"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)

Truth and illusion: This is Part 2 of a 2-part series, reviewing two movies that examine the theme of truth vs. illusion, fact vs. fantasy. This theme is pertinent today, as we hear conflicting stories about the pandemic that is gripping the world with renewed force.  Some of us are desperate for life-saving truths, while others of us defiantly cling to the comfort of illusion. Some may succumb to the barrage of opposing media messages, or live their lives in a state of self-imposed delusion, or finally abandon the lies in order to live more authentic lives.  Each film reflects our current confusion, and examines this theme with cutting humor and high drama.

“WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?”

“Truth and illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.”

“No, but we must carry on as though we did.”

“Amen.”  

 -- Burton and Taylor as George and Martha, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

One of the great works of American theater, Edward Albee’s 1962 play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”,  is a mind-spinning, densely written four-character drama about the lies and delusions that we build like walls around us; and how those illusions, that we struggle to maintain, could eventually destroy us.  The film version, released in 1966, caused a major sensation in Hollywood, and changed movies forever. 

It pushed the boundaries of acceptable screen material, and featured shocking (for the time) adult language.  It was the first American movie to restrict attendance to those under 18 unless accompanied by a parent.  (Thus, the MPAA rating system was born two years later.) 

Another film that explored truth vs. illusion, “Network” (reviewed in the previous post) examined the role of television in creating a sustained fantasy-world for a complacent culture.  “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”  looks at how otherwise intelligent people willingly trap themselves inside their own self-made delusions, until the line between reality and fantasy disappears. The film dramatizes this idea and takes it to extreme emotional levels.

Hollywood superstars and glamor icons Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are cast against type as George and Martha, an unglamorous, boozed-up middle-aged couple who annihilate one another during one fateful evening.  Taylor and Burton’s high-profile, sometimes stormy marriage was the stuff of media attention for years, and their casting in this film created eager anticipation even as the film was being made.

George, a seemingly meek and resigned English professor, is married to Martha, a loud, vulgar ego-buster, and daughter of the college president.  Martha appears overbearing and frustrated; she constantly picks on George as he tries gamely to deflect and ignore her verbal abuse. We see small glimpses of the affection that might have been there once.  We also see tiny flickers of George’s anger, and wonder if he is as weak and unassuming as he at first appeared. These flickers eventually become a blast furnace worthy of Martha’s brutality. The movie is billed as “fun and games”.  It is considerably more dangerous.

Something is happening between George and Martha that is hidden from us, but revealed slowly, almost inadvertently by the two characters.  There is something between them that must remain unspoken, something vague about their grown son, who is about to celebrate his birthday.  These teasing revelations give the film a sense of mystery and foreboding.

As the movie begins, after George and Martha return home at 2am from a campus cocktail party, tipsy, haggard and bleary under the harsh lights of their cluttered house, Martha announces that they are having guests.  In the middle of an ugly argument, in which Martha hollers the first of a string of crude remarks, the guests arrive:  Nick, a young, handsome--and deviously ambitious—biology professor, caught in the middle of his hosts’ tug-of-war; and Honey, Nick's wife, a plain, good-natured, nervous young woman with a weak stomach, whose efforts to remain pleasant and polite slowly drown in alcohol and regret.

The evening escalates into a series of back-and-forth, no-holds-barred tirades, exposed weaknesses, mounting resentments and cruel secrets, as the protective layers of deception are peeled away, and shocking revelations about both marriages come to light.  By the time the party ends, and the film draws to a close, the final exchange between Martha and George has the hushed, almost wordless quality of a funeral. 

There is a sense of mourning for a fundamental deception that has been forever killed.  The title “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is used several times, first as part of a private party joke, and then as a meditation on an empty life.  It may refer, in a pretentious, English-professor kind of way, to the fear of living without falsehoods and illusions.

It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot.  It is enough to say that the drama builds to an outcome that is never fully explained, but revealed like a blurry image slowly coming into focus.  Many clues are provided throughout, which become more obvious after repeated viewings.   Most of all, beneath the shouting and double-dealing, the drunken monologues and the tragic betrayals, the film gives us a portrait of four of the most complex characters that ever appeared on the screen.

To cut through the lies and live more honestly, George and Martha have to literally destroy their old narrative, and in the process, destroy a part of themselves.  They have to face the fear of the unknown, and begin again, if they can.  

That’s also true in our culture, in today’s volatile era during of a fearful pandemic (and an explosion of protest against racist traditions). 

For example, there are those who cling to the distortions of a certain media outlet or a political ideology. They buy into wild claims and conspiracy theories that are passed off as truth, which justify a misguided point of view.  

They might resist health policies in a pandemic, like wearing a mask to contain a disease, claiming it infringes on their freedom.  Within their sphere, this denial of truth is not only accepted, but vehemently defended.

However, when their illusions are discussed outside of their sphere, it's threatening, and exposes the fragility of their argument.  Even the reality of a pandemic isn't enough to change their minds unless it confronts them personally.  

This dynamic is also at work between George and Martha, in a more intimate way.  They might have survived with their illusions intact; but they broke their own rule against discussing it with outsiders.  Revealing their “secret” to Nick and Honey precipitated an all-out battle between them and a life-changing turn of events for George and Martha.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is a film marked by emotional violence.  The attacks leveled against each other are amusing at times but more often are unsettling and painful.   Honey is the only character who does not lash out, but she is subject to heartbreaking accusations which turn out to be true.  The verbal blows are as hurtful as physical violence.  

The finale, as night turns to dawn, is terribly sad, even with glimmers of hope for a new beginning.  By that point in the film, I am so shaken by what has come before, that I am never able to cry.

This was Mike Nichols’ first film as a director.  He deserves much praise for guiding the powerhouse cast to stunning performances.  He is also innovative with camera movement and lighting, aided by the great Haskell Wexler’s cinematography, and Sam O’Steen’s subtle choices in editing.  Nichols was rightly lauded for his work here, and showed he was not a fluke when he directed another controversial American classic the following year, “The Graduate”, for which he won an Oscar as Best Director.

Elizabeth Taylor gives an aggressively physical, verbally shrill performance as Martha.  It is an amazingly disciplined feat of acting, considering Martha's uninhibited language and carnal force.  We are shocked and repelled at first by her behavior and bravado, and her open betrayals of George. Yet Taylor finds Martha’s vulnerability, holding the camera in closeups in which she expertly reveals a side of Martha which the other characters don’t see.  This was arguably Taylor's last great role, and won her a second Oscar.

Richard Burton is amusingly quick and witty as he delivers a breathtaking amount of  high-flown dialog. One monologue in particular, the “bergin” speech, is done with masterful calm, in one take.  George's emotional breakdown, when he realizes what he must do, is a sound of pure desolation torn from within him.  Burton is such a strong presence, and with such precise diction, that it takes some time to accept him as a milquetoast.  An actor with a less commanding persona might have worked better in the early scenes; but toward the end, Burton’s ferocity is perfect for the powerful third act.

George Segal looks great as Nick, a stud trapped in a loveless marriage who engages in mutual seduction with Martha. He dances awkwardly in the Roadhouse scene in the second act, although that's partly the fault of the choreographer who staged it.  He mostly holds his own, especially in his extended scenes with Burton.

