Maggie Smith dies aged 89: her 10 essential films, from ‘Othello’ to ‘Harry Potter’
One of the most great ladies (historical) world interpretation. Maggie Smith he left us at the age of 90 one of the most apotheotic trajectories in the world of theater and film.
He started his career on the stage, from which he practically never left, Royal National Theatre on broadway. Despite her charisma, she was always associated with secondary roleeven though he was the absolute hero of a lot of movies. And in the ones that weren’t, he absolutely stole the show with his mere presence.
He made his big screen debut in the middle the fiftiesand participated in films by authors such as Jack Clayton (I’m always alone), John Ford and Jack Cardiff (A rebellious dreamer), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Women in Venice), Jiří Cuckor (Trips with aunt), Alan J. Paula (Love and pain and the whole damn thing), Robert Moore (A corpse for desserts) or JGuillermin fire (Death on the Nile).
In its extensive long list of titles, it stands out not only by its presence or seemingly unnoticed, but also by alternating various genres that make us historical drama up and down comedyfrom the series to yours vindication of women in old age in the last phase of his career. Here are some of his core titles
Already at the time when he played alongside the great, he was a prominent figure in the theater Lauren Olivier this version of the drama of the same name William Shakespeare in the production of the National Theatre, which became a famous adaptation after the version Orson Welles. It was her first supporting actress Academy Award nomination for the role Desdemonaone of the most iconic characters in drama history.
In this case, Maggie Smith does his first Oscar as the best actress thanks to the film in which she played young and very controversial teacher who taught at a strict girls’ school where he taught his students about politics, art and love. Her ideas, far from conventionalism, will confront her with the morality of the time, which will be thanks to her approach to fascist ideology.
Legendary director Gone with the wind and My Fair Lady he undertook the most caustic dissection of woes in the latter part of his career nobility from female point of view in which films such as Rich and famous and the previous one Trips with auntadaptation of the novel by Graham Greene in which the life of a bank employee is radically changed by the arrival of an eccentric lady who, according to him, impersonates his aunt and drags him into an unexpected whirlwind of adventure.
The great playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, responsible for The Odd Couple and Corpse for Desserts, was the creator of this film based on his stage play, which breaks down four stories set in a hotel in California. Humor, pain, many doses of cynicism and biting in this work, in which Alan Alda, Jane Fonda, Michael Caine and Walter Matthau also participated. Of course, Maggie Smith won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
For the first time, Maggie Smith participated in the film James Ivory It was in 1981, in Quartet and shortly afterwards he was involved in one of the most important works of the director’s career, in which he definitively asserted his style. A film that would become a direct precedent for all period series that are successful today, from Dontown Abbey (in which Maggie Smith also participated) to Bridgerton.
Maggie Smith has never been shy about moving between high and low culture, or in other words between auteur film and popular movies. For this reason, it was one of the crucial parts of this film that became a real box office success in which Whoopi Goldberg.
Excellent composer of group choreography, or whatever Robert Altmanfeatured a veteran actress in what could be considered a direct predecessor (again) of Downton Abbeyon this occasion by way of description upper classes and popular classes in the same space. In this case, it’s set in a 1930s country house that’s preparing a reception for a hunting day. While the elite occupy the rooms, the servants will have to look after their hosts.
A very choral cast we find among Emily WatsonKelly MacDonald, Alan Bates, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Richard E. Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Helen Mirren and many other big names. For this film, she was Maggie Smith Oscar nomination for the best support performance.
As well as a large number of prestigious British performers, such as Richard Harris, John Hurt or Ian Hart (to name a few), Maggie Smith didn’t rip her clothes off when it came to participating in one of the youth sagas the most important fantasy films in the history of cinema. His character was Minerva McGonagallprofessional witch and wizard. He participated in seven films of the franchise.
movie from celebration of seniors par excellence. In that, Maggie Smith, Judy DenchBill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton show that the best is yet to come in this exotic adventure that had its second installment.
On this occasion she was the real protagonist. AND film twilightr full of humor based on the book by Alan Bennett in which a woman parks her van on a London sidewalk near the house of a writer (the author of the work himself) and a relationship develops between the two, at first strained and later very sweet.