Wanda
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
Wanda Goronski, an unhappy housewife, stays on her sister's couch after leaving her husband. Showing up to a court divorce hearing late, she relinquishes her rights to her children and grants her husband a divorce.
Unable to find work, Wanda runs away with a man with whom she had a one night stand, only for him to abandon her at an ice cream stand. With rapidly dwindling funds, Wanda takes a nap in a movie theatre, where she is robbed in her sleep. Going to a bar to use the restroom, Wanda becomes infatuated with a man she thinks to be the bartender. Unbeknownst to her, the man, Norman Dennis, is a bank robber in the process of robbing the bar. Unable to rid himself of Wanda, Dennis takes her on the run with him. Even after learning about the details of Norman's lifestyle, Wanda decides to stay with Norman.
Wanda spends some time on the road with Norman, even though he becomes physically and emotionally abusive to her. Eventually, Norman convinces Wanda to be his lookout for a planned bank robbery. The robbery goes wrong, and Dennis is shot and killed; Wanda escapes undetected.
Alone again, Wanda hitches a ride with a man who attempts to sexually assault her. Wanda escapes and runs through the woods. The film ends with Wanda at a bar, where strangers supply her with food, alcohol, and cigarettes.

Review: There is a scene, near the beginning, that shows our main character from a distance walking through mounds of coal to get to her father to ask him for some money.
It is sad because Wanda's condition is not unique and probably makes up more of the working poor than we care to think.
This movie has everything going against it--it's very low-key, cheaply made (dig that shaking camera), and paced only a little more swiftly than your average Andy Warhol film.
TCM made its debut showing of Wanda tonight -- which also happens to be the day Barbara Loden passed away in 1980.
In its tale of a woman drifting through a barren landscape, falling in with abusive or indifferent men; in its distanced style, its pared down performances and dialogue, its long takes of nothing in particular, or rather, of everything, of life, mundane actions, of people looking and finding and doing; in its use of the crime genre for anti-generic and anti-narrative ends; in its restrained use of religious symbolism culminating in an enigmatic scene in a catacombs, one is reminded of Bresson - less rigorous, maybe, but less misogynistic too, more open.
...WANDA is nonetheless a stirring portrait of a woman who has lost her direction in life; that is, assuming she wasn't just going through the societally-mandated paces from the start, which I suspect.Abandoning her husband and children without a second thought, she sets off on a journey to...nowhere in particular.
Latching ignobly onto any man who will pick her up for a quickie, Wanda, played with remarkable veracity by the film's director Barbara Loden, drifts for a while until she stumbles upon a nomadic, dyspeptic robber, whom she meekly accompanies in his run from the law.
Instead of taking advantage of her second chance, her detached indolence is too strong to overcome, and the cycle of soul-searching is apparently ordained to continue ad infinitum.Recalling such contemporary cinematic works as FIVE EASY PIECES (1970), A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), the great GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD (1970), and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) in its characters' aimlessness and blind existentialism, "Wanda" also has echoes of Bresson's oeuvre; most of all, the film seems to have been a direct influence on Susan Seidelman's SMITHEREENS (1982), an equally good picture.To the film's detriment, its characters are such pathetic no-hopers that they are not easy to relate to, especially since they are given no biographical framework whatsoever.
Loden seems unaware of the misconception that merely letting the camera run on automatically lends a scene profundity; sometimes the film seems as hollow as its characters.
Barbara Loden, the wife of film director Elia Kazan, wrote, directed and stars in this portrait of a born loser in blue-collar Pennsylvania.
Wanda is the perfect bad example: she's poorly educated, unemployed, a doormat for any available man...and when she walks into a bar one night to use the bathroom, she has no idea the lone man inside is actually robbing the place.
Loden, who looks like a bedraggled version of Joanne Woodward in some of her hick roles, also helped to raise the funds for this picture, which played film festivals and garnered good critical buzz yet wasn't widely distributed.
The uneven sound is fuzzy, the camera-work is all over the place, and the lenient editing allows scenes to ramble on far longer than necessary (also the baby screaming during the film's opening five minutes was a big mistake).
