Word: filming
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...certain kind of wife. I realized she tried for so long to make me happy, and when she couldn't and tried to talk to me, I was too wrapped up to listen." If Hoffman were still the glib hustler of the early part of the film, this self-recriminating speech would be a jolt-a screenwriter's ruse. But Hoffman's performance has so carefully delineated the alterations in Ted that his generous confession of past sins seems completely natural...
...marriage and her efforts to recover from it, Streep painfully sheds layer after layer of the character's past. In a few minutes, she creates an entire life onscreen: the loving bride, the defeated, self-loathing wife and, at last, an independent woman. It is a devastating film-within-a-film-one that rocks not only the audience but also the ex-husband, who watches in the courtroom...
Perhaps some moviegoers will side with either Ted or Joanna after the trial, but most probably will not. Many are likely to identify most readily with the film's principal supporting character, Margaret, a divorced neighbor, played superbly by Jane Alexander. Margaret begins by encouraging Joanna's decision to walk out, later becomes a confidante of Ted's and ends up emotionally drained, torn by both on the witness stand. After the judge has delivered his verdict, it is still difficult for the audience, as well as Joanna, Ted and Margaret, to decide who has really...
Benton gives Kramer vs. Kramer its lifelike quality by clearing away the artifice that most American film makers use to shape human experience into so-called entertainment. His screenplay strips away unnecessary detail and background from Gorman's novel; his direction concentrates on the characters' feelings above all else. Music is never used to heighten a scene, and the camera moves only when the actors' wanderings force it to do so. Benton's focus is so tight that Kramer shows a far more domestic and grittier view of Manhattan than the Allen and Mazursky films...
...directed only two previous movies, Bad Company (an antic western with Jeff Bridges) and The Late Show (an eccentric detective story with Art Carney and Lily Tomlin), Benton's career stretches back over a decade. With his longtime writing partner, David Newman, he co-authored the most influential film script of the '60s, Bonnie and Clyde, which, like Kramer, leavened conflict with smart wit. He and Newman also collaborated on such diverse '70s movies as What's Up Doc?and Superman. Benton's crisp pictorial style, which has become more pronounced with each film...