A Fan's Uneven Attempt to Critique Streisand's Work

books:

	• The Importance of Being Barbra: The Brilliant, Tumultuous Career of Barbra Streisand Tom Santopietro St. Martin's Griffin, 2007 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Babs is back

Great book better than "The way she is" which barbra didnt like according to her web site. It was a gift and wonderfully received. great details and bio.

Barbra

Definitely not a book you can't put down. It is a polite and seemingly accurate description of Barbra's music recordings, films and television appearances. Author is very kind and considerate in writing of Barbra. Not a lot of personal accounts of Ms. Streisand as you might like to know but a good account of her career.

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Barbra as product; slick, stylish but flawed!

This book is NOT a biography; it is strictly a book reviewing & critiquing Barbra's work in theater, television, film, recordings, concerts, & politics.

The author makes some good observations and is generally fair in his assessments. I didn't agree with his views 100% of the time but it was fun to see what he did & did not like. It's easy to see what failed in hindsight however, Stantopietro does not gloat but rather laments what might have been with perhaps a little more thought or planning on Barbra's part.

Fun; a definite "must have" for true Barbra fans!

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A Fan's Uneven Attempt to Critique Streisand's Work

The idea is good--critique every piece of work Streisand has ever done. But because the author is too much of a fan, going overboard in praising the subject, the result is uneven and ultimately unsuccessful.

The author tries to review everything Barbra has done and quickly jumps through Streisand's career by genre. The music chapter rushes by so fast that some albums only get a couple paragraphs. The movie chapter spends a little more time on each film but if readers aren't familiar with the film they will come away confused by what the author is talking about. There are also sections on concerts, TV, and politics. At no point is any background information given nor are there any inside stories. So, for example, even though the song "Evergreen" appears in a couple of the chapters, he never mentions the reported conflict over the writing credits for the song or the tension between Streisand and her credited "co-writer." Instead the author just praises the song. So what's missing is history and context.

The television chapter is incredibly incomplete. He doesn't even mention the famous Mike Douglas series, where Streisand co-hosted for one week, and skips Ed Sullivan as well! Instead he focuses on an obscure, short-lived TV show called "PM East" that Mike Wallace hosted and then Wallace's "60 Minutes" interview 30 years later. And the TV chapter doesn't even mention Babara Walters, with whom Streisand sat for four interviews over the decades!

Most helpful is the scorecard at the end of the book that goes through every piece of work and assigns them grades. The author is fair and right-on in calling out some mediocre work.

There are also plenty of footnotes in the back to add to the book credibility. But there is not a lot of information in this book and almost nothing new for readers familiar with Streisand. It's basically one long college term paper that gives an overview of everything Streisand has done--and term papers aren't all that interesting.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Controversial, a global icon, a diva among divas---Barbra Streisand, the last genuinely unique show business personality of the twentieth century is the most honored entertainer in the world today. But along with the Tony, two Oscars, six Emmys, eight Grammys, ten Golden Globes, fifty gold albums, and wild acclaim have come wildly diverse reactions to a personality as outsized as her talent. In the words of Streisand herself, ?I'm a liberal, opinionated Jewish feminist---I push a lot of buttons.?
In Tom Santopietro?s witty yet analytical look at this one-of-a-kind career, the myths and personal foibles are stripped away, and the focus lands squarely on the work. From the early recordings to the groundbreaking television specials, from the Hollywood blockbusters to the history-making comeback concerts, Streisand?s career is placed within an oftentimes uniquely American social context but always allowed to speak for itself. In a brisk, funny, and always compelling style, The Importance of Being Barbra reveals all the milestones in a new and sometimes startling light, ranging from the brilliance of Funny Girl and The Broadway Album to the misbegotten yet curiously popular A Star Is Born.
Treating Barbra Streisand like the serious artist she is---and has always claimed to be---The Importance of Being Barbra delves into the key reasons for her all-encompassing success: the overwhelming ambition, the notorious perfectionism, the fervent gay following, the dramatic pull of a voice and style that mysteriously connect with the lovelorn all around the world. A full-scale examination of the acting, singing, and directing that have ranged from the dazzling to the occasionally inexplicable---it?s all here for anyone who has ever wondered at the phenomenon that is Barbra Streisand.

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