Sandy Dennis uses her mannered delivery and rabbit-like expression to full effect as Honey.  It is a fearless performance, and I am amazed at how well she maintains her growing level of quirky intensity throughout.  Dennis received a Supporting Actress Oscar for her unforgettable work.

Alex North’s quiet, sparse score, played on a guitar with gentle accompaniment, is almost reverent, like you can hum “Ave Maria” over it.   It sets up a mood of sorrow and compassion. The dramatic scenes use no background music, save for a sequence involving George and a shotgun, where the music creates unbearable tension.

George and Martha are a bizarre and pathetic parental unit.  I have sometimes reflected on the choice of their names:  George and Martha, the same as the Father of our Country and his wife, George and Martha Washington.  The film constantly refers to George and Martha’s roles as parents:  George refers to his offspring as his “Sonny Jim”; Martha declares herself “the Earth Mother”.  It’s possible that their characters represent something even more tragic in American culture:  they are the metaphorical “parents” of an American way of life that is merely an illusion, one that exists only in our collective imagination, through stories and images that are handed down over time.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and its thematic companion-piece, “Network”, use extreme  subject matter to paint unusual but plausible portraits of a culture lost in denial and fear.  Alone or together, they provide mature, entertaining, emotional food for thought.

"Network" (1976)

(Truth and illusion….This is Part 1 of a 2-part series about two classic movies which examine  reality and fantasy.   This theme is important today, as we hear conflicting stories about a pandemic that is gripping the world with renewed force.  Some are desperate to find life-saving truths, while others defiantly cling to the safety of their illusions. Whether people succumb to the barrage of contradictory media messages without question, or conduct their personal lives in a state of self-imposed delusion, these movies examine this theme with cutting humor and high drama.)

Two classic movies, made ten years apart, and very different in style and content, nevertheless share an intriguing common theme: what is truth, and what is illusion?   “Network” (below) creates characters who embody the corruption of television, who exist in a fantasy world that precludes human emotion or compassion.

(“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, in an upcoming post, examines two personal relationships, built on lies and fantasy, in various stages of decay.)

As outrageous as each film’s premise is, both exist in a recognizable world with identifiable characters.  One is an insider’s satire of television news, which predicted a disastrous future with uncanny accuracy.  The other is a lacerating look at personal relationships built on tragic deceptions, and the terrible, difficult journey towards healing and redemption.

Both contain some of the greatest acting ever seen in American film.

Both are writer’s films, which use exquisite dialog to create powerful and unforgettable scenarios.

 

“NETWORK”

“We deal in illusions, man!  None of this is true…You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here.  You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal… In God’s name, you people are the real thing.  WE are the illusion!”  --Peter Finch as Howard Beale, the ‘Mad Prophet of the Airwaves’.

Where do I go these days to get the truth about a tumultuous world?  At one time, I relied on televised news.

I was about twelve years old in the late 1960s, when the seismic events of an uncertain world entered my awareness.  It was a world whose intensity was like that of today, even if the topics were slightly different.  Back then it was polluted air and water, unrest in colleges and inner cities, the Vietnam war, and Richard Nixon; today it’s climate change, Black Lives Matter, Covid-19, and our incumbent (who I won’t dignify by name).

Journalists on a handful of networks, like Walter Cronkite, could be trusted.  They objectively, matter-of-factly reported the day’s news, providing commentary only when the magnitude of their stories was too outrageous to ignore.  They had no political agenda.  They had no reason to mislead or misinform us.

Now, the many networks devoted just to news create illusions instead of reporting facts.  Hourly news broadcasts come from such polarized viewpoints, that the same stories seem to be coming from different planets.   Journalists offer spin instead of sanity, hyperbole instead of objectivity.  Some pander to their viewing base with lies and propaganda, and peddle it as news.   There is hysteria on all sides.

We are so afraid of losing what little we have of our dwindling world—including our very lives—that we gravitate toward the messages that reassure us, that validate our opinion, whether or not any of the messages are true.  We are captive to whatever the media outlets want to talk about, ignoring many other things happening in the world that might enlighten us, and make us feel less panic-stricken.

A steady barrage of media images and messages creates a dangerous environment  of illusion.  Sometimes we have to turn it off, and trust our instincts, or find other ways to learn what’s real.  

One of the greatest films of the 1970s, and a personal all-time favorite, the dark comedy “Network” is so fast, so packed with ideas and humor and outrageous situations, that it holds up over many viewings. The most alarming thing about the film is how it no longer feels so outrageous, because our culture has embraced illusion and escapism over enlightenment and truth.

I am still amazed by “Network”, the way it boldly condemns American media and American complacency, takes topical issues to absurd comic heights, and showcases great actors and powerful language.  Most of all, as many critics have discussed before, “Network” was prophetic.  Paddy Chayefsky’s fevered screenplay chillingly predicted a breakdown of objectivity, the era of news as entertainment, and “reality TV”.  His warning has come true today, to a point where even serious political discourse has deteriorated to the level of professional wrestling.

Now that we need intelligent and objective media to provide information that can literally save our lives, the broadcasts  contain so much hype and mixed messages that it’s numbing.  We are not so much educated and encouraged, as we are expected to take sides and use our health to make a political statement.

It is all for high ratings, to appease sponsors. “Network” satirizes the moral bankruptcy of TV executives who would do anything for ratings, and the laziness of audiences who blindly accept whatever they see and hear on the tube.

“Network” tells the story of the ill-fated news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) on a fourth-rate network, the fictional UBS.  About to be fired due to low ratings, Beale announces, live, that on his final show he will blow his brains out on the air.  The control room barely pays attention to this astounding statement.

Beale’s long-time friend Max Schumacher (William Holden) believes that Howard is emotionally disturbed, needs care, and must be taken off the air.  When Howard begs for another chance to make amends, Max relents.  Ratings are high for the next show, in which Howard lets loose with uncensored statement that “life is bullshit”.  The ratings go through the roof.

An unscrupulous head of programming, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) recognizes that Howard’s rants, in spite of his mental illness, are ratings gold.  With the help her equally corrupt boss Frank Hackett (a wonderfully boisterous Robert Duvall), Diana conspires not only to keep Howard on the air, but to have the entire news division transferred into the Entertainment Division.  She programs the news hour with soothsayers, celebrities, opinion polls, gossip columnists, and Howards unexpurgated editorial tirades.

At first, it’s both amusing and disturbing.  Howard, despite his madness, makes sense.  In a chaotic world, Howard “articulates the popular rage.”  In the film’s most classic scene, he encourages viewers to get mad.  The film’s big catch-phrase, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” entered the American consciousness. (When the movie had its television premiere, TV audiences around the country actually yelled out their windows.)

“It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV…and I won’t say anything’.  Well I’m not going to leave you alone…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, goddamn it!  My life has value!’ “  Howard Beale

At some point, during a lengthy rant, Howard reveals a secret about a shady business deal between the station’s conglomerate and a hostile world power.    Howard incurs the wrath of Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty, fresh from his role in “Nashville”), the head of the conglomerate that owns UBS.  Jensen rages at Howard, and convinces him that the individual is finished: that countries no longer exist, that the world is nothing but a business.

