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"El Comercio" Lima-Perú
by Alverto Servat
(This is a translation)
GILLIAN ANDERSON: TREADING A DEVIOUS WAY



The actress of "The X-Files" completely alters the course of her career. She dares to interpret a period character and obtains the best reviews of her profession.

Points of view.

Our first thoughts on the selection of Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart, the lead character of "The House of Mirth" based on the novel by Edith Wharton, was one of total surprise. Not only because we didn't find any similarity, after carefully reading the author's description of the physical characteristics of her exquisite heroine, but because she's strongly identified with her well-known character in the televison series, "The X-Files." Like Dana Scully, the rational FBI agent who refuses to accept the theories of her partner, Mulder, regarding a possible extra-terrestrial conspiracy to invade our planet, Anderson has covered a wide dramatic range with the exception of humor. And we must not hide our enthusiasm for a role that has really been interpreted to its fullest. But from there to seeing her as the charming Miss Bart, capable of seducing New York's high society at the turn of the century with a glance and a few words...That is another story!

Apparently this idea is not shared at all by Terence Davies, the British director and screenplay writer of "The House of Mirth," who thinks the exact opposite. While searching for an actress, he ran into a photo of Gillian Anderson and he immediately thought that she was ideal to give life to Lily Bart. His main reason was the similarity he saw in that face, unknown to him (Davies confesses that he has never seen The X-Files), with the portraits of John Singer Sargent, the favorite painter of the aristocracy during the time of Edith Wharton. Of course, after the rigorous audition, Anderson obtained the part.

Finally, after its premiere in the United States, "The House of Mirth" went from being a film that was difficult to distribute - The New York Times made very unkind statements - to one of most favored by the most demanding public. Moreover, many critics placed it on their lists of Best Films of 2000 and, most surprising of all, Anderson is being talked about as one of the unquestionable candidates for the Oscar.

We have already seen the film and learned once again this lesson: never express an opinion without seeing the finished product on the screen. Gillian Anderson could not be more appropriate for the role of Lily. And although we insist that she does not conform to the physical description written by Mrs. Wharton in the novel, her performance transcends everything in such a manner that we are obliged to mentally reconstruct the character according to what we see on the screen.

Anderson carries herself throughout the film with such confidence that her performance, comparable only to that of Bette Davis in "Now Voyager" or Joan Crawford in "Possessed," leaves us with an impression of infinite permanence. Suddenly, through her, the most significant passages of the novel come to life and they have never been more alive than now.

"Miss Bart had in fact been treading a devious way, and none of her critics could have been more alive to the fact than herself," wrote Wharton, "but she had a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it."

How to bring that fatalistic sense to the screen? Gillian Anderson, shedding the weapons of Scully, knows how to do it. What a personal triumph for an actress who seemed to be stuck in a single role.

Perhaps the key to having obtained a performance of such magnitude lies in her own personality. Film Comment asked her, "Where did you find common ground between yourself and Lily?"

"I try very hard to be brutally honest in my personal life and put all my cards on the table. But as a child I was very calculating and determined to get my way, and felt I had a certain right to things, so I drew on that. I have also had periods of wretchedness in my life and have been good at hiding that from the outside world."

THE END

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