Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Katharine Hepburn's Oscar-winning performance in The Lion in Winter (in a tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl) has been slammed by many of her admirers, including Pauline Kael, who concluded her review saying something like, "...It's self-exploitation, and it's horrible."

Although the movie itself won the Best Film award from the New York Film Critics, several critics temporarily (for less than an hour, as I recall reading) resigned over its selection. I'm a little indifferent about the movie, but not about Hepburn, so Ethan Mordden's appreciation of her in his book Medium Cool: The Movies of the 1960s is very welcome.