thanks for sharing. :)

http://geocities.com/~themistyone/making.htm

anyone else got a link that works?

"I'm f'ing busy-or vice versa" -Dorothy Parker

What a wonderful and broad article you wrote!

Reading about producer Marie Yates and biographer William Arnold first wanting to make the film together (Shadowlands), then producer Mel Brooks coming in and throwing Arnold out gives good insight.

As does the part about young Jessica Lange wanting to play Frances Farmer, even before Lange had made her first film. Australian director Greame Clifford who was also a Frances Farmer fan, knew about everything there was to know about his muse. About Mel Brooks wanting Clifford as director, and Clifford wanting Jessica Lange as his leading actress.

Lange and veteran actress Kim Stanley working together I found a touching piece. Where they played fighting dogs mother and daughter, in reality Lange and Stanley seemed to work together fantastically, staying friends after the film production.

Also it's great to read about how production designer Richard Sylbert saw 'Frances' as going 'about a girl who constantly goes back home' and therefore seeing it as an A-B-A-C-A constructed concerto, about John Barry composing his wonderful musical score for 'Frances'; about Clifford overdirecting like an editor and thus overpressuring his actors, not realizing how much work they did and had done studying and practicing to get the Framer characters as perfect as possible!
A little sad that Frances-lovers Clifford and Lange so argued during and after the production.

About Kim Stanley being mad at the studio and calling the result of the editing a 'constant coitus interruptus'!

And a great ending has your article, I won't spoil it here. Thanks!

http://web.archive.org/web/20091022134109/http://geocities.com/~themis tyone/making.htm


"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film."

A very interesting article-I can appreciate the time and research that went into writing it. Thank you for posting. Someone posted a new link to the article which was helpful.

Cheers

Hey york74, the link is no longer active...... Please could you repost somewhere for all of us to experience please, Thanks

Enjoyed your article a lot. Very well written and informative.