Just watched FEUD: Bette vs Joan and wasn’t fond of Lange. Who would have been better as Joan?

I don't have a suggestion but honestly think Sarandon LOOKED more like Crawford - if not when FEUD was filmed, for sure at other points in her career.

Lange did just fine. The fact that you can't think of a better choice probably says a lot - it's quite difficult to play Joan Crawford without it being an imitation.

I thought Lange was fantastic. I can't think of anyone who would have been better.

Emma Stone

Not to enrage the Lange Loon but Sarandon outshone Lange the entire series.

r5 Agreed

R5, Nope.

r6 is pretending to be me but is not me.

r8 Seek help, sweetheart - no clue why you think I'm pretending to be you. How odd.

It was Lange’s show, 100%. She was absolutely terrific.

Me, still looking 23 and starring in The Secret Storm.

[quote] no clue why you think I'm pretending to be you. How odd.

Because you explicitly claim to be r3 (which is my own post) at r6. And troll-dar will prove me correct to anyone who checks.

How not odd.

Sean Young looks the most like Crawford. It’s too bad she doesn’t get much work. She would’ve been great as Crawford.

It's funny that during all the publicity and stuff for Feud Lange and Ryan Murphy never addressed Mommie Dearest.

(at least as far as I know.)

Jessica Lange sucked. I will never understand her canonization on DL. I’ve hated her in everything.

Blue Sky is virtually unwatchable.

Jessica Lange was brilliant as Joan Crawford. Brilliant!

Lange was outstanding throughout FEUD especially in the final episode. Her acting was sensational.

R14 from a vanity fair article on Joan’s friendship with William Haines

“Joan Crawford has gotten a really bad rap through the years, because of that Mommie Dearest film, which froze her as this wire hangers, monstrous archetype,” Murphy explained by phone on Wednesday. “I’m not going to try and dispute Christina Crawford or her book, because that’s her personal recollection. But Joan Crawford was more than what her daughter wrote. She was also a really good person and a really good friend.”

When fans watch a Jessica Lange miniseries, they expect to see Jessica Lange, so no one else would be okay.

R1 It’s funny you mention that. When the cast was first announced, the article didn’t mention who was playing which role. I honestly thought Sarandon would play Crawford and Lange would be Davis.

R15- She was certainly good in Tootsie.

Bette Davis said near the end of her life that she would most want Susan Sarandon to play her of all the other young actresses around.

Cole Escola would have been better.

[quote]I honestly thought Sarandon would play Crawford and Lange would be Davis.

I don't know why, r20, Sarandon's the one with Bette Davis eyes.

[quote]R13 Sean Young looks the most like Crawford. It’s too bad she doesn’t get much work. She would’ve been great as Crawford.

Sean Young is utterly beautiful - and her most convincing performance was playing a robot.

r15 is not one of Jessica Lange's FANS!!!!!!

Jessica was fine in Feud, but in no way did she look, sound or act like Joan Crawford. She played herself like she always does. I remember that year the Lange Loon kept saying she would win the Emmy, when everyone knew Nicole Kidman would win for Big, Little Lies.

I would have done my own singing in Sweet Dreams and would have sounded exactly like Patsy Cline.

I thought Lange did a good job. She wouldn't win a Joan Crawford lookalike contest but she was compelling. You really felt the loneliness and desperation. The show was way more interested in her than Davis so it's hard to say much about Sarandon's performance.

Lange was miscast. She looked oriental.

That season of Feud was 95% bullshit. It should have come with a warning that the show was a work of fiction.

Lange said she decided to give Joan an accent because of where she was born. Um, Joan didn’t have a Southern accent, you dumb bitch.

R32, Lange said she watched videos of Joan and emulated the way she spoke. She never said anything about her being Southern, nor did she put on a Southern accent in her interpretation of Joan.

Um Hello! I haven't been mentioned or compared to Lange yet!!!!!!

