Julie and Julia - the movie

[mrsadm]

Now I can't help wondering, if Nora Ephron were to make a movie about Escoffier, staring George Clooney,  would everybody rush to buy "The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery: For Connoisseurs, Chefs, Epicures Complete With 2973 Recipes" ?

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[jgm]

The account of what Paul went through in the McCarthy era -- especially when he was called to Washington -- was extremely interesting. That was one of the really memorable parts of the book to me.

A little off topic, but worth saying: Jacques Pepin's autobiography has as many wonderful moments as Julia's. I won't even attempt to compare the two, for they are very different stories, but I would still highly recommend it.

[MaxH]

...I can't help wondering, if Nora Ephron were to make a movie about Escoffier, staring George Clooney,  would everybody rush to buy "The Escoffier Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery: For Connoisseurs, Chefs, Epicures Complete With 2973 Recipes" ?

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Yikes! Yet another repackaging of the Guide Culinaire. In the fad for switching titles with author names, a publisher put out an edition titled "Escoffier: etc etc" instead of Guide Culinaire (its traditional title, under which the English translation has been sold, and cited, the longest). Title skipper10 gave looks like a thinned-down version of Escoffier's full 5012-recipe Guide Culinaire, available (under that title) in English for decades.

More in the separate Book Thread (last entry 2007) on the various titles under which the GC now appears in English. (Earlier link, "Guide Culinaire" above, is to the traditional version, on Amazon, including my comments.)

But I agree with David Goldfarb: Ranhofer might make the better biodrama. (Escoffier codified French cooking -- interesting to cooks and historians. Ranhofer, among other things, fought with the Delmonico family and published their recipes in reprisal. That'll sell more tickets. Maybe with Armin Mueller-Stahl ...)

[maggiethecat]

And we could have steamy scenes of nineteenth century New Orleans, because that's where Charles started cooking in the U.S.

My daughter loved the movie and she was almost as interested in the Julie saga as she was in Julia's life. She's a very busy thirty-something blogger herself, and she thought the Julie bits were amusingly accurate.

[LindaK]

The weekend of Auust 15 turned into quite the Julia-fest. Saw the movie Saturday morning, cooked from MTAFC into the evening to celebrate Julia's birthday. Saw the movie again on Sunday.

Though you might assume otherwise from the two viewings, I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that while I was entertained I was also disappointed. The whole film was too light and fluffy for its subject matter. Julia Child's story was not very well served by the romantic comedy genre, in my view. So much of substance and depth glossed over in quick, superficial scenes. Fine for the Julie side of the movie but a completely wasted opportunity for the more compelling tale of Julia and Paul Child. Marrying the two stories was a clever story-telling device but, let's face it, Julie Powell's story didn't deserve equal billing. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci stole the show, not only because of their excellent performances but because of the raw material of Julia and Paul's story. Oh, what I wouldn't have given for two hours of THAT...

Streep's performance was superb, despite a few scenes which came uncomfortably close to caricature. Still, there were more than a few moments when I felt like Julia was there. That's what made me go back the next day.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've been looking a bit at Julie Powell's blog, and my wife has been reading her book, and while it doesn't exactly measure up to the whole life experience of Julia Child, there's more to her story than was included in the movie.

While Julia Child's desire to have a child (as it were) appears in a subtle way in the film, it's a major topic of Julie Powell's book (but not the blog, as far as I've read) that is left out of the film. I can see why it is left out, because it would have changed the focus of the story and could have added a potentially confusing plotline, but in terms of understanding the reality behind all this, as opposed to the story, it's worth knowing about.

The thing I found interesting about the blog is that, after skimming the first few months entries, she's figuring out a new genre of storytelling. Of course there is a long history of public diaristic writing, but the immediacy of the interactive component of the blog is something new. A writer could publish a kind of diary/editorial in a weekly and read select responses to it over time in other publications, but the possibility of anyone sitting down and writing a blog and anyone responding to it at once is new. Her first posts are mechanical and almost perfunctory, but eventually a personal voice breaks through, and it's about her own quirks and neuroses and struggles that are manifested through her writing about the cooking project. That isn't something that's easy to translate into film, but is interesting, at least to me, on its own terms.

