The Death Becomes Her is a 1992 American black comedy fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by David Koepp and Martin Donovan, and starring Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis, and Meryl Streep. The film focuses on a pair of rivals (Hawn and Streep) who drink a magic potion that promises to stay young.
Death Becomes Her won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The film is commercially successful, generating $ 149 million worldwide ($ 58 million domestically, $ 90 million internationally) at the box office.
Video Death Becomes Her
Plot
In 1978, narcissistic and manipulative actress Madeline Ashton appeared in the musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway. He invited old rival Helen Sharp, an aspiring writer, backstage along with Helen's fiancee, plastic surgeon Ernest Menville. Ernest beaten Madeline, and breaks off his engagement with Helen to marry her. Seven years later, in 1985, Helen ends up in a mental hospital after being fixated on Madeline. Obesity and depression, Helen pretends to be rehab and freed, plotting revenge on Madeline.
Seven years later, in 1992, Madeline lived in Beverly Hills with Ernest, but they were miserable. Madeline's acting career has faded with age, and Ernest is an alcoholic who works as a reconstructive mortality expert. Accepting an invitation to a party celebrating Helen's new book, Madeline rushes to the spa where she regularly receives facial treatments. Understanding the situation of Madeline, the spa owner gave her a business card Lisle von Rhoman, a woman specializing in juvenile rejuvenation.
Madeline and Ernest attend a party for Helen's novel, Forever Young, and find that somehow, Helen is now slim, young and beautiful. Astonished and depressed by Helen's appearance, Madeline visits her young lover but finds her with a woman her age. Sadly, Madeline drove to Lisle's house. Lisle is a mysterious, glamorous, and rich socialite who claims to be 71 years old, but looks much younger. She reveals to Madeline the secret of her beauty and youth: an expensive herb that promises eternal life and youthful appearance. Madeline bought and drank the potion and rejuvenated, regaining her beauty. As a condition of purchase, Madeline must disappear from public life after ten years to keep the existence of a secret potion. Lisle warned Madeline to take good care of her body.
Helen teases Ernest and convinces her to kill Madeline. When Madeline came home, she and Ernest denied, where Madeline fell from the stairs, breaking her neck. Convinced that Madeline had died, Ernest called Helen for advice, not seeing Madeline standing up and approaching her with her backward head. Ernest thinks he has a dislocated neck and takes him to the emergency room. Madeline was told that she was technically dead and fainted. He was taken to the mortuary room because his body had no pulse and temperatures below 80 ° F. After rescuing Madeline, Ernest took his "awakening" sign as a miracle, returned home with Madeline and used his skills as a mortar expert to repair his body.
Helen demanded information about Madeline's situation. Hearing Helen and Ernest discussing their plans to stage Madeline's death, Madeline shot Helen with a shotgun. Although the explosion created a hole in his stomach, Helen persisted, revealing that she was drinking the same ingredients. Disgusted with the couple, Ernest prepares to leave, but Helen and Madeline convince him to make one last improvement on their body. They realize that they will need constant maintenance and schemes to get Ernest to drink the potion to make sure he will always be available.
After bringing Ernest to Lisle, he offers to give her a free herb for surgical exercise. Ernest refuses rather than becomes immortal. He pocketed the potion and fled, but was trapped on the roof. Helen and Madeline begged Ernest to drink the potion in order to survive the upcoming fall. Ernest, realizing that they just wanted him to drink it because they needed it, refused and dropped the concoction to the ground a few floors down, but after falling he landed in Lisle pond and fled. After Lisle drives Madeline and Helen away from the group, the couple realizes that they must depend on each other for friendship and upkeep.
Thirty-seven years later, Madeline and Helen attended Ernest's funeral, where she was pronounced to have lived an adventurous and fulfilling life with great family and friends. They are a parody of themselves before, with paint, cracks and peeling that cover most of the gray meat and rot them. Helen's journey and cudgel at the top of the stairs. After Madeline hesitated to help her, Helen grabbed Madeline and both fell to the stairs, smashed to pieces. When their stubborn heads staggered together, Helen cynically asked Madeline, "Do you remember where you parked the car?"
Maps Death Becomes Her
Cast
- Goldie Hawn as Helen Sharp
- Bruce Willis as Dr. Ernest Menville
- Meryl Streep as Madeline Ashton
- Isabella Rossellini as Lisle von Rhoman
- Ian Ogilvy as Chagall
- Adam Storke as Dakota Williams
- Alaina Reed Hall as a Psychologist
- Michelle Johnson as Anna Jones
- Mary Ellen Trainor as Vivian Adams
- William Frankfather as Mr. Roy Franklin
- John Ingle as Eulogist
- Debra Jo Rupp as Patient
- Fabio as Lisle's bodyguard
- Sydney Pollack as Emergency Doctor (unverified)
Production
Death Becomes Her is a complex technology film to be created, and represents a major advance in the use of computer-generated effects, under the pioneering direction of Industrial Light and Witchcraft. For example, it was the first film in which computer-generated skin textures were used, in a shot where Madeline reset her neck after her head was destroyed with a shovel by Helen. Creating the order in which Madeline's head is dislocated and facing in the wrong direction involves a combination of blue screen technology, an animatronic model created by Amalgamated Dynamics, and an artificial make-up effect on Meryl Streep to create a crooked neckline.
