The Bell Jar (film)

The Bell Jar is a 1979 American drama film based on Sylvia Plath's 1963 book The Bell Jar. It was directed by Larry Peerce, and stars Marilyn Hassett and Julie Harris.[2] The story follows a young woman's summer in New York City working for a women's magazine, her return home to New England, and her subsequent psychological breakdown within the context of the difficulties of the 1950s—ranging from the Rosenbergs' execution, to the disturbing aspects of pop culture, to the distraction of predatory college boys.

The Bell Jar
Directed byLarry Peerce
Produced byJarrold T. Brandt Jr.
Mike Todd, Jr.
Screenplay byMarjorie Kellogg
Based onThe Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
StarringMarilyn Hassett
Julie Harris
Anne Jackson
Barbara Barrie
Robert Klein
Music byGerald Fried
CinematographyGerald Hirschfeld
Edited byMarvin Walowitz
Distributed byAVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date
March 21, 1979
Running time
107 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million[1]

Cast

Production

Filmmakers had been trying to adapt the novel for the screen since the early 1970s; Mia Farrow had been approached for the lead role at one point.[1] The film was shot in June–July 1978 at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York and various locations in New York City.[1] The fashion show scenes were shot on the seventh-floor terrace of the International Building in New York.[1]

Reception

Janet Maslin of The New York Times was unimpressed, stating that the film's portrayal of Esther was "disastrous [...] because it is the character's imaginative life that leads her to a collapse, and the movie barely even goes skin-deep. The audience isn't given the slightest clue about Esther's quirks, her fears, her peculiarly distorted notion of herself." The film has a "way of spelling things out ad nauseam and still not making them clear." Even where it should have flourished, like in descriptions of Esther's life in New York, "there's no satirical edge to any of this, and no dramatic edge either. It all simply plods along, en route to a nervous collapse that manages to seem perfectly unwarranted by the time it finally occurs."[3] Variety wrote, "Despite some decent performances, 'The Bell Jar,' based on the late poet Sylvia Plath's autobiographical novel, evokes neither understanding or sympathy for the plight of its heroine ... As played by Marilyn Hassett, who has a cool, 'Seventeen' magazine kind of prettiness, Esther emerges as a selfish, morbid little prig."[4] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1 star out of 4 and called it "downright laughable, a stormy TV soap opera without that genre's sense of humor. 'The Bell Jar' is more than just a bad movie. It's a bad movie based on a book that has meant much to many, and they will be bitterly disappointed."[5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "would be ideal material for Ingmar Bergman, or more appropriately, since it is an American work, for the Woody Allen of 'Interiors.' It cries for imagery and stylization—some kind of visual expression of Esther's perceptions and torments, but Peerce's approach is resolutely literal ... Luckily, Marilyn Hassett's Esther is involving and thoroughly convincing—if you're prepared to share her frequent pain at merely being alive."[6] Judith Martin of The Washington Post wrote the film seemed "especially cruel" to kill Sylvia Plath again "by reputation," by making the heroine of her story "an elitist hysteric."[7] Jack Kroll of Newsweek wrote that "Marjorie Kellogg's screenplay is reasonably faithful to Plath's novel on the surface, but the movie totally lacks the mythic rhythm and force underneath the book's easy, colloquial style ... Marilyn Hassett looks like Plath with her fine-drawn Puritan beauty, but her clean, strong acting can't overcome the film's stifling conventionality of style."[8] Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker wrote, "A lot that is serious and troubled about insanity has been written in world literature, painted, and also dealt with on film. This picture is merely hysterical."[9]

Lawsuit

After the film's release, Dr. Jane V. Anderson, a Boston psychiatrist, claimed she was portrayed as the character "Joan" and filed a lawsuit. In the film, Joan attempts to get Esther to agree to a suicide pact, an incident which is not in the book. Joan is implied to be a lesbian in Plath's novel, although this is never explicitly stated. Dr. Anderson's lawyer said the film portrayal "has grossly damaged her reputation as a practising psychiatrist and a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty."[10] The lawsuit was settled in 1987 for $150,000.[1]

The British Library holds the archive of poetry, diary entries, correspondence and copies of legal documents relating to the lawsuit, which also sheds light on the publication of The Bell Jar in the US, and the difficulties surrounding the film adaptation.[11]

References
  1. "The Bell Jar - History". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
  2. "The Bell Jar - Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards - AllRovi". Allmovie.com. October 24, 2011. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
  3. Maslin, Janet (March 21, 1979). "Bell Jar: A Would-be Poet". The New York Times. New York City: New York Times Company.
  4. "Film Reviews: The Bell Jar". Variety. March 21, 1979. 24.
  5. Siskel, Gene (April 10, 1979). "'Bell Jar' is a movie many will see through". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 6.
  6. Thomas, Kevin (April 6, 1979). "'Bell Jar' Evokes a Tormented Life". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 23.
  7. Martin, Judith (March 30, 1979). "This 'Bell Jar' Makes Things Look Smaller". The Washington Post. Weekend, p. 26.
  8. Kroll, Jack (March 26, 1979). "The Plath Story: A Poet's Crack-Up". Newsweek. 77.
  9. Gilliatt, Penelope (April 2, 1979). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. 110.
  10. Wald, Matrthew (January 14, 1987). "Psychiatrist Files A Libel Suit Over Film Of Plath's Bell Jar". The New York Times. New York City: New York Times Company.
  11. Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath : The Bell Jar Legal Case, archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.