Author and playwright Lillian Hellman surely gave us some wonderful stories and plays for stage and film in the early to middle 20th century. But, this was not one of them. Indeed, its claim to be a story of her own experience from WWII has since been shown to be untrue. Shortly after the film's release, Hellman was proved to have pirated the story from another writer. Soon, a number of other people attested to her falsehoods about several claims she had made about herself. For more on this, see any of several bios of Hellman online, including the IMDb accounts, Wikipedia and some other more detailed accounts.
It seems as though Hellman may have become too enamored with herself over time. Indeed, some more revealing historical accounts of her life have shown more intimidating times of her past. She opposed political asylum in the U.S. for some early Russian communist leaders while giving unashamed support for Joseph Stalin — even knowing of his execution of many Russians.
So, what about the film, "Julia?" The fact that Hellman did not experience this so-called chapter in her life may be why it comes across as so poorly scripted. And why the actor playing her, seems so dubious in the role. This should be apparent to anyone who knew much about Hellman and her feisty, self-assured, at times belligerent character. If Jane Fonda was playing Hellman, then Hellman didn't even get her own character right. That, or the script was written without the passion that someone who really experienced it would have known. Either way, it really showed in the choppy and abrupt changes of scenes.
The story could have been one of great intrigue, but for the distractions caused by the poor scripting and almost droll acting by Fonda. I can't imagine that a number of the silly moments of forgetfulness by Fonda would be in the script. What was Hellman thinking? To what purpose? Fonda's forgetting to leave the box of chocolates on the train, forgetting to put on the hat, and a few other such incidents of memory loss were quite glaring considering that these were covered with such explicit instructions for her. All that forgetfulness just made me focus on how little the main person (Hellman/Fonda) paid attention to her friend Julia; and how simple- minded she could be. She just didn't seem to grasp the reality of what was going on around her. Could that have been the intended portrayal of the Fonda role? Hellman writing Hellman to be such a dumb ox — I doubt it.
All of the acting was not poor. Indeed, Vanessa Redgrave was excellent as Julia. But that the film received so many other Oscar nominations, including one for Fonda as best actress, only reflects the poor quality of films from Hollywood for the year. Only a handful of movies competed for most of the major awards, and none of them were great films. Compare 1977 to most years in the previous four decades when many, many films competed in different categories, including those years when one or two huge blockbusters ran away with the bulk of awards. (Look at 1962, for instance. Nearly two dozen films got Oscar nominations, and a dozen truly great films competed for top honors.)
As I said at the start, Lillian Hellman gave us some great and enduring stories in her time. But in her later years she seemed to give way to a type of grandiosity that had her writing completely fabricated events from her life in her autobiography. Her last few years were not proud ones for this once great writer as the truth about her fabrications became widely known. It's interesting to me that in 1977, Hollywood would still put this film out with a claim to its authenticity as lived by Hellman, in the face of the public challenges that had been made. It would still have been okay as a piece of fiction or otherwise; but the poor scripting and poor acting by the main character just leaves this as a mediocre film.
My six stars are for the lone top performance by Lynn Redgrave and for the intrigue that was still able to be felt in spite of the acting distractions and script shortcomings.
It seems as though Hellman may have become too enamored with herself over time. Indeed, some more revealing historical accounts of her life have shown more intimidating times of her past. She opposed political asylum in the U.S. for some early Russian communist leaders while giving unashamed support for Joseph Stalin — even knowing of his execution of many Russians.
So, what about the film, "Julia?" The fact that Hellman did not experience this so-called chapter in her life may be why it comes across as so poorly scripted. And why the actor playing her, seems so dubious in the role. This should be apparent to anyone who knew much about Hellman and her feisty, self-assured, at times belligerent character. If Jane Fonda was playing Hellman, then Hellman didn't even get her own character right. That, or the script was written without the passion that someone who really experienced it would have known. Either way, it really showed in the choppy and abrupt changes of scenes.
The story could have been one of great intrigue, but for the distractions caused by the poor scripting and almost droll acting by Fonda. I can't imagine that a number of the silly moments of forgetfulness by Fonda would be in the script. What was Hellman thinking? To what purpose? Fonda's forgetting to leave the box of chocolates on the train, forgetting to put on the hat, and a few other such incidents of memory loss were quite glaring considering that these were covered with such explicit instructions for her. All that forgetfulness just made me focus on how little the main person (Hellman/Fonda) paid attention to her friend Julia; and how simple- minded she could be. She just didn't seem to grasp the reality of what was going on around her. Could that have been the intended portrayal of the Fonda role? Hellman writing Hellman to be such a dumb ox — I doubt it.
All of the acting was not poor. Indeed, Vanessa Redgrave was excellent as Julia. But that the film received so many other Oscar nominations, including one for Fonda as best actress, only reflects the poor quality of films from Hollywood for the year. Only a handful of movies competed for most of the major awards, and none of them were great films. Compare 1977 to most years in the previous four decades when many, many films competed in different categories, including those years when one or two huge blockbusters ran away with the bulk of awards. (Look at 1962, for instance. Nearly two dozen films got Oscar nominations, and a dozen truly great films competed for top honors.)
As I said at the start, Lillian Hellman gave us some great and enduring stories in her time. But in her later years she seemed to give way to a type of grandiosity that had her writing completely fabricated events from her life in her autobiography. Her last few years were not proud ones for this once great writer as the truth about her fabrications became widely known. It's interesting to me that in 1977, Hollywood would still put this film out with a claim to its authenticity as lived by Hellman, in the face of the public challenges that had been made. It would still have been okay as a piece of fiction or otherwise; but the poor scripting and poor acting by the main character just leaves this as a mediocre film.
My six stars are for the lone top performance by Lynn Redgrave and for the intrigue that was still able to be felt in spite of the acting distractions and script shortcomings.