Elia Kazan then -wife's only movie is unique.Barbara Loden was cast as Beatty's sister in the marvelous "splendor in the grass"(1961):a diametrically opposite part to "Wanda".The gal in Kazan's movie,unlike Beatty and Wood's characters ,initiates the events instead of reacting to them,even if she won't escape her fate.Wanda is not that kind of girl.She's a nothing girl who's got nothing.She's born to be a slave,an object.The first to come can treat her like a dog,still,she will be rapturous about him.Wanda is one of the most depressing character you can see on the screen.Shot in 1970,when  women's lib was at its height,it might be a metaphor of the female condition.It was Kate Millet's time,John and Yoko Lennon used to sing "woman is the nigger of the world".But anyway ,"Wanda " is timeless ,unhip(meant as  a compliment),and seems to come from another world.Primarily a road movie,but a stark one.The influences,as an user has already pointed out,should be found in European cinema,Fellini's"la strada",for instance,but Anthony Quinn had something human going for him,whereas M.Higgins is totally devoid of any sensitivity..
Wanda wants to help.Barbara Lodens "Wanda" is a road movie on the road to nowhere.
But when Mr. Davis wants Wanda to participate in a bank robbery with him, she has to decide if she can go through with it or not.When this movie was made, it was basically unheard of, for a woman to skip-out on her family completely.
One thing is for sure; Wanda is definitely an enigmatic character.The cinematography in this film, is very fascinating.
If you like ground-breaking films that center around complex, female characters, then you're sure to like Wanda..
The story is definitely written in tragic mode, versus heroic.This modest little film is tight, which doesn't refer to length of shots and scenes, but to the beautifully paced whole, with cuts in all the right places.
Not to put off potential viewers of Wanda, and without giving any spoilers, the ending is far from the potentially fatalistic one which director Loden masterfully leads the viewer to expect.I found this film as engaging as Altman's "3 Women" (1977), and that is saying a lot.
...as I recall, this one was recommended as a cult classic by John Waters, the co-king of cult movies; he is only matched by Andy Warhol, who produced all those movies with Paul Morrissey; Wanda (written, directed, starring Barbara Loden) shows a couple days in the true story of a life of a lazy, un-motivated mother, who finds trouble, and is just glad to be included in the conversation.
L-O-N-G pauses in the script, and Wanda hooks up with Norman (Michael Higgins, who had been in TV and film for 20 years already)who is robbing a bar, and she goes along for the ride.
The characters and the way how they are handling certain situations still make sure that the movie feels like a realistic one.But because of it that the movie feels like it got done guerrilla style, the movie also doesn't have the best looking and sounding quality to it.
Guess they thought that in this cast the story and the storytelling would be enough to create a great movie with but I just still missed far too many (basic) movie-making ingredients in this movie, that can make a movie of this sort great for me.And lets face it, the main reason why this movie still floats around is because it got directed, written and stars Barbara Loden, who was married to legendary film-maker Elia Kazan, making this a bit of a curiosity piece perhaps.
Wanda is the first ever movie to be Written, Directed and Starred by a Woman.
She was preparing for her second movie at this time.Wanda is a emotionless, careless, irresponsible woman.
Maybe it's not a film for everybody, but I found myself involved in Wanda's story, a tale of drabness set in a world in a state of persistent, low-energy panic.
Written & directed by Barbara Loden, this film tries to work as an exercise in neo-noir which it falls flat as but as a think piece in regards to feminine independence it does strike some successful notes, I may have to give it another glance..
I can't believe Barbara Loden (Elia Kazan's wife) wrote, directed and starred in this off-beat (even for then) film (resembling The Rain People; but better) and had the "you know what" to actually write, cast,...
everything and film this movie in that time period (WITH NO HELP).
Even if you're not into the 60's or 70's Movies (God Help You), this film NEVER got seen and it's like a Great Cassavetes film, with no preaching about Women's Lib (although it's totally for women standing up) and this women (Wanda) is clueless.
