Greatest Judy Davis performance

One of the greatest actresses of the last fifty years, the Queen of Brick-Red Lipstick has won three Emmys, a Golden Globe, and twice been nominated for an Oscar (many people think she deserved to win both times and was robbed). Which do you think has showcased her finest performance?

• Joe Queenan referred to Husbands & Wives as Husbands & Wives: First Blood. I always think of him when I see a a reference to that movie.

• She was miscast as Adela Quested in A PASSAGE TO INDIA (Adela is supposed to be pretty spineless and bossed around by the other women of the Raj--and one thing Judy davis is not is spineless), and yet even so she managed to turn it into a tour de force. She''s been great in every thing she;''s ever done, but that''s my favorite performance she ever did. That final shot where she''s finished reading Dr. Aziz''s letter and just staring into the rain is stunning.

• My "other" was Where Angels Fear to Tread

• It figures all the fags would vote her Judy Garland movie #1.

• She''s very good in Impromptu aqs well. %0D\ But Husbands and Wives remains, for me, the definitive Judy.

• The Judy Garland TV film gave her the best role of her career and she hit it way out of the park. Even Streep said that no one was going to give a better performance that Davis did in this case.%0D\ %0D\ When she''s properly challenged by a role, she can be brilliant. But when she does crap (like ABSOLUTE POWER), she defaults to a kind of campy overacting that is almost embarrassing.

• I wish High Tide would come out on DVD. I haven''t seen it since it came out and recall she was superb in it.%0D\ %0D\ There''s another film from early in her career called Winter of Our Dreams with Bryan Brown that I recall was very good too.

• Jane Fonda was the Woody''s first choice for the part in Husbands and Wives (after Mia Farrow took the other role).\ \ Talks broke down between the two when Woody insisted that Jane change her hairstyle. She refused, and Judy was cast instead.

• She was fabulous in that movie she did about Sante Kimes -- Son of a Grifter? Or was that the inferior one with Mary Tyler Moore? Whatever the title, her Sante Kimes was delicious.

• They just showed the Judy Garland movie on Lifetime this morning but I didn''t notice until it was too late to record it. And it isn''t going to repeat later today, darn. I''ve wanted to add it to my collection for years. I have the "Little Thing Called Murder" tv movie and it''s good too, but Garland was her ultimate role.

• Or was that A Little Thing Called Murder? (I''m obviously posting furiously and furtively from work and can''t check IMDB.)

  R9

• Yes R11, it''s a Little Thing Called Murder.

• Not only Srreep, but many others consider Davis'' Judy Garland the greatest performance ever given by an actress. After seeing just the single scene of her with the CBS tv execs at the conference table, I have to agree.

• Tammy Blanchard was also great as teenage Judy. They both won Emmys, Blanchard won in the supporting category.

• Children of the Revolution was great...

• I believe Streep said Davis as Garland was the "greatest performance ever on film".

• Here''s the trailer for her magnificent cinematic comeback in EYE OF THE STORM, with Charlotte Rampling as her Mommie Dearest. \ \ Can''t fucking wait!

  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeimrz_the-eye-of-the-storm-trailer_shortfilms

• Judy Davis'' look of the 90s is iconic in cinematic history.\ \ The medusa hair, red eyes, the black red lips, the ivory skin... everything just free, wild and brilliant. \ \ The High Priestess of generation X film. Love this film - Davis and Weller as ''the indie Tracy and Hepburn''.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRhC8O3hjI

• I love her in HIGH TIDE. She''s really great in it. The kid who played her daughter is now a big-time TV star in Australia.

• Oh, I thought this was about Judge Judy!

• I loved her in "Celebrity"

• "consider Davis'' Judy Garland the greatest performance ever given by an actress"%0D\ %0D\ Pshaw.%0D\ %0D\ It was brilliant, but come on. She was too old and too manic for the early scenes surrounding MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. %0D\ %0D\ It was more a genius act of mimicry than the real deal. In fact, Judy Garland in I COULD GO ON SINGING is as good as Judy Davis in this.

  about a hundred other actresses in film history

• Tammy Blanchard should have played Judy up through the Meet Me In St. Louis years.

