"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969)

                                      

Back to School: 

This is Part 1 in a series about teachers, students, and the classroom experience.  We are struggling between sending children and teachers back into classrooms, or continuing with stay-at-home, virtual learning, as virus cases and fatalities increase.  

I wonder how my life would have changed if I were a student during a pandemic.  As much as I want to see a safe re-opening, I remember how important the start of every school year was to me: the new teachers, the possibility of new friendships, even the anxieties of gym class, none of which would have been possible in a home-based, virtual classroom.

Re-visiting the movies of a particular era, that shaped my idea of school, is a nostalgic and reflective experience. It drives home how the uncertainty over reopening schools must affect the psychological and educational well-being of students and teachers.

                                       

“THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE” 

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.”  Maggie Smith, as Miss Jean Brodie

There are many movies about teachers, students, and the school experience..  One film, which influenced me at a young age, is now a deeper emotional experience for me. Watching it decades later,  I understand the film's subtleties of the humor, and the complexities of the human condition, things that escaped me at age twelve.  

“The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” is a mature portrait of a complicated character, a reminder that teachers are deeply human. Jean Brodie is a teacher whose class I wished I could have attended when I first encountered her at age twelve.  Now, I feel deep sympathy for her as a human being, and understand her flaws.

Jean Brodie is an invincible, flamboyant figure at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in 1930s Edinbugh. She is popular with her students and highly influential. She is a formidable presence, witty and sharp.  She believes that safety is less important than goodness, truth, and beauty.  At the start of every term, she announces that it is her mission to put “old heads on young shoulders”, and that her girls are the “crème de la crème”.

To Jean Brodie, teaching the status quo results in petrification.  She believes that education (from the Latin educare, or ‘bring forth’) is a process of “leading out” that which is already there. Conventional teaching, on the other hand, or forcing knowledge into young minds, she equates with intrusion (from the medieval intrusio, or ‘thrusting in’).

Miss Brodie’s is a controversial figure. Her tragic flaw, apart from ignoring the school’s traditional curriculum, is her admiration for controversial political figures like Mussolini and Franco, which she proudly proclaims in lectures to her students.  Her politics, which seem innocent at first but are highly uncomfortable from the perspective of time, take root slowly, with unfortunate results.

Miss Brodie mesmerizes her girls with stories of romance, poetry, art, and her unconventional ideas.  Her reveries thinly disguise the emotional and sexual awakening that she is experiencing in her “prime”.   Her young adolescent charges are intrigued by her, devising amusingly romantic scenarios with Miss Brodie as their heroine

Four of her girls are singled out for special attention.  The “Brodie Set” are privileged with picnics, gallery walks, and weekends in the country during their four years at Marcia Blaine. Monica is smart and sensitive, responding emotionally to Miss Brodie’s passionate classroom tales.  Jenny is Miss Brodie’s self-professed alter ego, a beauty who Jean imagines will have many love affairs.  Mary MacGregor, a new girl, is a stuttering, wealthy orphan who has a tragic awakening under Miss Brodie’s tutelage.  

And Sandy, Miss Brodie’s confidante, is a probing, confrontive beauty, whose dependability hides a growing resentment that kicks the drama into high gear.

Brodie is disfavored by the prim and conventional Headmistress, Miss Mackay.  The dislike is mutual.  Apart from a complete disagreement in educational philosophy---Miss Mackay champions hard knowledge, while Miss Brodie is all about culture—there are undercurrents of personal antagonism. Miss Mackay wants to fire Jean, but Jean fiercely defends her calling and her passion as a teacher.

We learn that Jean has had a life-changing summer romance in Italy with the art teacher, Teddy Lloyd.  He is married with six children, but loves Miss Brodie and doggedly pursues her.  She is also involved in a barely discreet relationship with Gordon Lowther, the easygoing, strait-laced music teacher.

As Jean starts to blur the line between personal romance and her relationship with her girls, she becomes sadly delusional, living vicariously through her girls, manipulating their lives according to her design.  When Sandy, who is experiencing her own awakening, is disappointed in her romantic pursuit of Teddy Lloyd, she seeks to destroy Miss Brodie out of jealousy and self-righteousness.

(The repeated use of the word “assassin” must have given the film an edge in that turbulent time.)

