Which movie mom do you wish you wish was yours?
My mother would have preferred a mother more like Beulah Bondi in It’s a Wonderful Life.
My daughters would have preferred a mother more like Susan Sarandon in Little Women or Natasha Richardson in The Parent Trap.
Much as I love Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas and Claudia McNeil in Raisin in the Sun, I would have preferred a mother more like Frances McDormand in Almost Famous or like Marcia Gay Harden in Whip It than the one I had and loved and was more like Debbie Reynolds in Albert Brooks’ Mother.
I’ve been reading Richard Corliss’ Mom in the Movies, a sprightly survey of cinemamas, as though it were a catalogue of mail-order moms. Sigourney Weaver in Aliens? That would be empowering. Barbara Harris or Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday? That would raise the empathy quotient. The cinemamas that move me most are the self-sacrificing Stanwyck in Stella Dallas and Juanita Moore in Imitation of Life, both of whom illustrate the Olive Higgins Prouty Principle (she wrote Stella Dallas) that:
My mother would have preferred a mother more like Beulah Bondi in It’s a Wonderful Life.
My daughters would have preferred a mother more like Susan Sarandon in Little Women or Natasha Richardson in The Parent Trap.
Much as I love Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas and Claudia McNeil in Raisin in the Sun, I would have preferred a mother more like Frances McDormand in Almost Famous or like Marcia Gay Harden in Whip It than the one I had and loved and was more like Debbie Reynolds in Albert Brooks’ Mother.
I’ve been reading Richard Corliss’ Mom in the Movies, a sprightly survey of cinemamas, as though it were a catalogue of mail-order moms. Sigourney Weaver in Aliens? That would be empowering. Barbara Harris or Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday? That would raise the empathy quotient. The cinemamas that move me met are the self-sacrificing Stanwyck in Stella Dallas and Juanita Moore in Imitation of Life, both of whom illustrate the Olive Higgins Prouty Rule (Prouty wrote Stella Dallas ) that: Foster mothers are healthier, more helpful figures than biological moms.
This is also the the implicit message in To Each His Own (1946), with Olivia de Havilland as the unwed mother who ultimately gives up her son to friends of hers. Dare you to watch the end of the 1959 Imitation of Life or To Each His Own without going through an entire Kleenex box.
Which movie mom would you choose for your own? Why?
Reflections on Richard Corliss’ sprightly survey of cinemamas, “Mom in the Movies”… http://t.co/1Hma85Q3nc
Patricia Clarkson from EASY A. No explanation needed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTzTcic-1qs
I love both Glenn Close in Hill’s “The World According to Garp” and Rosalind Russell in LeRoy’s “Gypsy” – both are hugely recognizable mothers – although I wouldn’t want either for my own. So I’ll go with sweet Beulah Bondi in McCarey’s “Make Way for Tomorrow,” the indefatigable Barbara Stanwyck in Wellman’s “So Big!” or Roz, so wonderful in Curtiz’s “Roughly Speaking.”
I would want Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side to be my movie mamma. She was tough but loving and we would learn much from each other.
Gena Rowlands in “Early Frost”
Mary McDonnell in Donnie Darko //@CarrieRickey Which movie mom do you wish you wish was yours? http://t.co/Xxo7RUlK9o
RT @CarrieRickey: Reflections on Richard Corliss’ sprightly survey of cinemamas, “Mom in the Movies”… http://t.co/1Hma85Q3nc
For @judithhelfand this is one helluva Mother’s Day, one with two new releases: http://t.co/2IeFX1VEgV
RT @CarrieRickey: For @judithhelfand this is one helluva Mother’s Day, one with two new releases: http://t.co/2IeFX1VEgV
I thought only teenagers participated in these kinds of discussions. Movies are pretend, it’s hard to spin out the fantasy to the level where I would wish my mother came out of one.
My choice would be Beulah Bondi. Having seen her in many of her rolls; and knowing a little bit about her a person; how could I choose anyone else. She was the quintessential mother figure.