Thursday, December 20, 2018
PETER MASTERSON 1934-2018
PETER MASTERSON
1934-2018
Peter Masterson was one of the nicest people I ever interviewed. I am sorry he is gone. He was intelligent, friendly, encouraging, and skilled as an actor, director and writer.
He was married to the actress Carlin Glynn. The cinematographer Peter Masterson is his son, and the actress Mary Stuart Masterson is his daughter. I interviewed Mary Stuart when her fine film, The Cake Eaters, was shown at the Stony Brook Film Festival. I was glad, at the time, to be able to tell her how much I liked her father.
Peter Masterson was best known for his Tony nominated adaptation and direction of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. (He won the Drama Desk Award for Best Director. Carlin Glynn won both the Tony and Theater World Awards for Featured Actress.) He also directed the film Trip To Bountiful, which won an Oscar for Geraldine Page, which was adapted by his cousin, Horton Foote, who had written the original stage play. Peter played Katharine Ross' husband in the original adaptation of Stepford Wives. Mary Stuart, then just 10, made her film debut as his daughter in that film.
LINKS
PETER MASTERSON - WIKIPEDIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Masterson
PETER MASTERSON - IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0557751/
QPORIT: MARY STUART MASTERSON AND THE CAKE EATERS
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2008/07/mary-stuart-masterson-and-cake-eaters.html
Labels: broadway, Carlin Glynn, Drama Desk Award, Mary Stuart Masterson, Oscar, Peter Masterson, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, The Cake Eaters, Tony Award, Trip to Bountiful
Monday, July 14, 2008
MARY STUART MASTERSON AND THE CAKE EATERS
Mary Stuart Masterson directing
The Cake Eaters
Mary Stuart Masterson, is charming, ebullient and intelligent... and an actress and the director of The Cake Eaters, to be shown on Saturday evening (July 17, 7:00 PM) at the Stony Brook Film Festival (SBFF) (see our post on SBFF below).
In this film, she tells an interesting, romantic story, about difficult and troubled people. The acting, especially by Kristen Stewart, is dead-on. Kristen plays an adolescent girl with a serious disease and, thinking about the film, I kind-of had to keep reminding myself that Kristen was an actress and not a patient recruited for a film role.
Mary Stuart (that seems to be what she likes to be called) said that she cast Kristen (fifteen when this film was made), remembering having seeing her in The Panic Room in 2002 (which she made when she was just nine). Meeting her, she found Kristen was "so poised and intelligent and ... had such a ferocious... love for the character, that I just knew that it had be her." (Poised, intelligent and ferocious: great qualities for an actress!)
Mary Stuart Masterson with her brother
cinematographer Pete Masterson
What makes the film most special, it seems to me, is that it is uniquely American in a way that few films are. It was shot on location upstate in New York, and has an authenticity that comes from being firmly rooted in the present time in a real place in this country. The film was shot with understated realism by Mary Stuart’s brother, Peter Masterson.
Mary Stuart Masterson and Bruce Dern
The story is contemporary and gently treats of romance and relationships, difficult and otherwise. The character’s talk, and the action proceeds, with a rhythm that is genuine to the place, the time and the story. The script, by Jayce Bartok, who also appears in the film, has not been formulized the way studio films are.
Mary Stuart comes from a family and milieu of actors and directors. Her mother is the Tony winning actress Carlin Glynn. And Mary Stuart has appeared as an actress in films which are something of a family affair, such films as The Trip to Bountiful, written by the playwright, Horton Foote and directed by her father, Peter Masterson (who is Horton Foote's cousin). Mary Stuart's father is a charming, and intelligent (Note: it's not a coincidence that I used the same adjectives to describe Mary Stuart) actor, writer and Tony nominated director (for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas). That understanding of family, and that tradition of crafting film and theater which is in her background history, seems to inform the decisions and structure that were made in crafting a film that portrays sophisticated relationships, and that looks and feels unique and genuine.
There is likely to be a Q&A with Mary Stuart after the screening on Saturday. With a diverse and interesting schedule of films, the Stony Brook Film Festival seems like a very good place to visit between Thursday (July 17) and Saturday (July 26), with the first Saturday night (July 19) a particularly fine time to attend, for the screening of The Cake Eaters.
Note (July 25, 2009) -- The Cake Eaters is now out on DVD. Below is a link to watch the film online or buy a DVD. Also, Mary Stuart has produced a new film, Tickling Leo, written and directed by her husband, Jeremy Davidson, which is being shown today at the Stony Brook Film Festival 2009.
Labels: Kristen Stewart, Mary Stuart Masterson, Peter Masterson, The Cake Eaters, The Stony Brook Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival
