The lake house : the time of reconciliation
When buying the rights to the show The lake house for a film adaptation, Jane Fonda does so to be able to give the counterpart to her father Henry. Ernest Thompson’s story echoes their relationship, their difficulty in communicating and set aside their disagreements. Above all, the actress is convinced that this project can finally allow her father, a sacred clock famous for The hellish pursuit, Twelve angry men and many other films, to finally win the Oscar for best leading actor after a 45-year career.
Directed by Mark Rydell (The Cowboys, River) and released in 1982 in France, The lake house is set in Golden Pond, where Norman (Henry Fonda) and Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn) come to spend each summer by the lake. Accompanied by her partner Bill (Dabney Coleman) and her son Billy Ray (Doug McKeon), their daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) visits them. An arrival that revives tensions between Chelsea and Norman. But the bond between grumpy grandfather and his grandson on fishing trips may help them find each other and confess their buried feelings.
In March 1982, The lake house wins three Oscars : Best Adapted Screenplay for Ernest Thompson, Best Actress for Katharine Hepburn and Best Actor for Henry Fonda. The actor being unable to attend the ceremony due to his fragile health, his daughter Jane recovers his statuette and brings it to him. A moment that the Chelsea interpreter describes as “the happiest night of her life” in 1990 (via News and records). A few weeks later, on August 12, 1982, Henry Fonda died of cardiovascular disease at the age of 77.
A shocking scene
This consecration hoped for by Jane Fonda comes after a shot punctuated by painful moments. Self The lake house offers enormous interpretative possibilities to its actors, some scenes prove to be very complicated to shoot arouse real emotions. This is the case of the moving sequence in which, by the sea, Chelsea asks Norman if they can finally be “friends”.
Jane Fonda recalls the preparation of this key passage of the film:
I knew that for it to work, we had to get naked, in a sense, ready to reveal ourselves. It’s never easy. We were reading scenes at the dinner table in the house. As soon as I opened my mouth, tears were welling up…so much emotion I could barely control it. She even cried: it was very difficult for him.
But while filming a close-up on her face, Jane Fonda just can’t let go. You can therefore count on the support of Katharine Hepburn, who watches his partners a little further away from the drinks. Reinvigorated, the interpreter makes an unexpected gesture that takes her father by surprise:
(Katharine) was standing in the bushes behind me, off camera, and I turned and looked into her eyes. And that was Katharine Hepburn saying to Jane Fonda, “I know what that means to you and tell her, damn it.” She fed me. (…) It was wonderful. In the end, I said (the line) “I want to be your friend” and I’ll never forget it, because my dad was never very emotional—he didn’t cry in front of the camera or on stage. I touched it. I waited until the last close-up of him and he wasn’t expecting it, I touched him and I could see the tears welling up in his eyes…
A moving scene extremely “deep” for Jane and Henry Fonda“both professionally and personally”.
Source: Cine Serie
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