• Impromptu is here greatest part, where she played George Sand to Hugh Grant''s Chopin. She blew him offstage, as well as the hammy Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.%0D\ %0D\ Only Emma Thompson matched her in commitment to her character.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impromptu_(1991_film)

  Stephen Sondheim

• Dorothy in a Star Is Born

  Lysa

• fuck her

• r26 - George Sluizer.

• Davis played Hedda Gabler on stage in Australia many years ago and it was amazing. Cate Blanchett did it three or four years ago. Not many actors in the world can go up against Blanchett, but her Hedda didn't even approach that of Davis. Davis played one crucial scene with her back to the audience for several minutes, yet you could tell what she was feeling every second of it through gestures like a flick of the head, a tensing of the muscles or an ominous stillness. She was also a sensational, tubercular Fool in King Lear. I agree with R6 that she can be bad in a big way too, but she's one actor where I suspect wilfulness rather than lack of range. If she doesn't like what she's asked to do, watch out. R7 is right about Winter of our Dreams. A really beautiful performance - achingly vulnerable. Putting Judy Davis opposite Bryan Brown was surely a casting director's joke, though. I never saw her at NIDA, but of everything she's ever done I'd most like to have seen the Juliet she gave there - opposite Mel Gibson. More than the production, I'd like to have been a fly on the wall at rehearsals, to see her reaction as each of his acting choices revealed itself. It could have been that experience that unhinged him.

• I saw Blanchett''s Hedda and she was mediocre at best. To be fair, the whole production was abominable.%0D\ %0D\ When she came last year in STREETCAR, I decided not to go based on that Hedda. I could kick myself.%0D\ %0D\ I would loved to have seen Davis as Hedda - she was born for that role. That Fool in LEAR sounds fascinating as well. I just wish Davis would some to NY in a play.

• Awkward!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4iachOVzQI

• She hasn''t acted onstage even in Sydney for years, R29. She directed one or two things but then nothing. I agree she was born to play Hedda. A perfect combination of anxiety and scariness. I''m greatly looking forward to The Eye of the Storm. Charlotte Rampling is inspired casting as Davis''s mother.\ \ Her Fool was pale-faced, androgynous, frail (lots of clothes, all too big), had an awful, shivering cough even in the first scene, and a take-no-prisoners attitude that might easily be born of terminal illness. You just knew s/he wasn''t going to survive the storm on the heath for long. I have no recollection of who played Lear, or anyone else. (Her Cordelia in the same production, by contrast, was declamatory, static and just plain awful. It''s a documented fact she didn''t want to play the part - and by God, she didn''t.)

• Late amendment - Davis is listed to play Arkadina in The Seagull next June at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. Just announced today.

  R31

• Her Sante Kimes was awful. Mary Tyler Moore at least gave the woman depth, so you could understand how people could be drawn into her web. Davis played the role at one speed; manic. But to be fair, the whole production was shit. %0D\ %0D\ It is her "Plenty".

• She was in her element in High Tide. Get this movie, even if its on faded VHS. She burns through.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pGOGdREl6I

• I''m waiting for Judy to do a movie with Cate so she can obliterate her.

• And she, probably, would.

• Judy should play Cate''s mother. Or her much older, plainer lesbian sister.

• Judy would also fuck up Streep on screen. She''d fuck up all comers.

• I remember R24!\ \ "Stupid rain. Stupid, stupid rain."

• I''m looking forward to Eye of the Storm. She and Geoffrey Rush plays sibs with Charlotte Rampling as their mother. Trailer:

  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeimrz_the-eye-of-the-storm-trailer_shortfilms

• Another vote for Impromptu.

• Naked Lunch.

• r41...

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGkif89QCtw

• I voted for Husbands and Wives for the hedgehog scene, but love her in Naked Lunch and particularly The Ref. She''s blisteringly funny in that.

• I''d love to see Rush and Davis together again. They were great in [italic]Children of the Revolution[/italic].

• The New Age.

• LOVE her.

• Another vote for "The Ref" She and Kevin Spacey are brilliant.

• She was fabulous in the Coens'' BARTON FINK.

• Judy''s face looks a little ''pulled back'' in that trailer.

