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| Author | Topic: The Last Best Year |
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Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 4/15/2006 at 4:34:22 PM ET
I have just watched this Bernadette film today and ... phew!...am red-eyed, to say the least.
I just sobbed out loud and was blown away by her performance - and the story. I did not expect that a rather 'old' TV movie would affect me so much.
I loved that the first shot in the film was one of Victoria Station here in London - that was a real surprise to me. The ensuing story then unfolded to reveal a character who was so noble and brave that you just had to love and admire her.
But that is precisely what the "Bernadette" factor is all about, she just has the rare ability to reach out and touch us all by the beauty and integrity of her performance.
It also interested me that when she appeared (apparently) without make-up toward the end of this film she looked about twelve years old even though she was probably forty(?) or so at the time. What an amazing woman she is - in every way.
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
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Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 8:02:19 PM ET
Jane Murray is such an endlessly fascinating character. Noble is a very apt word for her. Every aspect of Bernadette's performance was just right--the way she held her body, her facial expressions, her manner of speaking, the way she pronounced certain words. A beautiful and moving embodiment of that woman, very focused and committed work.
Mary Tyler Moore indicated that she and Bernadette were dissatisfied with the final film. I would love to be able to ask them why they felt that way. The one major thing that would improve it is if it could be longer. If the therapy sessions between Jane and Wendy, which were the heart and soul of the film, had been shown more extensively it might have added even more depth.
I strongly urge anyone who admires Bernadette Peters to make an effort to get a copy of The Last Best Year. I think it's one of her very best performances.
|  moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 4/15/2006 at 8:13:58 PM ET
I'm not sure if its ever been mentioned here but it was mentioned in an article about the film that Bernadette went through several physical steps to become Jane. She felt that Jane was not someone who had much respect for her body so she didn't work out leading up to and during the filming so that her body wouldn't feel good in general. She also put yellow drops in her eyes to give Jane a sick look. And I believe I remember the same article stating Bernadette actually experience chest pains during the filming because she got very into the role of the dying woman.
I do have some problems with the movie so I can understand why BP and MTM had trouble with the finished product. I thought the relationship between Jane and her psychiatrist developed WAY too quickly. She was such a repressed person who didn't let anyone in and wasn't even sure she wanted therapy. After a session of which we saw 90 seconds the next scene seemed to show them the best of friends. I just didn't buy it. I have to assume the original script developed the characters more and allowed their relationship to not be so instantaneous but probably cuts were made before airing.
"I'm one star away from Dolly Parton ... and Raymond Massey is between us. I hope we don't suffocate him." Bernadette Peters receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, April 24, 1987
| Karen
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Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 8:52:14 PM ET
Moljul, that's exactly what I meant. It still worked for me, but yes, you're right. It would have been much better if those apparent cuts hadn't been made. Even with those truncations I still think that for a TV movie, it was outstanding.
| Karen
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Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 9:25:58 PM ET
I just have to add something. Even with its minor flaws, The Last Best Year is so direct and honest and genuine that it's simply on a different level from your average TV movie. The plot synopsis may make it sound sentimental or manipulative, but it isn't at all. It's not about a disease or a death really. It's just trying to present a very complex human being with complete respect for who she is (and also for all the other characters). Not a perfect film, but an unusual, and sadly unrecognized, accomplishment, given the typical restrictions and limitations of network television.
| PATTY
Registered User
Registered:
3/1/2003
From:
tonawanda,n.y. | posted: 4/15/2006 at 9:56:20 PM ET
Where can I get a copy of the movie? I have tried in the past, but no luck. I have never seen the film, so I am anxious to purchase a copy!
Thanks, Patty
To the loveliest lady of song!
You will keep on giving me joy forever...
| PTM
Registered User
Registered:
6/26/2003 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 10:24:21 PM ET
Well even if Peters and Moore didn't think much of the movie, Peters got many wondeful reviews and it inspired a nice article by the NYT TV critic. He wrote about television providing a great showcase for actresses, and he called the movie exquisitely crafted and said that those two gave "marvelously restrained and touching perfomances."
