Julia (1977)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Truly Dreadful Film

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Oh my, where to start. Slow, plodding, uninspired, lots of images without a lot of insight. During the first hour, there is little to see besides Jane Fonda smoking cigarettes while trying to convey how stultifying it is to write. Thankfully the action rises to a snail's pace in the film's second half, when Fonda emotes by staring at various things, screams, and shouts a few words.Fonda plays writer Lillian Hellman, whose childhood love was the titular character, played by Vanessa Redgrave. Hellman 'now' lives with the similarly famous writer Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards). The narrative skips all over the place from two young girls growing up together at Julia's wealthy grandparents' estate to a dying woman in a boat recalling it all. Much of it takes place during World War II, when Lilly played a role in assisting Julia with her political resistance of the Nazis.Redgrave and Robards won Supporting Oscars for their performances, as did screenplay writer Alvin Sargent (who didn't have to write a lot of dialogue), while Fonda (Best Actress) and Maximilian Schell (Supporting Actor) were nominated along with the picture, director Fred Zinnemann (his second to last film), and several others.One would have to wonder why except it's just the sort of film that the Academy likes, loosely historical with a sprinkling of risqué subject matter and violence. Toss in a couple of politically active actresses in the leading roles, and voila. If you care, 1977 was the year that Annie Hall somehow beat out Star Wars for the grand prize.

Jane Fonda is playwright Lillian Hellman. Jason Robards is writer Dashiell Hammett, famous for "The Maltese Falcon" and is her lover. But, Vanessa Redgrave is "Julia." Julia has always felt a strong conviction to stand for what's right, to fight for justice, to not sit back and watch while her world is filled with fascism. Evan at a young age, she was sensitive to those in need. Lilly and Julia grew up as best friends. When Julia needs Lillian's help, Lillian intercedes in some wartime espionage, by smuggling money to those who need it, to those who can be fed, clothed, nurtured. Both Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave are excellent in their roles, both earning Oscars. (This may be the only time in Oscar history that an actress won the Best Supporting Actress award for the title character.) But I was in awe of the whole production, as the time and place was real, so very real for the viewer. We are there. We are there. Jane Fonda is good, but I did feel as though, we were watching Jane Fonda. I think Geraldine Chaplin could have knocked this out of the park as Lillian Hellman. But, despite that, this is not to be missed, as it is movie-making at its best, with Robards and Redgrave at the top of their craft. This is really about "Julia," because you think of her even when she's not on the screen and her selflessness is inspiring to us all.

Although the movie was nominated for 11 Oscars and ended up winning 3, there is not much mentioning of it nowadays, it is seldom on TV etc. My guess is due to the script and topic approach - since 1990ies, there have been so many strong movies about Nazi Germany, resistance to it, fate of Jews, etc, that Julia has became timeworn. The really catchy part of the movie is the smuggling train trip from Paris to Russia via Germany, the rest is so-so, often too trivial and/or insipid. At least to me as man, as the movie had strong focus on women's issues and comprehensions.Jane Fonda as Lilian Hellman is really great, it was strange that she did not receive an Oscar for such a big and strong role; Vanessa Redgrave as Julia and Jason Robards as Dashiell Hammett (who received this award for supporting roles) were good as well, but they spent rather limited time on screen.All in all, a good watch, but not among the greatest Oscar winners.

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.