He was a peerless screenwriter and director who for a couple of decades had an enviable knack of getting to interesting points on the cultural map just before everybody else did. (…)
I saw [An Unmarried Woman] not so long ago for the first time in years, and was impressed to find it was, in fact, better than I’d burbled about it to Mazursky all those years ago. He gave the great Jill Clayburgh the role of her career, and she’s marvelous in it – look at the spacey half-there-half-not trance-like state she falls into when her husband breaks the news that he wants out.
So true. As I wrote at the time of Clayburgh’s death:
…the way her face changes when her husband blurts out that he’s having an affair is one of my favorite miniature moments of cinema. Garbo couldn’t have pulled it off better; a bit of her face seems to fall off, like a tiny piece of siding plops stupidly off a house that’s just been through a tornado.
After more cool-to-watch facial expression changes/shingles falling off, she throws up right there on the street, which I remember was a Very Big Deal at the time.