Howard, totally awed, believes Jensen is the voice of God, buys into this depressing message, and spouts it on the air. Jensen insists that Howard remains on the air, and the ratings plunge.  

Diana and Frank can’t fire Howard, but they need to prevent a ratings freefall.  They come up with a final solution in the film’s extremely dark finale.

Chayefsky’s ingenious screenplay, which won him his third Oscar, is an intricate, topical, enviable piece of work.  It does many things simultaneously: it's an authentic satire about TV; a tragicomic look at a sensible madman; a polemic about an absurd world; a cockeyed story of seduction and infidelity; and an urgent call for reason.  

Along with some of the most powerful and pointed monologues ever recited, Chayefsky  juggles a number of entertaining subplots that are cleverly interwoven and resolved at the climax:

Max leaves his loving wife of 25 years (Beatrice Straight) to begin an affair with Diana after she steals his news show.  The purposely cliched love scenes are made hilarious by Dunaway’s delivery of work-related issues in the most romantic way. 

Diana, meanwhile, wants to create a docu-drama series, writing weekly episodes  around actual footage of crimes committed by the Ecumenical Liberation Army (a terrorist group based on the SLA, who kidnapped millionaire heiress Patti Hearst).  These terrorists quickly learn the jargon of television contract negotiations. 

And Howard’s grand, on-air tirades continue to the stunned delight of his studio audience, as he works himself to a frenzy until he passes out with exhaustion.

“Network”, for all of its provocative satire and challenging human drama, is full of biting hilarity, even if the some of the allusions to current events of its day have faded from the collective American memory.

Director Sydney Lumet is an unsung hero of exquisite cinematic craftsmanship.  His expertise with the camera, his success with actors, and his respect for a beautifully-written script made “Network” his crowning achievement, just one year after he directed another enduring masterpiece, “Dog Day Afternoon”.   I especially enjoy how Lumet lights his sets and sets up his shots to replicate various types of television genres: documentary, soap opera, crime drama, high fashion, and suspense.

He creates such a good atmosphere on the set, after painstaking rehearsals beforehand, that his actors are totally committed to the extreme material, with freedom to make their characters as believable and human as they can. “Network” resulted in five Oscar nominations for acting (William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Beatrice Straight and Ned  Beatty).  For the first time since “A Streetcar named Desire” in 1951, “Network” won three acting awards.

Dunaway, who took home Best Actress, is masterful as the hardened, driven executive who is “television incarnate”.  Holden provides a strong center, the voice of reason among the madness.  Good as he is, and he is wonderful, it was Peter Finch who received special attention for succeeding in an extremely difficult role.  When he is on screen, you can’t focus on anything else.  He was also quite ill with a heart condition when he shot the film, and died soon after it was completed. Finch was the first Actor to win a posthumous Oscar. 

Beatty and Straight each have one powerhouse scene.  Beatty was cast late in the process.  With great professionalism, he learned his lengthy monolog quickly, filmed his scene in one day, and created a character of forceful realism and surreal humor. 

Straight, whose heartbreaking, explosive scene with Holden took only five minutes of screen time, was strong enough to win her an Oscar, the shortest performance ever to result in Oscar victory.

A film to be savored and enjoyed on many levels, “Network” is entertaining, funny, breathtaking, depressing, and thought-provoking, especially over forty years after its release.  It reminds us to use discretion when we consume media, and to think about what we’re seeing and hearing. It also reminds us to take a step back, and to live in a more authentic way, where fantasy and illusion are only the by-products of mindless entertainment, not the way to live our lives.

"I Never Sang for My Father" (1970)

“Death ends a life; but it does not end a relationship…”  from the opening and closing narration

“I Never Sang for My Father” is about the complex bond between sons and their fathers (who were also sons too, at one time).  The movie dramatizes in precise, painful detail the troubled relationship between a recently widowed middle-aged man (Gene Hackman) and his proud, aging, difficult father (Melvyn Douglas).  

The film is like a Rorschach test of our own individual experience of being a son (or a daughter).  For some viewers, there’s an additional layer, about the dread of aging and decline, about how we emotionally cling to our roles as parent and child, even when those roles are no longer healthy or reasonable.

In a brief (92-minute) running time, “I Never Sang for My Father” touches an array of ideas and feelings that most of us grapple with our entire lives.

Watching it feels like my personal psychodrama.  The situations are different but the feelings are real.  The film perfectly captures the underlying tension, rage, sorrow and regret, that I remembered in struggles with my own father, and sent me into a state of deep catharsis.

“I Never Sang for My Father” is an excellent example of what the best movies have always been able to do. They entertain us with complicated, believable characters, and by identifying with them, we are able to work out our emotional issues. In contemporary cinema, this is becoming a lost art and a forgotten function.

Gene Hackman gives one of his career-best performances as the restless yet guilt-ridden son.  Hackman’s character (also named Gene) comes back to his childhood home to visit his aging parents, who have returned to New York state after their winter in Florida. Gene is a teacher, whose wife has recently died of an undisclosed illness. 

On a recent trip to California, he has met Peggy, a doctor with children of her own. He wishes to marry Peggy and settle down in California. The trouble is, his father will do everything he can to keep Gene nearby.

Hackman received his second, well-deserved Oscar nomination for this film, three years after “Bonnie and Clyde".  (He would go on to win the Best Actor award the following year for “The French Connection”.)

Veteran actor Melvyn Douglas, in the pivotal role as Tom, Gene's father, gives one of cinema's greatest performances.  Douglas, who received his first Oscar in 1963 as Paul Newman’s disillusioned, scrupled old Father in “Hud”, doesn’t act the part so much as he lives inside Tom.  Every expression of bewilderment, anger and pride, every  spoken nuance and outburst come from deep within Douglas’ knowledge of this character.  He embodies every manipulative, controlling parent desperately trying to hide his vulnerability.

It is a sadly neglected performance that demands to be seen and appreciated today. Douglas also received an Oscar nomination for this role.

Tom is a former marine, a highly respected member of his community, a “remarkable man”, as Gene’s mother says repeatedly.  He’s a dignified codger stuck in his ways, a charmer to others who alienates those closest to him, especially his children. He does not abide differences of opinion.  

His rigidity crosses over to bigotry; he disowned his daughter (Gene’s sister Alice) for marrying a Jew.   And still he tries to control everyone around him.  “You can’t change him---there’s no use trying” Gene’s mother reminds Gene, to alleviate Gene’s frustrations with Tom’s old oppressive behavior. 

Estelle Parsons, who co-starred with Hackman in her Oscar-winning role in “Bonnie and Clyde”, re-teams with Hackman as Alice. She has some of the more difficult speeches in the film, and carries them off calmly and intensely, without hysteria.  Alice, who has adapted to life's disappointments, is a foil for Gene’s sentimental guilt and yearning for parental approval. Once again, Parsons and Hackman share a beautiful chemistry.

Tom is in physical and mental decline; he is forgetful, has trouble hearing, and is prone to coughing fits. He is stubborn; opinionated; denies his poor health; flies into rages when help is offered; and uses passive aggression and guilt-trips to manipulate his son, who still needs his validation, and even his love.  (We may all see bits of our own fathers in Tom; just as we might see parts of ourselves in Gene’s conflicted feelings and insecurity.)