I also thought this was a nice quote from MTM: "I've always admired her as an actresss. She's a singer of songs who can also act them better than anyone I have ever seen. I always wanted to know the soul behind the voice. Oh, that soul would take a poet to describe."
PTM
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 4/15/2006 at 10:34:00 PM ET
Great quote by MTM, PTM. (Sorry had to put those two sets of initials together).  Of course I think we all knew that about Bernadette but I certainly would not have been able to describe it so eloquently.
"I'm one star away from Dolly Parton ... and Raymond Massey is between us. I hope we don't suffocate him." Bernadette Peters receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, April 24, 1987
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 10:51:13 PM ET
God, I love what Mary Tyler Moore said. I've never seen that quotation before, but it's perfect.
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 4/15/2006 at 11:59:33 PM ET
Speaking of Mary Tyler Moore, she also gave a brilliant performance as Wendy Haller. I always think of psychotherapists as well meaning but nervous and confused people who try to be authoritative but don't actually know what they're talking about. Mary captured that quality so freshly and convincingly. She was basically a nervous wreck, which seemed just about right for that character. No fake heroic psychiatrist type for this film.
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 4/16/2006 at 6:34:59 AM ET
There's a scene in the movie where Jane is encouraged by her councilor to take her anger out on a pillow while she lies in a hospital bed. Bernadette's acting in that scene is truly astounding. In the hands of a lesser actor it might well have been an embarrassing scene to watch but the emotion and conviction she evokes is awesome to behold. It's just one of many terrific scenes in this film.
The last shots of Jane when the screen turns to white reminds me so much of the famous death scene in Greta Garbo's "Camille" when one can almost "see" and "feel" the last breath leave Garbo's body. Bernadette's acting in her last scene is just as incandescently beautiful.
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
|  Jean
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Registered:
6/7/2003 | posted: 4/16/2006 at 8:36:45 AM ET
I think elsewhere I've said how much I like and admire this film, and I agree with all that's been said here.
Here is an excerpt of an interview with Bernadette about this--and other--tv movies--
''I was just about to start another job,'' Peters recalls of getting the ''Last Best Year'' offer, ''and I don't usually think about accepting a second job when I haven't even started the first, but I just loved this script, along with the idea of being with John [Erman]again and Mary. I just went ahead and took it.'' The character runs counter to her familiar, bubbly image, but Peters says, ''You find those things within yourself that relate to the aspects she has in her life, and you just think about those. I spoke to a psychologist and to a doctor who specializes in cancer, specifically about what happens to the body. I work out a lot, but I didn't for the entire time I was playing this role, because I don't think her
body was something that felt good to her. I wanted to have a feeling of not being in touch with it, of this thing I was dragging around with me.''
Another element involves the child Peters' character gave up for adoption 20 years
earlier, so the actress adds that she concentrated on ''the Catholic guilt of
having this horrible secret she's been carrying around with her, and she doesn't get close to anyone because she doesn't want to reveal it, and also because of the pain she's gone through from it. ''I think she develops cancer from holding all of that in,'' she speculates. ''The psychologist I consulted told me that she would be a definite candidate to get cancer, because of the way she's lived her life, which really is a matter of NOT living her life. I really believe if you're unhappy or in torment all the time, or something is holding you down or holding you back, you get physically ill.''
Though co-star Moore has been increasing her dramatic work in recent years, she and Peters both are known for lighter fare - in fact, Moore returns later this month in the NBC comedy
''Thanksgiving Day'' - and Peters was pleased by their matchup. ''We became good friends from this,'' she says, ''and she's a wonderful actress. I'm just thrilled with her work in this. I think we just try to pick the most interesting projects and roles.''
