Grace of My Heart

Infobox Film
name = Grace of My Heart


image_size =
caption = Theatrical poster
director = Allison Anders
producer = Ruth Charny
Daniel Hassid
writer = Allison Anders
narrator =
starring = Illeana Douglas
Matt Dillon
Eric Stoltz John Turturro
music = Larry Klein
cinematography = Jean-Yves Escoffier
editing = James Y. Kwei
Harvey Rosenstock
Thelma Schoonmaker
distributor = Gramercy Pictures
released = September 13, 1996
runtime = 116 minutes
country = United States
language = English
budget = $5,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $617,632 (USA)
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:136158
imdb_id = 0116442

"Grace of My Heart" is a 1996 film written and directed by Allison Anders, set in the pop music world of the 1960s. The plot, which follows the personal life and career trajectory of its protagonist, Denise Waverly (played by Illeana Douglas), may strongly parallel those of singer-songwriter Carole King.Fact|date=September 2008 The soundtrack features a variety of songs by such artists as Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell and Jill Sobule, which replicate the musical style that emerged from the Brill Building, New York's legendary music factory during the heyday of girl groups and "pre-fab" acts like The Monkees.

ynopsis

Edna Buxton (Douglas), an heiress from a prominent Philadelphia family, desires to be a singer. After winning a talent competeition, she is set up with an agent, Joel Millner (John Turturro) who gives her the professional name "Denise Waverly" and reworks one of her ballads for an all male doo-wop group. Millner discourages Waverly from singing and encourages her to be a songwriter instead. After partnering with Millner and his doo-wop act, the newly rechristened Denise Waverly moves into a cramped office in the Brill Building and writes songs for The Luminaries, a girl group she befriends and urges Millner to represent. Millner doubts the commercial viability of the act but takes a chance, and The Luminaries, led by Doris Shelley (Jennifer Leigh Warren), enjoy unprecedented success. In the movie's mythos, Denise is credited with sparking the craze for girl groups at a time when female voices are scarcely heard on the airwaves. Flush with success, Denise becomes professionally and romantically linked with Howard Cazsatt (Eric Stoltz), a fellow Brill Building tunesmith who evinces a beatnik pose. The two marry but quickly divorce due to Cazsatt's infidelities. She then has a destined-to-end affair with a popular DJ (Bruce Davison), who is already married. Eager to begin singing again, Waverly resettles in California during the hippie movement and struggles through yet another doomed relationship with a popular singer/producer (Matt Dillon) before reclaiming her artistic voice.

Real life influence

Goffin-King connection

In real life, Carole King and her first husband Gerry Goffin were based in the Brill Building and penned such hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (recorded by The Shirelles), "The Loco-Motion" (introduced by Little Eva, the Goffin-King's babysitter), "One Fine Day" (a hit for The Chiffons) and many others. In "Grace of My Heart", "One Fine Day" is paid tribute in "Born to Love That Boy," the first song Waverly composes for The Luminaries (per the lyric, "I don't care what the other girls say/One fine day he'll marry me"). "Born to Love That Boy," written by Goffin and Larry Klein, also recalls the thematically similar "He's A Rebel," a Gene Pitney penned tune made famous by The Crystals. Louise Goffin, daughter of Goffin and King, shares songwriting credit with her father on "Between Two Worlds" (performed on the soundtrack by Shawn Colvin). The elder Goffin's stamp can also be found on "In Another World," the tune that establishes Waverly as a hit songwriter; the band Los Lobos also contributes to the track. Finally, the album that shares the film's name, "Grace of My Heart", is analogous to King's 1971 breakthrough album "Tapestry". The "Grace of My Heart" album is depicted as Waverly's second attempt to sing her own songs in a commercially viable way, and she succeeds on a platinum scale (sales over one million). In real life, "Tapestry" was King's second serious attempt to sing her own songs in a commercially viable way, and she succeeded on an even greater scale than is shown in the film, as "Tapestry" sat at U.S. #1 for 15 weeks and stayed on the charts for over six years, going platinum 10 times over.

tand-ins for Phil Spector, Lesley Gore, Ellie Greenwich, etc.

Elsewhere, real life permeates "Grace of My Heart" in several forms, such as Turturro's character who invites comparisons to both Phil Spector and Don Kirshner, while The Luminaries' Doris Shelley suggests both Shirley Owen and Doris Coley of The Shirelles. Also, former teen duo, David and Andrew Williams (nephews of crooner Andy Williams), are featured as Everly Brothers soundalikes. Similarly, Bridget Fonda has an extended cameo as Kelly Porter, a dewey faced ingenue not unlike Lesley Gore, well known for bubblegum angst like "It's My Party" and "You Don't Own Me." The lush ballad "My Secret Love" hints at Porter's lesbianism in a nod to Gore's own professed sexuality. Gore co-wrote the song, which is dubbed by Miss Lily Banquette of retro-lounge band Combustible Edison. Further, the radio moniker of Davison's character, John Murray, evokes memories of Murray the K. Just as in real life Murray the K was an early, ardent supporter of The Beatles, in the film John Murray explains to Denise Waverly how The Fab Four are about to revolutionize the music industry.

