Product Description
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Sybil (1976) (DVD)
Based on a true story, this telefilm debut in 1976 to
extraordinary response. Sally Field - in an Emmy Award winning
and career-turning performance - portrays Sybil, a woman
suffering from multiple personality disorder who develops over 16
distinct personalities in order to cope and escape haunting
memories of her harrowing childhood. Joanne Woodward plays the
understanding and compassionate psychiatrist that helps Sybil
confront her horrific past and eliminate her demons.
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The word "landmark" is fairly used in the case of Sybil: this
1976 TV movie brought new frankness to television, it raised the
quality bar for the made-for-television movie, and it utterly
changed the career of a future O-winning actress. The film
was based on the bestselling nonfiction book about a
multiple-personality patient and her exhaustive therapy. It opens
with a brilliant series of scenes that suggest how a young woman
named Sybil (Sally Field) experiences unexplained blackouts,
which brings her to the attention of a psychiatrist, Dr. Wilbur
(Joanne Woodward). The film unfolds around the searching therapy
sessions, laced with flashbacks to Sybil's toxic childhood.
There's also a tentative romance between the lonely Sybil and a
manchild (Brad Davis) who lives across the alley. Most notably,
of course, there are the appearances of Sybil's alternate
personalities, who express her strangled emotional life. Stewart
Stern's sensitive script seems to flow ally from one scene
to the next, and director Daniel Petrie frequently allows the
camera to observe the acting acrobatics in long, challenging
takes.
Woodward, who won an O for playing a multiple-personality
patient in The Three Faces of Eve, is all nurturing warmth as the
steadfast doctor. But really this film was a sober coming-out
party for Sally Field, who astonished viewers at the time by
erasing all memories of Gidget and The Flying Nun, the bubblegum
roles she'd mostly been known for. Field's work is anguished but
non-actor-y, and despite the character's hidden personalities,
she seems as clear as day in her performance. The production won
four Emmys, not surprisingly including nods for Field, Stern, and
Outstanding Special (Drama).
The 187-minute movie takes up one disc; the second disc has
informative featurettes about the making of the film. Examining
Sybil is an absorbing hour-long documentary with comments from
Field and Woodward, as well as executive producer Peter Dunne. It
is dominated by the spellbinding storytelling of Stewart Stern,
who developed the screenplay by spending time with the real Dr.
Wilbur and listening to tapes of her sessions with Sybil. His
tale of Sally Field's unlikely audition triumph is a small movie
in itself. The Paintings of Sybil presents a generous selection
of paintings by the real Sybil (who became a professor of art),
along with recollections by one of her friends. Something listed
on the DVD cover as "Sybil Therapy Session" is misleadingly
titled, suggesting some kind of actual footage or transcript of
the real Sybil and her ; in fact, it's Stewart Stern
describing the harrowing process of listening to the doctor's
tapes. The real Sybil (now deceased) remains protected, as she
should. --Robert Horton