Unfortunately she has already passed away - but I think that Dixie Carter would have made a good Joan Crawford

Faye Dunaway, of course

R24 I didn’t know about that at the time, nor that Bette had wanted Susan to play her. I could just see Sarandon also looking like Crawford with the right hair and makeup.

I remember Bette wanting Carol Kane to play her. I think they lived in the same apartment complex in LA.

cate blanchett, possibly Angelina Jolie but that would have required a lip reduction. gwyneth paltrow could have done something interesting.

I’d kind of like to see Olivia Wilde play Joan in a limited series remake of “Mommie Dearest”. One that takes a different approach to the film.

Glenn Close would have nailed it.

I always thought Lange was overrated as well. Can't believe she won for Tootsie. Completely undeserved. Never understood the love for her on DL.

Lange is a "hot house" genre of actor. You have to adjust your criteria and filters and then go forward to see what she can do.

LaWanda Page coulda nailed it.

Lange looked elderly. For whatever reason, Sarandon’s facial work is better. I think Lange’s small eyes played against her. Sigourney Weaver would have been fantastic if they could make her look half a foot shorter. .

Gillian Anderson looked like a 1930s Joan Crawford in her youth but she would have been terrible with that hoarse voice.

Jared Leto.

Susan Sarandon is an annoying cunt, but a truly good actress. She had less focus in this series but acted circles around Lange, who I do like as well, but find overrated. She spent too much time trying to contrast Faye’s iconic performance by underplaying everything.

R15, R42, The praise for Lange is not just a DL thing. She is beloved and revered among her peers, the acting community, and the industry in general, which is why she has endured and continues to get roles despite never being a big box office draw.

R42, The Oscar for Tootsie, as discussed many times, was consolation for not awarding Lange the Best Actress Oscar for Frances that same year.

The people who hate Feud are the types who believe that Mommie Dearest was a 100% true account of Crawford's life and the only thing worth telling about Crawford's life. I thought Feud was more compelling because it was about two women getting older in a business that had little use for women getting older in a time when there was nothing neither could do about it. Both performances were fine.

R49 I get so sick of hearing that shit. A hell of a lot more older female actresses are working than older males. The whole “woe is me! I’m a woman” thing is so played out.

Lange was awful. I occasional could suspend belief and see Sarandon as Davis, but never did Lange seem to be Crawford. Sigourney would have had the right look and could do Crawford’s anger. I’m less sure about the vulnerability, but she would have been better than Lange.

Lange was mostly a plot device in “Tootsie” and probably the weakest player in an otherwise strong cast.

R50, R49 was talking about the past, when roles for women of a certain age were scarce and actresses of Crawford and Davis' stature were forced to take out ads and do hagsploitation films, while their male counterparts like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Fred Astaire were romancing young female leads. Things have slowly changed but that's because television has become the go-to place for compelling stories centered on women.

[quote] I thought Lange did a good job. She wouldn't win a Joan Crawford lookalike contest but she was compelling. You really felt the loneliness and desperation. The show was way more interested in her than Davis so it's hard to say much about Sarandon's performance.

Which is interesting because Murphy said he wanted to do the series because of his strong interest in Davis, whom he once met. But I agree with you--the show was more interested in Crawford.

Lange stole every scene from Sarandon, creating the appearance that the show was more interested in Crawford. The real Bette Davis would not have allowed that.

Maybe it was that Lange was able to inhabit the role more fully because the hair and makeup favoured her. Sarandon just seemed like Sarandon to me the whole show. Anyway for the story of a feud it seemed a bit genteel to me, on everybody's part.

r49 100% accurate

Susan didn't even bother to do Bette's accent. It was one of the laziest performances I've ever seen given by a major actress. No way should she have been nominated for an Emmy for it. Just awful.

I didn't think Lange was bad, but it was always going to be hard to top Dunaway's performance.

[quote]Lange was mostly a plot device in “Tootsie” and probably the weakest player in an otherwise strong cast.

