Funny Girl | 1968
Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand in William Wyler’s FUNNY GIRL.
It's not often that you get to watch a star being born in real-time, but that's exactly what it is like to watch William Wyler's Funny Girl. Barbra Streisand would, of course, go on to star in A Star is Born in 1976, but Funny Girl was her star-is-born moment, and what a moment it was. Streisand was already a successful singer and Broadway actress, but it was her performance in Funny Girl and her subsequent Oscar win that helped turn her into an icon.
While Streisand may be playing Fanny Brice here, the feisty comedienne who was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies in the early part of the 20th century, what makes Funny Girl especially remarkable is just how much Brice's story mirrors Streisand's own rise to fame. She, too, was often told she wasn't pretty enough for show business and ran off at a young age, determined to get on the stage by any means necessary, performing in nightclubs and gay bars until she got noticed by the right people. Streisand's Fanny Brice is in many ways an extension of Streisand herself, so it's no wonder that some of her most iconic songs ("People," "Don't Rain on My Parade") come from Funny Girl.
The plot of the musical isn't too far off from A Star is Born either - an undiscovered talent on the rise meets a man on the way to the top, falls in love, and then discovers he's a lout after they get married and is gambling all his money away while she supports him. Yet she goes on loving him anyway - and that's the inherent conflict and tragedy at the heart of Funny Girl. It is the role Streisand was born to play and she nails it, finding the joy, the humor, and the pathos of Brice's story and turning it into pure screen magic.
The new 4K restoration released by the Criterion Collection is a wonder, capturing the film's dazzling color while preserving its cinematic quality. That's always been one of the high points of Criterion 4K discs - they don't erase the texture of the image so that it looks like a product of the digital age, but the film is nevertheless sharper and more colorful than ever.
The 1960s were populated with a seemingly endless supply of bloated musicals. Still, Funny Girl, like its incorrigible heroine, stands out from the pack thanks to a truly timeless performance by one of the screen's great stars. For fans of Streisand, musicals, and great cinema like, this one is a must-have.
