Faithful to herself
American actress Glenn Close introduces her latest film Albert Nobbs (2010), directed by Rodrigo García, as a very personal project. This is a movie based on the story The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs written by Irish novelist and poet George Moore and set in Dublin in the second half of the nineteenth century. It tells the story of a woman who poses as a man to survive, a role that Glenn Close had already played at Off Broadway in 1982. Almost thirty years later and coinciding with her great success on television playing the powerful lawyer Patty Hewes in the Damages series, Glenn Close has made every effort in taking forward this project completely produced outside the Hollywood majors and serving as producer and co-writer, in addition to count for a third time with director Rodrigo García after the previous Things you can tell just by looking at her (2000) and Nine Lives (2005).
When she
presented the film at the last San Sebastian Film Festival/ Donostia
Zinemaldia, where she was awarded the Donostia Prize for her career, she said,
"I showed this story to many friends. Some were busy, others didn’t find
the way of doing it. When I shot Meeting
Venus, with István Szabó, he said he understood it because he had lived in
various regimes and he felt able to understand what it was like to change the
face depending on who was ahead. He took the story to politics and did a script
treatment. But we failed to remove it, later I met Rodrigo, and I wanted to
take this to a more personal land. István is still in the credits because he
did a great job".
The performance
of Glenn Close earned her nominations for Golden Globe Awards and Oscar Academy
Awards and is well above the final result of the film. She returns to show off
her acting skills in the role of woman who hides her femininity to get ahead
living as a man working as a waiter in a hotel in Victorian Dublin.
But analysis of
her talent must go further, we are talking about a woman who has played some of
the best female roles that are recalled in the last three decades and, perhaps,
never had the recognition, especially in the artistic aspect, it deserves.
Unforgettable in the role of the Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), directed by Stephen Frears, or as Alex
Forrest harassing Michael Douglas in Fatal
Attraction (1987) by Adrian Lyne. And what would the series Damages be without the richness provided
by Glenn Close as the fighting Patty Hewes?. She is certainly responsible that
television roles have achieved the same level of the film ones, something that
many never considered a few years ago. Glenn Close came, saw and conquered
artistically once again.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photos courtesy of Festival de Cine de San Sebastián / Donostia Zinemaldia
All rights reserved