The great divas – yes, the divine ones – in the golden age of cinema had no kinship with reality. They weren’t people, as they say, that you could meet on the street. They were a tool for identification and for dreaming. The cinema of that time favored this transference. The general natural evolution, of role and image, would have been towards reality. An effective synthesis can concern the war, with all that it had represented, and with all those sons of America who had not returned from Europe and the Pacific. And so there was less desire for mélo, and the happy ending was no longer obligatory. Queens like Dietrich and Garbo, who identify the first great generation of entertainment, would certainly have found citizenship in the cinema of the following decades, but they would have been classified simply as great actresses and (almost) human beings.
Even the next generation, which I identify with Audrey, Marilyn and Grace, continued to host the divine untouchables, albeit with some small sign of belonging to the normal human race. Of course, the star system would always exist, but it would happen more and more often that a spectator sitting in the audience possessed the same attractiveness, or perhaps more attractiveness, of the model on the screen. A serious fact, for that cinema.
An actress who picked up the baton of the divines mentioned above, also adding cultural value, is certainly Jane Fonda. She is good, beautiful, intelligent. She was the first: I’m talking about roles, of course. Jane was born in a year that seems like a spell, 1937. her peers are: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Anthony Hopkins. The Oscars have rained down on these people. Icon daughter of an icon, Jane brought unprecedented content to the cinema, real pain, social issues, awareness, a then unknown militancy. And of course a stunning as well as ordinary beauty, she was a diva and a woman, and she still is. And of this attitude she possesses the birthright and in any case, even if she then had adepts, Jane remains unique.
It made me smile Barefoot in the parkhe jumped into Barbarellawas a prostitute – and in 1970 it was not easy – in A call for Inspector Klute, with Oscar starring. In Giulia gave body and face to the great writer Lillian Hellman. In Going back home – another starring Oscar – is the partner of Vietnam veteran Jon Voight. One of the first films that framed that war in desperately real terms. And we are only at the tip of the iceberg. Jane has always been at the forefront of civil rights and pacifist pronouncements. She is a great liberal, during presidential election campaigns she traditionally sided with the Democratic candidate. Audrey and Marilyn, and not even the “first two” (ie Greta and Marlene), were compatible with that commitment. Seeing them at the head of a march for someone’s rights would have been an aesthetic absurdity, at least. Even if Hepburn, in private, took on important, noble initiatives.
The almost absolute prevalence of large American productions naturally favors the native protagonists. And so the great models continue to be those. I was talking about followers. The generation following Jane Fonda’s has three. Among the many, the prevailing names are those who have collected the definition referring to Jane mentioned above: beautiful and normal. They are Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Meg Ryan. The former was able to express herself in many roles. The “escort” of pretty woman has created a precedent that is part of the memory of cinema, with Erin Brockovich she committed herself to a role at Fonda: she was heartfelt and tireless, defending the weak; and she won the Oscar.
Nicole Kidman had to deal with her too much beauty. She was legitimized by the grand master Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shutthen turned ugly for the role of Virginia Woolf in The Hours. The painful application earned her an Oscar. Meg Ryan signed, with Harry, meet Sally…another part to the pretty woman, of those that create a precedent to which we will always refer. The role of the bookseller in You’ve Got Mail it is the synthesis of his numerous registers as an artist. Elegance, grit, “truth” and naturally appeal belong to these great actresses who have characterized, and continue to do so, an era. As did others, but… not like them.
An honorary citation cannot fail to belong to Meryl Streep, who is in turn unique. Actress capable of marking all her seasons, of adapting to roles at all ages. She was the tormented mother abandoning her child in Kramer versus Kramerwith Oscar, still the Jewish mother forced to decide the death of one of her children in the Sophie’s choice (another Oscar), the romantic and sorrowful writer Karen Blixen in My Africa; and then the mother of the family who lives a deep and heartfelt love, a transgression of four days with Clint Eastwood, in Bridges of Madison County; and still the very tough fashion operator in the Devil wears Prada; finally the unleashed ancient flower child who sings and dances in Oh mama! Meryl was the best of all, without being beautiful. It really wasn’t easy.
A signal was left by actresses who, on the other hand, were beautiful, and were something more. Kim Basinger and Sharon Stone have become excellent professionals over time, but their sign was different. It was sex, a suggestive and prestigious status, but a limitation nonetheless. Among the latest arrivals I mention a few names. I limit myself to those, waiting for time and cinema to skim the essentials. Angelina Jolie has already built a good pedestal, she knows how to do everything from the virtual Lara Croft of video games to the desperate mother in Changelings. It is precious plasticine in the hands of directors, but… it is not a queen. From the big book, from the many casts, I draw Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley, Penélope Cruz, Anne Hathaway.
But contemporary cinema, in a certainly vast panorama, sees two dominant women. Beautiful, complete, different. Holders of that “something more” that is not definable. The first is Cate Blanchett, Australian, born in 1969, perfect in every role, exclusive and mature charm. Blanchett won two Oscars: Supporting in The Aviator by Scorsese and starring in Blue Jasmine by Allen. She also has a powerful endorsement: Giorgio Armani has chosen her as testimonial for his brand. She said, “Cate represents the woman I create for.”
The second is Emma Stone, born in 1988. She won an Oscar, as a protagonist and before the age of thirty, for her performance in La La Land. Unique and complete exercise of actress, singer and dancer, capable of evoking the amazing season of the musical of the fifties. She possesses a talent, a charm and a grace that is not reflected in the cinema movement of today. She will be the one to identify an era. Like the divines mentioned above.