Andrew Sarris
“…. He breaks down and sobs on the street as he tells her there is someone else and their marriage is over. But it is she who throws up afterward. Suddenly her world is wrenched out of her moorings. She is floating free, giddy and desperate, and Mazursky's camera is floating with her. Her whole life is suddenly an improvised dance and her face a mirror of shifting moods ranging from abject defeat to ecstatic regeneration. The lyrical dimension of An Unmarried Woman is wonderfully controlled and modulated.
“For me, Jill Clayburgh's richly resourceful performance was a wondrous surprise. Even after she seemed to have hit instant stardom in Silver Streak and Semi-Tough, I found her a trifle mannered and fussy, and, hence, not quite in the top rank of screen naturals. After An Unmarried Woman she will be hard to beat as actress of the year. But then, Mazursky has been something of a magician with actresses, from Dyan Cannon in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice through Ellen Burstyn in Alex in Wonderland and Harry and Tonto and Susan Anspach and Marsha Mason in Blume in Love. (Indeed, I have not found Marsha Mason even remotely appealing since Blume in Love.)….”
Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, date?
“Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman has caused bitter controversies all year, but I still consider it the least-worst movie of the year, and Jill Clayburgh the best actress…. [M]any East Side, West Side and All-Around-the-Town women have virtually besieged me with their complaints about Clayburgh's deficiencies and excesses as a representative of their sex, class, and status. Some complain about her lean, shapely thighs as they slap the fatty tissue in their own rump; others attack her as Mazursky's idealized shiksa, although they forgive Woody Allen the same idealization of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. Some complain that she has too much money; others, that she is not deep enough intellectually and culturally…. Above all, where does she get off having an affair with a dreamy British abstract expressionist who looks like Alan Bates, and who has his work hung in MOMA! And where does she get the gall to refuse his invitation to spend the summer with him in Vermont?
“Deep down, I think, most of Clayburgh's women critics are angry because they feel that the Clayburgh character has not suffered nearly enough; certainly not as much as they feel that they themselves have suffered at the hands of men. They are more comfortable with Liv Ullmann's endlessly kvetching mother-hater in Autumn Sonata. Strangely, these women do not mind romantic male fantasy figures on the screen, but they abhor a romantic female fantasy figure, which may explain why the ERA is in such trouble…. [left out explanation?]
Andrew Sarris
"Craft Over Art: The 10 Least-Worst Movies of '78"
Village Voice, January 1, 1979
“For me, Jill Clayburgh's richly resourceful performance was a wondrous surprise. Even after she seemed to have hit instant stardom in Silver Streak and Semi-Tough, I found her a trifle mannered and fussy, and, hence, not quite in the top rank of screen naturals. After An Unmarried Woman she will be hard to beat as actress of the year. But then, Mazursky has been something of a magician with actresses, from Dyan Cannon in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice through Ellen Burstyn in Alex in Wonderland and Harry and Tonto and Susan Anspach and Marsha Mason in Blume in Love. (Indeed, I have not found Marsha Mason even remotely appealing since Blume in Love.)….”
Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, date?
“Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman has caused bitter controversies all year, but I still consider it the least-worst movie of the year, and Jill Clayburgh the best actress…. [M]any East Side, West Side and All-Around-the-Town women have virtually besieged me with their complaints about Clayburgh's deficiencies and excesses as a representative of their sex, class, and status. Some complain about her lean, shapely thighs as they slap the fatty tissue in their own rump; others attack her as Mazursky's idealized shiksa, although they forgive Woody Allen the same idealization of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. Some complain that she has too much money; others, that she is not deep enough intellectually and culturally…. Above all, where does she get off having an affair with a dreamy British abstract expressionist who looks like Alan Bates, and who has his work hung in MOMA! And where does she get the gall to refuse his invitation to spend the summer with him in Vermont?
“Deep down, I think, most of Clayburgh's women critics are angry because they feel that the Clayburgh character has not suffered nearly enough; certainly not as much as they feel that they themselves have suffered at the hands of men. They are more comfortable with Liv Ullmann's endlessly kvetching mother-hater in Autumn Sonata. Strangely, these women do not mind romantic male fantasy figures on the screen, but they abhor a romantic female fantasy figure, which may explain why the ERA is in such trouble…. [left out explanation?]
Andrew Sarris
"Craft Over Art: The 10 Least-Worst Movies of '78"
Village Voice, January 1, 1979
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