When Gene hints that he wants to remarry and move away, Tom, who always assumed that Gene would remain nearby to look in on them, tells him flatly that his moving away “will kill your mother; you are her whole life.”  He is too proud to say how he himself would feel.

But Tom is not just an irascible father.  He was also a son, to a father with whom he had a stormy relationship, and with whom he is still coming to terms after seventy years.  We are conflicted about this father-figure, feeling both anger and sympathy for him.  On the other hand, we feel for Gene, and his search for happiness after his own personal tragedy.  The dilemma between them  is complicated. There will be no easy resolution.

Gene “hates” his father; but he feels compassion for him and “hates hating him.” When a family crisis brings Alice home, and the family doctor suggests that Tom can no longer be left to live alone, hard decisions must be made.  

Will Tom give up a new life to fulfill an obligation, and try to reconcile with his father’s impossible expectations to earn some shred of respect?  Will Alice talk him out of this sacrifice?  Will Gene have the courage to stand up to his predictably furious father when he suggests hiring a full-time live-in housekeeper; or worse, residence in a nursing home?

The film’s screenplay by Robert Anderson is a straightforward adaptation of his play.  Director Gilbert Cates (who produced 17 Academy Awards telecasts before his death in 2011) wisely keeps us close to the characters and their conflicts most of the time.  Occasionally, he applies some directorial flair to enhance the mood of a sequence.  

The most interesting is the depiction of Gene’s visits to hospitals and retirement homes for his father.  The sinister music and sound effects, coupled with Gene’s guilt and aversion to how the people exist there, and his shock at the idea of leaving his father there, have the amped-up melodrama of a horror film.

At other times, the film strays off the mark.  The score is a little overbearing in the early scenes.  A musical interlude, by Roy Clark, serves little purpose.  A subplot involving Gene and his affair with an old mistress  does little more than provide background, but it distracts from the central relationships, and might have been better left out.

But when the film concentrates on its central theme, and involves us in the impossible emotional landscape of its characters which most of us have been a part of, it hits us powerfully.  The final explosive exchange between Gene and Tom, and its aftermath, has rarely been matched in human honesty on screen.  It is a masterpiece of writing and acting.

Aside from watching it on Father’s Day, which gave the film an extra poignancy, “I Never Sang for My Father” has special significance today, reminding us of the continuing predicament of growing old in our culture, the feelings of being forgotten, abandoned, and irrelevant.  Most important, it recalls the tragedy of the elderly dying of Covid-19 in disproportionately large numbers in nursing homes around the country.

My parents both passed away several years ago; both spent their final moments in nursing homes.  I am glad they never lived to experience this pandemic, or to have been exposed to it or become ill from it.  I can think of nothing harder than the knowledge of them suffering and dying from this serious illness, and having no way to be there with them or even tell them why I couldn’t be there.  As much as we might have fought or disagreed; no matter how unreasonable I thought they were, my compassion and my guilt would have been too much to bear.

I appreciate “I Never Sang for My Father” for allowing me to ruminate on these things while being absorbed by the drama of a parent-child relationship that was fundamentally not much different than my own.  I applaud the movie's simple power to help me deal with those emotions, and in a small way come to terms just a little bit more with the relationship I had with my parents, a relationship that, it’s true, did not end with their death.

 

"Lost in Translation" (2003)

                                                                    

Bob, a well-known Hollywood star played by Bill Murray, is stuck in Tokyo to shoot a lucrative whiskey commercial. He is amusingly confused by the unfamiliarity around him, and depressed by his own mid-life crisis.  Staying at the same Tokyo hotel is Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson, a young woman searching for her identity. She is unhappily married to a neglectful, wannabe-hipster celebrity photographer, whom she has joined in Japan while he is on assignment.  After meeting by chance in the hotel bar, Bob and Charlotte develop a brief, affirming friendship that turns into platonic romance in “Lost in Translation”, director Sofia Coppola’s delicate tone-poem of a film.

“Lost in Translation” masterfully portrays the dilemma of strangers in a strange land, whether that strange land happens to be another country, or a life that suddenly makes no sense.  It’s a languid comedy about boredom and confusion, about finding fellowship and love amid the chaos.  Unfamiliar language is key to the charm and meaning of this movie.  (A significant portion of the dialogue is spoken in untranslated Japanese)

I watched this movie again as we are perplexed anew by the coronavirus, and how best to contain its spread. The world seems almost unrecognizable now, like being trapped in a Twilight Zone in which everyone has blank expressions.  Since masks are becoming mandatory in many areas, this is almost literally true; we are so used to reading faces to determine emotions, and to use our expressions to communicate, that we are suddenly unsure how to connect with anyone whose mouth is covered with a cloth mask. The language of our expressions has been taken away.

The movie has a dream-like quality that captures Bob and Charlotte’s disorientation in a landscape that is completely foreign to them, where the language is unintelligible to them, whose customs sometimes seem absurd and unintentionally funny.  

Their bewilderment and isolation is tangible, and mirrors ours.  Stay-at-home orders isolated us from each other physically.  Now we feel isolated in public, because our facemasks wipe out the meaning behind our human expressions. They appear as warning signals against human connection.

When Bob and Charlotte meet, their connection is one of immediate relief and comfort:  with their figurative “masks” removed, they have a common language with which they can share their fears, uncertainty, loneliness, and even some laughs.  

As their gentle relationship progresses, Coppola’s screenplay makes clear that these individuals still have lives that they must resolve; and while we in the audience might enjoy seeing these two people remain together, the film takes a more compassionate, more adult direction.  Coppola respects these characters as much as they respect each other, so it’s refreshing that the story, slight as it is, does not rely on the usual clichés of a doomed love affair.

“Lost in Translation” seems to float by in a gorgeous, colorful fog.  While the average movie can be compared to a painting, this film is a more like a sketch, with just enough lines and contours to allow our minds to fill in the spaces and complete the portrait. The new-age music sets a meditative tone, as the camera records bright colors in soft focus,  gliding through crowds and gardens, arcades and taxi rides, restaurants and skyscapes.

We are surprised by what our American protagonists see and experience, and we share their curiosity. The film’s clear-eyed honesty and quiet tone make these things surprisingly intriguing and, sometimes, even hilarious. 

Charlotte contemplates a huge electronic light-board, and the image of a dinosaur moving in slow motion across it is strange and beautiful.  We are absorbed as Charlotte observes the hip young men who play unusual video games in a bright, loud arcade.  We share Charlotte’s hushed mystery as she eavesdrops inside of a Buddhist temple, or comes upon a lovely wedding party, while the groom takes the bride’s hand in an exquisite closeup.

We laugh out loud at Bob’s struggle with a health-club treadmill, or at his automated hotel-room drapes opening in the morning like an alarm clock. We appreciate his incredulity at a movie director who shouts instructions, on and on, in Japanese, only to have it be translated in two words (“More intensity”).   

