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      Maggie Smith, Grande Dame of Stage and Screen, Dies at 89

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      She earned an extraordinary array of awards, from Oscars to Emmys to a Tony, but she could still go almost everywhere unrecognized. Then came “Downton Abbey.”Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” to the acid-tongued dowager countess on “Downton Abbey,” died on Friday in London. She was 89.Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her family in a statement issued by a publicist. It did not specify the cause of death.American moviegoers barely knew Ms. Smith (now Dame Maggie to her countrymen) when she starred in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), about a teacher at a girls’ school in the 1930s who dared to have provocative views — and a love life. Vincent Canby’s review in The New York Times described her performance as “a staggering amalgam of counterpointed moods, switches in voice levels and obliquely stated emotions, all of which are precisely right.” It brought her the Academy Award for best actress.She won a second Oscar, for best supporting actress, for “California Suite” (1978), based on Neil Simon’s stage comedy. Her character, a British actress attending the Oscars with her bisexual husband (Michael Caine), has a disappointing evening at the ceremony and a bittersweet night in bed.In real life, prizes had begun coming Ms. Smith’s way in 1962, when she won her first Evening Standard Theater Award. By the turn of the millennium, she had the two Oscars, a Tony, two Golden Globes, half a dozen BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Awards) and scores of nominations. Yet she could go almost anywhere unrecognized.Until “Downton Abbey.”Ms. Smith on the set of the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” She won an Academy Award for best actress for the performance.Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

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      We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Maggie Smith Was Imperious in the Most Delightful Way

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      Throughout her career and on “Downton Abbey,” she perfected the role of the commanding Englishwoman with an arrow-sharp wit.“Oh for heaven’s sake!” Maggie Smith said in a 2015 interview, waving her hands vigorously in front of her face at the suggestion that she was a “national treasure.”But Smith, who died on Friday at 89, was that very thing, an actor who embodied a quintessentially British character: the imperious, commanding woman, be it an aristocrat or a schoolteacher, who smites the less certain or socially secure with her arrow-sharp wit and finely honed disdain, though delivered in suitably plummy tones.While she worked steadily in theater from the start of her acting career in the 1950s, Smith didn’t become famous until she won an Oscar for her performance in the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Early on, she later recalled, she had signed a contract with a film company and received a message from the studio publicity department: “Your fan mail total for this month is nil.”Smith didn’t become famous until she won an Oscar for her performance in the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” 20th Century Fox/Getty ImagesEven after her breakout performance, her fame was mostly among theater and film cognoscenti, who adored her expressive physicality, brilliant comic timing and subtly moving revelations of character. In 1990, Smith was made a dame of the British Empire. But it wasn’t until Smith was in her 60s, cast as Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movies, then in 2010 as Violet Crawley, dowager countess of Grantham, in the “Downton Abbey” television series, that she achieved global fame.“What is a … weekend?” the countess asked in a tone that exquisitely mixed contempt with a soupçon of interest, in one of the first episodes of the show. The line (all credit to the show’s creator, Julian Fellowes) and her delivery summed up her appeal to the enormous “Downton” audience, who couldn’t get enough of Smith’s witty, acerbic character.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Maggie Smith: A Life in Pictures

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      Maggie Smith, who died on Friday at 89, was among the most venerable British actors of her era, embarking in the 1950s on a decades-long career and a run of memorable, award-winning performances. She won two Oscars, a Tony, three Golden Globes, four Emmys and several British Academy of Film and Television Awards.But incredibly, she did not reach mainstream stardom until later in her career, first as Minerva McGonagall, the Hogwarts School’s stern and fearless transfiguration teacher, in seven of the eight “Harry Potter” films, and then as Violet Crawley, the acid-tongued dowager countess on the British historical drama “Downton Abbey.”“It’s not even that you particularly want to be an actor,” Smith once said. “You have to be. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”Here are some snapshots from her life and career.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesMaggie Smith in 1957, the year she made her London stage debut in the musical revue “Share My Lettuce.”Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesSmith in 1963, when she appeared in “The V.I.P.s,” a melodrama whose all-star cast also included Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.Bob Dear/Associated PressSmith behind the scenes of the 1968 MGM British comedy caper “Hot Millions.” Vincent Canby, in his review for The New York Times, described her performance as “marvelously funny.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Lady Gaga’s ‘Joker,’ and a Tour of Musical Clowning

