“A Molotov cocktail of madness, sanity and genius.” That is one description of the great Broadway and cabaret entertainer Elaine Stritch in Chiemi Karasawa’s acutely intimate documentary portrait, “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.”
A Film by Chiemi Karasawa. © 2013 Isotope Films All Rights Reserved Site Design: Medium Control.
It was filmed as Ms. Stritch was preparing her cabaret show “Elaine Stritch Singin’ Sondheim .. One Song at a Time,” while coping with diabetes and worsening memory loss. Her fierce lust for life mirrors Dylan Thomas’s dictum “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.”
Free spongebob episodes all seasons. Ms. Stritch, now 89, is one of the ultimate examples of a classic Hollywood type: the brassy, hard-boiled dame who is never at a loss for a wisecrack. The disparity between the blazing stage performer with the glare of a lion on the prowl and the frail, fearful old woman seen in the hospital after a medical crisis could hardly be greater.
The movie invites you to reflect on questions that Ms. Stritch asks herself frequently: Who am I when I am off the stage? Without an audience, do I even exist?
She admits that the kind of love an audience gives her is what she needs the most and couldn’t get any other way. She recalls her happy marriage to the actor John Bay, who died of brain cancer in 1982. She loved being married and in love, she says, but never found it again.
Ms. Stritch is an extremely hard worker and a perfectionist whose inability to remember song lyrics she once knew by heart is painful to watch. But her insistence on involving an audience in her struggle to retrieve a word is brave and even inspiring. The force of her will carries her through.
On one level, “Shoot Me” is a conventional celebrity profile, filled with loving testimonials from the likes of Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey and George C. Wolfe. Vintage photographs reveal the young Ms. Stritch as a blond, long-legged bombshell.
But this is not a standard biography. Not repeated in the film are the stories she told in “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” her one-woman Broadway show in 2002. Noël Coward, in whose musical “Sail Away” she scaled the heights, is barely mentioned, and her tales of the glamorous London high life are omitted. “Shoot Me” is primarily a here-and-now study of an indomitable performer in her twilight years as she is about to leave New York to live in Michigan, where she grew up.
In the words of Cherry Jones in the film, Ms. Stritch is “a conduit to another time that really was a golden age.” In another scene, Ms. Stritch’s friend James Gandolfini, speculates that if they both were 35 they might have had “a torrid love affair that would have ended very badly.”
There are pictures of Ms. Stritch with John F. Kennedy, taken years before he became president. The producer Hal Prince describes Ms. Stritch as someone with “the guts of a jailbird.” But, he adds, “the convent girl is still there, always.”
On a deeper level, “Shoot Me” is an unflinchingly honest examination of a woman who is aware that the end is approaching. Always in the background are two continuing challenges. Her fluctuating blood sugar requires frequent monitoring. And, as a recovering alcoholic, Ms. Stritch, after more than two decades of sobriety, decides to allow herself one drink a day, usually a cosmopolitan. She seems to be abiding by her rule, though it can’t be easy.
Drinking is what scares her the most, she says, “because it’s such a warm, inviting escape.”
There are wonderful scenes of Ms. Stritch working with Rob Bowman, her pianist and musical director, who is as patient and devoted a musical colleague as any singer could hope for. Even when the lyrics elude Ms. Stritch, her tough, self-mocking rendition of “I Feel Pretty” and her ferocious, been-there-done-that “I’m Still Here” are riveting. Whether ambling around New York City in her signature outfit — a white shirt, black tights and a hat — or socking out a show tune from the stage, she is totally present, always “on.”
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me | |
---|---|
Directed by | Chiemi Karasawa |
Produced by | Chiemi Karasawa Elizabeth Hemmerdinger |
Starring | Elaine Stritch |
Music by | Kristopher Bowers |
Cinematography | Shane Sigler Joshua Z. Weinstein Rod Lamborn |
Edited by | Kjerstin Rossi Pax Wassermann |
Distributed by | Sundance Selects |
| |
81 minutes | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $288,896[1] |
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me is a 2013 documentary film directed by Chiemi Karasawa about the life and career of Elaine Stritch.[2]Alec Baldwin and Broadway producer Cheryl Wiesenfeld served as executive producers on the film. It opened in theaters on 21 February 2014,[2] shortly before Stritch's death in July 2014.[3]
Karasawa and crew began following Stritch in 2011, she was 86 at the time.[4]
Subjects[edit]
In addition to Stritch, several of her close friends and collaborators were featured in the film:
- Rob Bowman
- Julie Keyes
The film was also dedicated to the memory of Gandolfini, who died before it was released.[5]
Release[edit]
The film had limited release in US theaters on 21 February 2014.[2]
It has been released to video on demand[6] and was later available on Netflix. [7]
Reception[edit]
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me holds a 98% rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 53 reviews. The critical consensus reads: 'Brutally honest and utterly compelling, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me offers a riveting, vanity-free portrait of its legendary subject while offering a few essential truths about the human condition.'[8]
Jake Coyle of The Associated Press called it 'an irresistibly entertaining documentary that captures Stritch during what she unsentimentally calls 'almost post-time.' After seven decades performing in New York — on Broadway, in countless cabaret nights at the Cafe Carlyle — Stritch's enormous energy has been knocked by the increasing years, diabetes, and surgeries on her hip and eyes. But Shoot Me, made over the last few years, is a document not of Stritch's dwindling, but of her feisty persistence.'[9]
References[edit]
- ^'Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me'. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
Domestic Total as of Apr. 13, 2014
- ^ abcHolden, Stephen (20 February 2014). 'Recalling Velvet, Pretzels and Beer, She's Still Here'. The New York Times. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
- ^Weber, Bruce (18 July 2014). 'Elaine Stritch, Broadway's Enduring Dame, Dies at 89'. The New York Times. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
- ^'Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me'. Rolling Stone. February 21, 2014.
- ^'James Gandolfini died of cardiac arrest'. News24. Associated Press. June 20, 2013.
- ^Hetrick, Adam (17 March 2014). ''Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me' Documentary Now Available On Demand'. Playbill.com. Archived from the original on 18 March 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
- ^Bernstein, Paula (25 July 2014). '8 New Documentaries Streaming on Netflix Now: 'Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me,' 'Gideon's Army' and More'. Indiewire. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
- ^'Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me'. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
- ^Coyle, Jake (26 March 2014). 'Movie review: 'Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me''. Associated Press. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
External links[edit]
- Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me on IMDb
- Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me at Rotten Tomatoes
- Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me at AllMovie
- Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me trailer on YouTube
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