“The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” is a funny, stirring, gripping, and ultimately shattering movie about a magnificent, flawed, complicated woman.  Fortunately, it is the wonderful Maggie Smith who gives life to Jean Brodie in all of her grandeur, wit, and vulnerability.  

Smith is slightly over the top as she moves, head erect, hand waving in the air like a queen, her high-pitched voice lilting in a heavy Scottish accent.  Then she finds the heat of her character in intense monologues that are riveting. Or she breaks your heart as she soldiers through a lecture about Rome as she knows that her life is falling apart. It is truly an astonishing portrayal of an unforgettable character.  Smith got a well-earned Oscar amid some excellent competition for Best Actress.

Robert Stephenson (Maggie Smith’s real husband at the time) plays Teddy Lloyd with roguish charm.  Celia Johnson, as Miss Mackay, is a treasure. Her precise diction and her head-to-head exchanges with Smith are classic. 

Among the girls, Jane Carr is poignant as Mary MacGregor; but it is Pamela Franklin who stands out as Sandy.  She is cool, cunning, and convincing playing a girl between age 12 and 17. (She also has a startling nude scene in the artist’s studio which was a bit shocking even in 1969, when screen nudity was becoming acceptable.)  Sandy’s final scene in Miss Brodie’s classroom invokes complicated feelings.  The film’s final closeup is of her, walking tearfully, as Miss Brodie’s words echo in her head. It is a sad moment of regret that affected me deeply.

The film is a free adaptation of Muriel Spark’s experimental novel.  Jay Presson Allen, whose screenplay is based on her play of Sparks’ novel, tells the story chronologically, writes intelligent dialogue and creates many layers to Miss Brodie’s character. Where the film is less convincing is in portraying Jean Brodie’s extreme political ideology.  It seemed out of character, considering Jean’s love of truth and beauty. It played like a plot device; the film could have resolved in much the same way without it.

That aside, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" is an original portrayal of teachers and students.  In its flights of fancy, it stirs the imagination, showing how a learned teacher can inspire the thoughts and dreams of her students. It's also a cautionary tale about where the lines of inspiration are best not crossed.   Ronald Neame directs with sensitivity, keeping the pace lively.  Rod McKuen’s music, and especially his theme song “Jean”, which was a popular hit in 1969-70, captures a Scottish melancholy in a romantic ballad.

The late 1960s and 70s saw a number of theatrical films about school and teachers.  Along with "Jean Brodie" there were, among others, "To Sir, With Love", "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "Up the Down Staircase", the ABC-TV drama series "Room 222", "Sounder", and "The Paper Chase". These movies captured the experience with a degree of respect for learning that audiences expected, and accepted.  I loved school, and these films gave me a positive image of what school could be.

Over the decades, movies about school and teachers continued to be made, but they tended to satirize the experience, or hold it up for ridicule ("Animal House", "Clueless", "Fast Times at Ridgemomt High", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", etc.).  Even a well-meaning film like "Dead Poet's Society" came off as artificial.  Not until the recent "Lady Bird" has cinema captured the school experience with real honesty and heart.  Otherwise, movies about school have all but disappeared from theaters.  (Are there any contemporary movie dramas that show students with their laptops?)  

I hope movies about school are not relics of another era, just as I hope the experience of school is not becoming extinct because of the virus.  I would hate to think that today's young people no longer have the irreplaceable experience of attending school in the traditional way, nor do they have stories and characters in movies like "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" to inspire them over a lifetime.

"The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936)

                          (Paul Muni, above, as Louis Pasteur, middle, and as himself, below)

“You young men—doctors and scientists of the future—do not let yourselves be tainted by apparent skepticism nor discouraged by the sadness of certain hours that creep over nations.  Do not become angry at your opponents, for no scientific theory has ever been accepted without opposition…”  Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur

We are over six months into the pandemic.  It will be a little while until things become recognizably normal.  From my relatively safe and simple life, some things are getting easier…or maybe I’m just getting used to some of the changes, for the time being.  Still, like most, I am closely following the progress of scientists as they push to create a vaccine.

There are almost no movies about the drama of discovering vaccines.  In fact, while searching for “Biographical Films About Scientists”, Wikipedia came up with a list of only 33 titles, out of the thousands of movies made over the last century.  There are plenty of movies about diseases and disabilities; but almost none about finding cures. 

