Just watched an obscure, but very good movie, “The Goddess,” (1958). TCM featured some films which used the “method” acting this month, and this is one of them. What on earth is method acting? Basically this type of acting uses techniques such as sense and memory to achieve realism. Actors who use the method rely on using their own emotions from their past in order to bring raw emotion to a part. In other words, they had to think of something in their past, and harness the emotion of an experience and apply it to the role they were playing. This type of acting became very popular in the 40′s & 50′s and was taught in a few acting schools such as legendary Actors’ Studio in NYC. It was new and very different than old style acting, the new method was one of raw emotion and sensitivity.
“The Goddess” used this type of acting and it brought to life the story of a woman, Emily Ann Faulkner, caught up in being a celebrity, hooked on drugs, and alcohol, and lastly mental break-down. Kim Stanley plays the main character and perfectly so, since her portrayal paralleled her own life. The story by Paddy Chayefshy, is broken up in three parts, and each introduced by its own title, “Portrait of Young Girl,” “Portrait of a Young Woman,” & “Portrait of a Goddess” Emily Ann Faulkner is nine years old in the first act, played by Patty Duke. It’s the 1930′s and Emily’s mom (Betty Lou Holland) is a young single mom from the south. She is determined to enjoy her youth despite her daughter, and decides to abandon her. In one of the movie’s most disturbing scenes, Emily overhears her mom call her, “nothing but an unwelcome burden.” Words which cut straight through Emily’s heart and soul and scar her for life.
In the second act, Emily is now a teenager, but very much like her mother, a foolish woman. Emily had earned the reputation of being a loose woman. She sleeps around because it’s what makes her feel popular and wanted. She marries a young man (Steven Hill) she thinks is her ticket to Hollywood. It turns out he’s worst off than she, mentally speaking. They have a child, and the marriage falls apart. But Emily has dreams, dreams of becoming a star in Hollywood, and no baby was going to stop her from living her life. She, like her mother, abandons her daughter, and divorces her husband and heads out to Hollywood.
In the third act, Emily achieves her dreams of stardom, changing her name to Rita Shawn. She learns the dirty and sleazy ways of Hollywood and plays the game. She marries a celebrity (Lloyd Bridges), and after another very dysfunctional relationship with him, she files for divorce. As she climbs up the latter of fame and fortune, she realizes the emptiness of this type of lifestyle. She becomes an alcoholic, and gets hooked on prescription drugs. Although she is famous, she is lonely, and has no real friends. She eventually has a mental breakdown and it is her mother who helps her recuperate. But that recuperation only last for a while, and Rita relapses.
The end of the story is open to interpretation, but you get the feeling she will forge ahead, although on drugs and alcohol. A functioning alcoholic and drug-addict movie star. Very typical then as it is now. You can’t help feeling sad for the innocence Emily has lost and will never regain. The movie is solemn, but exposes Hollywood for what it is, a place where values mean nothing, and celebrity means everything; a place where those most victimized are the very ones least able to cope with it. A place of lights, camera, action, and dreadful loneliness.
