Sam’s ‘perfect actress’: Deceased Artiste Billie Whitelaw

A bit of unfinished business from 2014: Of all the recent show business deaths, the performer who seems to require special treatment is British actress Billie Whitelaw, who excelled both as a lead and a character person. She also happened to be a muse for one Samuel Beckett for a quarter of a century.

Whitelaw's obits all stressed her working-class background and the fact that her mother encouraged her as a child to pursue acting as a way to get rid of a stutter. The young Billie had several roles on radio (including a regular one as a schoolboy) before she made her debut in theater in 1950 and appeared in her first film in 1953.

Some of the write-ups of her career cited her as “the female Albert Finney.” This could mean a number of things (a working-class heroine, a cranky person, a performer who did not document her life in public the way other performers do), but the comparison immediately brought to mind one of my favorite non-Beckett roles of hers, as the ex-wife in Finney's only theatrical feature as a director, the underrated Charlie Bubbles (1967), which I discussed recently on the Funhouse TV show. (She also played opposite Finney in Gumshoe.)

Whitelaw's character could easily have been depicted as a shrew, but while she keeps a “stern” bearing, she also lends the role a degree of weariness (that is the main thing about her role as a celebrity author's ex-wife, she wears the character's weariness with style). As scripted by Shelagh Delaney (A Taste of Honey) and acted by Whitelaw, Charlie's ex is a woman who has been through a hell of a lot with him but still loves him, although she knows it's best that the two of them now live apart.

She won a BAFTA Award in the Supporting Actress category for her work in the film. Here is her segment from the film:

While American viewers saw her in many films, including Hitchcock's Frenzy, The Krays (as Mama Kray), Quills, and the Simon Pegg-Edgar Wright pic Hot Fuzz, she is best remembered by those with any sense of memory as the villainous nanny in the original The Omen (1976).

Those who dig a bit deeper in cinema and theater – and really top-notch TV – know of her position as one of the foremost interpreters of Beckett's work, to the extent that he wrote plays with her in mind and restaged some of his older works with her in the female lead.

The pair first worked together in 1964 on his Play and thus began an on-and-off collaboration that spanned a quarter-century. Beckett referred to Billie as “the perfect actress” – one assumes he meant for his work, but that accolade can be stretched to include her other immaculate performances in more routinely structured plays and movies.

A New York Times article by Mel Gussow from 1984 discusses the methods that Whitelaw used when working with Beckett on his plays. The odd thing about the work she did for him is that it contained both an incredible degree of stasis and yet was physically demanding because of the repetitions or oddness of posture demanded by the activity in the piece.

She said of playing in a Beckett piece that “Whenever I work with him, I feel as if I’m being blasted off into outer space.” And yet she knew instinctively as they continued to collaborate that what he wanted from her was to be “Flat, no emotion, no color.”

In watching these pieces in a row to write this piece, I was struck by how much musical precision was involved in what she was doing. She also was indeed both lively in her performances while mostly called on to recite singsong dialogue in a hypnotic tone that mesmerizes the viewer (it also, naturally enough, could be seen as either abrasive or boring – two aspects Beckett seemed to have built into his work).

I will list these not in chronological order, but in order of importance. “Eh Joe” is a piece that Beckett wrote for TV in 1965 in which a silent man in an empty room hears a voice, that of his former love reminding him of his life. Whitelaw isn't seen here, she is the voice of memory (and conscience) in this 1988 production:

In “Footfalls,” Billie paces back and forth in a proscribed area onstage (in a spotlight), talking to her aged mother, who is only present as a voice, meant (again) to remind her of the past and provoke her:

The longest piece by Beckett with Whitelaw that we have available on video is a production of Happy Days that he directed in 1979. The play is an odd one, because it seems like it always existed, or had to have existed – if Beckett hadn't written it, another avant-garde playwright would've eventually come up with the metaphor of performers half-buried in sand onstage.

Her performance is fascinating in that, again, she delivers his stylized dialogue with immense care, yet still makes it sound like natural speech. The character she plays is the eternal optimist who refuses to think the worst of any situation, even as she is starting to disappear below the sand.

The one thing that weighs against the piece is its length – the first act is sublime, but the second act seems like the original draft of the play boiled down into a shorter length. It's impossible to say that a Beckett play “drags” (he didn't pace them in any ordinary sense, ever), but Happy Days does seem to reiterate its situation and its lead character's blind optimism one too many times. (That said, Whitelaw is fantastic.)

