DVD: Divine Viewing Diversions

We take her for granted as a musical superstar. As well as she should be, given that incredible voice.

So, do we just accept that truism and salute her as the one of the top-selling recording artists of all time?

Or do we fight it because her impact and influence and acceptance – or lack thereof – when it comes to her movie career is curiously underappreciated?

Is it that the big-screen cinema is just not her medium? Is it that simple? Do we merely accept that limitation, as she seems to have done, and move on, acknowledging that she has been not only a leading-lady movie star but a directorial moviemaker as well?

Or, as we examine her movie career both in front of and behind the camera, do we inevitably surmise that there is a subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – form of systemic sexism at work and play here?

We’ll let you be the judge by perusing a six-pack of her movies and deciding whether she’s been fairly treated with regard to her contribution to movie history.

FUNNY GIRL (G, 1968)

Already having won multiple Grammys, Barbra Streisand makes her movie debut in this musical dramedy by bringing a role she played on Broadway to the big screen and taking home the Best Actress Oscar, no less. She memorably tied for the honor with Katharine Hepburn (“The Lion in Winter”). Streisand portrays singer-comedienne Fanny Brice in her rise to stardom with the Ziegfeld Follies and her problematic romance with a gambler played by Omar Sharif. Debuts don’t come much more auspicious than Babs’s, and director William Wyler gets great work – witty, moving, and uncanny – from his shining star as she collaborates with him to deliver such commanding songs as “People,” “My Man,” “Second Hand Rose,” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade.” It was obvious this early in her screen career that, in one fashion or another, Streisand would be part of the movie landscape and that there would absolutely be an audience for someone with her overwhelming talent.

THE WAY WE WERE (PG, 1973)

Five years later, Streisand teamed up with heartthrob-plus Robert Redford (ooh, how he’d hate that description) for director Sydney Pollack. It’s an iconic, nostalgic romantic drama set in Hollywood’s blacklist era (the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s) that focuses on Streisand’s political activist opposite Redford’s ambitious screenwriter. Their politics and respective convictions threaten to break them up despite their obvious feelings for each other – and in how many major American films is THAT the case? Streisand and Redford provide the absorbing romance with star power galore and beyond-ample chemistry. The title song, performed by Streisand, took home an Oscar, and she was nominated again for Best Actress. Audiences flocked to this naturally affecting love story, in which the couple moves to California, despite her objections, and her political involvement threatens his scriptwriting career. Juicy stuff.

A STAR IS BORN (R, 1976)

In remarkable short order, Streisand had become a virtual movie genre of her own, her film showcases designed to aim at – or, at the very least, to include – the many devoted fans of the admired singer. This was the third of four versions of a familiar romantic drama, featuring Streisand opposite fellow music legend Kris Kristofferson. They play a star-crossed Hollywood couple going in opposite directions on the fame scale in the world of rock music. Streisand’s hit song, “Evergreen,” would go on to win an Oscar, and she and Kristofferson would bring a pair of legitimate movie-star presences to the mix. Thus, the near-inevitability of yet another remake/update to follow, this one starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Streisand completists surely want to catch this one even if half the audience swoons while the other half balks.

YENTL (PG, 1989)

Here’s where the underappreciation really commences. As a first-time director, producer, and co-writer, the film’s hyphenate star brings Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story, “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy,” to the movie screen. The title character is a young woman in Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century who disguises herself as a boy so that she can live out her abiding dream of getting an education and living an intellectual life. No matter how you slice it, Streisand triumphs. And yet the film was treated like a Hollywood afterthought with the only Oscar going to the score. Streisand gets superb performances out of herself and her supporting cast, including Amy Irving, Mandy Patinkin, Steven Hill, and Nehemiah Persoff. This seemed at the time like the spirited launching of an impressive directorial career. And yet it didn’t exactly pan out that way, did it? Regardless, for those of us who already recognized Streisand’s gifts and skills, this eminently watchable film remains an indelible achievement.

THE PRINCE OF TIDES (R, 1991)

Back in the director’s chair for this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Pat Conroy, Streisand plays a psychiatrist treating Nick Nolte. The star’s directorial achievement seemed to surpass her thespian contribution, but it was another strong outing behind the scenes, as attested to by the seven – count ’em, seven – Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Actor (Nolte), and Supporting Actress (Kate Nelligan), and Art Direction. It was obvious that the industry was not bowled over by Streisand’s performance. But it was just as evident that it found her directing work admirable. Whether she should have cast herself in the high-profile and moderately distracting shrink role is open to question. But that she continued to flourish as an ambitious filmmaker had been amply demonstrated. Again.

THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (PG-13, 1996)

Star-producer-director Streisand would find herself in the Oscar hunt yet again with this adaptation of a 1958 French film (thus the unusual translated title). Jeff Bridges steps into the male lead as he and Streisand play college professors attempting to negotiate a platonic relationship. Oscar nominations ensued for Best Song (“I’ve Finally Found Someone”) and Best Supporting Actress (Lauren Bacall as Streisand’s self-absorbed mom). But this outing seemed to halt the momentum or spell the end of Streisand’s truly productive stretch of movies that organized themselves around her prodigious gifts and impressive filmmaking objectives. Looking back at her achievements, acknowledging her limitations, ignoring her musical career for the moment, and evaluating her timing, it remains difficult to ignore this conclusion: If Streisand had turned out the same movies that she made but as a male director in the male-dominated movie industry, her reputation behind the camera might have been a good deal shinier.