  Oh, Jude, not you

• She out-acted Spacey, which is why he didn''t want her for a rematch in American Beauty.

• I can''t believe anyone who''s seen High Tide wouldn''t vote for that.%0D\ Brilliant!

• I was devastated to see a picture of Streep as Thatcher this week. If only Judy was playing the gorgon.

• I''m always amazed at people bring suckered by this phony''s performances. I have yet to see her in anything in which I have not been acutely aware of the gears working, the mind counting beats, and the ego overriding taste. She has great problems with connecting with other actors, with timing, with consistency, and with plain intelligence in conveying the interior life of her characters. And I''m not that hard to please. It''s that she''s that bad. \ \ I can only assume she has made it by perfecting a form of physical announcement, a kind of being able to enforce her presence on viewers in a way that fools them they are seeing something that simply isn''t there. Her conviction is enough - never mind that it''s all wrong. And it''s only gotten worse, really. What began as simply "off" in "My Brilliant Career" and "Passage to India" became just about monstrous in "Husbands and Wives" and "Serving in Silence."

• Interesting analysis, R54.

  Of course, I completely disagree with it.

• My favourite actress! \ \ She brilliantly plays any role, even the littlest!\ \ Especially love: "Impromptu" (my favourite), "Gaudi Afternoon", "Life with Judy Garland", "The Echo of Thunder", "High Tide", "A Cooler Climate", "The \ Ref", "My Brilliant Career", "Swimming Upstream", "A Clean Escape", "The Starter Wife", "A Little Thing Called Murder"... \ \ Hello from Ukraine))

• She was stellar in Husbands and Wives. Her character was teetering between hysteria, desperation, longing, and release. It was exhilarating to watch.

• I liked her in The Sally Field TV Movie.

• Please quit reviving this thread about an absurdly overrated actress. Someone seems to have spent the day flushing out old threads, as if the DL needed a high colonic to make visible the undigested and forgotten lumps still caught unseen in the system. Unfortunately, the result of this process is to serve them back to us on the table. Blech.

• Who are you to tell us what we can and cannot do, R59?

• Thanks for some of these recommendations. Both High Tide and My Brilliant Career are currently available on Netflix instant watch, as well as a few others.

• "Impromptu" is one of my favorite films of all times, and certainly the funniest historical bio I''ve ever seen. Its one flaw is that, surprise surprise, she blows Hugh Grant so completely off the screen, so their love affair seems a bit of a mismatch. %0D\ %0D\ My second favorite film of hers is "The Ref", where she was perfectly matched with Kevin Spacey. They made the endless marital bickering hilariously awful, and IMHO they ought to do "Who''s Afraid of Virginia Woolf" together. I wonder if they''d be willing to work together again?

• r59, just hold still for a second, and we''ll help you extract that enormous pole there from your ass...

• The American Ham Council recognized her performance in the that Judy Garland movie by awarding her a truckload of pork loins.

• I especially liked her impression of Agnes Moorehead singing "The Trolley Song." She caught some of the pathos of Judy Garland but none of the joi de vivre.

• Naked Lunch ! Hello!!! The best movie she''s ever been in.

• R65 made me spit my drink over the keyboard.

• Her performance in "Naked Lunch" was perfect.%0D

• Are Muslims and Orthodox Jews prohibited from watching Judy Davis performances? Or is ham okay in moderation?

• I voted for "My Brilliant Career." I haven''t seen that in so long. Gotta Netflix it now that I''ve been reminded!

• She swash greeatt in meet me in shaint louie

• I''m with r15 and r45. Children of the Revolution is one of those films that has never gotten proper accolades. Brilliant screenplay.

  RWOAC

• Jane Fonda was the original choice for the Sally character in Husbands and Wives. After talks broke down between Fonda and Woody Allen, he sent the script to Judy Davis, choice number 2

• Her best, most natural performance was her irritated look when Jack Palance, before announcing the winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, said that four of the five nominees were from England and the fifth one was from Brooklyn. I guess no one told him that Judy Davis is Australian.

• R59 = Barbra Streisand

• R59 = Does not recognize the name "Judy Davis" but as long as she is not associated with hurting puppies or gay sex, she has a right to represented on the new DL!

