Jennifer Jones. R.I.P.

My friend Dave alerted me this morning to the passing of Jennifer Jones, the Oscar-winning actress who starred in some of the most interesting melodramas of the 1940s. As the obituary notes, she almost became more famous for her relationship with producer David Selznick than for her acting, which is a shame: she is remarkably good in the strange, sad Portrait of Jennie, anchoring Selznick's surreal and evocative mystery tale about the ravages of time and bringing real feeling to its delicately anachronistic tone and impressionistic camera framings. And she's never anything less than affecting in Since You Went Away, especially in that extraordinary moment shown in the montage above, as she chases after the train carrying a gawky Robert Walker, and then is framed by shafts of light in the station, weeping.

For more, I urge you to turn to The Siren, whose gorgeous remembrance says everything that needs to be said, and does so in a typically stylish way.