If I had to pick a favorite of all the pieces I'd gravitate toward Rockaby. The short one-act (running 18 minutes) was part of a longer one-hour 1983 documentary directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus about the U.S. debut of the play.

The piece is devastating. Whitelaw moves slowly in a rocking chair, looking paralyzed, while her voice is heard offering a singsong recitation of the dialogue. (“Time she stopped/going to and fro…close of a long day…”) She occasionally speaks along with the voiceover and a few times shouts out the most significant word in the play (and possibly in life?), “More!”

I've refrained from trying to analyze the plays as I've written about them here (my focus is on Whitelaw's performances), but this solid little piece is most clearly about aging and death. And, of course, wishing that – no matter how dull life can be – that there was “More!” to be had.

The most singularly amazing thing Whitelaw did was to become a mouth unleashing a torrent of words (and screams) in “Not I,” the 1973 concept piece (shot here for the BBC in '77) that is an astounding thing to behold. It's nearly impossible to describe what occurs in the play without making it sound pedestrian or too simplistically avant-garde. It simply must be seen.

It's incredibly intense and one of the all-time best depictions of insanity (and/or the fast rush of memory, which can be the same damned thing). This BBC airing of the piece brackets it with a very calm Whitelaw talking about the production of the piece, which is kinda weird – to have a “normal” intro and outro to such an extreme piece of raw emotion. It blunts the piece in a way, assuring us, “no, she's all right... she came through it okay...”

When asked about Beckett's death in 1989, Whitelaw remarked, “I’m the canvas who has lost the paintbrush.” A week before she died, the University of Reading purchased her Beckett archive (letters, costumes, scripts) for 35,000 pounds. The performances she gave, it goes without saying, are priceless.

A site devoted to rare foreign and U.S. features

I have avoided spotlighting sites that offer streaming video of copyrighted films and audio. A site appeared earlier this year, however, that is focused on uploading subtitled copies of foreign features that have no U.S. distributor (thus no DVD release) and American oddities from the pre-Code era, as well as titles made during the most fertile time for oddball productions, the Sixties. Rarefilmm is a very ambitious endeavor that may not be around for long, but the moderator's attention to obscurities that have fallen “through the cracks” of cinema history is most appreciated.

The moderator, who goes by the name “Jon Rarefilmm,” has thus far posted links to 644 films that are housed on other sites (first YouTube, then another upload site); he takes requests for film titles on the site's Facebook group, so presumably he himself is posting these films on those sites – I'm not certain whether he's digitizing the films himself, but the number of titles he's made available in just 12 months makes that highly unlikely.

Jon doesn't offer any opinions on the material he's posting, although he has created a side menu linking to films he's uploaded that were made by great foreign filmmakers. Thus I thought I should zero in on the more significant and entertaining features that have shown up on this odd site, especially in light of the fact that Jon has noted he will be putting up a “pay wall” on January 1 (see update below). If foreign and pre-Code film fans are interested in the material, they can check it out for free for the next week.

If I had to chose one title to recommend above all others currently on the site, it would be Resnais' 1997 film On connait la chanson (“Same Old Song” in English). It is perhaps the late New Wave master's most charming picture, a modernist musical dedicated to the memory and genius of TV deity Dennis Potter. The film is currently unavailable in the U.S., because its American distribution was handled by New Yorker Films, which went out of business several years ago and its titles are currently lurking in limbo.

In the Potter tradition, Resnais' characters express their frustrations and ecstasies through popular song, lip-synched to classic old recordings. The screenplay by Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui is a delight, and Resnais' fragmented approach to Potter's technique is glorious, both for what it says about the characters' inner lives and popular culture's hold on the imagination and emotions. The post for this film is here.

Another truly rare item posted on the RF site is The Devil's Cleavage (1975) by George Kuchar. The film is George's longest-ever feature (running over two hours) – his other long works were composed of shorter “episodes,” or were screenplays directed by other filmmakers, as with the amazing Thundercrack!. 

Cleavage is a fun feature with some great, torridly melodramatic sequences (in the classic Kuchar style), but it's a bit too long for its own good. If you've ever seen George's great short works, try it out for a bit – it includes (for those who want to see underground comix artists undraped) a topless Art Spiegelman in one scene. The film is posted here.

