OVER-40 ACTORS STILL FIGHTING AGEISM THAT STYMIED JUDY GARLAND
Les acteurs de plus de 40 ans victimes de la discrimination liée à l'âge déjà subie à l'époque par Judy Garland (to stymie entraver, faire obstacle à)
Inoubliable en Bridget Jones, show-woman dans Chicago, l’actrice Renée Zellweger est un véritable caméléon à l’écran. Son palmarès impressionnant lui a d’ailleurs valu de nombreuses récompenses et, en 2007, elle devient même l’actrice la mieux payée au monde. Malgré sa notoriété, comme de nombreuses actrices de plus de quarante ans à Hollywood, elle a connu une traversée du désert professionnelle. Aujourd’hui, elle revient dans Judy, incarnant un rôle qui lui colle à la peau : les derniers mois de la vie de la star Judy Garland, considérée comme l’une des plus grandes actrices de tous les temps.
In 1962, Judy Garland received an Oscar nomination for her role in Judgment at Nuremberg and regarded it as an auspicious restart for her career. She had been thrown into the deep end of Hollywood’s unforgiving waters as a child actor, and since her early success, every aspect of her life had been marred by desperate attempts to keep her head above water.
1. to regard considérer / auspicious prometteur / to be thrown into/in at the deep end être mis tout de suite dans le bain / early précoce / to mar entacher, gâcher / attempt tentative, effort. 2. Unsuccessful marriages to other struggling artists, an addiction to drugs that was spurred on by abusive producers and, above all, her constant anxiety to control her appearance – all these problems were symptoms of her toxic relationship with Hollywood. “Isn’t this pretty good for somebody Hollywood thought as too old, too fat and too undependable to offer job?” she wrote. Judy, the new film starring Renée Zellweger, recounts the sad ending that she was heading for instead.
MAKING UP FOR THE PAST?
3. Judy joins the list of Hollywood biopics that carry an air of atonement, in which the misfortunes of earlier generations of stars who were cast away from the industry – largely due to their age – are memorialised and sentimentalised. Films such as The Artist and Film Stars
2. to struggle éprouver des difficultés / to be spurred on by être déclenché par/dû à / above all avant tout / pretty ici, plutôt / undependable imprévisible, sur qui on ne peut pas compter / starring avec dans le rôle principal (to star jouer le rôle principal) / to recount relater / to be heading for ici, être destiné à / instead à la place.
3. to join ici, s'ajouter à / biopic film biographique / to carry ici, comporter / air ici, dimension / atonement réparation, repentance / misfortune malheur / to be cast away être évincé / largely en grande partie / such as tel(s) que /
Don’t Die in Liverpool have an admirable goal: celebrating the lives of performers who were callously underappreciated toward the end of their careers. But it is becoming more and more difficult to take away a positive message when Hollywood itself draws attention to how much Hollywood hasn’t changed.
4. The star of Judy is herself re-emerging from a hiatus: one that was caused by the same maladies afflicting old Hollywood that the movie depicts. Zellweger retreated from acting after she entered Hollywood’s dead zone for women aged 40 or over. She borrows from a familiar sense of disenchantment with the profession when she tries to give life to Garland’s emotional state at the end of her life. In interviews for the movie, Zellweger says she is ready for the roles that will embody her matu
performer ici, acteur / callously sans merci / to take, took, taken away dégager, retenir / to draw, drew, drawn attention to attirer l'attention sur; ici, rappeler. 4. hiatus interruption, période d’inactivité / to be caused by être provoqué/engendré/dû à / malady mal / to afflict affliger; ici, toucher, frapper, concerner / to depict dépeindre, décrire, illustrer / to retreat from se retirer de, cesser, arrêter / to borrow from emprunter/ici, s'inspirer de / sense sentiment / to embody incarner, illustrer /
rity. Whether the studios have the same plans remains to be seen.
5. Some big-screen veterans still attract an enthusiastic audience. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Bill Nighy, which explored the lives of retired Brits living in an Indian hotel, exceeded expectations by grossing more than $130m worldwide. Book Club put the same trust in the box-office power of older American actors, including Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton and Candice Bergen. Both movies secured sequels and softened the industry’s attitude towards taking risks with older actors.