• Just the hurting puppies part.

• greatest performance is occurring now in "The Seagull" at the Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney, Australia. Judy Davis'' Arkadina is simply magnificent!

  anonymous

• She is continually brilliant. The greatest living actress.

• Judy Davis won THREE out of the four major critics awards for Husbands and Wives. But she lost the Oscar to Marisa Tomei Jane Fonda was originally going to play that part, but she and Woody Allen disagreed on the costume designs for the character.

• I was never able to make it through that Judy Garland impersonation of hers. Scenes of a 50 yr old Davis hanging on to that trolley playing a 22 yr old Garland were ludicrous beyond words.

• I loved her in "Where Angels Fear to Tread".

• I think I heard somewhere that Jane Fonda was offered the "Husbands and Wives" part first. Hmmm..wonder where I heard that? I love "The Ref"--watch it every Christmas. I felt bad for her in "The Starter Wife", having to play sidekick to Debra Messing on a basic cable show.

• [quote] I think I heard somewhere that Jane Fonda was offered the "Husbands and Wives" part first. It is in every Woody Allen book

• She didn't deserve an oscar for Husbands and Wives (frankly, history will reveal - it has already begun to reveal - that Marisa Tomei actually deserved her oscar for My Cousin Vinnie, a performance egregiously undervalued by so many fools for one simple shortsighted reason: it's comic). She certainly didn't deserve the oscar for Passage to India. She deserved it - and, of course, wasn't even nominated - for My Brilliant Career.

• probably one of the meanest people in showbiz- there is a reason she doesn't work a lot anymore- Seriously horrific to colleagues

• [quote] She didn't deserve an oscar for Husbands and Wives National Society of Film Critics, National Board of Review and LA Film Critics disagree with you awarding her Best Supporting Actress of the year.

• "Sybylla is treated as if she were a precursor of the new woman: a model of the woman who resists conventional blandishments. The 23 year-old Judy Davis (in her first major screen role) is memorable: she suggests a blooming, broad-faced version of Katharine Hepburn's tomboy Jo in LITTLE WOMEN." Pauline Kael's review of My Brilliant Career

• Apparently Jane Fonda was the first choice for her part in Husbands & Wives.

  Day%20Ja%20Voo

• Jane Fonda would have beaten Marisa Tomei for the Oscar without breaking a sweat.

• Who was she in The Helen Camembert Show? All I remember was Glenn Close from the commercials, and frankly couldn't bear the idea of watching it, so haven't the vaguest idea.

• She played Glenn Close lesbian lover and won an Emmy (her first) for playing the part.

• It's really a shame that Fonda has never done a Woody Allen movie. I think she would have been very good in Husbands and Wives. While I love Davis, I am not a fan of that performance. I hold the very unpopular belief about that movie that it was stolen by Juliette Lewis.

• [quote]I was never able to make it through that Judy Garland impersonation of hers. Scenes of a 50 yr old Davis hanging on to that trolley playing a 22 yr old Garland were ludicrous beyond words. That was the second most embarrassing thing I've ever seen. The actress playing Ethel looked younger than her.

• I can't help feel there's an emperor's new clothes situation going on here because I thought she was AWFUL as Judy Garland. Too old, No physical resemblance, Punchy Players do her voice better. Tammy Blanchard was perfect though.

  R94

• The Garland movie was perfect except for one thing - they transitioned to Davis two scenes too early. But otherwise, she's flawless in it. And I love her in Husbands and Wives. She breaks my heart. AND I also love her in the Ref, against Denis Leary and Lady Spacey.

• Is true that Dame Jane Fonda was supposed to maybe almost play the part that ended up going to Judy Davis for this wonderful little Woody Allen film titled "Husbands and Wives"?

  Marissa%27s%20Nice%20Tits

• She was quite adequate in The Starter Wife mini-series.

• Judy Davis won Emmys for playing Glenn Close Lesbian Lover, Judy Garland and The Starter Wife

• The Helen Camerbert show? Is that like the Helen Lawson show?

• I loved Judy's hair in the early 90s. It was wild and out of control. The dark red lipstick and pale face made her iconic.