Actresses
Spain 1996
Reviewed by José Arroyo
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
A young drama student auditioning for a part playing the legendary actress Empar Ribera decides to get some insights into her character by interviewing three of Ribera's former pupils, all life-long friends who are now middle-aged. Glòria Marc has become a distinguished tragedienne in her own right and romanticises the theatre. Assumpta Roca has found great success as a salty popular comedian on television. María Caminal renounced her profession in order to direct dubbing sessions in the film and television industry. María would like to see Glòria and Assumpta act together but their rivalry is so great they cannot even share a stage.
When the three were students, each of them vied for the role of Iphigenia in the last production Ribera would direct. To show which competitor had won the part, Ribera sent a miniature theatre to the winner: Ana, a colleague and fourth member of the clique of friends, won. But Ana died two weeks before the play was to open. Ribera asked the other three to decide among themselves who was to play Iphigenia. María found competing over her dead friend's role distasteful and bowed out. However, Glòria and Assumpta decided to go for the part.
In the present, María learns she has cancer and subsequently dies. The drama student does not get the role of Ribera and Glòria and Assumpta learn how to value their friendship, live with their rivalry and share a stage.
Review
In Actresses, a toy theatre acts as a metaphor for the film's main theme. The theatre, glamorously ornate, lushly painted in purple and gold, and complete with miniature performers, is given to the young drama-student protagonist as a child, but when she loses the figurines, she loses interest. At the end of the film, the object whose possession symbolised each of the protagonists' aspirations is rejected and burned. In the film's terms, reducing this theatre to ashes is a laying to rest of the past. But it is also a symbol that there is no theatre without actors, the people who breathe life into it.
A romantic notion, but it's not one without truth. One can imagine great cinema without actors (think of documentary, animation, the avant garde) but the theatre can't go on without performers. However, Actresses is not about actors in general. Acting for film and television is barely mentioned and is, not unexpectedly, dismissed with disdain (this film was based on a play). The thematic grist here is embedded in debates around particular types of theatre (the classic versus the popular) and a particular kind of performer (the diva). It is a premise so hoary one remembers when the art form in question was literature (1943's Old Acquaintance, for example). However, perhaps because it offers great opportunities for actresses, such a premise remains appealing, particularly when it is realised with the kind of charm and skill one finds here.
The film is structured as a kind of investigation. In finding information about the legendary Empar Ribera, the drama student is also finding out about what happened one fateful summer when the protagonists were young, what types of actresses they turned out to be and what types of women they turned into. Actresses are fond of quoting the old adage that actors are something less than men and actresses are something more than women. The implication is that being an actress, particularly a star, is somehow in conflict with being a woman. Films such as All about Eve (1950) often uncritically take this as read. This means they often also function as inquiries into the nature of femininity which can be tinged with misogyny and facile camp. Thankfully, Actresses has the good taste to frame its loving and admiring look with admirable restraint.
Ventura Pons, the famed Catalan director, has resisted the temptation to invent external settings for the action. Instead he delicately opens up what is essentially a theatrical chamber piece by creating a sense of movement within particular interiors, often through almost surreptitious camera moves on faces. The same skill, taste and restraint is visible in the direction of the actors. Núria Espert as Glòria Marc and Rosa María Sardà as Assumpta Roca downplay the potential bitchiness of the excellent dialogue and choose economy of voice and gesture over the emotional pyrotechnics for which less subtle actresses might have won plaudits.
This is a more difficult and more rewarding route. What emerges is a film that is a closely observed character study of three women who love acting and each other. While they put the past to rest, we get to watch them show off for each other, savour the skill with which they can inflect their line readings and share their joy in the literature they speak.
Credits
- Producer
- Ventura Pons
- Screenplay
- Ventura Pons
- J.M. Benet I Jornet
- Based on the play E.R. by J.M. Benet I Jornet
- Director of Photography
- Tomás Pladevall
- Editor
- Pere Abadal
- Art Director
- Rosa Ros
- Music/Music Director/Orchestration
- Carles Cases
- ©Els Films de la Rambla, S.A. (Barcelona)
- Production Companies
- An Els Films de la Rambla, S.A. production with the participation of TVE Televisión Española with the participation of Canal+ España with the collaboration of Department de Cultura/Generalitat de Catalunya
- Production Supervisor
- Xavier Basté
- Production Manager
- Pascqual Otal
- Unit Production Manager
- Glòria Martí Palanques
- Location Manager
- Toni Duch
- Assistant Director
- Manuel L. Cañizares
- Script Supervisor
- María José García
- Camera Operator
- Joan Enric Madico
- Steadicam Operator
- Joan Morató
- Special Effects
- Salvador Santana
- Graphics
- Jordi Almuni-Vinizius
- Young & Rubicam
- Art Director
- Theatre:
- Germans Salvador
- Set Decorators
- Hector Gil
- Theatre:
- Salvador Alarma
- Storyboard Artist
- Xavier Mola
- Wardrobe
- Paca Kaharro
- Make-up
- Montse Boqueras
- Caitlin Acheson
- Hair
- Satur Merino
- Titles
- Story Film/Pablo Nuñez
- Musicians
- Carles Cases
- Paquito D'Rivera
- Feliu Gasull
- Josep Lluis Pérez
- Álvaro Fernández
- José María Fernández
- Lluis Ribalta
- Ignasi Zamora
- Raul Fuentes Ochoa
- Music Producer
- Carles Cases
- Executive Producer
- Kay Produccions
- Music Recordist
- David Casamit Jana
- Direct Sound
- Boris Zapata
- Sound Re-recording
- Joan Vidal
- Sound Effects
- Kiko Vidal
- Castillian Dubbing
- Alberto Trifol
- Cast
- Núria Espert
- Glòria Marc
- Rosa María Sardà
- Assumpta Roca
- Anna Lizaran
- María Caminal
- Mercè Pons
- girl
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- Downtown Pictures
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- In Colour
- Subtitles