It's dead-on certain stuff in a time (that apparently is coming back (confusion) to the young, because, well, the world is really not changing TOO MUCH amongst folks who actuallLY (GO, BUY, OR RENT)) deal with what's left of "American Film).
but who wants to see just how boring the human being can be?Waste your time a better way!The Director and main actress is Barbara Loden which means that she probably wanted to make the movie just the way it is.
Too bad Loden didn't supply some kind of character complexity that might suggest Wanda wants out of her drift.
But from that promising start, the narrative settles into a tediously passive Wanda, a simplistic character that crucially contradicts the more complex opening.On the whole, this is a highly indulgent film that seems to think purposeless pause equals profundity.
The acting by the participants is very convincing - I almost thought at times that the movie was a documentary and we were seeing real people doing their business.
The direction by director/writer/star Barbara Loden also contributes to this near "cinema verite" feeling feeling.
A stark and deliberate downer of a character study, Barbara Loden's Wanda is a captivating and unfairly forgotten addition to the indie American New Wave, that also shows the indie American New Wave what 'indie' REALLY means.
The film's theatrical non-history is well documented in each review of the film: Wanda was screened, briefly, in one theater in New York, was fairly acclaimed, then vanished, before being championed by the European crowd a decade later, and perhaps finally getting a bit of the credit it deserves by appearing on the TSPDT top 1000 films list, which was, like many other obscurities, excellent and terrible alike, my impetus for seeing it.The film is a grim and protracted look at a aimless, desultory layabout named Wanda (director Barbara Loden).
There's not a single moment in the film that doesn't feel natural, and with its slow pace, down-to-earth plot line, and the rough graininess of the film stock itself (it was filmed on 16mm and blown up to 35mm), it resembles nothing more than a heartbreaking bit of documentary film-making, as I have absolutely zero doubt that there are hundreds upon thousands of people in these exact sort of situations, uninhabited shells sleepwalking through life, finding nothing and accepting it readily..Barbara Loden, despite being married to a fellow director, Elia Kazan, made this film, and this film only, and it's really quite sad in its own right.
Beautiful and talented, Barbara Loden (1932-1980) emerged from rural "white trash" poverty in Depression-era Marion, North Carolina to become a cover girl, Broadway and film actress (best remembered for her role as Ginny Stamper, Warren Beatty's sister in Splendor in the Grass), a budding feminist, and the second wife of Elia Kazan.
Inspired by a newspaper story about Wanda Garanowski, a woman so meek and demoralized she actually thanked a judge for sending her to prison, Loden created Wanda Goronski, a dispirited thirty-something working-class derelict from the coal country of north- central Pennsylvania with no real life prospects.
At loose ends, Wanda meets Mr. Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a tough-talking low life drifter who is in the midst of robbing a bar that Wanda wanders into.
Mr. Dennis treats Wanda like dirt but she passively accepts his abuse as appropriate to her lowly station in life.
So much for plot but plot is secondary; 'Wanda' is essentially a character study depicting the life of a representative semi-literate blue-collar woman.
As Loden told interviewer McCandlish Phillips, Wanda's "trapped and she will never, ever get out of it and there are millions like her" (New York Times March 11, 1971, p.
At a time when affluent professionals like Gloria Steinem were leading the so-called "second wave" feminist movement, Barbara Loden had the political courage and wherewithal to link women's oppression to social class: a move that makes 'Wanda' an enduringly valuable social document.
Her sister's baby is crying inconsolably, her brother-in-law gives Wanda a derisive look and says he won't have any coffee as he leaves for work.
Wanda, a woman beaten down by life in her 20s, says her husband can have whatever he wants, that the kids will be better off with him.Afterwards, she goes to somebody she worked two days for as a seamstress in an assembly line environment and says she has not gotten all of her pay.
All of this is necessary to show how Wanda is accustomed to being treated when she meets HIM - Norman Dennis.That night at closing time she wanders into a bar to use the restroom.