Another must-see is a film that is so insanely egomaniacal that it's hard to describe, Anthony Newley's Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1970). It's a classic Sixties misfire that mimics 8 1/2 but retrofits it to accommodate Newley's lusts (he wants us to know all about his womanizing), his family (including then-wife Joan Collins), and oddball guest stars (Fellini's embodiment of death was a beautiful woman, while Newley's is Georgie Jessel). The post for Heironymus is here.

Another film of note that's been posted by Jon is Alain Corneau's sublime Jim Thompson adaptation – for my money the single best Thompson adaptation ever – Serie Noire (1979).

The film stars Patrick Dewaere (whom we lost way too young, a suicide at age 35). He plays a door to door salesman/con man who concocts a plan with a quiet girl to rip off her rich aunt. The film is wonderfully underplayed and Dewaere beautifully cast as the amoral lead. The post for that film, thus far unavailable in the U.S. on VHS or DVD, is here.

A final spotlight should be thrown on yet another French feature that lurks in distributor limbo, Rivette's Haut Bas Fragile (1995). The film is a joyfully self-conscious affair that is similar to Godard's Une Femme Est Une Femme, offering stars who can only mildly carry a tune acting out the most blissful of movie-musical cliches as they sashay around the set. Like most Rivette titles, it's a long feature, but worth the time spent. The post for the film is here.

Other notable foreign items on the RF site include Scola's The Family, Varda's Kung Fu Master!, Sternberg's Anatahan, Antonioni's La signora senza camelie, Losey's The gypsy and the gentleman, Ophuls' La signora di tutti, Bunuel's Wuthering Heights and The Monk (based on an unproduced script he cowrote), Mizoguchi's Love of the actress Sumako, Oshima's Boy, Rohmer's Les rendezvous de paris, Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, Maxmilian Schell's End of the Game, and Paul Verhoeven's The Fourth Man.

Arthouse items worth checking out include Robert Frank's Me and My Brother, The Wild Duck with Jean Seberg (her last film), Anna Karina as a non-Godardian hooker in Le Soldatesse, Marcello in Everything's Fine, the caper film Rififi in Tokyo, the only post-Breathless reunion of Belmondo and Seberg in Echappement libre, and the only pairing of Belmondo and Moreau, Moderato cantabile. 

Some vintage Hollywood titles: Clara Bow in Call Her Savage, the wonderfully titled Are Husbands Necessary?, and the Spencer Tracy pic Now I'll Tell, costarring Helen Twelvetrees and Alice Faye (based on the memoirs of Mrs. Arnold Rothstein!). Also, Hawks' Ceiling Zero, Capra's Dirigible, and a later oddity, William Castle's Let's Kill Uncle.

A number of lesser known noirs are up on the RF site, including The Night Has a Thousand Eyes and Hugo Haas' immortal Pickup. You can see Tim Carey do a lovely little dance in Bayou and watch one of Dean Martin's most underrated performances in Career.

Rarities that Jon has posted include Bette at her kitschiest in Beyond the Forest, Otto Preminger's misbegotten Porgy and Bess, the patriotic Song of the Open Road (with a W.C. Fields segment), the Dean Martin comedy Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?, the rare comedy Funnyman with Peter Bonerz, the trippy Sixties pic TheTouchables, the Patty Duke vehicle Me, Natalie with Al Pacino's screen debut, The Dion Brothers (aka “The Gravy Train”) scripted by Terrence Malick, The Incredible Sarah with Glenda Jackson, Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, the female buddy movie Heartaches with Margot Kidder and Annie Potts, and Paul Bartel's farce Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills.

Fans of cinematic bombs and oddities will want to check out Mickey Rooney with a talking mule in Francis in a Haunted House, the ridiculously titled Cottonpickin Chickenpickers with the immortal Sonny Tufts, the beatnik oddity Once Upon a Coffee House featuring the movie debut of Joan Rivers, the big giant bomb Che with Omar Sharif as Guevara, the Filippino variant on The Most Dangerous Game called The Woman Hunt (take a guess), the rock fantasy Oz: a Rock and Roll Road Movie, the Doris Dorrrie comedy Me and Him with Griffin Dunne and his talking penis (no kidding), and something that sounds like it will either be very funny or quite awful (but is most likely both), Jesuit Joe.

Feast while ye can, and happy holidays to all! 

Thanks to John W. for pointing the way.

UPDATE: The "download" feature is still working on the film entries, as of 1/3/15. You click the link and then you have a choice of MP4 download "sizes."