To say that a certain performer could read the phone book and command attention has become a total cliché. It's used so much that when it is warranted, people roll their eyes because they've heard it so much. But for certain actors, it is true. They do command attention, not just because they are scene stealers or have a way delivering a sarcastic line or even because you've come to expect brilliance from them even in the lamest of works. It is in their soul, a gift from God, and a shining example from God that excellence does exist in the human being. Maybe not perfection, but in their talent, something so raw and beautiful that you feel that you are in love with them without even knowing them.
That is the case with Maggie Smith, an artist I have loved since my teen years, seeing her on screen in the original release of "Murder By Death". That 40 year old film has set my screen viewing on a love affair with the dry, witty, passionate and inwardly beautiful characters that she has played. And this, rumored to possibly be her final film, is her at her absolute most passionately brilliant characterization of all of those qualities.
Miss Shepherd isn't someone you'd want outside your home: apparently smelly, rude, cantankerous and manipulative. Harassed on the street, blackmailed, bugged to no end by social services, she becomes slowly both a rose and a thorn to writer Alan Bennett. His observing of her in all of her moods makes her come to life beyond those qualities.
This is not the first time that Dame Maggie has played not so glamorous characters or more staid, non- sarcastic ones. She could be any old bag lady you'd see on the street, supplying life observations to those who care to listen. She is real. She isn't acting. She is being. And thus, she is beautiful. And in deed, if this is her last film, she gets the most appropriate of endings.
That is the case with Maggie Smith, an artist I have loved since my teen years, seeing her on screen in the original release of "Murder By Death". That 40 year old film has set my screen viewing on a love affair with the dry, witty, passionate and inwardly beautiful characters that she has played. And this, rumored to possibly be her final film, is her at her absolute most passionately brilliant characterization of all of those qualities.
Miss Shepherd isn't someone you'd want outside your home: apparently smelly, rude, cantankerous and manipulative. Harassed on the street, blackmailed, bugged to no end by social services, she becomes slowly both a rose and a thorn to writer Alan Bennett. His observing of her in all of her moods makes her come to life beyond those qualities.
This is not the first time that Dame Maggie has played not so glamorous characters or more staid, non- sarcastic ones. She could be any old bag lady you'd see on the street, supplying life observations to those who care to listen. She is real. She isn't acting. She is being. And thus, she is beautiful. And in deed, if this is her last film, she gets the most appropriate of endings.