I had to go way back to the 1930s to discover such a movie.  “The Story of Louis Pasteur”, released in 1936, is one of the 33 movies on the Wikipedia list.  Made in the old Hollywood system, it combined an entertaining human story with a valuable, simplified history lesson in less than 90 minutes. 

It’s a film about an important historical figure, a pioneer in the discovery of vaccines and the modern process of pasteurization.  It was a major studio film with top-notch production values (excellent direction, rich photography, sumptuous costumes and sets) that featured some of the biggest movie stars of the day.  It was also a big box-office hit, and won three Oscars: two for writing, and one for the performance of the incredible, but now mostly forgotten, Paul Muni.

Movies from the 1930s no longer appeal to many viewers.  Some of the movies are antiquated in subject matter, or worse, reflect attitudes that were accepted at the time but are now offensive.  The style of acting is sometimes forced and melodramatic; and early, primitive technology often created a flat, uninteresting visual experience.  A lot of prints have not been restored, resulting in grainy pictures with fuzzy sound.  (However, the fact that they are in black-and-white, to me, is one of their advantages.)

Not all movies from that era have these drawbacks.  It’s fun to take a chance on the past, and rediscover something that connects with us in a big way.  It’s also enlightening to discover what our ancestors enjoyed on the big screen; a lot of these films hold up extremely well.  “The Story of Louis Pasteur” is well-acted, intelligent and briskly paced, packing in a lot of material during its brief running time.  In spite of its simplicity and the limitations of technology, it is surprisingly relevant, and has a lot to say to us.

The film begins in1860.  Pasteur, a chemist, has already become famous for his process of heating wine to kill harmful microbes (the process known today as pasteurization, used to prevent food-borne illnesses in items like milk and fruit juice).  Pasteur encounters resistance from France’s medical academy, who feel he is unqualified as a “mere” chemist and not a medical doctor.  They deride him for his insistence on surgeons boiling their instruments, and washing their hands, to kill germs that cause the fatal “childbed fever”, an infection in mothers after childbirth.

Pasteur has studied microbes and their correlation to disease. He laments the medical establishment’s “criminal disregard of germs” and their insistence on proof, “as if the dead and dying weren’t proof enough.” 

The film chronicles Pasteur’s work to eradicate anthrax, which infects sheep when they ingest the spores that are rampant in grass.  He injects healthy sheep with a vaccine, and then injects them with blood from infected sheep. The vaccinated sheep survive, and Pasteur’s renown grows.

The movie combines several subplots in a tight script.

Jean Martel, the young assistant to Charbonnet, a rival doctor, starts to work for Pasteur instead, and falls in love with Pasteur’s daughter Annette.  They marry and are expecting a child.  When Annette goes into labor, Pasteur must negotiate with Charbonnet, the only surgeon available for the delivery, who still does not believe in handwashing and surgical hygiene. 

Pasteur finds an advocate in Dr. Joseph Lister, a noted British surgeon who championed the use of antiseptics in surgery.  (The Listerine antiseptic, developed in 1897, is now known as a popular mouthwash.)  After Pasteur partially recovers from a stroke, Lister honors Pasteur in the film’s moving final scene.

Most interesting are scenes showing Pasteur’s struggles with rabies (referred to by the archaic name Hydrophobia).  A good deal of the film’s drama occurs in these scenes.  Even when we know the outcome, the film cleverly builds suspense as Pasteur experiments and tries to convince the medical field once and for all that he is going in the proper direction. Ironically, it is a foolhardy action by his rival Charbonnet that leads Pasteur to solve the rabies vaccine.

Rabies turns out to be a tough study.  Its properties seem to keep changing.  When it doesn’t react like the anthrax vaccine, Pasteur declares that “nature is far too subtle to repeat herself.” When a success is followed by a failure, Pasteur tries to encourage his staff by explaining that “science, like a baby, takes a step, then another, then stops to reflect a while, before taking another.”  Prophetic words, as we wait impatiently for the quick development and availability for a new vaccine.

While the story sounds like a science lesson, this is a true movie-movie, using all of the cinematic skills available at the time to make this an entertaining character study and a suspenseful tale of medical triumph. 

