The JUDY Companion

when I first heard there was gonna be a Judy Garland biopic I immediately became apprehensive the thing is I love Judy Garland like framed picture on my wall amount of respect for this woman I was concerned that a biopic wouldn't do her justice or would make a melodramatic spectacle out of a very difficult life just so people could win some Oscars I avoided most of the reviews and the interviews because really I knew I just have to see for myself and now having seen it I of course have eight million thoughts about it and where better to put those thoughts than YouTube I have to be honest I didn't love the movie but it's not really my style to get on the internet and just criticize or complain so rather than doing a straight-up review of the things that didn't work for me I thought I would use this as more of a learning opportunity to supplement the film's storytelling and to give you an idea where he should start if you're interested in learning more about Judy after watching this movie and by no means the authority on how you should experience this film or this figure but I do think there's so much information out there that could make watching this movie a richer experience so think of this as your Judy companion piece part review part history part script doctor and fully me outing myself as a Judy San my hope is that this video will clarify why judy is a prominent figure in entertainment history and inspire you to check out some of her movies if you haven't already [Music] Judy takes place during a five-week residency at the talk of the town nightclub in London and what would be the last year of her life because we spend a majority of the film with Judy as a fully-formed icon the film employs flashbacks and expository dialogue to provide a majority of the context the average viewer needs to understand what's going on the film begins for example with Judy preparing to audition for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz arguably her most recognizable role and most famous film and from there we join Judy in 1969 and occasionally revisit her life in moments that all occur in that same Wizard of Oz era to my recollection and you can correct me in the comments that is the only film of hers discussed in explicit terms unless you include singing the trolley song from meet me in st. Loup and in some ways that makes sense at the base level we pretty much just need to know that she's famous beloved and sings well and a common cultural touchpoint like The Wizard of Oz can accomplish that in one fell swoop however by limiting the vision of these flashbacks to such a specific slice and time the film fails to capture the scope of Judy celebrity and her impact on the entertainment industry from a historical perspective of course that's disappointing but from a storytelling perspective I think it dampens the film's emotional potential the gap between point a The Wizard of Oz and point Z her London concerts is vast to fully comprehend a fall from grace or to understand for example why it would be difficult to just fire Judy Garland if she's not doing her job you have to understand the heights from which she fell there are no valleys without peace so I guess the basic question I'd like to start with is why the hell would anyone care about Judy Garland in the first place young fresh beautiful you and you discovered you and you were placed within the company of the great why because she gave you what you wanted music/song left romance each new picture brought Judy Garland closer to star remember just 13 years old Judy Garland signed a seven-year contract at MGM every Sunday a short film from 1937 shows exactly what Louie B Meyer saw in the up-and-coming star the film posits MGM's two resident teen singers alongside each other as friends putting on a concert deanna durbin sings with her classic soprano and then judy sings and suddenly there's this big sound coming out of this fairly five-foot-tall body that just makes people move her voice has character and attitude and is powerful enough to accompany the brass behind her the film registers Judy as something modern this is a Hollywood of brand-new jazzy musicals an America turning increasingly towards swing and the big-band music of Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw Judy's voice represented the future something mayor could easily incorporate into musicals for a younger demographic from there as lb hints in the movie Judy was cast as a spunky girl next door the bouncy sidekick to Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy films and musical comedies like strike up the band these films basically exist to put them in situations where they would sing and dance together and were enormous ly popular making the pair of them some of MGM's most reliable stars in the law Mickey does appear in the film but again without any context as to the extent and significance of their partnership so he looks a lot more like a long-lost crush than a co-star of eight films and a pivotal figure in her life after a few years of being cast is the kind of homey relatable friend The Wizard of Oz brought her a new level of recognition including a juvenile Oscar but funnily enough it wasn't until CBS acquired the television rights to The Wizard of Oz and began showing it annually in the late 50s that people really began to think of it as Judy's crowning achievement Judy really became a major star in the 1940s thanks to a series of musicals including Ziegfeld girl babes on Broadway and meet me in st. Louis she was nearly unparalleled in terms of box-office popularity with films frequently listed in the top 5 moneymakers of the year and remember this is a time when Studios made double the number of films they make today she was also one of only four women to rank as a top 10 box-office draw more than once in the decade none of her films failed to make a profit until 1948 the pirate she had those numbers for a reason now considered one of the most skilled musical comedy performers of all time she displayed a real triple threat of talent of course there was her voice big obviously but clear and tender where it needed to be anyone who's ever tried musical theater will tell you that selling emotion during a song is the most essential and simultaneously difficult aspect of that kind of performance and that's where she excelled the playful joy of get happy