I love Lange, but she got two oscars for some of her weakest performances. Had she won for Frances or Music Box, it would be a much different story. She really should have tied with Streep in 1982.

f57 " I didn't think Lange was bad, but it was always going to be hard to top Dunaway's performance. "

Go see a drag show, then. I don't think Lange/Sarandon were trying to do impersonations

[quote]I don't think Lange/Sarandon were trying to do impersonations

It's not an impersonation to do someone's accent. That accent is what helped make Davis the icon she is. It'd be like having a British thespian portrayed with American diction. Ridiculous.

If you can't make the effort for something so basic, then you've no business portraying her.

R33, she definitely did. Lange and Murphy spoke endlessly about having a Texas twang added to Joan’s accent for the show. He then put in the Mommie Dearest opening for the show with the ice cubes even though that never happened and Lange said she had no idea why she was being told to do that. The show was a mess.

[quote] “The Texas twang would come out when she would drink. The mid-Atlantic movie star MGM bullshit accent would go away. There was great pain in [her transformation], but also I really admire it and relate to it. I was also an impoverished kid from Indiana who moved out here with 37 or 50 bucks in my pocket, and re-created myself.

They even made up that Crawford had her back teeth removed, that Bette had an affair with her director and got a gay man out of jail. They also put in the fake body odor story concocted by the Joan Crawford parody Facebook group inspired by Bette’s film “The Anniversary”. Putting a feminist slant on it that they only hated each other because mean old men made them that way was beyond laughable.

Lange is a wonderful actress, but Joan was much younger and more beautiful, even in middle age than Jessica, and she just couldn't inhabit her that way. Just my take.

[quote] Susan didn't even bother to do Bette's accent.

She DID do it, but only when Bette spoke publicly to the press (such as when she talks to reporters on the red carpet at the Oscars).

In real life, that accent was just something Bette put on as part of her public persona. It was like Marilyn Monroe's breathy baby-doll voice--neither woman really spoke that way when they weren't in front of a public or before a microphone

Bette Davis always excuded something powerfull and intense to me. A basically benevolent volcano as Olivia de Havilland described it. That vulcano quality wast totally amiss in Sarandons performance. I remember an interview with her about Feud and she seemed completly catatonic and disinterested when asked about Bette Davis and the whole project.

Langes Joan on the other hand radiated that dangerous vulcano quality in spades.

Both are overrated hams who always chew the scenery.

Olivia de Havilland is the reason it’s never been officially released on physical media.

Here's Sarandon singing in the famous Bette Davis public voice with the clipped consonants.

[quote]Olivia de Havilland is the reason it’s never been officially released on physical media.

An awful lot of unofficial DVDs are available online, then.

[quote] Olivia de Havilland is the reason it’s never been officially released on physical media.

That's not right.

First of all, she lost her case.

Second, she's been dead for quite some time now, and you can't libel the dead.

I see a lot of myself in Ms. Debra Winger

[quote]R61 They even made up that Crawford had her back teeth removed….

I don’t know that they “made this up.” It was mentioned in the 1978 book FLESH & FANTASY (which is great, BTW.)

I think both Lange and Sarandon are great actresses. I enjoyed Feud the second time through it much more. However, Sarandon's attempt at Davis' staccato speaking style was often a fail for me. Also Sarandon is a physical giant compared to diminutive Bette so that also didn't always work.

[quote]It should have come with a warning that the show was a work of fiction.

It did.

[quote]Never understood the love for her on DL.

It’s hardly DL. She’s popular.

[quote]She played herself like she always does.

OK then, well with 2 Academy Awards on 5 nominations, 3 Emmys on 10 noms, 5 Golden Globes on 16 noms, a SAG on 6 noms and a Tony award on 2 noms. Works for her!

Jessica is popular? Her dementia film on Max already dropped out of the top ten in less than a week.