Paul Muni won a Best Actor Oscar in his role as Pasteur.  He was a gifted chameleon of a performer, disappearing into his roles and playing each one convincingly.  Makeup and costumes helped, but Muni always captured the essence of his characters from within, in roles as varied as a notorious mobster (“Scarface”), a petty criminal (“I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang”), a Chinese peasant (“The Good Earth”), and author Emile Zola (“The Life of Emile Zola”, the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1937).

Hollywood may never recapture the knack for portraying scientists in an entertaining cinematic fashion, if and when films go into production again.  If not, it’s good to know that there’s a treasure chest of old films that are worthy of our attention, and are as relevant to the concerns of our day as if they were just made.  I’m glad I took a chance on “The Story of Louis Pasteur.” 

"My Left Foot" (1989)

(Brenda Fricker and Daniel Day-Lewis)

     (The real Christy Brown with his mother)

“…Like everyone else, I am acutely conscious sometimes of my own isolation, even in the midst of people.  And I often give up hope of ever being able to really communicate with them…It’s like a black cloud sweeping down on me unexpectedly, cutting me off from others.”  Christy Brown, from his autobiography

Christy Brown was a well-known Irish writer and artist.  He excelled as a painter, a novelist and a poet.  His best-known work remains his autobiography, “My Left Foot”, which was published in 1954 when he was 22.  His work is highly regarded in literary and artistic circles:  his novel, ”Down All the Days” has been compared to the writing of James Joyce.  Despite his cerebral palsy, which limited his ability to speak and move, Brown was prolific, creating his art on a typewriter  or with a pencil or paintbrush, by using the toes of his left foot, the only appendage which he could control. 

Christy was born in Dublin in 1932 to a working-class Catholic family.  He was one of 22 children, 13 of whom survived (nine died in infancy). His disability was so severe that most of his family gave up on him.  His mother, however, never wavered in her support nor doubted his ability.  As he grew up, he demonstrated keen intelligence and artistic talent. 

The film version of “My Left Foot” is a complete, exuberant movie experience. It has an old-fashioned sensibility with a contemporary spirit.  It was made with great care and respect for its subject, and lots of creative energy; this movie is ALIVE.  I can’t recommend it more highly. “My Left Foot” blends the comfort and warmth of a domestic narrative with the intensity of serious drama.   

The central character, Christy Brown, has enormous challenges, but we identify with him as a human being, not a specimen. Brown’s disability is matter-of-fact, and not artificially dramatized like a disease-of-the-week.  The film is often funny, and occasionally very witty. It surprises us at times,  and contains a couple of scenes that are sure to produce a few tears; and you’ll likely be smiling when it’s over.

The movie is structured as a series of flashbacks.  The adult Christie Brown is waiting backstage during a benefit to honor him and his work.  His clever caretaker, Mary, engages in sly repartee with Christie, and as she reads his book, Brown’s story unfolds according to each chapter.

The film proceeds swiftly through Brown’s childhood in his crowded household, enduring the noise and bustle of his many brothers, and the raging of his strict, strong-willed father. His mother, a sensible and devoted woman who is  strong enough to understand her difficult husband and still love him, sticks up for Christie, and speaks to him like a human being.  

We move ahead to Brown’s adolescence, his formal education, the humiliations of being treated as a helpless, repellant child in a man’s body, and his first, powerful crush on his social worker and teacher.

Shane Connaughton’s intricate screenplay tells the story in a straightforward way, using references to Christie’s autobiography to shape the sequences and the chronology of the flashbacks. Director Jim Sheridan wisely lets Christie Brown occupy center stage, staying out of the way, and skillfully places and moves his camera and his many actors, filming within confined sets that are authentic and feel lived in.

Christie Brown is portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis, who was relatively new to American audiences at that time.  I can say with confidence that his is one of the greatest feats of screen acting ever put on film.  

Day-Lewis accomplished this by paying attention to the most minute detail, understanding how every part of Christie’s body functioned, and staying in character throughout the shoot.  He spent time with Christie Brown’s  family, and with other adults with cerebral palsy, for guidance to ensure that his acting was accurate and honest.

Unlike so many other films in which able-bodied actors play characters with physical limitations, Day-Lewis’ performance is not a gimmick.  A good test of this is to ask whether we are always aware of an actor acting, and being more impressed by the performance than involved with the character.  Right from the start, in a distorted closeup on Christy's labored expression, we are transfixed by the character, not just the actor.  

