Andrew here to talk about one of the finest women in the last decade of television, and the woman who created her. Let's talk Patty Hewes. With all five seasons of Damages newly available on DVD and Amazon Instant Video, it's time.
When Glenn Close won her second of two Emmy Awards for her work on Damages she coyly thanked the creators of the show for giving her what was...
….maybe….the best role of my career.”
At the time I couldn’t help but react with incredulity considering this was the woman who had given us Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction), Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons) and Norma Desmond and Paulina Salas on stage. Could this TV role really be the role of her lifetime?
Mind you, at the time I had only seen a few episodes of the show and it wasn’t until that August I fully watched the first seasons completely, watched the third in real-time, experienced in unfortunate cancellation, then resurrection on DirectTV and ultimate series finale last September. Along the way I became a big fan of the show, but her "maybe" statement has always made me ponder.
Damages only finished its run last year but chances are not many knew it was still on air up to 2012. For a show that was so successful (with critics and awards at least) the final two seasons were significantly under-discussed. The fate of moving from a popular network like FX to DirectTV: no one watches. That's a shame since with its last season Damages’ creators Todd and Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman and their team seemed intent on proving just how fantastic Patty Hewes, but more importantly how fantastic Glenn Close, was.
Not to inundate The Film Experience with too much TV fodder, but it’s been an interesting past two weeks for the television or “television”. Emmy nominations, the Television Critics Association Press TOur, a fresh new Netflix series (it’s not TV, but…what is it?) and last week when Emily Nussbaum wrote an impressive and evocative piece on Sex and the City, its faded glory and its anti-heroine roots my thoughts immediately went to Patricia Hewes. Nussbaum’s piece (it’s great, go read it) had some hardhitting things to say about women and their representation on television and the way that it was the ghost of The Sopranos which had maintained as the default mode for recent television - Homeland, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, House of Cards - four of the six Emmy nominated Best Drama series all surround an ambiguous male-lead we’re not completely certain how we should regard – the antihero, if you will. And someone had asked on twitter last month- when has there ever been a show of that ilk – thematically, if not qualitatively – about a woman?
The obvious answer for me was, of course, Damages. It would be an obvious answer for many more if people still remembered the show. The end of the show saw Patty Hewes complete her journey as a brilliant, ambiguous, tortured female lead with the precision of something like an Aristotelian tragedy. Her downfall? Hubris. What else? The show's final season was, perhaps, its weakest on plot but it was consistently strong on character adding layers and gradations to Patty Hewes and continuously giving Glenn Close material that she probably would not be receiving for work on the big screen. And not for a lack of talent.
I promised Nathaniel that assuming Glenn earned a deserved fifth Emmy nomination for her work on the show I had a monologue prepared for our Monday Monologues. There was a moment in the series' final episode which stood as resolute proof that Close continues to be a fascinating screen performer, and it extended the case of Patty as her magnum opus. Sometimes cold, occasionally ruthless Patty Hewes goes to visit her father in hospital. They've had a historically estranged relationship, and she vows that she won't ever forgive him for the childhood he gave her. You’re tied to that hatred, it’s all you’ve got, her father says. It’s all I need, she replies launching into her declaration.
I am who I am despite you.
It’s too late [for sorry]. You did everything you could to crush me. My mother would go to church and pray for you and I never understood why because I thought that you deserved to go to hell; - for your cruelty, your brutality, for every night you came home in a drunken rage. You terrorised us, you bullied us, and our fear made you feel big and important. Mama never judged you. But, I will. I want you to remember this moment forever. This feeling of helplessness, of weakness, of me looking you in the eyes and telling you how much I hate you. There’s no forgiveness for you, no mercy. Only death.
It's a wonder what a good actor can do with their face in a few moments. (The full scene is here if you're interested.)
It may sound like exaggeration, but with that monologue Glenn out-acted every performer I can think of in the past season on TV. Even if I'd been wavering on what Glenn had left in her as a performer (the accusations that playing one role makes actors lazy is a poor criticism, but persists nonetheless) this monologue gave me fresh hope. At 66 Glenn has so much left in her.
But, where to now?
Glenn visits Jimmy Fallon in June 2013
It’s no secret that great actresses have been moving to television which has increasingly been offering more exciting roles than film for women of a certain age. In a way, maybe Patty was the role of a lifetime, mine at least. I wasn't alive during Close's 80s domination, so as much as I adore her work then, the immediacy was lacking. And maybe this is the part of her lifetime. Which film has allowed a woman aged 60-65 to luxuriate in such definitive complexity. Which woman not named Streep, that is?
What’s next? She has no films lined up for 2013 but 2014 could be something and not just for potential Marvel blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy in which she will play Nova Prime. She’s playing mother to Anton Yelchin in 5 to 7 a film about an aspiring novelist (Yelchin) who has an affair with a French diplomat’s wife. That sounds like a tiny sliver of a role, although I am intrigued that's she's playing wife to Frank Langella. Then, there’s The Grace that Keeps the World an adaptation of a Tom Bailey novel costarring James Franco and Brit Marling. Her role hasn’t been confirmed but it it's a good role, it'll be a nice chance for her to stretch her legs on the big screen again. Then there’s Always on My Mind, a music drama with Nick Nolte. Nolte, playing husband to Close, is a rock singer who suffers Alzheimer's leaving his wife to pick up the pieces which sounds like good enough material that puts Close front and centre. Something that, with the exception of her pet project Albert Nobbs has not happened since the 1990s on the big screen!
The final upcoming film she has seems to be another tiny part, this time playing “Gram” in Low Down a look at the pianist Joe Albany’s struggle with addiction in the 60s and 70s. With 53 year old John Hawkes attached as Joe I sincerely hope Glenn is playing his grandmother. Film nuts (that means you) will remember that Close earned her first Oscar nomination for her screen debut in The World According to Garp in which she played mother to Robin Williams who was only four years her junior!!!
Glenn has said she doesn’t care to do another TV show after Damages, so I cant hope that HBO lures her there with another role of a lifetime. But her work on Damages season 5 is proof that this woman’s wealth of talent has not run dry. I hope the cinema still knows how to use her.
With Damages over are you hoping for more Glenn? Will you remember her Patty Hewes?