[chuchelo]

Saw the movie and agree with those critics who said that one spends the "Julie" part of the movie waiting for it to be about "Julia" again. Meryl Streep was dead brill as Julia. Her voice was pitch perfect!!! Now I want to know so much more about Julia Child! (And much less about Julie Powell -- she struck me as meh.)

[howardlong]

Not sure if this is the right place to mention it, but as a diner and only a very occasional cook, I found the Julie and Julia film on general release in the UK to be right up my street. It's not going to to tax the brain cells too much, and neither is it going to excite those looking for fifteen minute car chases. I was taken there on Saturday by my neighbour without knowing what it was that I was going to see, although she knows I like me grub. Definitely recommended viewing for any foodie.

Cheers, Howard

[Doc]

Thanks for the tip, Howard. I hope to view when it reaches DVD rental.

[ChickenStu]

To read from the necronomicon.........

I hated that Meryl Streep played Julia Child. Her voice was too high anyway.

Julia Child disliked her for her role in the alar scare in the 80s, and they had very different views on food....which would be fine other then the fact that streep sits on her high horse telling people to eat organic even though many americans still eat processed foods constantly, not even fresh foods at all. So cant we start with helping people to eat fresh food?

Jamie Oliver is the closest thing we have to Julia today, telling and helping people to eat fresh foods and foods in moderation.

[Jaymes]

I hated that Meryl Streep played Julia Child. Her voice was too high anyway.

I wondered about that, too. But then read Russ Parson's comments in the L.A. Times. Russ knew Julia pretty well and he had this to say:

"Meryl Streep is astonishing. The way she captures Julia Child is something special. Streep inhabits her in a way that is eerie. Watch her move: Pay attention to the way she holds her elbows and cocks her head. That's Julia.

"More important, while Streep certainly gets Julia's sometimes loopy enthusiasm, she also gets the deep seriousness that was obvious only to those who knew her fairly well. This is no Dan Aykroyd skit; this is Julia Child with gravitas, which is to say the real Julia Child. In fact, leaving the theater and looking at the poster, I had to remind myself that Julia Child did NOT have Meryl Streep's face."

Not only was Streep's portrayal the main thing I liked about the film, she and Tucci were pretty much the only thing I liked about the film. Amy Adams is likable enough so her bits were at least watchable. But, for me anyway, they were not intriguing or particularly enjoyable. As Russ went on to say, likability was very important as Amy was playing a role about a woman whose main literary achievement was "one long whine," but I don't think that likability was enough to lift the Julie portions to the same level as the Julia. For those that find Julie an intriguing character and point out that her blog (or book) gained wide interest, I say that the only reason her blog gained much interest at all was because she was cooking her way though an iconic book from an iconic woman. Had Julie not attached herself like a barnacle to this particular star, nobody would have paid her the slightest bit of attention. She's already fading fast from public view. She's still writing, but nobody cares. We'll remember Julia forever. Julie not so much.

Back to Streep. If her performance was good enough for Russ Parsons, it's good enough for me. I'd like to see an entire movie about Julia's amazing life with Streep playing the whole thing.

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Edited October 10, 2010 by Jaymes (log)

[andiesenji]

I would also like to see a movie about Julia's life after the publication of Mastering the Art--

I think it is fascinating how her show went from fairly local interest to a country-wide and the world-wide phenomena.

I have all of her books, all of the episodes of "The French Chef" available on DVD and have several of the videos of Julia cooking with other chefs; and an older VHS tape with Graham Kerr is signed by both of them.

And I recently pre-ordered "As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto" - it's due out December 1.

I loved the movie and just a few minutes into it, totally forgot that was Meryl Streep on the screen. She totally captured the essence of Julia in her early days.

I remember watching The French Chef when it was actually being produced and it was her enthusiasm for food that came across every time.

This was the persona that Meryl Streep presented, right on the dime.