Besides King, Goffin and Spector, the Brill Building was home base for songwriting duo Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, as well as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. In "Grace of My Heart", these artists, and Greenwich in particular, are referenced musically via "I Do", The Luminaries' stylistic match for "Chapel of Love," originally written by Spector, Greenwich and Barry for The Ronettes but best remembered for the version produced by Leiber and Stoller for The Dixie Cups. The "doo-whaddy-whaddy" refrain of "I Do" also invites comparisons to Greenwich's "Doo-Wah-Diddy", which was recorded by The Exciters and Manfred Mann. Like King, however, Greenwich has no actual contributions to the movie soundtrack. '"I Do" is instead credited to Carole Bayer Sager and Dave Stewart (formerly of Eurythmics).

Brian Wilson Connection

Matt Dillon portrays a singer/producer later in the movie, with whom Waverly falls in love. His character, Jay, is the lead singer of a surf music band who is highly respected for his creative genius. However, he becomes obsessed with his latest musical project and becomes a recluse. In all these aspects, his character begs comparison with real-life Beach Boys' frontman Brian Wilson. However, while in the movie his character becomes romantically involved with Waverly and eventually commits suicide by drowning, in real life Wilson and King were not romantically involved, and Wilson is still alive.

Music

Though actress Illeana Douglas apparently sings throughout the movie, her singing is always dubbed by singer Kristen Vigard. In the beginning of the film, her character Edna/Denise performs a version of "Hey There," which was originally heard in the musical "The Pajama Game", and was later popularized by singers such as Rosemary Clooney. Another of Denise's big musical moments occurs when she goes into the studio to lay down vocal tracks for "God Give Me Strength," an expensively produced single that fails to generate much excitement on the charts, thus alluding to Spector's recording of "River Deep, Mountain High" for Tina Turner (written by Spector, Greenwich and Barry). Singer Elvis Costello, who co-wrote "God Give Me Strength" (with Burt Bacharach) for the film, also wrote "Unwanted Number," which, in the movie, is crafted by Denise and Cazsatt as a tune for The Luminaries. The song causes a scandal because it tells a sympathetic story of an unmarried pregnant teenager — bold stuff for the early '60s, though somewhat comparable perhaps to similarly groundbreaking real-life songs of the era.

oundtrack CD

Exclusions

Although "Grace of My Heart" is chock full of musical sequences, the selections were pared down for the soundtrack CD. For instance, the fictional Luminaries, dubbed by girl group For Real, perform a half dozen tunes onscreen but are limited to three selections on the CD: "Born to Love That Boy," "I Do," and "Unwanted Number." Likewise, The Williams Brothers perform two songs in the film, "Heartbreak Kid" and "Love Doesn't Ever Fail Us," but only the latter song appears on the soundtrack disc. Kristen Vigard's rendition of "Hey There" is excluded from the CD, and her "In Another World" is jettisoned in favor of the fictional Stylettes' rendition (via Portrait). Vigard's performance of "God Give Me Strength" is also not on the soundtrack; instead the Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach performance appears.

Inclusions

Jill Sobule sings the countrified waltz "Truth Is You Lied," complete with easy listening-style background chorus, and the song appears on the CD.

Joni Mitchell

"Man From Mars" was written by Joni Mitchell, and the song appears on the CD with Kristen Vigard singing the vocal from the film (dubbing Illeana Douglas's performance). A version of the song which featured Joni Mitchell's vocal, with the same music, was on the initial pressing of roughly 40,000 soundtrack CD copies. This CD version was recalled and the soundtrack was re-released one week later with Kristen Vigard's vocal, as heard in the movie. [ [http://www.jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=313 JoniMitchell.com/JMDL Library: Grace Of My Heart Soundtrack Recalled: AllStar Website, September 18, 1996 ] ] Mitchell later re-recorded the song with different-styled music for her 1998 album "Taming the Tiger". The Mitchell version of "Man from Mars" from "Grace of My Heart" is very hard to come by.

The soundtrack was produced by Larry Klein, who had been Joni Mitchell's husband and producer for years but had divorced her prior to the making of this soundtrack. He contributed to the writing of several songs on the soundtrack and appears briefly several times in the movie as a recording engineer.

Additional credits

Martin Scorsese is listed in the credits as "Grace of My Heart"'s executive producer, and the film was co-edited by Thelma Schoonmaker, who won Academy Awards for her work on Scorsese's "Raging Bull", "The Aviator", and "The Departed". Francois Sequin is the production designer, and the costumes are by Susan Bertram. The cast is rounded out by Lynne Adams, Peter Fonda, Chris Isaak, Lucinda Jenney, Patsy Kensit, Christina Pickles and Richard Schiff.

Place in cinema history

The movie was released in the fall of 1996, just ahead of Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks' directorial debut "That Thing You Do!", which likewise covered the early to mid 1960s pop music scene and featured original, retro-styled songs on the soundtrack.

"Grace of My Heart" was Anders's fourth feature film, and followed his "Border Radio" (1987), "Gas Food Lodging" (1992), and "Mi Vida Loca" (1993).

References

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