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Blue Sky
A bold, sex-on-legs performance by Jessica Lange that won her a second Oscar anchors a slightly messy melodrama called Blue Sky.
Lange gives a brassy and riveting performance as Carly Marshall, the wife of Major Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones), a career army man who is involved in military nuclear testing. Marshall has recently been transferred to another base for the third time in recent history and a lot of it has to do with Carly. See, Carly suffers from bipolar personality, but it was the 1960's and no one knew what bipolar was back then. During her manic phases, Carly's already in-your-face sexuality goes into serious overdrive, throwing herself at anyone in pants, which simultaneous aggravates and fascinates Hank. There's a part of Hank that likes the fact that other men are drawn to his wife, but things reach a fever pitch when Carly gets too close to Hank's new commanding officer (the late Powers Boothe) and a tragic accident during a testing that puts Hank in some serious hot water.
This film was the final directorial assignment of Tony Richardson, who won two Oscars back in 1964 for producing and directing Tom Jones and shows that he hasn't forgotten how to mount more intimate dramas, His work here is more on par with some of his lesser known work like A Taste of Honey and The Hotel New Hampshire. He does do an admirable job of establishing the tightly knit military base atmosphere where there isn't a lot of privacy and conformity is assumed. Richardson establishes immediately that conformity is just not a word in Carly's vocabulary...watch her in that opening scene where she is half nude on the beach putting on a show for the soldiers in the helicopter or the disgust on her face as she's in the car on the way to their new base. This is the work of a gifted director working with a perfect marriage of actress and character.
And yes, Jessica Lange is really the show here. Second only to Meryl Streep as probably our greatest living actress, who breathes life into this endlessly mesmerizing central character who is part Marilyn Monroe, part Vivien Leigh, and part Elizabeth Taylor, creating a character of raw sexuality and bristling vulnerability that takes a rather ordinary story and makes it seem so much more special than it really is. It should be noted that this film had a troubled history as the final project at Orion Pictures. The film was shot in 1991, but because of the troubles at Orion, got shelved, It finally found life in theaters in 1994 and Lange was awarded her second Oscar, the first for Outstanding Lead Actress.
Tommy Lee Jones is never blown off the screen by Lange, being everything that Hank needs to be for Carly...watching his progression of being fascinated by Carly to being disgusted by her was an acting class in itself. Love when he scoops her up in his arms off a dance floor and throws her into a pool. Powers Boothe manages to generate chemistry with Lange too and mentioned must also be made of future sexpot Amy Locane, playing Lange's older daughter. The story gets a little fuzzy at the middle of the second act and seems to forget about Carly's bipolar disorder, but Lange keeps this movie worth investing in.
A bold, sex-on-legs performance by Jessica Lange that won her a second Oscar anchors a slightly messy melodrama called Blue Sky.
Lange gives a brassy and riveting performance as Carly Marshall, the wife of Major Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones), a career army man who is involved in military nuclear testing. Marshall has recently been transferred to another base for the third time in recent history and a lot of it has to do with Carly. See, Carly suffers from bipolar personality, but it was the 1960's and no one knew what bipolar was back then. During her manic phases, Carly's already in-your-face sexuality goes into serious overdrive, throwing herself at anyone in pants, which simultaneous aggravates and fascinates Hank. There's a part of Hank that likes the fact that other men are drawn to his wife, but things reach a fever pitch when Carly gets too close to Hank's new commanding officer (the late Powers Boothe) and a tragic accident during a testing that puts Hank in some serious hot water.
This film was the final directorial assignment of Tony Richardson, who won two Oscars back in 1964 for producing and directing Tom Jones and shows that he hasn't forgotten how to mount more intimate dramas, His work here is more on par with some of his lesser known work like A Taste of Honey and The Hotel New Hampshire. He does do an admirable job of establishing the tightly knit military base atmosphere where there isn't a lot of privacy and conformity is assumed. Richardson establishes immediately that conformity is just not a word in Carly's vocabulary...watch her in that opening scene where she is half nude on the beach putting on a show for the soldiers in the helicopter or the disgust on her face as she's in the car on the way to their new base. This is the work of a gifted director working with a perfect marriage of actress and character.
And yes, Jessica Lange is really the show here. Second only to Meryl Streep as probably our greatest living actress, who breathes life into this endlessly mesmerizing central character who is part Marilyn Monroe, part Vivien Leigh, and part Elizabeth Taylor, creating a character of raw sexuality and bristling vulnerability that takes a rather ordinary story and makes it seem so much more special than it really is. It should be noted that this film had a troubled history as the final project at Orion Pictures. The film was shot in 1991, but because of the troubles at Orion, got shelved, It finally found life in theaters in 1994 and Lange was awarded her second Oscar, the first for Outstanding Lead Actress.
Tommy Lee Jones is never blown off the screen by Lange, being everything that Hank needs to be for Carly...watching his progression of being fascinated by Carly to being disgusted by her was an acting class in itself. Love when he scoops her up in his arms off a dance floor and throws her into a pool. Powers Boothe manages to generate chemistry with Lange too and mentioned must also be made of future sexpot Amy Locane, playing Lange's older daughter. The story gets a little fuzzy at the middle of the second act and seems to forget about Carly's bipolar disorder, but Lange keeps this movie worth investing in.