Barbara Loden's Wanda [DVD]

Barbara Loden was an actress who never really became a household name, despite appearing in many films. She appeared mostly in small roles that never really propelled her to stardom but this film was her signature piece and the pinnacle of her unfinished career, due to her death at age 48 after a long battle with breast cancer. Her second husband, Elia Kazan, from whom she was estranged, though still married to, took credit for this film after her death and many believe this was a fallacy as do I.This film belongs to Barbara Loden, despite Kazan’s claims, and it is a very personal film, as is apparent from watching it (she was the star, the writer and the director). It’s also a very sad and poignant film both visually and emotionally.Loden plays Wanda Goronski, an unstable housewife and mother who seems to be disconnected from her children, her husband, from life itself. She willingly and unemotionally gives up her rights as a mom, divorces her husband and leaves the children in their father’s care.Finding herself without money or a home, she tries to collect on some back pay and borrows a few dollars elsewhere but she is ultimately adrift in the world and spiraling out of control after a one-night stand ditches her. After being robbed and abandoned, Wanda finds herself in the restroom of a bar during an in-progress robbery and becomes fixated on the robber – an unpleasant and abusive man named Norman, who takes her on the run for sex and as his lookout. Wanda is so alone, she goes along with Norman and puts up with his abuse, seemingly due to a complete lack of self esteem and self worth, perhaps even self hatred.When Norman is killed in a bank heist, Wanda flees, hitching a ride with a man who attempts an assault on her but she escapes and ends up sitting with a group of strangers at some rural bar in the woods, totally and painfully alone in the world.I first saw this film on TCM many years ago and then purchased the DVD back in 2007 for $14.95 (it’s now almost $60 – holy cow) and while organizing dvds, came across it recently and re-watched it. It has the same heavy, emotional impact every time I watch it.The film has a haunting quality to it but I think what gets to the heart of the viewer is being able to feel Wanda’s loneliness – a profound and painfully palpable loneliness as well as aloneness. That last shot of Wanda in the bar is so powerful, so human. And knowing a little bit about Barbara Loden’s life and death, the impact is even greater.An amazing and film everyone should see at least once.Recommend.

Very few people took notice of Wanda on it's release--the critics found it depressing and "undramatic", its visual style amateurish, its plot hardly formed. What a difference a few decades can make. Now the film stands very tall with the best of the "cimema verite" style--it's tone echoes both the Dardenne Brothers films and the harsh world of Gaspar Noe, as well as the best of independent film making. It is a film very ahead of its time--prophetic in so many ways. The heroine is an utter failure with little future-but this film, with its muted colors, marvelous sense of place, and steady devotion to harsh truths makes it one of the strongest works of art to emerge from the 60's. It's a revelation for anyone devoted to great cinema.

For those of you who are familiar with the 1987 movie Barfly, I believe we have identified the character "Wanda" in this 1970 film essentially as the same character "Wanda" in who appears later in the 1987 film. The original 1970 film may provide an insight as to how Barfly's Wanda found herself in her present state seventeen years later. This film is alive with signs of the time, and an enjoyable retro experience.

I "accidentally" caught this movie at 2AM, or there about, and I was blown away. I missed the first quarter of the movie, but I was mesmerized and taken aback at the acting and film style. Barbara Loden and Michael Higgins brilliantly play off of one another in a relationship born of desperation and an ironic fate. The supporting cast are locals, not professionally trained actors. They provide a slightly awkward but stunning authenticity and provide a powerful emotional connection that would have been lost had they been classically trained.Please watch this movie. The loneliness, despair, and alienation, coupled with the unpredictable tempo are inescapably profound,

I stumbled upon "Wanda" on public TV late night in the early 70's, what had to have been not too long after its release. The genius of "Wanda" is making the viewer a voyeur, as Wanda drifts through situation after situation, always under the influence others. When "The End" comes across the screen, it doesn't take much to foresee Wanda's future. This may not seem much of a "plot." It isn't. However, the starring director and her cast give "Wanda" unrelenting realism that is visceral.

This book must have been purchased some time ago. I really cannot comment on this one. So sorry, but that's life.

don't buy this movie unless you have some sort of foreign DVD player cause it wont work. I guess that's why the movie is so cheap and it also takes 3 weeks to get it.

One of those titles every cinephile hears but never sees, absolutely essential viewing to those invested and missing the New Hollywood.

Good dvd.

vient de voir "wanda", seul film de barbara loden.film à découvrir , aux antipodes du glamour à la hollywood, ce film raconte les mésaventures d'une femme fraîchement divorcée un peut gauche soumise , une ingénue.elle va rencontrer un looser voyou avec qui elle va former le couple le plus improbable du cinéma américain, passant du burlesque au drame- ces deux anti-bonnie and clyde sont touchant de naïveté . barbara loden joue à merveille cette femme issue du milieu ouvrier inadaptée à cette société.un film à voir absolument pour les amoureux de cinéma vrai, et en dehors des conventions - un ovni jubilatoire avec une fin dans un plan d'une tristesse absolue. magnifique <3.dommage que le cancer nous a privé de plus de films de cette femme en dehors du système- r.i.p barbara <3

Ce film précieux est respectueusement servi par cette édition, délivrant une image belle et fidèle, compressée avec tact et bénéficiant d'un bitrate élevé, gage de robustesse; sonorité idoine. 'Wanda' traverse les années sans sourciller, le plaisir du visionnage étant le même qu'au premier jour. Barbara Loden magnifique, toute de charme et de talent campant une jolie et touchante jeune femme en total flottement, perdue en ce monde; puis Monsieur Dennis (Michael Higgins), 'pathétique' et perdu lui-même, nous paraissant presque tristement drôle entre candeur et rusticité: leur route vont se croiser .. Pour qui apprécie le Bon cinéma indépendant, ici, vous avez une Vraie et authentique Perle! *incontournable*[A noter: De courts mais bons suppléments.]

Wanda, c'est l'histoire d'une femme dans l'Amérique des années 60/70. C'est une histoires de femmes. Meurtries, utilisées,manipulées, brisées... Wanda, c'est Barbara Loden.On pense à Marilyn Monroe, à Jean Seberg... A bien d'autres. A voir absolument! Lire ensuite "Supplément à la vie de Barbara Loden" de Nathalie Léger (prix du livre Inter 2012).

film culte, réalisé par la femme d' Elia KAZAN... Très Cassavettes, même si elle a toujours nié son influence.... Dans mon top ten....