{"id":361,"date":"2014-09-18T13:29:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T17:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/?p=361"},"modified":"2025-05-12T16:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T20:25:11","slug":"bacall-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/2014\/09\/18\/bacall-an-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Bacall: An Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m ashamed to admit that I didn\u2019t discover Lauren Bacall until my early 20s.\u00a0 I know that I must have seen at least one of her movies before then, but the first clear memory I have of connecting with her work is watching The Big Sleep<\/i> when I was 23.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but she was only 21 when it was filmed.\u00a0 I was struck with her presence.\u00a0 Yes, the studio had altered Raymond Chandler\u2019s novel to make her character a more acceptable romantic lead \u2013 in the novel her character is more unambiguously a femme fatale \u2013 but she still exudes power with every sultry, knowing look.\u00a0 Unlike the Hitchcock blondes I idolized at the time, Bacall was more than just spunky.\u00a0 She knew exactly what she was doing and why.\u00a0 As I learned later, she was one of the last of a long line of strong female stars produced by the classical Hollywood studio system.\u00a0 The system may have been dominated by male producers and directors who exercised tight control over all of their stars \u2013 male and female \u2013 but those men still realized that women made up the largest part of their audience.\u00a0 Women like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck enjoyed long careers as strong, independent women.\u00a0 As scholars like Jeanine Basinger have pointed out, even if Depression-era women\u2019s films ended with a conservative message of family togetherness and female submission, they depicted women grappling with difficult issues and often making rebellious choices, thereby validating their right to choose.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 The post-war noirs that Bacall starred in are often characterized as reactionary and male-centric, but many still acknowledged and validated women\u2019s desire for independence and fear of male violence.\u00a0 What I saw in Bacall\u2019s roles, including To Have and Have Not<\/i>, but even weaker films like Dark Passage<\/i>, was a young woman struggling to determine her own destiny \u2013 and maybe enjoy a few adventures alongside the man she loved \u2013 in a society that wanted her to stay at home, where she\u2019d be safe.\u00a0 Sure, she could be quiet and submissive when she needed to be, but her eyes always spoke of a deeper rebellion against society\u2019s stifling expectation.\u00a0 She was never sweet. \u00a0At the time, all I knew when I was 23 was that she was refreshingly direct and bold, and I felt that my adolescence would have been richer if I\u2019d had her as a role model.\u00a0 She is the standard by which I\u2019ve judged every strong female role since.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t spend much time studying Bacall\u2019s biography when I first discovered her.\u00a0 I learned that she and Humphrey Bogart were married, which helped to complete my image of her as an independent woman who could still have it all, but \u2013 to be perfectly honest \u2013 I was afraid that I would be disappointed if I knew what she was like in real life.\u00a0 Stars so often disappoint, and I try to let actors\u2019 work speak for itself.\u00a0 In the end though, I don\u2019t think I needed to worry so much.\u00a0 Yes, I wish she \u2013 and the rest of Hollywood \u2013 would have stuck by their principles instead of backing down on their objections to HUAC and the blacklist, but I also understand that people crack under intense pressure.\u00a0 Bacall\u2019s film career may not have been as prolific as it should have been.\u00a0 Even before the studio system\u2019s decline hurt other strong female stars, Bacall appeared to knock heads with studio heads \u2013 I learned from her New York Times<\/i> obituary that Warner Brothers suspended her twelve times for rejecting scripts.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Still, she continued to work in films and on the stage for most of her life, and she advocated for liberal political causes.\u00a0 All in all, not a bad life.\u00a0 And really, I don\u2019t know how much I can really be disappointed in someone who famed old-biddy gossip columnist Louella Parsons once castigated for encouraging juvenile delinquency by talking about her \u201cgang\u201d of friends.<\/p>\n

-Catherine Martin<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> Jeanine Basinger.\u00a0 A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960<\/i>.\u00a0 New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1993).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Enid Nemy.\u00a0 \u201cLauren Bacall Dies at 89; in Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word.\u201d\u00a0 The New York Times<\/i>, August 12, 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m ashamed to admit that I didn\u2019t discover Lauren Bacall until my early 20s.\u00a0 I know that I must have seen at least one of her movies before then, but the first clear memory I have of connecting with her work is watching The Big Sleep when I was 23.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know it at … Continue reading Lauren Bacall: An Appreciation<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/confluence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}