Committed (1984)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Directors:

Sheila McLaughlin
Lynne Tillman

Writer:

Lynne Tillman (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Stylized, black and white biography of Frances Farmer by author Lynne Tillman and Sheila McLauglin. |

Plot Keywords:

Frances Farmer | Farm | One Word Title | Independent Film

Cast

Sheila McLaughlin	...	Frances Farmer
Victoria Boothby	...	Lillian Farmer
Lee Breuer	...	Clifford Odets
John Erdman	...	Dr. Taylor
Lucy Sanger	...	Nurse

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Frances Farmer gets slugged again

Following the disappointments of the feature Frances and the TVM Will There Really be a Morning, comes this vanity project by Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman, which is the worst of the three.

Although the treatment raises some points not touched on in the other efforts, the direction is so appalling that this is far from redemptive. McLaughlin and Tillman favor long takes of exposition in long shots, using a grainy black and white film stock that could be interpreted as approximating that of the films the real Farmer appeared in. They also use expressionist camera angles, sound mis-syncronisation, an inexplicably motivated slow motion slap, the inclusion of an uncredited movie about the life of a secretary, a radio play featuring Peter Lorre, jump cuts, an obvious low budget revealing an underpopulated asylum, and stagy monologues.

It doesn't help that, like Susan Blakely in Will There Really Be a Morning, McLaughlin is nothing like Farmer. She looks more like Piper Laurie, though her fleshiness does help the idea that Farmer too had a weight problem. The one good idea to come from McLaughlin's casting is that she makes Frances totally unlikable. The only time we have sympathy for her is when she is tied into a straitjacket, though anyone would deserve the same sympathy. Her unlikability feeds into the treatment of Farmer as a feminist victim, but as the alternative to dull life in the asylum is a dull existence with her mother, this deprives the character of any ambition and turns her self-indulgent. The one other interesting idea is having Frances being told of Clifford Odets being a victim of the HUAC, which she is "protected" from as she is imprisoned.

There are a couple of camp touches. Lillian Farmer is seen in a photograph with her back to the camera, we see her fastidiously straighten a bedcover then sit on it, eating in extreme close-up, over-pouring a cup of coffee, and making the most of "You make me sick". We also get a Bergman-ish touch of clapping hands around Frances as she lazes on a cot in the asylum's recreation room where enervated jazz is playing.

There is a scene where Frances shows slides of her Hollywood period to her mother, which is totally unbelievable, since we know Farmer hated Hollywood and is hardly likely to reminisce, but a scene where Odets abuses her in rehearsal for Golden Boy is unintentionally funny.