from summer stock the melancholy longing of the boy next door and meet me in st. Louis and even the dreary fatigue of her television performance of Old Man River a song which initially doesn't make sense for her yet she knocks me out every single time I see it seriously go watch it if reaching the core emotion of every single song she sang wasn't enough for you then there were the utterly charming dance numbers where she kept up with the likes of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire each film showed off her physical comedy chops captivating audiences between the songs as well in presenting Lily Mars for example she plays an aspiring actress who delivers a bad performance in a way only a great performer would know how in girl-crazy she has a tone a lot of people can sympathize with did anyone ever tell you that when a drill like you starts talking about a fella like me it means only one thing that you're falling madly in love with it did anyone ever tell you that and in the Harvey girls she's unable to wield a gun in a somehow hilarious way of course she was not a one-trick pony both of her Oscar nominations were given for dramatic roles for 1954 a star is born and 1961's judgment at Nuremburg both of which contained some stunning monologues after her film career pretty much ended in the early 50s she continued performing concerts significantly at Carnegie Hall for which she won a Grammy for album of the year the first woman to do so she even had a short stint on TV which gave us this which I probably watch once a week sorry but that feeling of duty as someone fresh and fun and truly qualitatively excellent is sort of lost in the shuffle in this biopic we have the relic and the young girl finding her footing but nothing really to suggest the substance in between that actually built Judy her loneliness and her poverty would pack a greater punch if you realized she was number one for over a decade that her career wasn't just this one movie in other words it's more interesting to engage in contrast rather than just returned to the same time period again and again staggering with the flashbacks throughout her film television and concert career might have better painted this picture you could simultaneously define her genius to give a better sense of why these shows were selling out in the first place and more broadly revealed a scale of her trauma and downfall one flashback for example could show Louie B Meyer shocked about the failure of the pirate at the box office and discussing her breakdown that caused the film to delay one flashback could visit the post-production of summer stock as editors witness a brilliant performance but notice her dramatic weight loss since the beginning of filming by choosing to make the leap from team Judy to bottom of a bottle Judy the film relies a lot on expository dialogue to do the heavy lifting we hear I worked 18 hours yesterday but we never really see what that looks like beyond one montage during which the young Judy never really appears truly exasperated or anything but made up and fresh-faced instead we see the quiet moments of rebellion like biting a hamburger that really don't do much to expose the continual and systemic exploitation of her body and her talent every actor during that era had to go through some kind of metamorphosis to become a star it could be a name change a new hair color really anything for Judy the transformation was especially intense and the team at MGM was especially blunt about it during this time Judy Spears at MGM included Hedy Lamarr Lana Turner Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford so the standard of beauty was impossibly high now Judy is attractive but she's not that kind of beautiful no one really is but she wasn't blind to the fact that she was compared to them anyway that Lana Turner ended up dating more than one of her crushes including Mickey Rooney and that if she were to stay on top among these women she had to play ball and she had to make money so she went through a lot of abuse to meet this impossible standard I talked about this a bit in my 1955 video but lb called Judy his little hunchback her weight was always considered a problem she was placed on a stringent diet of chick soup black coffee cigarettes and cottage cheese she was given Benzedrine and dexedrine basically uppers that were like little hits of meth to keep her weight down and keep her active for 18 to 20 hour work days seven days a week and Downers to knock her out her teeth were capped to appear straighter her nose was reshaped they even tried to make her right-handed which never really stuck unsurprisingly severe depression and alcoholism followed marked with several suicide attempts and accidental overdoses more unsurprisingly these years of trauma which essentially started at a systemic level at age 15 and lasted until her death made it really hard to work both for her and literally everyone around her MGM had to recast her in films multiple times a star is born was such a nightmare to make that it virtually ended her film career at home her children had the unlucky task of hiding her pills or finding empty bottles lurking throughout the house this huge absence of time in this film ignores what I consider to be the ultimate tragedy of her life which is a cycle of missed chances of audiences and artistic collaborators wanting her to deliver and watching her genuinely try but being continually thwarted by addiction mental illness and men who had more regard for her Fame than they did for her well-being this kind of thing is really difficult to capture in a film because as I said in my intro it can be very exploitative like making a spectacle out of suffering at the same time the film doesn't really portray the reality of a woman six months from death her behavior is inconsiderate and raucous but not necessarily out of the ordinary for any movie about a star who's going through some stuff substances are present but relatively controlled light-hearted music plays while the venue staff scrambles to get her on stage i contrast the reviews of Judy's London show while complimentary to a degree also described her as Haggard and a broken remnant behind the scenes stories reveal a woman who so rattled by addiction could barely function on her own images of Judy from that time are scary and the apartment where she died was not befitting