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The Misunderstood Talent of Rosanna Arquette

"... she is able to appear on screen with such an unaffected natural quality that I feel as if I’m looking past the script and direction and actually experiencing the life of her character."
-Roger Ebert, review of Baby Its You (1983)

(https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/baby-its-you-1983)

Figure 1: Image of Rosanna

Note. From Movie Store

https://www.moviestore.com/rosanna-arquette-lovely-young-portrait-in-white-dress-8x10-inch-photo/?srsltid=AfmBOoqO6bzlVvGAXPmJwVHlGzM7S3ClroyOIjDZmPK1TURojyDxKCl6

Having been a recent fan of the 80s films Desperately Seeking Susan (1986) and "Baby its You" (1983),, I've become increasingly aware of something  unique and almost elusive about Rosanna Arquette's screen presence.

Rosanna belongs to a talented acting family. Her sister, Patricia is an academy award winner for her work on Boyhood. If one was to measure her success by accolades, number of lead roles in critically acclaimed films, Patricia's career appears to be more decorated.

But awards, box office, and lead roles absolutely does not measure artistic originality, acting versaility, and the dynamic range of emotion that an actor can express on screen. In fact, a more decorated career is sometimes largely attributed to the way the film industry typically favors actors that can stay within a film's structure over an originality that studio systems sometimes don't have room for. Actors who seamlessly align with tone and structure can simply be seen as easier cogs to insert, because studios expect their audiences to respond to tradition and familiarity.

Rosanna at her peak in the 80s worked very differently. Her talent was more atmospheric than it was considered stable. There was a rawness and an immediacy that could electrify the tone, but it was harder to find something consistent about it. Her expressiveness seemed to operate at a speed slightly ahead of the film's pacing with expression that exploded at us in milliseconds: the swift shifting in direction of the eyes, the flinching of the shoulders, and these animated lips all seem to add unpredictable dimension to a character.

This elite control can sometimes contribute to an instability on-screen because its too hard for us to box someone that is often so erratic in a short span of frames. In the visual shorthand, she looks the part of Hollywood's stereotypical bombshell similar to a Rita Hayword, a Michelle Pfeiffer or a Sharon Stone. But all those actresses seemed to appeal more to the studio system by projecting a controlled and neater elegance. Rosanna had a very noticeably comedic wrecklessness that destabilized her beauty. She could offer expression that could be mistakenly seen as ironic in the middle of a gesture or provide doubt to us even as she projected sensuality. The subtle ways she shifted her facial expressions and used a distinct, vocal intonation that either fit or didn't fit forced audiences to scratch their heads and constantly re-categorize her. Rosanna can vibrate on and  off the screen and this way about her adds life to even a poorly directed or poorly scripted film.

Figure 2: Image of Rosanna playing Jill Rosen from Baby Its You (1983)

Note. From Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Its-You-Rosanna-Arquette/dp/B00Y250GFI

In Baby Its You (1983), written and directed by John Sayles, Rosanna Arquette plays Jill Rosen,a highschool senior who has big ambitions to succeed in her academics and theater.  The film subverts  the teen drama narrative structure by allowing time skips to change the status and evolution of a short-lived romance. It is perhaps in the same doomed love category as "In the Mood For Love" or "Lost In Translation" as it offers something philsophical on how romance lingers on even as a divide in ambition and class occurs between two individuals.

Elite Control of Eye and Lip Movements

 Arquette gives her  career-best performance here because from start to finish, the character provides enough room for her to vibrate off the screen without this erratic expressiveness to overshadow grounded parts of the narrative. There is a sense of being grounded even when the youthful energy of the character is mistakenly read as being anxious due to the coming-of-age conflict of inexperience. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0k8BRkKb8Y

1:25-1:38 - Shows Rosanna's flickering of expression: the curling of the lips, the side-to-side shifting of the eyes, and the flinching of the shoulders.

In this clip with Matthew Modine, her eye and lip movements are both swift and subtle, rapidly changing direction from head pose to head pose, offering an emotional nuance and complexity that makes a lot of other actors look very stiff by comparison. This display of emotion in such a short period, causes us to intuit if she is either processing, doubting, or recollecting ideas in her head.

1:25-1:38 - Modine's character asks, "you're

re an actress?" and Jill responds, "It's a rumor..." There's a pause and this is where she provides a variety of expressions (above screenshots) that distorts what she may be really feeling about having Modine's character in the room.

It feels like Jill Rosen embodies what Rosanna does best, too. The character balances between stage and real life  and this aligns perfectly with Rosanna's specialty in easily shifting between planes of reality, as her frequent changes in expression calls for a layered switching between worlds. This character might've been what directors referenced as a blueprint when deciding how to best utilize her talent going forward because it became a recurring motif to go between real life and authenticity. In the 90s film Linguini Incident (1991) she plays Lucy, a part-time waitress and aspiring escape artist and in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), she plays Roberta Glass, a woman who wanders the city and on occasion, performs on stage at a nightclub venue.