6. But for every hard-earned movie project that serves the age demographic well by telling a
whether (quant à savoir) si (oui ou non) / plan projet / to remain rester.
5. big-screen (du) grand écran/cinéma / veteran ici, acteur (de talent) âgé / audience public, spectateurs / The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Indian Palace / to explore étudier; ici, dépeindre / retired à la retraite / Brit Britannique / expectation attente / to gross rapporter (recette brute) / worldwide dans le monde / to put, put, put ici, placer / trust confiance, foi / both les deux / to secure assurer / sequel suite / to soften adoucir, modérer.
6. hard-earned durement acquis / to serve représenter, défendre la cause de / age demographic tranche d'âge (ici, acteurs plus âgés) / complicated story about old age, Hollywood churns out two Schwarzenegger movies with tag lines like, “Retirement is for sissies”. There are obviously Hollywood pitch meetings reserved for the older male action stars of the 80s. Twelve of the 15 highest-grossing movies of that decade have been remade, and most of them are produced to mask the age of their stars. Rambo 5, Terminator 6, Die Hard 5, Indiana Jones 5 and now the second Top Gun, all ride the new American myth of super-agers.
ERASING OR EMBRACING AGE
7. To pull this off, Hollywood encourages bizarre anti-ageing clinics even as it abandons the female stars of the 80s, pairing their former male costars with much younger on-screen love interests. And now the industry has added a new weapon to its digital arsenal: de-ageing technology. Advocates believe that VFX technology to churn out produire / tag line slogan / sissy mauviette / obviously ici, visiblement / pitch (de) promotion / decade décennie / to ride, rode, ridden surfer sur, profiter de. 7. to pull sth off réussir qch / even as alors même que / to pair associer, coupler / former ancien / love interest objet de l'affection de qn / weapon arme, outil / digital numérique / advocate défenseur, partisan / VFX = Visual Effects / to be likely to être probable que / could help ameliorate the representation problem. But it’s more likely that de-ageing technology help Hollywood avoid the problem of finding roles for older stars by erasing signs of age as opposed to embracing them.
8. In the past, small- to mid-budget projects have been the most welcoming to older stars. Many darlings of the screen who hit their peak in the 1940s, 50s and the 60s bid their adieu delivering memorable performances in this subgenre. Among them were Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda playing ageing parents in On Golden Pond, John Wayne as an out-of-time gunslinger in The Shootist, and Julie Christie as a woman struggling with memory loss in Away from Her. More recent examples – Robert Redford in The Old Man and the Gun and Clint Eastwood in The Mule – underwhelmed artistically and commercially.
9. Perhaps Marlon Brando was the most accurate predictor of the future. Toward the end of his career, he had come to terms with Hollywood’s commodification of youth and vitality. He sought the help of early adopters of VFX technology to create an animated 3D version of his face, believing that the studios would, after his death, want to keep a young Brando alive on the screen. “Maybe this is the swan song for all of us,” he said, even though it’s not real and “inside a computer”. Today, Hollywood’s fascination with de-ageing technology seems to affirm Brando’s bleak premonition, as it continues to insist older actors surrender to its obsession with youth. to avoid éviter, contourner / to erase effacer, gommer / as opposed to au lieu de / to embrace accepter.
8. mid- moyen / to hit, hit, hit one's peak ici, atteindre le sommet de sa gloire / to bid, bade, bidden ici, faire / to deliver ici, offrir / performance interprétation / among(st) parmi / On Golden Pond La Maison du lac / out-of-time sur le déclin / gunslinger flingueur / The Shootist Le Dernier des géants / Away from Her Loin d'elle / to underwhelm décevoir.
9. accurate juste / predictor prévisionniste, visionnaire / to come, came, come to terms with se faire à, accepter / commodification marchandisation / to seek, sought, sought (re)chercher, solliciter / early adopter (mktg) adopteur précoce / swan song chant du cygne (fig.) / even though même si / to seem sembler / bleak pessimiste / [they] surrender to its obssession with youth [ils] se retirent/cèdent leur place à la nouvelle génération (d'acteurs).