the Queen that she was this film misses an opportunity to give us a complex picture what happens when money addiction and talent collide and instead chooses to end on a redeeming glossy known when she deems as the audience joins her in a rendition of over the rainbow if you show up tomorrow if you try again everything will be okay of course I sympathize with the hopeful tone this ending strikes as a fan of duty I like framing her story in a positive light but I couldn't help but find it disingenuous especially given that the epilogue conveniently leaves out the cause of her death a barbiturate overdose as if intentionally sanitizing reality every biopic makes concessions or fiction Eliza's events in order to make the spirit of the film true so for example while it's not true that Louie be mayor like haunted the set just to tell Judy that she's fat and ugly that is the essence of the truth or a quick and easy way to convey the real problems she had at the studio and that's all fine and understandable but sometimes it can leave some room for nuance for example lb was also more invested in Judy's health and many other people in her life and even funded many first days in rehab Sid left Judy's third husband who makes an appearance in the movie deserves some recalibrating here Luft was largely credited with reviving Judy's career after she and MGM parted ways in 1950 and even produced the remake of a star is born that served as her comeback vehicle in 1953 of course all of this came at a severe cost despite her suicide attempts Sid pushed her back to work he had a reputation for being a heavy drinker a gambler and a brawler and Judy later claimed during their divorce that he beat her in other words he wasn't exactly the responsible parenting alternative the film made him out to me on the flip side the fictional gay couple Judy befriends one night was a welcome and touching addition to the film Judy's legacy was sustained and has survived in part because of the loyalty of the LGBTQ community she has been called everything from the quintessential gay icon to the Elvis of homosexuals by touching on the very real challenges the gay community faced in 20th century England the film reminds us of the meaning and joy Judy brought to that fight it wasn't just a camp element of her musical comedies but the identification of being authorized or counted out of continually having to rebound from struggle after struggle so although they didn't exist IRL they symbolize a vital component of Judy's place in pop culture and now for the part you've all been waiting for given what my channel is I know like half of you were here expecting me to tell you if Renee Zellweger is going to win an Oscar or not honestly I don't know first because this isn't a prediction channel at all and also because like zero other movies are out at the time that I'm releasing this video I couldn't tell you what I can tell you is that Renee Zellweger did her homework her posture her little shrugs the way she holds the microphone her sort of skittish walk writing with her left hand there were wonderful elements in this performance that were done with absolute care and commendable attention to detail I don't think the scripts did her many favors as at once too tragic and not tragic enough she sort of has to idle in this middle Territorian until the film reaches its emotional climax the scene in the phone booth will be her award season cliff and I think is the most honest insight into Judy in the film where the performance lost me was the decision to have Renee sing the film sort of makes you wait for Judy to sing she narrowly misses her first performance in London but is pulled onstage at the last minute you're meant to believe she will rally and give this brilliant performance that will wow the audience and remind them why they love her and why all this hullabaloo about getting her on stage was worth it but then she opens her mouth and it's Renee which truly no offense but it's not the same thing as I mentioned earlier in the video judy garland's voice was distinctive and big and so married to who she was as a performer by 1968 her voice had sustained a fair amount of damage from smoking drinking and the average wear and tear any singer would experience sometimes it would squeak or give out it suggested her once great strength but was textured with pain not just the literal pain of pushing out a note that doesn't want to happen but also more figuratively of living a life that left more than a few scars along the way Renee's renditions of her songs don't match Judy's power or emotive depth but I think more importantly they don't match this of the character her notes are a little too clean and too polished a little too similar to Roxie Hart for me to subscribe to the she disappeared into the role narrative for that I'd suggest Judy Davis and me and my shadows okay so I just presented a ton of granular information some of which serves more as a fun fact purpose than is necessary for a good biopic but I do believe that digging a little deeper into Judy's life could have told a more potent story I wish it had shown more of what made Judy special I wish it didn't shy away from the grim reality of her condition and that supporting characters were given more nuance but at the end of the day I can't really budge this movie very much because we really are out here trying to do the same thing keep Hollywood history alive and popping and the popular consciousness and in this case the genius of Judy Garland if the film makes just one person seek out one of her movies or see her in a new way I think that's a victory if you'd like to see more yourself here is a list of some Judy Garland movies to show off the range of talents I discussed earlier many of them are frequently shown on TCM if you have cable or are available to rent for under five dollars on youtube or elsewhere these movies show the real thing maybe the best way to engage with who Judy Garland was ultimately I think that's the best way to honor someone's legacy [Music] I'm [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 368,437

Rating: 4.8860435 out of 5

Keywords: Judy Garland, Judy, Renee Zellweger, Review, A Star is born, the wizard of oz, mickey rooney, lily mars, the harvey girls, judy movie, mgm, judy garland video essay

Id: l_oo6zFdPLc

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 05 2019