FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 8.0 Alternative Scale: ***1/2 out of ****
United States, 1996 U.S. Release Date: beginning 4/96 (limited) Running Length: 1:37 MPAA Classification: No MPAA Rating (Profanity, violence, nudity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Cast: Mary Beth Hurt Director: Michael Rappaport Producer: Couch Potato Productions Screenplay: Michael Rappaport Cinematography: Mark Daniels U.S. Distributor: International Film Circuit
Part biography, part social autopsy, and part movie criticism, FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG is a fascinating perspective of the life and films of the star of JOAN OF ARC, BONJOUR TRISTESSE, LILLITH, and PAINT YOUR WAGON. From director Michael Rappaport, who previously brought the equally-inventive ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES to the screen, FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG gives a posthumous (Seberg committed suicide in 1979), speculative interpretation of what the actress might have said about her career. Played by Mary Beth Hurt (who grew up in Marshalltown, Iowa, Seberg's home town), Rappaport's vision of Seberg speaks with a barbed tongue that spares no one -- not Otto Preminger, Jean Luc Godard, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, or any of her three husbands.
"Most of my movies were mediocre, but I was in one or two great ones," confides Seberg at the beginning of this odyssey. It's a concise judgment of a career that has been forgotten by almost all but the most ardent film-goers. Seberg burst on the movie scene in 1957, when, at the age of 17, she beat out 3000 contenders for the title role in Otto Preminger's epic biopic, JOAN OF ARC. The movie was, to put it mildly, a disappointment, due in large part to Seberg's horrible miscasting. Her career was almost over at the beginning, but Preminger used her in his next film, BONJOUR TRISTESSE, an examination of a daughter's obsessive love for her father (David Niven). Few people saw the movie, but among those who did was Jean Luc Godard, who instantly wanted Seberg for 1959's BREATHLESS. Suddenly, she was a celebrated actress.
BREATHLESS and 1964's LILLITH, the chronicle of a woman's slow and sure descent into madness, represented the heights of Seberg's uneven career. After those films, she appeared in a number of awful-to- middling pictures, often as a nymphomaniac. Some of her most degrading work was done for her second husband, director Romain Gary (including 1968's BIRDS IN PERU), who apparently believed that "all women are whores and all men are sons of whores." Several years later, in 1969, Seberg appeared opposite Clint Eastwood (with whom she had a brief affair) in the failed musical PAINT YOUR WAGON. Her final American film, and the one seen by more people than anything else she did, was 1970's AIRPORT. Her swansong screen appearance in 1976 was in a nondescript role in a virtually-forgotten picture called THE WILD DUCK. Three years later, with her personal and professional life in shambles, she took an overdose of sleeping pills.
FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG draws parallels between Seberg, Jane Fonda, and Vanessa Redgrave. All were political activists -- Fonda against Vietnam, Redgrave for the PLO, and Seberg for the Black Panthers (an affiliation for which she was hounded by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI). All were connected, in one way or another, by their husbands, lovers, or previous directors. At times, this parallelism seems forced, but it leads to a number of interesting observations about Fonda and Redgrave.
Despite generous heapings of gossip and indisputable fact, the most interesting aspect of JEAN SEBERG may be the film criticism. Rappaport thoroughly dissects at least five of Seberg's films (JOAN OF ARC, BONJOUR TRISTESSE, BREATHLESS, LILLITH, and BIRDS IN PERU), offering commentary of the depth and insight that is typically found in only the most exhaustive critical essays. Rappaport also offers an opinion of what made Seberg unique -- according to him, she was the first actor to stare blankly back at the camera.
JEAN SEBERG's social viewpoint is indisputably cynical. With a deceptively-bland expression, Mary Beth Hurt delivers scathing line after line, contemptuous of everything from the roles of women in film (either mad, oversexed, objectified, or some combination of all three) to the influence that Clint Eastwood's screen personae had on Presidents Reagan and Bush. It's a vivid, feminist perspective that strikes more than a few raw nerves because of its acuteness.
Jean Seberg's career began with her being burned at the stake (literally and figuratively) in JOAN OF ARC. It ended when the FBI's relentless persecution, coupled with various personal problems, pushed her to suicide. FROM THE JOURNALS OF JEAN SEBERG examines the public life bookended by those events. There are some aspects of Seberg's career that perhaps deserved more screen time, and certain tangents (such as one focusing on Fonda) that could have been reduced or eliminated. On the whole, however, this may be 1996's most unique motion picture to date, and is certainly one of the most innovative pseudo-biographies ever to reach the screen.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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