vardathemessage: (Default)
vardathemessage ([personal profile] vardathemessage) wrote2004-08-09 10:50 am

Who's (Supposedly) Who

script:
CECIL

(voice-over)

And there, at the center of it, was Brian’s American wife, Mandy, whose dramatic transformation to London party girl was a constant source of amusement to us all.

Of course Mandy is an incarnation of Angela Bowie, David Bowie's American wife. Notice in the opening minutes of Ziggy Stardust, The Motion Picture, Angie pops in on Bowie backstage being made up by Pierre La Roche and speaks in several voices and accents in the space of 3 minutes. She also says a line in perfectly accented French to LaRoche. According to Todd, this type of camp female character has mostly disappeared from our cultural landscape. As he says in the introduction to the script, "Mandy has a theatrical, campy party girl persona that can be turned on and off at will, and owes a great deal to the gay male sensibility of the time." Mandy has something in common with Liza Minnelli's fabulous portrayal of Sally Bowles in the 1972 film Cabaret as well. It seems these women instinctively knew that they had to be larger than life to stand out in the world of the preening peacocks that they lived among.

While Cecil's assessment of Mandy is quite catty, it echoes the feelings that Ken Pitt had for Angela Bowie.

[identity profile] chicken-cem.livejournal.com 2004-08-10 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
Funny he mentioned Parker Posey, because I had to stop myself from mentioning her when I wrote my response. Damn right.

Thanks for the full context of the quote -- this is exactly why I admire directors who cast Toni Collette. She consistently displays a range that most actors cannot hope to match. From Muriel to Carla (and everything in between), she never fails to amaze me.

As for Ewan, I suppose this fitness for the part is so obvious in retrospect that it's hard to imagine Todd not immediately leaping to that conclusion. Extrovert, yes. Repeatedly and proudly naked in almost every film? Yes.