There is an uproarious scene in which a well-dressed lady of the evening is sent to Bob’s room, resulting in the movie’s grand moment of slapstick miscommunication.  Here, and in other sequences, “Lost in Translation” gets a lot of mileage from the American-Japanese language difference, especially the switching of the “l” and “r” sounds (“Lip my stocking”).  Today, this might seem borderline politically-incorrect; but it is handled in so straightforward, understated and non-threatening a manner, that it is hard to take offense.

(It would be interesting to know how people from Japan react to this movie.)

The two leads are excellent; the movie would not have worked without either of them.

Bill Murray is the master of deadpan comedy. His almost wordless monologue, as he postures with different expressions during the whiskey commercial, is priceless screen acting. Under his deadpan cynicism, Murray shows us Bill’s kind soul, and his pain. In his first parting with Charlotte during a vapid photo session with his crew, Charlotte retreats to the elevator, and Murray shows us Bob's forced happiness, along with the sadness that is buried in his eyes.  

Scarlett Johansson is a beautiful presence, with a welcoming smile, and her own reserves of insecurity and pain.  She has great chemistry with Murray, who is capable of dominating a scene, but not here. She  convincingly asserts herself with her flighty husband, if only to convince herself that she has a life of her own.  (Giovanni Ribisi is miscast as her husband, John; he seems less like a cool artist than an eager attendee at Comicon.)

The film uses surprisingly little dialogue, but what is there often provides moving insight. Bill’s long-distance phone calls with his abrupt wife are revealing.  Bill and Charlotte’s banter in a hospital waiting room, or a sushi restaurant, display the humor and joy of good improvisation.  Charlotte is heartbreaking as she reaches out to her mother on the phone, who clearly is not hearing between the lines.  

Some of the most eloquent moments are unspoken.  Bill’s reaching out to softly touch Charlotte’s foot, as they share an intimate, nonsexual conversation in bed, says more than any amount of dialogue could have.

The most famous example of this quiet eloquence occurs at a wonderful moment near the end.  This moment has prompted hours of analysis and discussion.  As Bill and Charlotte say goodbye on a crowded street, he leans in and whispers something in her ear.  We don’t hear it.  Coppola wisely writes no dialogue for this.  We know that Bill is taking advantage of a once-in-a lifetime moment, expressing something from his heart.  What he says makes them both happy. That feeling of satisfaction is what the movie is going for, and it’s what we are meant to take away.  In this moment, “Lost in Translation” achieves wordless poetry.

                                                              

"The Dallas Buyer's Club" (2013)

                                                                    

“The Dallas Buyer’s Club” is a marvel.  Made on a tiny budget with a shooting schedule of just 25 days, it is a movie that might alienate some with its stark images of destroyed lives.  Instead it is an unlikely crowd-pleaser, a rabble-rouser, and a valuable record of a not-long-ago public health crisis.

 This is a tough, unsparing movie of surprising depth and humor, a small indie film that unreels like an epic about homophobia, drugs, death, and redemption.

Most of all, the movie boasts two of the best, Oscar-winning performances in contemporary American cinema.

“The Dallas Buyers Club” tells the story of a gravely ill, straight homophobe who discovers, at the start of the AIDS crisis, that he is HIV positive. Among other things, the film is an odyssey of one man’s difficult self-evaluation.  It also dramatizes the financial and human costs of obtaining life-saving medications, and the red tape involved in approving and making those drugs available, especially for a new, mysterious and deadly illness.

The film also rails against the corruption within the American pharmaceutical establishment.  It’s a film whose subjects are as relevant as ever.  

Matthew McConoughey portrays the real-life Ron Woodruff, a violent, sexually self-indulgent drug addict who nearly dies of AIDS.  He is already emaciated when we first meet him, riding a rodeo, and working as an electrician with a blue-collar crew.  His desolate, empty existence is filled with indiscriminate, unprotected sex with prostitutes, fueled by alcohol and hard drugs, and oppressed by ignorance. 

Woodruff belongs to a part of American culture that rejects homosexuality or anyone who associates with gay people.  In Woodruff’s world, “fag” is the ultimate insult.

He is given thirty days to live, and dismissed  by a healthcare system that is flummoxed and overwhelmed by the disease.  Woodruff refuses to accept the diagnosis, at first because he doesn’t believe that a straight guy can get AIDS.  As his health deteriorates, he does some reading and discovers the truth.  

He learns about AZT, the only drug on a fast-track for approval in the U.S., and finds that it costs ten thousand dollars a year, the most expensive of all medications  He learns that the proper dosage for AZT is still trial-and-error, and that it has toxic side effects.  He also discovers that treatments that have found some success  in countries like Germany, Israel and France, have not been approved in the U.S. 

Desperate, deteriorating, and hitting an emotional rock-bottom, he travels to Mexico, and meets a doctor who prescribes a cocktail of herbal treatments and vitamins.  His condition improves.  

Selfishly, he discovers a way to make a profit out of his own treatment, and in the process becomes a hero to dozens of other AIDS patients:  He disguises himself as a priest, smuggles these treatments back across the border, and makes them available to others free of charge by selling monthly memberships to the Dallas Buyers Club.

McConoughey inhabits Woodruff and his life to an exquisite degree.  He lost forty pounds to play the role, but that was just the beginning.  McConoughey bravely plays Woodruff as an unlikeable hero, carefully avoiding any false sentimentality.  As a result, we are deeply sympathetic to his character, while recognizing that he is often reprehensible.  His cry of despair when he realizes his fatal dilemma is truly moving.  It is a tremendous feat of acting. McConoughey is the foundation on which the film rises or falls; it holds up all the way.

Good as McConoughey is, there is another actor whose portrayal is one of the most effortless and affecting I’ve seen.  That is Jared Leto, in the role of drug-addicted trans woman Rayon. 

While Woodruff is in the hospital after a rough episode, he is approached by the quick-witted, wonderfully bitchy Rayon, who wins Woodruff over in a most unlikely and tentative manner.  Woodruff hates Rayon at first for being gay, but soon realizes that she can be a good business partner for him.  Eventually Woodruff comes to respect Rayon, and even embraces her as a friend, defending her against the ignorant attitudes of his old friends.

Leto is a true revelation.  To create the  appearance of a woman wasting away, Leto shed thirty pounds. His face, with its soft features and easy movement from confrontation to comfort; his voice, and the way he carries his body; the authenticity of his expression; and the intensity of his emotion; all make Rayon an unusual audience surrogate and the true hero of “The Dallas Buyer’s Club”. 

Leto treats the character with respect, and infuses Rayon with dignity and a deep capacity for love and generosity, even in the most difficult scenes, showing the ravages of Rayon’s drug addiction and the sorrows of family rejection.  Rayon provides most of the welcome comic relief with his witty one-liners, delivered with intelligence and glee.

Late in the film, when Rayon must ask her own father, a homophobe, for help, she dresses once again as a man so as not to alienate him.  It is a wrenching sequence that calls to mind the paradox of gender identity in “The Crying Game”.  Leto brings so much welcome energy to every scene, that when his role ends, it is as though a light goes off in the film.

Jennifer Garner is the third member of the cast whose accurate performance adds genuine warmth to a secondary role.  Garner is Dr. Eve Saks, Woodruff’s first doctor in the hospital, torn between the medical establishment’s protocols, and her growing realization that Woodruff’s Buyers Clubs and others like his are actually helping patients.  

