Barbra Streisand: The Greatest Star

Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.

Barbra Streisand made a triumphant return to the screen this past December in her first movie in eight years. For anyone who’s been living under a rock she played Ben Stiller’s Mama Roz in Meet the Fockers. Most critics disliked the movie but almost unanimously praised the chemistry between Barbra and Dustin Hoffman. Fockers has turned into such a huge smash at the box office, both at home and around the world, that is has passed the half-billion mark in ticket sales and is the highest grossing movie of their careers for each of its stars. It is both the top selling DVD and video rental this week. Welcome back indeed.

Streisand, if you think about it, has one of the most original and multi-faceted screen personas.

As a comic she is on a par with Whoopi Goldberg and Mae West, all three of them are instantly recognizable, nearly as much for their uniqueness as for their great timing and memorable way with a line. Watch Barbra in The Owl and the Pussycat and you’ll know exactly what I mean. There aren’t many left who can ‘sell it’ like that anymore. At times Barbra reminds me of a female Jerry Lewis. That’s how my brothers and I thought of her as kids anyway, when we cracked-up at What’s Up Doc? and For Pete’s Sake on television. Even a movie as bad as The Main Event is made funny by her presence.

Then of course there is Musical Barbra. Her first three movies were musicals: Funny Girl, Hello Dolly and On a Clear Day You can See Forever (directed by Hollywood legends William Wyler, Gene Kelly and Vincente Minnelli respectively). As a singing movie star she is in the same league as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. She hasn’t made nearly as many movies as either of them, but in my opinion Barbra has an even greater screen persona than Frank or Judy. She has more screen presence and more sex appeal for one thing. And she’s certainly demonstrated more versatile singing styles in her movies, doing an over-the-top gospel number in Funny Lady and even showing off her “rock ‘n’ roll voice” in A Star is Born.

Barbra is rarely given her due as a dramatic actress. But this isn’t because she’s not accurately conveying an emotion and connecting with her audience on a real level. No, she does that very successfully in The Way We Were, Nuts and The Prince of Tides. It’s because she always seems to be playing some variation of herself. She’s like the classic stars of the past, they don’t Act, they just Exist. The most obvious example of this is in The Mirror has Two Faces when dowdy Rose Morgan morphs into super Barbra. But even then the honesty of the emotion she is feeling is never in question.

Barbra Streisand behind the camera.

Only twice in her career, thus far at least, has she been completely successful in transcending her own image for that of a real character. Both movies were flops. The only flops of her career I might add. I’m talking, of course, about Up the Sandbox and All Night Long. In one she’s a rather dull Long Island housewife living in New York City, a young stay-at-home-mom with feminist fantasies. In the other she’s a dumb blonde bombshell who yearns to be a country singer and sleeps with a father and son (not at the same time thank god) played by Gene Hackman and a hunky young Dennis Quaid. These are Barbra’s least known movies by a long shot. They are both, however, getting better with age. They’re her ‘art house’ movies.

Which brings us to Yentl, Barbra’s most personal film. Her first time as director it is also her last musical (at least to date, hint-hint). It’s pure Land-O-Lakes from start to finish. So bring on the DVD already!