It is true that Day-Lewis inspires awe as we watch the film; but very soon we forget that we are watching an actor.  The pleasing irony is that Day-Lewis is SO convincing, that we are able to pay attention to Christy Brown; his performance is the nicest tribute an actor could have paid to his real-life subject.

Notice how Day-Lewis uses his eyes (especially in the amusing way he gives Mary the once-over in an early scene).  See how well he constricts his body and tries so hard to control what is impossible to hold still.  Watch how he shapes his mouth into the words he wants to use, and hear how he forces his breath to make the sounds come out of his throat.  Notice how he contorts his face into expressions of raw emotion, and moves his head for emphasis.

Apart from the imitation of a disabled man, Day-Lewis gives a performance, one of graceful humor and intense drama.  He highlights Christy's playful, profane, and passionate qualities.

When Daniel Day-Lewis accepted his Oscar for this movie, he rightly and graciously called out another actor, Hugh O’Connor, who played Christy Brown as a child, and whose performance in the film’s first thirty minutes is just as stunning.  O’Connor matched Day-Lewis’ body postures, facial expressions, and head movements perfectly; I can imagine the two actors bonding, as the younger actor observed the older actor and worked hard to honor the character.   

The most important role in the movie apart from Christy is that of Christy’s mother, played here by Brenda Fricker.  Even more unknown outside of Ireland, (until she was later cast as the pigeon lady in “Home Alone 2”), Fricker is the film’s conscience.  She gives us a way to identify with her son, and read his heart.  Fricker’s performance is very natural, and also one of the more physically demanding roles I have seen by an actress.  

The role is written as almost saintly, but Fricker brings an earthiness to it, an aura of having experienced life and a confidence that all will be well.  Without raising her voice, we know that Fricker’s character is not to be trifled with.  Fricker, deservedly, won the film’s second Oscar.

Were it not for its Oscar wins, I fear “My Left Foot” might tragically be forgotten by contemporary viewers.  If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor, and check it out.   If you have seen the film, this is a good time to revisit it.   

There is nothing about it directly related to our pandemic.  Yet in connecting with a real-life character, whose life presented few options and was so constricted, we may find encouragement in our ability to prevail during a time in which many of our lives have become depressingly limited. 

Not only that, but we take away the straightforward, refreshing pleasure of an honest, well-made work of cinema, in a film that honors our emotions and our intelligence.

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964)

                                  

                         

“Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water? … Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face… A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual.  Certainly, without any choice.”  --General Jack D. Ripper, explaining why he ordered a nuclear attack on Russia

A psychotic General fixated on a conspiracy theory; a drunken Russian President; bumbling military personnel; and a sinister ex-Nazi; all bring about the nuclear destruction of the world, in director Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”  

Distinguished by the sensational performances of George C. Scott and, in three roles, Peter Sellers, “Dr. Strangelove” was an instant classic, and a dangerous satire.  Considered outrageously funny and cutting-edge in its original 1964 release, the movie has additional layers of timeliness today.  It remains a must-see. 

Kubrick was a genius on film.  He left behind a legacy of exquisitely crafted, brilliantly conceived masterpieces, rich in ideas and imagery.  With intelligence and wit, they examine universal themes, and keep  viewers spellbound with audacious compositions and boldly original design.  His films are timeless; they dazzle the eye and excite the mind today as much as ever. 

Although Kubrick was not known primarily as a director of comedy, many of his films, like “A Clockwork Orange”, “Lolita” and even “2001: A Space Odyssey”, sizzle with moments of wicked humor.

“Dr. Strangelove”, Kubrick’s early tour de force, is his most overt comedy.  Lampooning military absurdity and the deadly folly of the Cold War, this scathing film provides plenty of laughs.  But something strange happened in the fifty-plus years since the film was released. 

American politics has become so irrational and over-the-top, that the buffoonery on display in "Dr. Strangelove" doesn't seem so strange by comparison. It now feels almost commonplace, and frighteningly plausible, in spite of a disclaimer that tells us that the events depicted could never occur.   The movie is still funny, but now I wince as much as I laugh, and the laughter sticks in my throat.

“Dr. Strangelove” is superbly designed, using a few memorable and iconic sets.  The high-contrast black and white photography  employs harsh lighting, giving the film a cold and repellant look…in other words, it has an institutional military feel that is hard to warm up to.  The humor is incongruous in this heightened, documentary-like realism, which makes the film progressively funnier and scarier as it goes along.  