Dr. Saks and Woodruff bond as friends after she stands up to the Hospital Board.  Woodruff so appreciates her that he gives her one of his only treasures: a picture painted by his own mother.  Garner is focused and true; we like her character and we’re glad she turns into an advocate for Woodruff.

The filmmakers, especially director Jean-Marc Vallee, do a miraculous job, considering the lack of resources, and a schedule that did not allow for rehearsals.  They artfully use one hand-held camera, two lenses, and no lights, a lively score and creative editing, to craft this eye-opening story that doesn’t call attention to its low budget.  The movie compels us to a point where we forget that we’re watching a movie. 

The script, by Craig Borten and Melisa Warrack, deftly handles a controversial subject, and combines a study of three fascinating characters with a medical suspense story. The writing is anything but maudlin. There’s plenty at first to make us uncomfortable, but we wind up feeling true sympathy and even something like exhilaration for the characters and their heroic efforts to create a better system.  

Special mention must be made to members of the makeup department, who helped transform the actors with startling realism, did so with less than $250 to spend, and won an Oscar for their work.

Watching “The Dallas Buyer’s Club” today raises all sorts of questions about the extreme speed in which various labs are trying to get a vaccine available for the coronavirus.  While the rapid availability of an effective vaccine will bring us back to a semblance of normal life (just like the flu vaccine did after the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic), one hopes that we avoid the mistakes made with AZT when that was first available.  

A movie like “The Dallas Buyer’s Club” can give the average person, who is concerned about the state of our health and who is eager to learn about current medical developments, a look at a recent precedent, and even a small red flag as the news of new vaccines, approval methods, and even infighting within the drug industry, emerges each day.

In all, this rough-around-the edges film, with its disturbing portrayal of a flawed culture, its indictment of corruption in our healthcare system, and its portraits of strong-willed, broken people who inspire each other, is worth seeing on many levels.

"The Strawberry Statement" (1970) / "Hair" (1979)

                                                                   

The coronavirus pandemic is no longer front-page news, for now.  National outrage over the arrest and death of a black man at the hands of white police has dominated the media for more than a week. There are images of massive protests on the streets of cities big and small, most of them peaceful but with several disturbing episodes of violence and destruction.

From the Nation’s capital come counterimages of an impotent, divisive administration, invoking law and order in a desperate attempt to appear in control, hiding behind the bible and military protection, and providing no comfort. Instead, sadly and deliberately, they are taunting an anguished populace.

An unusual element of the current protests is the sight of cloth face masks, worn by many of the demonstrators marching in the streets, to provide whatever protection is possible from a dangerous contagion while in close proximity to hundreds of others.

It’s too early to know if the weekslong nationwide demonstrations, involving mostly young people who are forgoing  social distancing after months of isolation, will develop into a new Covid-19 crisis.

What is certain is that people of color have been disproportionately affected and killed by the virus.   

While the pandemic remains unprecedented in modern culture, the images of large, sustained, often violent demonstrations on American streets are not.  Today’s protests and riots look familiar to those who experienced the turmoil of Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s and 70s.

As yet, our culture hasn’t had sufficient time to deal artistically with these events through music, theater, or film; but we do have popular artifacts that depict those earlier conflicts, precedents for the massive demonstrations taking place now, fifty years later. 

Two interesting movies from the Hollywood archives are worth looking at today.  Although they vary in quality, and are dated by their styles and language, they are both valuable records of the mood of the times, and may give new audiences something to relate to, and maybe even a path toward healing.

“THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT”

“The Strawberry Statement”, released in 1970, was made during the height of American unrest.  It is a product of, and a reflection of, the growing disillusionment on college campuses, increasing anti-war sentiment, and heightened enlightenment and sensitivity about mistreatment of minorities like Blacks and Native Americans. 

It is a flawed film, and is hardly mentioned today, even though it won a Jury Prize at Cannes.  But out of the many movies that depicted campus unrest and social protest, this one offers flashes of euphoric and creative filmmaking, interesting supporting characters, great music, and a flavor of a kind of rebellion that is just now beginning to resurface.

Based on the popular memoir of the same name by Ron Kunen, and subtitled “Notes of a College Revolutionary”, the film is a fictionalized account of Kunen’s transformation, from apolitical student to  campus radical, during the rebellions at Columbia College from 1966-68.  

The title refers to an offhand quote by one of the Vice Presidents of the college, in which he angered and alienated students.  He said, in effect, that  “student or faculty opinions have no place in  University policy; … and are no more meaningful than if they were to tell me that they liked strawberries.”

The film moves the location from New York to a Berkeley-inspired college in San Francisco.  The protagonist, named Simon, is an athlete on the rowing team who is happy just to earn passable grades, and graduate into well-paying job.  He has little interest in campus involvement, beyond immersing himself in pop culture and getting laid.  

A young Bruce Davison is appealing as Simon, who roams aimlessly between class and rowing practice, using a super-8 camera to film the scene around him.  He doesn’t care about the campus protests, street theater, and calls for a student strike; they only give him nightmares.

On a lark, he joins his roommate in a student takeover of a college President’s office.  The students are protesting the acquisition of land that belonged to a Black neighborhood for the purpose of building a college gymnasium.

There, Simon meets Linda (Kim Darby, fresh from “True Grit”), and they fall in love.  They are assigned together to be the food committee for the entrenched student strikers, leaving the sit-in for trips around  San Francisco for grocery donations, filmed in flashy montages scored to popular tunes of the era.  

Slowly, Simon observes the corruption and injustice around him, expressing confusion and disillusionment at his wanting to be a member of a college that is against everything he believes in.  He even falls victim to violence from members of the very community the protesters want to help, leading him to question his involvement in the entire movement.  Later, his own unjust arrest, and encouragement from Linda, help to clarify his attitudes in favor of the strike.

After the arrest, Simon leads a mass occupation inside a University hall.  There, in the film’s protracted conclusion, riot police with tear-gas and batons violently clash with the students, who are unarmed and chanting for peace.  The scene is loud, horrifying and heartbreaking.   Even if it runs a tad too long, you can’t help being swept up in the shock and emotion of it.  

“The Strawberry Statement” suffers from a lack of a strong narrative line.  The movie ambles, keeping the tone druggy and mellow, with sharp bursts of drama or violence, sprinkling plot points, slogans and oddball characters throughout, up until its shocking conclusion.  

Viewers with no prior knowledge of Vietnam atrocities, political assassinations of the 1960s, civil rights abuses, and campus unrest (the Kent State massacre happened that year) may not always understand the motivation for what’s happening on screen. 

The movie assumes we know why the student strike is a big deal.  Even so, plot is less important than mood here,  stirring up feelings of righteous indignation and cumulative anger.  (A young viewer today might be inflamed to actively protest,  after seeing the film’s images of police brutality against youth who believe in a cause.)

Also, the film’s poor sound recording, especially in dialog sequences, obscures some clarifying information. A few times, the actor’s voices seem to be coming from off-screen.

On the plus side, the cast of up-and coming actors is spirited, energetic, and understand both the drama and the humor of their situation.  Today it is fun to see people like Bud Cort (“Harold and Maude”), Bob Balaban (“Midnight Cowboy”), and Jeannie Berlin (“The Heartbreak Kid”) in their formative acting years, as they sink their teeth into quirky supporting roles. 