Dennis tries to give his dad a few bucks, but even dad, through the fog of dementia, gives the money back and talks about him being a bad guy and rejects him.Wanda continues to call Norman, "Mr. Dennis", as though he were her fourth grade teacher, for the rest of the film.
He never calls Wanda by any name - she is an "it" to him and he likes it that way.
I'll let you watch the details of the big heist they attempt - I'll just say that Dennis winds up dead, Wanda is so anonymous that nobody comes looking for her as a possible accomplice, and the last scene is her in a bar with a bunch of strangers, seemingly mourning this guy who treated her worse than anybody would ever treat a dog, and yet she is sorry he is gone - because he is the only person in her life that maybe didn't want her around but allowed her to be around."Wanda" is definitely a film written from a woman's perspective.
Barbara Loden wrote, directed, and starred in this film that was panned when first released, ironically by feminists!
Why does Wanda wear her hair down when asleep, but puts it in curlers on an important day in her life - when she has to appear in court AND go looking for employment?
And the little touch of the never explained wedding ring on his finger just adds to this guy's air of mystery.Interestingly enough, Barbara Loden had a posthumous "Wanda" experience herself.
Elia Kazan, her widowed husband, claimed after Loden's death that HE actually wrote this film and just gave it to her so she'd have something of her own!
It was written, directed, and acted in by Barbara Loden on a budget that must barely have exceeded what I have in my wallet.It's clumsily done in almost every way.
Barbara Loden is an attractive women but not dressed as some sort of fetish doll with her blond hair arranged like a sloppily built fire hydrant.
And asked about where her kids are, she replies, "With him," and shrugs, whereas, if someone had asked me that, I'd have said, "With her," and gnashed my teeth.The freeze frame with which the movie ends -- Wanda alone in a crowd at a bar, drunk, smoking, looking desolately stoned -- has become a cliché, but here, as the camera lingers on her impassive figure, the shot has a point.
It impresses on us that the movie (and Wanda) are now definitely at "The End." This made quite a splash on its release.
The title character, Wanda, is an aimless, rudderless, completely passive, child-like woman who's lower-working-class life is shutting down on all sides...and she doesn't care enough to even care.
Dennis is abusive, all business, non-nonsense ("I don't like friendly people!"), barking orders at Wanda, regarding her as nothing more than an instrument for him to use as needed.
I wanted to like this movie.
But there's another reason this scene is interesting, and I wish there were more like it in the film: The mannequins look a lot like Wanda, and in a sense they embody her vacancy.
Maybe that's Ms. Loden's point as a director (did she write this too?) She wants us to witness a drifter, a scattered, not-too-bright woman with alcohol problems, at her lowest point, abandoning her family and hooking up with a grifter who orders her around.
There IS ONE scene where she tells him her children are better off with her ex-husband, because she's "no good." I felt hopeful and grateful at that point to get some rationale behind her stupidity -- the way she kept leaving her purse open for people to steal from her, the way she was "too slow," according to her boss, to keep up with factory work, the way she didn't seem to be able to keep her hair out of her eyes, etc.
Interesting that Loden was planning a film version of THE AWAKENING -- another story about a woman renouncing traditional marital and mothering roles, written nearly a century earlier.
But while some may say THE AWAKENING was a proto-feminist text, I see the character of Wanda as an insult to women.
Yet I found the woman quieting the baby as she navigated the kitchen, to be way more heroic and interesting than Wanda's empty-headed, direction-less activities.
A Film Called Wanda.
Wakening to a baby's annoying cries, in a Pennsylvania coal mining town, washed-up blonde Barbara Loden (as Wanda) goes to court and surrenders custody of her two children to their father and his new mate.
She falls asleep in a movie theater and has her money stolen...Things pick up when Loden goes to a bar and hooks up with stoic Michael Higgins (as Dennis), who is robbing the place.
Loden, who also wrote and directed this realistic character study, leaves "Wanda" desolate and her viewers hopeless and depressed.
Wanda wanders through the Pennsylvania coal mines in her Sunday best, hooking up with any man she meets, showing up late to a divorce hearing, letting herself get slapped around.