Frances

Released December 1982

Starring Jessica Lange (as Frances Farmer), Kim Stanley, Sam Shepard, Bart Burns
Directed by Graeme Clifford
140 min.

Box office gross - 5 million

See complete credits at Internet Movie Database

The tragic life story of actress Frances Farmer was a hot property in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Several biographies of the actress had been published and numerous film projects were in the works ( a television film would star Susan Blakely). Farmer was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and from an early age, revealed herself as independent, outspoken and a magnet for controversy. In high school, she won an essay contest (but was ridiculed by her community) for her paper “God Dies”. Following a trip to communist Russia, she embarked on a stage career and an affair with playwright Clifford Odets. She was eventually called to Hollywood but her hot temperament and dislike of the film industry clashed with directors and she was eventually declared mentally ill at a sanity hearing following her arrest for assault of a hairdresser on one of her film sets. She was placed under the guardianship of her mother, Lillian Farmer, and under her care, Frances’s problems only seemed to escalate. Lillian Farmer was incensed that Frances had thrown away a glamorous career and was hostile toward her daughter’s behavior. Frances had been institutional briefly following her sanity hearing, and under Lillian’s care, she would be readmitted several times over the next decade. Recent findings have revealed that Frances never had a lobotomy as depicted in the film and in the biography Shadowland (the author of the book, William Arnold, later admitted that he fictionalized the lobotomy as well as many other incidents). Frances Farmer eventually returned to ordinary life and in the late 1950’s she appeared on This Is Your Life and went on to host her own television program in Indianapolis, Indiana. She died of cancer in 1970.

Jessica Lange had been interested in Farmer’s life since she first read her autobiography while working as a waitress in New York. Her performance in The Postman Always Rings Twice gave her the leverage she needed to win the role over several big names in Hollywood (such as Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Sissy Spacek). Lange had earlier proposed the Farmer project to her Postman director Bob Rafelson but he was not interested. Graeme Clifford, an editor on Postman, was, however, and he eventually got the project off the ground.

Frances opens with the infamous high school essay and covers Farmer’s life up to her appearance on the This Is Your Life episode. Lange’s physical resemblance to Farmer, especially in the earlier scenes, is uncanny. The film is a downbeat one, moodily photographed by Laszlo Kovaks and features a haunting score by John Barry. The major weakness of the film is a structural device that introduces a fictional character named Harry York (Sam Shepard) who serves mainly as an element to propel the film from one scene to the next. The inclusion of the character was done to avoid plagiarism accusations (the rights to Farmer’s autobiography had already been purchased by the television production), but the character does nothing but confuse the viewer and weakens the story. We long to see more scenes with Frances and her mother, who is played by the wonderful actress Kim Stanley. However, aside from this minor quibble, Frances is a brilliant showcase for Lange.

Lange’s performance in this film is amazing and is truly a tour-de-force. As Frances Farmer, she is both fragile and volatile, erupting in furious emotions in the asylum scenes and projecting a heartbreaking vulnerability in quieter ones. Lange later said that “the anger and rage I had to build up and sustain throughout nearly four months of shooting nearly killed me.” She appears in almost every scene of the film and her characterization is riveting. The range of emotion in some scenes, like her speech on the staircase to her mother before leaving once again for the institution, could be a textbook example for young acting students. Alongside Meryl Streep (for Sophie’s Choice), Jessica Lange was hailed as giving one of the best performances of the year.

Critical Sampling:

"Jessica Lange plays Frances Farmer in a performance that is so driven, that contains so many different facets of a complex personality, that we feel that she has an intuitive understanding of this tragic woman." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"Rare to the memory is a film like 'Frances' which runs 140 mintues and its star is on the screen 85% of the time in one intense scene after another." - Variety

"...Lange, blonde, nervy, witty, with huge restless hands, captures, without self-pity, the haunting quality of the eternal misfit." - Molly Haskell, Vogue

"'Frances' belongs utterly to Jessica Lange." - Sheila Benson, L.A. Times

Back to Filmography

Tootsie