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      Clowns, harlequins, jokers and Pierrots have served as the main characters in countless songs over the years, but they’re rarely there to conjure cheap laughs.Dear listeners,Today — after announcing it just a few days ago — Lady Gaga released “Harlequin,” a companion album to the forthcoming film “Joker: Folie à Deux,” in which she stars as the troubled Harleen Quinzel. Fans clamoring for the next “Bad Romance” will have to wait a little longer: She’s promised that her next album, slated for release in February 2025, will be her return to pop. In the meantime, “Harlequin” is a satisfying showcase for the jazzier and more traditional side of Gaga — and another example of music’s continued obsession with clowns.Clowns, harlequins, jokers and Pierrots have served as the main characters in countless songs over the years, but they’re rarely there to conjure cheap laughs. More often, the musical clown is a tragic figure, whether he’s shedding tears like Smokey Robinson or hanging his head like the titular fool in an Everly Brothers classic. Gaga’s “Harlequin” fits into this lineage in its own way: There’s a manic brightness to many of her performances (which include standards like “Smile” and “Get Happy”) that barely conceals an underlying darkness and despair.Today’s playlist is a brief tour through the musical history of clowning, sans the abrasive sounds of Insane Clown Posse. (My apologies; I’m just not a Juggalo.) It contains one of my favorite tracks from Lady Gaga’s new album, along with material from Jenny Lewis, Emeli Sandé and a certain timeless ballad written by Stephen Sondheim. On the off chance you’re one of those people who is afraid of clowns, I sincerely hope it does not inspire any nightmares.Just like Pagliacci did,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Lady Gaga: “The Joker”One of the most striking tracks on “Harlequin” is this rendition of “The Joker” — no, not the Steve Miller Band song, but a showstopping number from the 1964 musical “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd.” (It’s been covered by quite a few artists over the years, perhaps most memorably the great Shirley Bassey.) Gaga can of course nail a theatrical tune like this in her sleep, but she brings a fresh energy to “The Joker” by giving it a kind of rock operatic arrangement, complete with electric guitar and a punkish growl in her voice. “Perfect Illusion” apologists, our moment has once again arrived.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      New York Film Festival Pitches Its Ever-Expanding, Global Tent

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      Standout selections include “Nickel Boys,” the Mumbai-set “All We Imagine as Light” and the documentary “Dahomey,” about African repatriation.Every year, the New York Film Festival sets up a big tent at Lincoln Center and invites its hometown to the greatest show on earth, or at least to watch some of the finest movies from across the globe. This year is no different, with standout selections that include the opening-night attraction, “Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross’s tender, beautifully expressionistic adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel; “All We Imagine as Light,” Payal Kapadia’s delicately observed, stirring drama about three women living in Mumbai; and “Dahomey,” Mati Diop’s intellectually electrifying documentary about the fraught complexities of repatriation.Over the decades, the festival’s tent has grown larger and its attractions more expansive. The main lineup and the Spotlight section feature a mix of established and lesser-known auteurs, as well as a smattering of stars. This is where you can find the recommended latest from Mike Leigh (“Hard Truths”) and Pedro Almodóvar (“The Room Next Door”), as well as the second and third parts of Wang Bing’s absorbing documentary trilogy about young people in China — “Youth (Hard Times)” and “Youth (Homecoming)” — which together run a whopping 378 minutes, about an hour longer than Julia Loktev’s 324-minute “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” about journalists in today’s Russia.Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths.”Creativity MediaIn 1963, its inaugural year, the festival presented 21 new feature films, and created a major stir. Not everyone on Lincoln Center’s board had been happy about the prospect of movies sharing space with the performing arts, with one member carping, “What’s next, baseball?” The festival programmers pushed on, and the film lovers came running. A critical and financial success, the ’63 iteration even made the cover of Time magazine, which trumpeted that the event “may well mark for Americans a redefinition of what movies are and who it is that sees them.” Six years later, the cultural legitimation of movies hit another milestone with the formation of what’s now known as Film at Lincoln Center, which runs the festival.Given that such snobbism about movies now seems quaintly absurd, and given too the ubiquity of festivals, it can be difficult to convey what the New York Film Festival meant when it was founded. Although Cannes and Venice had been around for decades, festivals hadn’t yet emerged as the crucial international distribution network that they are now for smaller, less mainstream work. In 1963, the big Hollywood studios were releasing bloated epics like “Cleopatra,” and art houses and audiences were both quickly growing. Yet the movies still had a maddening reputation problem. In an editorial titled “The Film as Art” published the day the first festival opened, The New York Times made a sweetly sincere case for the event.“Moviegoers and moviemakers are divided into two unequal parts in this country,” the editorial began. “The vast majority of the moviegoers go to see what the moviemakers call ‘product.’” The selections in the festival, by contrast, the editorial continued, “dignify movies in this country; tell the world that we too are interested in cultural efforts.” I’ve quoted these words before, and I’m sure that I laughed the first time I read them. Even so, they bear repeating given the state of the art and industry, especially in the United States, where movies are still referred to as product (and content) and the Oscar race tends to generate more attention than the movies do. These days, any defense of art bears repeating.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Stream Maggie Smith’s Greatest Performances