Many of Kubrick’s trademark techniques were introduced here: disorienting wide-angle shots, static takes on motionless actors, eerie up-gazes, ironic use of music, and filming into light sources.. The movie requires the energy of full attention, and rewards it with an authentically detailed, fast-paced narrative of visionary dimensions.

The screenplay, by Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George (on whose novel. “Red Alert”, the movie is based), mixes wit, slapstick, and phallic inuendo. 

I would argue that the film’s main thesis, the target of its most venomous humor, states that military hubris, bluster, and one-upmanship are little more than expressions of male sexual insecurity. And this male sexual panic is destroying the world. The movie is crammed with examples: 

-The opening sequence follows two military planes re-fueling in mid-air, looking humorously like a copulation, scored to “Try a Little Tenderness”.  

-The names of the characters are wicked double-entendres (Turgidson; Merkin Muffley; Jack D. Ripper; Premiere Kissov; Strangelove). 

-Replenishing the population in a nuclear wasteland involves the creation of vast, underground breeding cities, in which ten women per each man are allowed to survive, based on their stimulating sexual characteristics.  

-The pilots’ survival kits contain nylon stockings and prophylactics.   

-Colonel Kong, commander of the wayward bomber plane that cannot be stopped, destroys the world by riding a nuclear bomb to its target, like a cowboy with a gigantic member between his legs.

Finally, the crux of the film, the driving force behind the ludicrous farce that unfolds, is General Ripper’s conspiracy theory.  He triggers the deadly chain of events because he thinks that fluoridation of water is a Communist plot to sap his precious bodily fluids.

Why?  He firmly believes that ingesting fluoride causes him to fail in the act of lovemaking. 

His conviction, that a deadly foreign substance being introduced into his body against his will is a conspiracy, is similar to arguments by today's anti-vaccination proponents.  A growing number of them refuse to be innoculated against any disease, even by a possible lifesaving vaccine against the Coronavirus.

Just like Ripper, the anti-vaccine people perpetuate unfounded conspiracy theories.  Like Ripper, they would rather fight against the idea of a vaccine, or the injection of an “evil” substance, and risk destroying humanity, rather than making themselves immune, safeguarding themselves and others.  They cannot acknowledge the history of other deadly diseases, which no longer threaten our existence because of available vaccines.

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A personal note, about “Dr. Strangelove”, and a bittersweet effect of the pandemic:

“Dr. Strangelove” was the first movie shown by the new Phx Film Collective in 2018. The Phx Film Collective was started by a small group of dedicated movie fanatics who wanted to offer public screenings of vintage classic and modern independent films in the Central Phoenix area, which was underserved by movie theaters.  

I learned of the Collective through a newsletter distributed by Changing Hands Bookstore, who offered their event space to  for the screenings.  I took advantage of the call for volunteers; I felt that any group that would show a movie like “Dr. Strangelove” was a group that I wanted to be a part of.

“Dr. Strangelove”, which hadn’t been shown theatrically in many years, was a huge success.  The Collective had tapped into a need, and continued to meet that need through subsequent screenings of diverse movies at unique venues.

Being a part of the group was a happy time for me.  I realized my dream of introducing audiences to movies that meant a lot to me, especially from my favorite film era, the 1960s and 70s.  I also supported a wide range of tastes from others in the group whose passion for their films and eras rivaled my own.

Our last screening was “Harold and Maude” on Valentine’s Day, 2020.  It was our greatest success.  The following show, Bong Joon-Ho’s “The Host”, was canceled, ironically, due to the coronavirus outbreak. The group never met again after that.

Recently, our founders, Chris and Carrie, informed me that they would be moving to Canada by the end of the year.  Chris kindly offered me the chance to carry on the Film Collective; but I knew that I could not fill his shoes. It would not be the same without his passionate vision.

I feel sad about the dissolving of our movie group, which was just finding its legs before it was stopped in its tracks.  I will miss the meetings, the film-selection discussions, the technology logistics, the choosing of venues, and the great fellowship of some wonderful movie-lovers.  

Running through my head, appropriately, is the melancholy lyric that ended "Dr. Strangelove”, the first film shown by the Phx Film Collective:

 “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when / But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.”