This thread inspired me to rewatch Bette's Cavett interview and also this one that I had never seen but is quite delicious...and a bit dirty.

Bebe Neuwirth as Joan.

One of her last ones. Touching and funny when she askes Steve Kmetko to talk about her as a good actress after she´s gone.

How do you wanna be remembered?

As a good actress!

I don´t think there´s gonna be a problem

You don´t? Will you say that for me when i´m gone?

Certainly.

It´s not gonna be too far away though so we have to rehearse it now! (lights up cigarette)

Bryan Johnson must be shaking and crying with rage at those interviews.

Sarandon acts with her tits.

Rosamund Pike would make a perfect Joan.

Jessica Lange isn’t as popular, I believe, because hasn’t been in as many memorable films as Streep, Close, Weaver or Sarandon. They are masters at choosing projects that suit their personae.

Lange didn’t act as frequently as those peers, and what she did choose, there was a lot of filler among her more high profile stuff. Even Blue Sky was a load of shit.

She was fine in Blue Sky but the only memorable bits were Jessica showing her tits and calling Tommy Lee Jones “daddy”.

this show was pointless. two spoiled bitches. that what they shoulda called it. Two Spoiled Cunts in a Rotten Stinking Business.

Jessica Lange's been giving the same performance no matter who she's playing for at least the last 20 years...

The show could have been aptly titled “HAGS!”, but the actresses would probably have been less likely to sign on.

[quote] I don’t know that they “made this up.” It was mentioned in the 1978 book FLESH & FANTASY (which is great, BTW.)

They did. Joan’s dental x-rays are on the Concluding Chapter of Joan Crawford site which debunked it. Ryan Murphy and co did no actual research.

[quote]Jessica Lange's been giving the same performance no matter who she's playing for at least the last 20 years...

I read this criticism on DL a lot. Another criticism is that she's been playing Blanche DuBois in every project. Lange's performance as Joan Crawford in Feud is very different from Blanche DuBois, which is far removed from her portrayal of Sister Jude in AHS or Big Edie Beal in Grey Gardens. So I think these criticisms are a load of bullshit, made by people who just want to bitch about her and haven't really been paying attention.

[quote] That's not right. First of all, she lost her case. Second, she's been dead for quite some time now, and you can't libel the dead.

She was still alive when the show became a critical bomb. The lawsuit went on for awhile. By the time it was all over there was no money in releasing it commercially and Olivia’s suit cost them money in terms of legal bills.

R89 I agree with everything you say.

R89- That’s a tagline of the Datalounge-

Pointless Bitchery since 1995.

Joe Manginello is his schedule allows

People haven’t really been paying attention because she’s unpopular.

I would watch Faye reprise Joan again. I think i can see Ryan Murphy being strong enough to dial down her over-the-top acting at times.

Jessica Lange gave an interview around the time Blue Sky came out, saying she knew her days as a leading actress in film were coming to an end, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do because she "didn't want to be a character actress." That comment bugged me, though I usually enjoy her interviews and the fact she calls modern awards season "a freak show" and is open about the sorry state of the American film industry.

Regarding her acting, I loved her in Frances, but think she's rather overpraised in general. She does sorrow and rage well, but can be gaudy and self-repetitive and her overall filmography is quite middlebrow.

I would have liked to see Sigourney Weaver as Joan and Judy Davis as Bette.

She's delusional if he doesn't believe she's become a "character actress" with advancing age.

[quote]Jessica Lange gave an interview around the time Blue Sky came out, saying she knew her days as a leading actress in film were coming to an end, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do because she "didn't want to be a character actress."

Which is interesting because she's said she also downplayed her sex symbol status in the 80's, deliberately going for more serious roles.

She was derided as an ex-model. She had no choice if her career would last.

The second Olivia filed her frivolous lawsuit, Murphy should have announced the next season of "Feud" would be "de Havilland vs Fontaine"!

