Funny Girl
Drifting into the New Amsterdam Theatre off Times Square in New York dressed in leopard print, Fanny Brice gives the practiced impression of one who knows she belongs, renowned star of dance and entertainment troupe the Ziegfield Follies, yet beneath she is as uncertain and nervous as she has always been, told since she was a child she was not pretty enough for the stage and aware of the problems in her marriage to Nicky Arnstein.
Her fame and success undeniable, they have always been a substitute for the personal happiness at which she has struggled, aware of Nicky’s reliance on gambling for his fortune since their first meeting but unable to resist him, a man as unpredictable as she herself, having shoehorned her way into auditions with false promises of her skills and turning carefully choreographed and synchronised performances into chaotic comedy routines, infuriating producer Florenz Ziegfeld who was still smart enough to recognise that audiences love her.
A rising star herself who in 1964 originated the lead role in the Broadway musical Funny Girl based on the life of Fanny Brice, it was with the 1968 film version directed by Ben-Hur’s William Wyler that Barbra Streisand made her feature film debut, supported by Doctor Zhivago’s Omar Sharif playing Nicky and Forbidden Planet’s Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis reuniting as Ziegfeld and chorus girl Georgia James with A Face in the Crowd’s Kay Medford as Fanny’s mother Rose, encouraging but also realistic about the daughter she loves, though none of them are allowed to eclipse Streisand herself, the absolute focus of every scene.
Funny Girl nominated for eight Academy Awards of which it won one, Streisand in a rare tie for Best Actress with Katharine Hepburn playing another defiant figure from history in The Lion in Winter, the film was produced by Ray Stark, son-in-law of the real of Fanny Brice, enforcing a restrictive stipulation into the script which began form as a drama entitled My Man rather than the musical comedy it became that the work be respectful and not present Brice or Arnstein in any negative light, the result somewhat sanitised and feeling that despite running two and a half hours that very little of substance has happened.
An entertainment rather than any form of real exploration of who the people were and taking place concurrent with the Great War which is conspicuously never mentioned, the costumes are more representative of the era in which the film was made rather than set, and there is a sense that even at this stage in her long career in which she has maintained creative control that this is Streisand’s project more than anyone else’s, her avatar Brice haggling every note and refusing to compromise, threatening to walk out of rehearsals unless she gets her way and neurotic about relationships, batting away romantic suggestions with jokes even as she sings of needing people.
Restored in 4K for Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection complete with opening overture and intermission break, the new edition of Funny Girl is supported by a brief deleted scene, a trio of archive features, a documentary on three time Academy Award winner Wyler and a new interview with his son, and an audio recording of Streisand’s own recollections of the production from stage to screen, through the technical aspects of lighting and shooting to the casting and the friendships she formed and her own process, insights perhaps more interesting than the main feature itself.
Funny Girl will be available on Blu-ray from Criterion from Monday 9th December