The Flickering Delivery

But we see how directors choose to limit her impact by choosing her as a supporting actress as oppose to a lead. This way, there is less risk or less monitoring of any out-of-bounds oscillation that might take spotlight away from her other co-stars. Scorsese showed excellent intent when inserting her talent in After Hours (1985), recognizing that the surreal black comedy needed a short performance that could vibrate with volatility in order to build up tension before the film's major turning point. She plays a character named Marcy and this iconic scene of her discussing this one experience her husband has who is obsessed with movies sets an emotional tone for the film's following events.

 "My husband was a movie freak. Actually, he was particularly obsessed with one movie, "The Wizard of Oz." He talked about it constantly. I thought it was cute at first. On our wedding night, I was a virgin... when we made love, whenever he - you know, when he came, he would just - scream out, "Surrender Dorothy!" That's all! Just "Surrender Dorothy"

https://youtu.be/XIRN43cVMHI?si=ETx8d6DbQUm8pl2Q

Between 1:10-1:50, is the famous dialogue about the husband's obsession with Wizard of Oz (1939)

The film's quote provides texture to the core themes of delusion and isolation resulting from the guilt of the protagonist's imminent wrongdoing. It showcases how Rosanna's flickering intonation and facial expression blends seamlessly with atmosphere and the benefit of her having a script that allows her to pause with a "you know?". This way, the vibrating intonation that she naturally possesses can seamlessly flow within reason and sync with the character's environment. There are these erratic smirks here and there that prominently reveal teeth and it creates an uneasiness aligning perfectly with Scorsese's direction of camera. At one point he captures this cup of coffee shaking on the table during their conversation and its like her dialogue becomes one with the fickle nature of the surrounding environment.

Physicality as an Asset

Figure 4: Image of Shelley Duvall

Note. From Union Leader

https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/shelley-duvall-scream-queen-of-the-shining-and-a-well-cast-olive-oyl-dies-at/article_037f42ea-3fc0-11ef-ace7-4f40119b3b61.html

When I look at Rosanna's portrayl of Jill Rosen from "Baby Its You" (1983) or Marcy from "After Hours" (1985) I look at how her physicality supports her way of flickering. Physicality is an asset in film because of the camera's various positions in capturing a subject, both up close and far away. I sometimes compare Rosanna in terms of physicality to the wide-eyed and wiry physique of Shelley Duvall, because Shelley brought somehing singular to roles that were considered very offbeat for mainstream films.

In "3 Women" and "The Shining" DuVall is key in keeping the dream logic consistent. Or in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. she amplified those dreamy atmospheres to let Julie Christie dominate as a natural leading presence. This is how I see Rosanna's impact too as a supporting actress. Like Shelley, she offers a sense of diversion beyond script and her characters' personalities contribute to building up the surrounding atmosphere because of how unusual and dynamic they are.

The Right Director Mattered

If Rosanna worked with a director like Robert Altman similar to how Shelley worked with him all those years in the 70s, I bet she would have had a much more dynamic set of roles and meanwhile ones that were more contained to fit a film's structure. Altman would see Rosanna as a perfect piece for his goal in defying those mainstream conventions. Aligning with Altman's ambition, Rosanna continually disrupts stereotypes and Altman was masterful in preventing these types of actors from clashing with tonal frameowkr.

Altman cleverly controlled Elliot Gould's presence in the Long Goodbye" (1973) by ensuring that he would have low vocal intensity and his offhand remarks never felt overtly loud. This served as a way to ensure his portrayal wouldn't stick out like an iconic Dirty Harry or Yojimbo would. This is the kind of directorial restraint that I think she would've benefited from because far too often, filmmakers that chose her superficially boxed her as something less or underestimated how overpowering these portrayals would be.

The 90s shift

We see a noticeable shift in Rosanna's career by the 90s when more and more films are experimenting with a fusion of genres. There is a shift in comedy that in some ways is best represented in the Patricia'-led "True Romance" co-written by Quentin Tarantino where you can clearly see this pivotal shift in an exploration of homage and remixing of culture from previous decades. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekCoyBfycg

Clip of the famous piercings dialogue from Pulp Fiction (1994)

Rosanna adapts well to this industry shift but couldn't land the lead role opportunities like she once did in the 80s---something that she has publicly commented on, particularly during the #MeToo movement when she mentioned how her walking away from powerful producers was one big factor that seemed to disrupt her star momentum and made it difficult to get roles.