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      In “Downton Abbey,” “A Room With a View” and dozens of other films and television series, she delighted audiences with her portrayal of sharp, tart-tongued and often wryly funny Englishwomen.Maggie Smith, who was 89 when she died on Friday, made her professional stage debut on Broadway in the 1950s, when she was still in her early 20s. In the decades that followed, she worked steadily in movies and television, while regularly returning to the theater.Smith won her first Oscar for the title role in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), a charismatic and manipulative teacher who has a profound and, at times, destructive effect on the lives of the teenage girls in her charge. She went on to win another Oscar, a Tony and four Emmys, and became known in her later years for playing a particular type of Englishwoman: sturdy, smart, sharp-tongued and rooted sometimes stubbornly in the traditions of the past.Audiences in the 21st century came to love Smith in two recurring roles: as the heroic Professor Minerva McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” movies and as the coolly disapproving dowager countess Violet Crawley in the period TV drama “Downton Abbey.” But her career was long and eclectic, with a mix of serious and comic characters, in both supporting and leading roles. Here are 10 of Smith’s best performances that are available to stream:1972‘Travels With My Aunt’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Though she was only in her late 30s at the time, Smith took an early step toward her most familiar screen persona — the dynamic and unforgettable older relative — in this adaptation of Graham Greene’s offbeat adventure novel. Filling in for Katharine Hepburn (who differed with the studio and with her old friend, the director George Cukor, on how best to tell her character’s story), Smith ended up nabbing her third Oscar nomination, playing the eccentric globe-trotter Augusta Bertram, who enlists a stuffy, middle-aged Londoner in one of her illicit moneymaking schemes while hiding her true connection to him. Smith builds an outsize yet complex character via flashbacks that show how she learned to eschew conventional mores and to enjoy life on her own terms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      Watch a Chaotic Rehearsal in ‘Saturday Night’

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      The director Jason Reitman narrates a sequence from his film about the production of the first episode of “Saturday Night Live.” Spoiler alert, making the show wasn’t easy.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.Creating chaos onscreen requires a lot more planning than it might seem. That’s the case in this sequence from “Saturday Night,” the latest film from Jason Reitman, which looks at how the first episode of the long-running NBC sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” came together.In the scene, the “S.N.L.” cast members John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris are rehearsing a sketch.“At the beginning, you know, it’s going through the normal steps and trying to figure out camerawork,” Reitman says of the scene in his narration, and by the end, “it’s a total catastrophe.”So how did Reitman go about building this out-of-control situation? For one, he put his background actors through a boot camp, where they learned how to do the jobs of the crew people they were portraying. And beyond that, he created detailed plans for the production team to follow.“We had to choreograph this movie like a dance film,” Reitman said. “I’d have a giant whiteboard like a football coach. And I would have to write plays for all the extras and background actors and crew, just so everyone would know where to be.”Read the “Saturday Night” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More