The episode I really love is the Oscars episode. It had so many great moments in it, and that great ending where Joan comes home for the Oscarcast and realize how she put so much hard work into her scheming, and even though she succeeded, in the end it was really for nothing.

The way you people talk.. the women are actresses, not mediums. According to you all they might as well dig up both actresses and put them on set. Because according to you all - THEY are the only ones who can play themselves.

R101 That was definitely my favourite episode. And the fact they shot it in the actual theatre where the Oscars were held that year was just a bonus.

[quote] Regarding her acting, I loved her in Frances, but think she's rather overpraised in general. She does sorrow and rage well, but can be gaudy and self-repetitive and her overall filmography is quite middlebrow.

Meryl Streep envies Jessica, but reading between the lines, it’s her beauty and sensuality and coolness that Meryl doesn’t have.

[quote] The second Olivia filed her frivolous lawsuit, Murphy should have announced the next season of "Feud" would be "de Havilland vs Fontaine"!

Sickly sweet Jennifer Garner IS Olivia de Havilland! Scarlett Johansson IS Joan Fontaine!

R67 Sue's interpretation is rather loose. Bette was military-like in her movement and musicality.

Meryl doesn’t envy Jessica, certainly not anymore. She was just being nice since she won best actress over Jessica for Sophie’s Choice.

Only Miss Crawford could play Miss Crawford. You know when you're looking at the real thing, fellas!

[quote]the next season of "Feud" would be "de Havilland vs Fontaine"

Team Fontaine here. de Havilland was a noted cunt.

Why hasn't Streep done Broadway? She did a Shakespeare in the Park decades ago but she was trained for stage work for God's sake. Lange came and conquered.

I suppose she was too busy making critically acclaimed movies.

Meryl made millions from movies and television projects. When she became a superstar, Dustin Hoffman told that she would never return to the stage.

R110, Meryl started on the Broadway stage, but once she conquered the world of cinema, why bother going back? You have to have the stamina to perform eight times a week and the ability to adjust and improvise when things go awry live onstage. The way Meryl invests so much of herself in her meticulous characterizations might be too taxing to sustain every week, and too stressful for a perfectionist like her when things go off the rails. I'm not saying Meryl can't do it now, but she has no reason to.

Fontaine was the one who had a daughter who couldn't stand her...

Madonna should have played Bette and Cher Joan.

[quote] Meryl started on the Broadway stage, but once she conquered the world of cinema, why bother going back?

That didn't stop Katharine Hepburn from going back, who also conquered the world of cinema in her heyday.

I love the phrase "she conquered the world of cinema"--who but a gay man would ever say that?

[quote]That didn't stop Katharine Hepburn from going back, who also conquered the world of cinema in her heyday.

She had her box office poison period, r117, which sent her back to the stage, r117. Bette's three returns to the stage were not successful.

[quote]R104 Meryl Streep envies Jessica, but reading between the lines, it’s her beauty and sensuality and coolness that Meryl doesn’t have.

IMO, Jessica only had this beauty and sensuality in All that Jazz, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frances and Tootsie. She somehow lost those qualities early on and didn't seem to have much range as an actress in the roles that followed. And she's not as talented as Meryl Streep...no way. (And this isn't a shot at her, I doubt she thinks she is.)

[quote]R115 Madonna should have played Bette and Cher Joan.

Joan was four times older than Bette??

[quote]R116 That didn't stop Katharine Hepburn from going back, who also conquered the world of cinema in her heyday.

Hepburn returned to the stage during slumps in her screen career (like after she was voted Box Office Poison.)

She was a girl without a contract when she did THE PHILADELPHIA STORY for the Theatre Guild.

Hepburn also made a lot of money by going on tours with her plays. Streep doesn’t need money, as major stars are much better paid now.

^^ oh… I just saw that r118 essentially said the same thing!

Sorry

[quote]I suppose she was too busy making critically acclaimed movies.

Otherwise known as flops.