Jody in Pulp Fiction (1994) is an example where we see her impact as a supporting actress in a more Shelley DuVall sort-of-way, where she's here for a subversion but in smaller doses, adding texture and atmospheric build-up, rather than taking over with pronounced agency. From the iconic adrenaline shot scene which she hilariousy tops off with a "That was f-ing trippy" one-liner to the piercing scene when she talks about how one of her sixteen piercings "helps with fellatio", Arquette provides a small but invaluable piece to strengthen the narrative threads by giving us a character with an edge that adds to the film's multicultural, chaptered narrative.

https://youtu.be/_4fptgTIKdQ?si=fqoW0azrD2rofbb4

Throughout this clip, Rosanna has low vocal intensity and her lively expressions are somewhat controlled.

But perhaps the most fascinating role is in the film Crash (1996) where she plays Gabrielle, a car crash survivor who turns trauma into eroticism. The portrayal resists a melodrama that we'd sometimes see during her peak years because she is being asked to blend in with the coldly calculated world of Cronenberg and act as an atmospheric device, supporting the examination of the thematic brokenness and sexual lust. Its a demonstration of a director that can suppress volatility within a consistently toned framework or re-contextualize it based on the thematic extremes that a narrative like this one has.

Getting Older Provides Different Opportunities...

A brutal, hard truth about film acting is in our constant perception---even on subconcious levels, of how we judge performances based on the way an actor looks, even when actors have all the necessary fundamentals and skills that goes into saying lines accurately and providing the right expressions. From the 2000s onward, Rosanna begins to have more emotionally contained roles because age and experience have something to do with replacing a more youthful volatility during her 80s and 90s run.

An example of this is in "Signs of Love" (2022) where she plays Rosie who works as a waitress at a restaurant. Her daughter  Zoe Bleu plays a critical parrt in the film playing a deaf woman who is the love interest of Hopper Penn's character Frankie, a drug dealer who is struggling to escape poverty and crime. In short flashes,  her daughter is doing what Rosanna did in the 80s because the muted character encourages a flickering of emotion, particularly with Frankie who doesn't know sign language. Rosanna's presence in the film offsets the relationship dynamic with a groundedness and her veteran status bolsters this presence, despite having little screen time.

An 80s Film Icon in Retrospect

Figure 5: Image of Rosanna and Madonna from Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

Note. From The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/23/like-a-virgin-madonna-stratospheric-desperately-seeking-susan-seidelman

Despite her second tier status as a movie star in the 80s, Rossana is, in my eyes, one of the biggest film icons of that decade. It was around this time that there was a renaissance of the teen/young adult comedy that John Hughes helped popularize. Many of these films with coming-of-age themes benefitted from having acting talent that could embody a nervousness, hesitance, and disorientation. But Rosanna offered something so much more deeply layered than any Molly Ringwald performance you'd find in say, the "Breakfast Club", because she demands from the audience an intuition for investigating what lies beneath a glossy surface level.

And I think that this is what also makes a great actor, a great actor ---someone who isn't going to just offer subversion, but instead offers a type that exposes what flawed studio systems simply can't contain. Perhaps her career would have been accepted differently and had a more diverse range had she found a long-term collaborator who would be able to channel that volatility better.

But either way—as Roger Ebert observed, we seem to look past the script and see a life unfolding in real time. Her performances feel like lived-in fragments where each time we re-visit them, there is something new that we catch onto that we hadn't seen in previous viewings. Even in the bad movies that she's starred in, there are highlights in her acting performance that can be enjoyably re-visited and teach us about the small details in expression that can make a live-action character feel so alive.

Sources

Amazon (n.d.) [Image]. https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Its-You-Rosanna-Arquette/dp/B00Y250GFI

Ebert, R. (1983, May 2)  Baby, It’s You. rogerebert.com https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/baby-its-you-1983

Guardian (2022, 23 Nov ). The Guardian. [Image] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/23/like-a-virgin-madonna-stratospheric-desperately-seeking-susan-seidelman

(2009, Nov 24) "Great Movie Scenes - After Hours (1985) - Surrender Dorothy Scene" [Video]. https://youtu.be/XIRN43cVMHI?si=ETx8d6DbQUm8pl2Q

(2021, May 17,) Crash [1996] David Cronenberg [Rosanna Arquette, Car Dealer, James Spader] Video. https://youtu.be/_4fptgTIKdQ?si=fqoW0azrD2rofbb4

(2020, Aug 5)  Pulp fiction movie / piercing scene with english subtitles [Video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekCoyBfycg

(2023, Sep 23) Matthew Modine in "Baby It's You" (1983). [Video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0k8BRkKb8Y

Union Leader. (2024, Jul 11,)  [Image]. https://www.unionleader.com/news/back_page/shelley-duvall-scream-queen-of-the-shining-and-a-well-cast-olive-oyl-dies-at/article_037f42ea-3fc0-11ef-ace7-4f40119b3b61.html

Movie Store (n.d.) [Image]. https://www.moviestore.com/rosanna-arquette-lovely-young-portrait-in-white-dress-8x10-inch-photo/?srsltid=AfmBOoqO6bzlVvGAXPmJwVHlGzM7S3ClroyOIjDZmPK1TURojyDxKCl6