The director, Stuart Hagmann, also took some chances by using an array of trendy cinematic devices (jump-cuts, soft-focus, flash-forwards, kaleidoscopic camera) to effectively depict the look of a psychedelic era.  

Hagmann’s choice of music also a evokes the clarion calls that inspired youthful activism, with artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie, Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young, and Thunderclap Newman.  Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game” is used particularly well, suggesting hope and promise at the opening, and expressing outrage and regret at the fadeout.

“HAIR”

The rock-musical film “Hair” is based on the controversial 1967 stage production that scandalized Broadway and shocked America.  This film adaptation of the iconic work about drugs, love and freedom, "Hair" is overall a better work of cinema than “The Strawberry Statement”.  Both films deal with youth in protest,  but "Hair" differs in interesting ways.  

First,  “The Strawberry Statement”, set in the late 1960s,  is a product of its era.  “Hair” while it is set in Hippie-era 1967,  was made in 1979, over 5 years after the Vietnam war ended, over a decade after the Summer of Love. This gives it the perspective of time, even a hint of nostalgia, that keeps it from becoming dated. 

Another notable difference is Czech director Milos Forman (“One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”), who lends the movie a more objective, less knee-jerk-American point of view.  There’s an almost low-key tone to Forman’s treatment of the anti-Vietnam, pro-Hippie subject matter which is often manic and psychedelic.

“Hair” in its original form was a subversive musical revue.  A naïve young Englishman named Claude falls in with a group of free-spirited, draft-card-burning, drug-taking, sexually liberated Hippies.  With a threadbare plot involving the Vietnam draft and an undercurrent of satire, the characters sing about the concerns of the day,  from air pollution to revisionist history, from the sexually uptight to a new age of peace and freedom.  A turning point comes when Claude is drafted into the Army.

The film changes Claude's character into a naïve Oklahoman on his way to New York for his Army draft physical. (John Savage, who portrayed a Vietnam POW the year before in “The Deer Hunter”, is an interesting bit of casting as Claude).  He meets and befriends Berger (Treat Williams) and his colorful Hippie friends in Central Park, and spends a night of drug-fueled musical revelry. 

Along the way he meets Sheila (Beverly D’Angelo), the woman of his dreams, who comes from an upper-crust family but who longs for the free-spirited life of the Hippie community.  What ensues is a road trip to Nevada, where Claude is eventually stationed for training before being deployed to Vietnam, setting up yet another stunning and emotional finale.

The film retains the youthful vigor and aura of protest, but creates a stronger plot structure for its ideas and its music, and gives the characters a more realistic New York setting.  By focusing on the anti-war movement and dropping some of the sundry issues of the stage version, the film emphasizes the racial and socioeconomic origins of unrest. 

It’s a visually dazzling, energetic and exquisitely made film.

One of the similarities between “Hair” and “The Strawberry Statement” is their portrayal of the lack of communication between young people and the Establishment.  In “Strawberry Statement”, the over-30 crowd is the understood to be the enemy.  In “Hair”, both sides are equally guilty of not listening, or not being able to talk to each other.  

The Hippies in “Hair” are not cute and cuddly heroes at first, and are almost  annoying toward those who disagree with their vision.  (Their wealthy elders fare no better, and are depicted as inflexible and closed off.)

In “Hair”, this idea evolves in an intriguing manner.  Berger, by literally walking in the shoes of the Establishment, redeems himself in a startling and tragic act of self-sacrifice.

Both films are also willing to deal with the concerns of the Black community, which gives each film a renewed relevance for today’s audience.   

The students’ strike in “Strawberry Statement” may be about ending the draft and about providing input into campus policy; but the action is sparked by the protesters’ desire to protect land in a Black neighborhood.  "Hair”, in its use of language and a subplot about parenthood, creates an intriguing look at being Black in America amid a national crisis.

“Hair” confronts racism through a character named Lafayette, or as he calls himself, Hud (Dorsey Wright).   He sings “Colored Spade”, a song in which the entire lyrics are derogatory words and phrases used to describe black people in American culture.  It’s funny, and it wants to make us uncomfortable.

“Hair” is not afraid to tackle discord within the Black community, either.  The mother of Hud’s young son, both of whom he abandoned to join the movement, finds Hud, and confronts him. This strong black woman, played by Cheryl Barnes, sums up the paradox of the free-love movement: its generosity to the cause, and its neglect of its responsibilities to loved ones. She goes straight to our soul, in a searing rendition of “Easy to Be Hard”.

The music of “Hair” is justifiably famous.  Many of the songs have become standards.  They are creative, electric, romantic, funny, and pointed.  They are beautifully staged and choreographed, and there is not one number that won’t excite or move you.

Among them:

“Aquarius”, the signature theme, is done in a slower, jazzier tempo than its original versions. Performed to the unusual, clipped choreography of Twyla Tharp, we get a fresh angle on the Hippie manifesto, that Claude finds completely alien in his first encounter.  

“Ain’t Got No” and “I Got Life” are lively and humorous companion pieces that speak to the dilemma of poverty and of knowing what’s really important.  “Black Boys/ White Boys” extends the racial motif in a sly way, that also pokes fun at latent homosexuality in a military that forbade gays from serving.  

“Good Morning Starshine” is a goofy and upbeat tune that comes at a climactic point in the film, with the cast speeding in a convertible down a vast desert road.  The sheer carefree happiness of the song brings the characters together.  I have rarely experienced such joy in a movie as I did during this musical interlude.

“Let the Sunshine In”, perhaps the most well-known number, takes us from shocking personal tragedy to a massive anti-Vietnam peace protest outside the White House. The scene calls to mind today’s demonstrations against police brutality and racism.  It makes your heart soar and ache at the same time.

Both films remain as potent reminders of an era of activism, violence, and hope for a better world.  There's still much to do. 

The tide is now turning, and the sustained demonstrations we see today are bringing to the forefront issues that have been simmering for decades.  Now, instead of the threat of dying in Vietnam through a military draft, protesters, in their effort to fight to make the world more fair, are facing the immediate threat of dying from this disease.

"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)

Released in 1946 to massive popularity and critical acclaim, “The Best Years of Our Lives” is an enduring classic, still one of the finest, most entertaining films in American cinema.  The story of three World War II veterans, who return home to face the challenges of readjustment to civilian life, was highly topical and specific to its era.  Decades later, this monumental portrait of genuinely human characters, their fears and hopes, loves and dreams, is universal, and still resonates.

Today, it is a poignant time capsule of a bygone America that seems almost impossible to imagine.  It is also a tribute to those average, quietly heroic postwar Americans, most of whom are gone now, who shared common goals, and who observed an unwritten code of dignity and civility even in the aftermath of war. 

In a time of struggle that is specific to our own era, “The Best Years of Our Lives” still has plenty to say to us.   It’s like a balm to our anxious souls, showing good, imperfect people pulling together and enduring the problems of a changed world with love and strength.

