It's the beginning of our new season tomorrow. We always try to select a film that will be popular with our target audience so that they will come along and join for the year, and this time we have selected Florence Foster Jenkins.
Over the period that we have been running our club we've screened several earlier films by Stephen Frears including The Queen and Philomena. Our audiences enjoyed both of these very much and both screenings were well attended. Thus all being well we will have a large audience tomorrow.
I wrote my notes earlier today, and here they are:
UK 2016 110 minutes
Florence Foster Jenkins
became a prominent cult figure in New York City musical circles from the 1920s
to the 1940s, with eminent musicians as varied as Cole Porter and Enrico Caruso
as her fans. She had initially trained as a pianist, but after an injury to her
arm put an end to this she decided to use a substantial inheritance to resume
her musical career as a singer. Initially she performed small recitals with
attendance only by personal invitation and with music critics specifically
excluded, but in 1944 she gave a public recital at Carnegie Hall. The reviews of the performance were scathing
and sarcastic, and shortly afterwards she had a heart attack and died.
And here is Margaret Dumont:
Over the period that we have been running our club we've screened several earlier films by Stephen Frears including The Queen and Philomena. Our audiences enjoyed both of these very much and both screenings were well attended. Thus all being well we will have a large audience tomorrow.
I wrote my notes earlier today, and here they are:
Florence
Foster Jenkins
UK 2016 110 minutes
Director: Stephen
Frears
Starring: Meryl Streep, Hugh
Grant, Simon Helberg and Rebecca Ferguson
“As
Les Dawson proved with such precision, any fool can play the piano badly, but
it takes real skill to play it brilliantly badly. Similarly, Morecambe
and Wise knew that the perfect way to mangle “Grieg’s piano concerto by Grieg”
was to play “all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right
order”. Now, to the august list of superbly maladroit comedic musicians we may
add Meryl Streep, who takes centre stage in this very likable, frequently
hilarious, yet still poignant tragi-comedy from director Stephen Frears.”
Mark
Kermode
Despite her generally
poor singing ability Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) aspires to become
an opera singer with the help of her husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant)
and her pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg).
Given the strange
events of Florence Foster Jenkins’ life it is not surprising to find that it
has provided inspiration for a number of plays and films. The most widely
produced play is Glorious! which
initially ran in the West End starring Maureen Lipman and which was nominated
for an Olivier Award for Best Comedy; it has since been performed in more than
40 countries worldwide. The award-winning 2015 French Film Marguerite was also loosely based on the life of Florence Foster
Jenkins although the main character was called Marguerite Dumont, a tribute to
Margaret Dumont who had initially trained as a singer before becoming a comic
foil to the Marx Brothers in so many of their films.
Recent films from by Stephen
Frears have included The Queen (2006)
starring Helen Mirren and Philomena (2013)
starring Judi Dench. Both films were
artistically successful, especially The
Queen with Helen Mirren winning an Oscar and BAFTA among numerous other
awards in the title role. Florence Foster
Jenkins has only just been released in the US but it is reasonable to
assume that it will appear prominently in the nominations during the
forthcoming awards season.
Here's the trailer:
And here is Margaret Dumont:
