"American Masters" Judy Garland: By Myself (2004)

User Rating:

8.8/10   

Director:

Susan Lacy

Writers:

Susan Lacy (writer)
Stephen Stept (writer)

TV Series:

"American Masters" (1983)

Original Air Date:

25 February 2004

Genre:

Documentary | Biography | History | Music | Romance

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Nostalgic | Singing | Singer | 1940s | Marriage

Awards:

Won 2 Primetime Emmys. Another 3 nominations

Cast

June Allyson	...	Herself (voice)
Leon Ames	...	Mr. Alonzo Smith (archive footage)
Del Armstrong	...	Himself (voice)
Desi Arnaz	...	Himself (archive footage)
Mary Astor	...	Mrs. Anna Smith (archive footage)
Lauren Bacall	...	Herself (archive footage)
Lucille Ball	...	Herself (archive footage)
Count Basie	...	Himself (archive footage)
Charles Becker	...	Mayor of Munchkin City (archive footage)
Tony Bennett	...	Himself (archive footage)
Clara Blandick	...	Auntie Em (archive footage)
Lucille Bremer	...	Rose Smith (archive footage)
Jackie Cooper	...	Himself (voice)
George Cukor	...	Himself (archive footage)
Mike Dann	...	Himself (voice)
Tom Drake	...	John Truett (archive footage)
Deanna Durbin	...	Herself (archive footage)
Buddy Ebsen	...	Himself (archive footage)
Roger Edens	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Fisher	...	Himself (archive footage)
Arthur Freed	...	Himself (archive footage)
Clark Gable	...	Himself (archive footage)
Judy Garland	...	Herself (archive footage)
Leonard Gershe	...	Himself (voice)
Mary Jane Gumm	...	Herself (archive footage)
Virginia Gumm	...	Herself (archive footage)
Jack Haley	...	The Tin Man (archive footage)
Margaret Hall	...	Lillian Burns Sidney (voice)
Margaret Hamilton	...	The Wicked Witch of the West (archive footage)
Jean Harlow	...	Herself (archive footage)
Bob Hope	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lena Horne	...	Herself (archive footage)
Rock Hudson	...	Himself (archive footage)
Norman Jewison	...	Himself (voice)
Isabel Keating	...	Judy Garland (voice)
Gene Kelly	...	Harry Palmer (archive footage)
Alan King	...	Himself (voice)
Jack Klugman	...	George (archive footage)
Bert Lahr	...	The Cowardly Lion (archive footage)
Hedy Lamarr	...	Sandra Kolter (archive footage)
Peter Lawford	...	Himself (archive footage)
Steve Lawrence	...	Himself (archive footage)
Peggy Lee	...	Herself (archive footage)
Mort Lindsey	...	Himself (voice)
Joey Luft	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lorna Luft	...	Herself (archive footage)
Sidney Luft	...	Himself (archive footage)
David Margulies	...	Joseph L. Mankiewicz (voice)
Dean Martin	...	Himself (archive footage)
Hugh Martin	...	Himself (voice)
James Mason	...	Norman Maine (archive footage)
Louis B. Mayer	...	Himself (archive footage)
Ethel Merman	...	Herself (archive footage)
Ann Miller	...	Herself (voice)
Liza Minnelli	...	Herself (archive footage)
Vincente Minnelli	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Morfogen	...	George Cukor (voice)
Frank Morgan	...	Professor Marvel / The Gatekeeper / The Wizard of Oz (archive footage)
George Murphy	...	Jimmy K. Metcalf (archive footage)
Cyrus Newitt	...	Bill Colleran (voice)
Louis Nye	...	Himself (archive footage)
Margaret O'Brien	...	'Tootie' Smith (archive footage)
Donald O'Connor	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jack Paar	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jane Powell	...	Herself (archive footage)
Chita Rivera	...	Herself (archive footage)
Mickey Rooney	...	Himself (archive footage)
David Rose	...	Himself (archive footage)
Robert Sella	...	Vincente Minnelli (voice)
Artie Shaw	...	Himself (voice)
Norma Shearer	...	Herself (archive footage)
Frank Sinatra	...	Himself (archive footage)
Barbra Streisand	...	Herself (archive footage)
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Herself (archive footage)
Shirley Temple	...	Herself (archive footage)
Terry-Thomas	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lana Turner	...	Sheila (archive footage)
Jerry Van Dyke	...	Himself (archive footage)
Robert Walker	...	Corporal Joe Allen (archive footage)
Margaret Whiting	...	Herself (voice)
Michael Wilding	...	Himself (archive footage)
Kay Williams	...	Herself (archive footage)
Harris Yulin	...	Narrator

Runtime:

USA:114 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Company:

Educational Broadcasting Corporation

Damage

Let me start by advising: if you like celebrity documentaries; if you are comfortable with what that implies, then this will be something special. At the very least, it has what might be the best opening possible for such a thing.

We have three overlapping things that are introduced in the first minute. We have Judy singing a song about herself, and how it is just her alone singing to us. The song is intensely personal and the direct connection between her and us individually is explicit. The song itself is a biography.

Weaved into this, moving into the foreground soundwise is a tape recording Judy made toward a written biography that never happened. What she says is equally naked and direct. Her audience in both cases is disembodied -- I think the singing was on her TeeVee show. But the connection with us is visceral. Overlain in both the singing and tape are words that tell us that Judy left these tapes and notes toward a biography and the implication is that what we will see is what she indicated. More, that what we see will be as if she herself were making the documentary.

(It is never clear whether the voice we hear narrating is genuinely Judy's voice or an impersonator reading or reinterpreting her words. The ambiguity is deliberate.) This mix of her uniquely direct, open and vulnerable manner, the personal words to the song and the conceit that we are hearing something directly from offstage Judy makes this something unlike any celebrity voyeurism you will experience. The construction and particularly the editing are expert.

But here's the thing. This woman is damaged, damaged in such a way that when she reaches out, she reaches from the deepest part of her soul, without the protections we usually have. And without the normal intellectual shapes that help us register our partner. She just is there, completely open.

That's why we come to her, in her various performance modes.

Now this, which is a strange, strange mix. It has one foot in those performances, and they're really wonderful to see bits and pieces strung this way. But the other half is the story of the performer, mentally ill, doped up, full of demons, the very demons that make her attractive.

And we have the designated bad guy, Louis Mayer and the studio system that exploited her. But that's too patent. He was just one in a short chain of market forces that connect our consumption of her to the rape. We can tut tut about all those bad people When she was alive, it was us, and it still is.

So this is strange, so very strange. It is as if we owned slaves whose job was to amuse us in ways that make us question slavery and we respond by creating isolating middlemen and continue to gawk. A sort of powerporn that allows many of us to be closed to life. But even those it awakens suffer.

Its a dilemma in our souls, one that makes me question the very nature of film experience. If the thing is true, and some new light appears within us and some unknown turbine in our deepest selves stirs to life -- can we make it worth it if in the process a fairy dies each time our match is lit?

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.