On a personal note, whenever I am asked to name my all-time favorite film, I start to answer that impossible question by naming “The Best Years of Our Lives”.  I first saw it at age 10, on a Saturday television matinee with commercials (and likely some edits for length.)  My early fascination with the characters and their situations has grown into a true affection for the movie.  As I matured, so did my appreciation for it as a truly great piece of filmmaking. 

Perhaps because the film depicts the values and the culture that shaped my parents, I associate the movie strongly with them, and with a kind of life they tried to give me which has all but disappeared.  It’s more than a movie to me; it’s like a companion that I can visit for three hours, whose stories are as fresh, inspiring, and moving as the first time I encountered them.  After dozens of viewings, I have never grown tired of “The Best Years of Our Lives”, and I am moved even more each time.

The film tells parallel stories of the three soldiers who return together on a plane, strangers at first, to a fictional Everytown called Boone City.  They become fast friends, and their lives intersect and affect each other in surprising dramatic ways. 

The three plotlines are woven into a final wedding sequence, bringing all of the characters together. I consider it one of cinema’s most skillful and breathtaking wedding scenes.  It’s a remarkable finale that both ties up loose ends and leaves us with a satisfying ambiguity, as though the characters have real lives after the final credits.

Each of the soldiers represents one of three branches of the military.

Al Stevenson (Fredric March), an Army Sergeant, is the elder of the three.  He is well established back home as a banker, married for twenty years to a lovely, amiable, understanding wife Millie (Myrna Loy), and has two grown children.  Al seems to have it made upon his return, but has feelings of discomfort and alienation, and laments that everyone will try to “rehabilitate” him.   Al’s daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright), a nurse, is mature, good-natured, and lonely.  She plays a big part in two of the intersecting stories.

Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) a Captain in the Air Force, flew bomber planes over enemy targets. He excelled at his job in the air, but did not pick up many skills to re-enter the workforce, aside from his previous dead-end job at a drugstore soda fountain.   Only twenty days before going to war, he made a hasty marriage with Marie (Virginia Mayo), a carefree, immature girl he hardly knew, who fell in love with Fred’s uniform instead of the man wearing it.  Fred meets Peggy (Al’s daughter) after a welcome-home revelry at a neighborhood bar, and a clandestine affair begins, causing dismay for both families, and unhappiness for the otherwise decent and considerate pair.

The final plotline is the most heartbreaking, and maybe the most compelling.  Homer Parrish, a young sailor, loses both of his hands when his ship was bombed and caught fire.  Now he must use metal prosthetic hooks, and worries about the reaction of his family and friends.  Homer is engaged to Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell), his childhood sweetheart who lives next door.  He doesn’t want to burden her with his disability, but Wilma loves him and keeps asking him to give her a chance.  To escape the pitying looks and concern at home, Homer frequents a bar owned by his Uncle Butch (the legendary pianist Hoagy Carmichael), who is the only one he can talk to.  Butch’s Bar will be an important meeting place throughout the movie.

There is a renewed relevance to “The Best Years of Our Lives” as we try to figure out life after coronavirus.  This film about soldiers readjusting to a world that is different from the one they left behind is similar to our own readjustment to a world “opening up”.  Just as Al, Fred and Homer encounter social, economic, and physical aftereffects of the war, we have to consider the virus’ social, economic and physical effects as it moves through the population.

Many people will not be directly affected by the virus, but will choose ways to help and protect others.  Al’s world seems unchanged except to him, and so he uses his position at the bank to assist other veterans desperate for a new beginning.  Fred suffers the shame of underemployment and poverty, risking his marriage and sense of self-worth.  After the War, most viewers identified with Fred’s challenges; maybe those who have lost their jobs due to the virus, and face few prospects, still identify with Fred.  Homer can never recover from his injuries, just like many people will be permanently scarred from side effects of the virus.  Like Homer, they need special people to love them and not give up on them.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” is the product of some of Hollywood’s most respected artists and craftsmen, working at the peak of their talents.  The film is so involving that the artistry is almost invisible, but it has a definite strong effect on the viewer.

Director William Wyler, who continued a string of popular, timely films that struck a nerve with audiences (see “Mrs. Miniver” and “Roman Holiday”, both reviewed in this blog), made this his masterpiece.  He perfected his signature long takes, arranging the actors and their movements in the frame, eloquently expressing multiple bits of information and emotion in each shot.  For a film with a 170-minute running time, it has fewer edits than most.  Wyler’s ability and willingness to let his scenes breathe, and unfold naturally, achieves a quietly powerful effect without forcing that response.  It feels honest.

Cinematographer Gregg Toland perfected his deep-focus technique which he started with “Citizen Kane”. Toland lights his sets and performers with precision to strengthen Wyler’s intricate mise-en-scene. The wedding scene alone is worth high praise.

Hugo Friedhofer’s elegiac, soaring music is a character all its own.  Sometimes romantic, sometimes sly and humorous, and often with a subtle military crescendo, the score is like a tribute to the characters, many of whom have their own themes.  Friedhofer tells us more in his music than pages of written description could achieve.

Robert E. Sherwood’s complex and human screenplay, based on a prose poem by MacKinlay Kantor called “Glory for Me,” deftly leads the viewers through myriad complications in the character’s lives, and it never bogs down.   The dialog is scaled to the cadences and manner of speech of regular people.  There are few lines that draw attention to themselves; but there are many exchanges and monologues that will leave you spellbound, thoughtful, even moved to tears.

Finally, the actors all give the performances of their lives. 

Fredric March has a good time playing Al, providing most of the film’s comic relief.  He comfortably occupies the character and dominates many scenes with his intense gaze, though sometimes playing scenes of merry drunkenness broadly, which at the time was considered acceptably funny. 

The wonderful Myrna Loy plays Al’s wife Millie with grace and wisdom.  Loy communicates so much with a mere nod of her head, or a wistful smile, that we completely believe whatever she has to say.   

Teresa Wright plays Peggy with the right amount of thoughtfulness, accurately portraying a young woman who is confused by forbidden longing. 

Dana Andrews is appropriately handsome and jaunty as Fred, playing a character who undergoes the most change.  Without begging for our sympathy, Andrews earns it, as well as our respect for his character.

Finally, the performer who has the greatest impact in the film is the only non-professional in the cast. Harold Russell, who plays Homer, was a soldier who actually lost his hands in a military accident.  Director Wyler saw him in a training film and cast him for his natural presence on screen. (He objected to Russell taking acting lessons to prepare.)  Audiences were unaccustomed to seeing realistic depictions of amputees, and there was a high level of curiosity. 

Russell essentially plays a version of himself, but Wyler directed him to a performance of great depth. He is so likeable and natural, and elicits such sympathy, that he captured the collective heart of the nation.  The character of Homer remains one of the most memorable aspects of “Best Years of Our Lives.”  

Russell received a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, but the Academy, feeling he would not win, presented him with an honorary Oscar for “bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans…”.  Russell went on to win the Supporting Oscar anyway, and remains the only actor to earn two Oscars for the same portrayal.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” swept the Oscars, earning in addition to Russell’s Best Picture and Director, Actor for March, Screenplay, Score, and Film Editing.   It continues to be an important film,  a true classic of Hollywood’s golden age, and will reward the time and attention of viewers for generations to come.