Actually, her new TV-movie career is Peters' second major round of work for the home screen. She starred with Richard Crenna in ''All's
Fair,'' a 1976-77 CBS comedy series about the romance of a Washington, D.C., photographer and a political columnist. (Toward the end of its run, the show also featured a promising young talent named Michael Keaton.) ''When you think of how many hours of television have to be filled up weekly,'' Peters reasons, ''you realize there's stuff up there just because they have to put something up there. The really good ideas are few and far-between, and I've been offered other kinds of things, but I can't put my time into them unless I'm interested in the role in some way.'' She says she wouldn't do a series now: ''At this time in my life, I don't think I want to be stuck playing one character weekly. If it was a hit, I'd have to do it for five years or so, so it'd have to be a pretty interesting show. There are just too many other things I'm able to do.'' 'l' And Peters admits she initially wasn't sure about tackling TV again. ''When I read 'David','' she says, ''it was so different from anything I had done, and it was such a heavy subject - and a true story, on top of that - that I was very apprehensive about going into it. ''When I played Tammy Faye, I looked at that as just a great acting role, and that turned out to be even more fun than I had thought it would be. When I read the script and realized what was going on with her, I thought she'd be interesting to play, but she's also a fun character.''
Peters has enjoyed exceptional variety in her work, which also includes many concert appearances, and she attributes that partly to the fact that she ''never envisioned'' what direction her career might take. ''I like the way it's gone, and I'd like to continue going in the same vein. I surprise myself with what I
do next, and I just pray that the roles get more and more interesting. Each time, I learn more about myself, more about acting, more about technical things like camera angles - just all kinds of things. I'm constantly in school.''
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 4, 1990
byline: Jay Bobbin Tribune Media Services
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/16/2006 at 10:20:48 AM ET
Thanks Jean. Lots of good stuff in that interview.
| jmslsu01
Registered User
Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 4/16/2006 at 11:28:41 AM ET
Jean-that's a neat article. Thank you for sharing.
Patty, there are several copies of the movie right now on Ebay. Just do a "The Last Best Year" search and you'll find them (include the phrase in quotation marks). You won't even have to go through the bidding process-you can buy a copy now.
I've already posted my thoughts on the movie, but it says *a lot* about the acting skills of these women that they were able to transcend the weakness of the script.
Jenn
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 4/16/2006 at 11:55:20 AM ET
I was going to post about how The Last Best Year reminded me in some ways of an Ingmar Bergman film, but then I realized that would destroy any last shred of credibility for anything I would ever say again.
Well, I meant one of his LESSER films.
| Jean
Registered User
Registered:
6/7/2003 | posted: 4/16/2006 at 11:56:19 AM ET
Thanks--here's the complete interview that moljul remembered:
"As flamboyant Tammy Faye Bakker in May's NBC movie Fall From Grace, she [Bernadette Peters] got to explore what she calls her ''fun and bubbly side,'' albeit laced with pain.
Sunday night, on ABC's 12-hanky tear-jerker The Last Best Year, ''I play the dog,'' she says, stifling a giggle.
In Year, co-starring Mary Tyler Moore, Peters plays a drab, repressed woman who comes to life after learning she's dying. That's a far cry from the effervescent pixie who tosses her meticulously curled hair and purses her berry-red lips, brightening a recent blustery fall afternoon.
Her career path these days typically means ''taking control so I'm out of
control. I don't know what's going to happen when I go out there, except hopefully I'll surprise myself.''
Next week, she tapes a musical segment of NBC's Carol & Company that reunites her with Carol Burnett, on whose CBS show Peters first became widely known. And next spring, she's a wicked witch in the PBS version of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway hit Into the Woods.
For her role in ABC's shamelessly sentimental movie, she had her hair straightened and yellow drops put in her eyes. She also stopped working out.
''This woman's body wasn't a friend, it was something she dragged around and ignored.'' Adding to the realism, during filming Peters imagined she felt chest pains.
Not that it was all seriousness. She and Moore broke tension with girl talk, ''discussing things like after 40 (she's 42), not as much hair grows on your legs,'' she laughs. And she cackles when she recalls her furry cat loudly
purring throughout her climactic deathbed scene.
Peters has turned down sitcom offers. ''I'd want to do something odd, singing one week but not the next.''
--
source: USA Today, November 1, 1990, by-line: Matt Roush
[Karen, just take it back]
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