The digital progress pioneered on Death Becomes Her will be incorporated into the next Light Industrial and Magic project, Jurassic Park , released by Universal just a year later. Both films together with cinematographer Dean Cundey and production designer Rick Carter, in addition to ILM.
Production has a fair amount of accidents. For example, in a scene where Helen Sharp and Madeline Ashton fought with a shovel, Meryl Streep accidentally cut off Goldie Hawn's face, leaving a faint scar. Streep admits that he does not like working on projects that are heavily focused on special effects, saying:
My first, last one, just me. I think it's boring. Any concentration you can apply to such types of comedy is only shredded. You stand there like a machine - they have to make a machine to do it. I like how it works. But it is not fun to act on the lampstand. "Consider this Goldie, here! Uh, no, I'm sorry, Bob, he missed five centimeters, and now his head does not fit his neck!" It was like being in a dentist.
Location filming
The film is made entirely in Los Angeles and used several locations frequently used in film and television, including the Greystone Mansion and Ebell of Los Angeles. The exterior of Madeline and Ernest's house is located at 1125 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino, but the interior is a set built on a sound stage. The final scene where Helen and Madeline fell to the stairs outside the chapel was filmed at Mount St. University Mary (Los Angeles) in Brentwood.
Deleted scene
The theatrical Version Death Becomes Her eliminates or shortens many of the scenes featured in rough pieces of film. Robert Zemeckis decided that this was necessary to speed up the pace of the film and eliminate unfamiliar jokes. Most dramatically, the original end is fully repeated after the test audience reacts negatively to it. The final part featured Ernest, after he escaped from Lisle's party, meeting a bartender (Tracey Ullman) who helped him fake his death to avoid Madeline and Helen. The two women met Ernest and the bartender 27 years later, living happily as a retired couple. Zemeckis thinks his endings are too happy and chose the darker endings featured in the final cut. Ullman is one of five actors with a talking role in the film to be eliminated. Other deleted scenes include one where Madeline talks with her agent (Jonathan Silverman) and one where Ernest removes Madeline frozen from the kitchen freezer she has kept. None of the scenes have been released publicly, but the order can still be seen in the original theater trailer.
Music
The score was composed by American film composer Alan Silvestri, who also composed a number of other films directed by Zemeckis.
Reception
Critical response
The film received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 54% rating based on reviews from 26 critics. Viewers surveyed by CinemaScore gave this movie an average value of "B" on a scale up to F.
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the movie 'thumbs down', remarking that while the film has a great special effect, it has no real substance or depth of character.
The release of the movie on DVD is called "awful", "terrible" and "careless" because of its transfer quality, which has been said to be suffering from excessive grain, dull and muffled colors. Many users of online DVD forums speculate that DVD transfers were taken from the Laserdisc film edition and called for a restorative release. The film was initially distributed in an open-matte, fullscreen edition with a 1.33: 1 aspect ratio in the United States before the widescreen version of the intended ratio (1.85: 1) was released and then distributed worldwide. The latest version has also been incorrectly labeled anamorphic. It was later released in North America on Blu-ray from Shout Factory on April 26, 2016.
box office
The film opens at number 1 at the box office with $ 12,110,355 on the same weekend as and ahead of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bebe Kids. The company generated more than $ 58.4 million domestically and $ 90.6 million internationally.
Accolades
Legacy
Death Becomes Her has gained significant cult followers, especially in the LGBT community. An article in Vanity Fair, titled "The Cruel After The After of the Death of 'Death Becomes Her'" calls this film a "classic cult" and "a touchstone of a strange community". The film is screened in the bar during the Pride Month, while the characters of Madeline and Helen are the favorite of the players. In this case the film inspired the Death Becomes Her -themed runway show on season 7 RuPaul's Drag Race . The 5th season winner, Jinkx Monsoon, has quoted him by inspiring him to become a transvestite, and for that he has participated in the photoshoot themed Death Becomes Her, and in 2018 plays Madeline in the drag parody of a stage called " Drag Becomes Her ".
Tom Campbell, executive producer of RuPaul's Drag Race , reflects the appeal of the film to gay audiences:
"They are fighting for beauty, they are against the system, they are criminals, but we understand the complexity We support diva undead because they are trying to win the rigged game, and - to borrow apocryphal quotes from Ginger Rogers - they sort of have to do it 'backwards and wear high heels.' "
In December of 2017 it was announced that Kristin Chenoweth will star in the musical adaptation of Broadway Death Becomes Her .
References
External links
- Death Become Him on IMDb
- Death Become Him in the TCM Film Database
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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