"Terms of Endearment" (1983) and "50/50" (2011)

                           

As I write this, the number of coronavirus cases in the US is steadily growing.  The new cases and deaths are tabulated and printed each day, to be analyzed and discussed at length.  When the daily numbers aren’t causing me fresh anxiety, they make me numb. When the virus becomes just an alarming set of statistics, I forget that every number in those statistics represents a human individual, and the others around that individual whose lives are also affected.

With Coronavirus as the main topic of discussion, it’s easy to forget that there are people with other afflictions and illnesses that are just as scary, and the resulting deaths of which are just as heartbreaking.  These people, and the people whose lives are affected around them, merit attention and compassion as well.

One example: In the US this year, it is expected that there will be over 1,800,000 new cases, and over 606,000 deaths…from cancer.  Unfortunately, like the coronavirus statistics, there are no estimates about those who are expected to recover.

Two popular Hollywood movies help to remind us that the statistics actually represent human lives.  Each life is a full story, and involves so many people.  The Oscar-winning 1980s blockbuster “Terms of Endearment”, and the contemporary true story, “50/50”, introduce us to rich, complex characters, and the effects of a cancer diagnoses on themselves, their parents, friends, lovers, caregivers, and acquaintances.

One is a nostalgic series of vignettes, culminating in inevitable tragedy and how people cope with it.  The other puts cancer front and center, and explores the unique challenges of recovery.

As emotionally cleansing as each film is, they both benefit from a focus on compelling characters, a comic tone, and an honest, straightforward approach to a serious topic. Both films offer as many laughs as tears—if not more.

 

“TERMS OF ENDEARMENT”

“…In a few years when I haven't been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you're gonna realize that you love me. And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don't - I know that you love me. So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?”  --Emma Greenway, talking to her young sons for the last time.

Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger give unforgettable performances in “Terms of Endearment”, the multiple Oscar-winner from 1983. It’s one of the last and best examples of the domestic comedy/drama which director James L Brooks, a veteran of television, expertly translated to the big screen. The kind of layered, involving human drama exemplified by “Terms of Endearment”  has largely disappeared from major Hollywood films.

MacLaine is Aurora Greenway, a recent widow, and matriarch of a well-to-do Houston household. She’s a firebrand, who develops a fear-and-desire relationship with her devil-may-care neighbor, a retired astronaut named Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). Aurora has a daughter, Emma, over whose life she goes to great lengths to control, sometimes to hilarious effect. 

Debra Winger is Emma, a feisty and rebellious young woman with a throaty voice and a fighting spirit.  She stands her ground with Aurora as she begins her own life with a cute and wayward husband, Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels).

The film follows Aurora and Emma over thirty years, telling  parallel stories of their relationships, failures, fears, happiness and heartbreak.  

Aurora’s relationship with Garrett proceeds in slapstick fits and starts over several years, and slowly develops into a comforting bond between two people who are just beginning to address their own decline.  Emma’s marriage goes from dreamy romance to motherhood to infidelity, with her share of comic escapades, until a fateful routine medical visit, which drives the rest of the film.

Over those thirty years, Aurora and Emma carry on a running conversation/argument, mostly by phone, in a relationship of antagonism and mutual support. Given the title of the film, it is interesting that neither one ever tells the other  “I love you”.  Yet the film, on the strength of the writing and performances, never leaves any doubt. 

The movie proceeds in lengthening vignettes, separated by fade-outs to show the passage of time.  “Terms of Endearment” is like a series of endings, and with each a comes a new beginning: romance, residence, friendship, parenthood, even life itself. 

The plot doesn’t naturally lead to a climax, but builds to a crisis where every character must deal with the death of a protagonist after a rapidly-growing cancer.  We see the ways in which people come together, rally around each other, and release their grief, sometimes with anger, sometimes with humor.  

Even the word “cancer” gets one of the biggest laughs in the film, as Emma does her best to look at the future head-on. 

 “Terms of Endearment” takes an anonymous statistic  and gives us the human story behind it, and the ripple effect that person’s illness and death has on those around her.

When Emma’s two young sons visit her in the hospital, in various stages of denial and mourning, Emma gives them the kindest gift a parent can give her children. She helps take away any future guilt or regret, in one of the most intense and tender scenes in the film.  Aurora reveals her love for Emma near the end. Thinking that Emma's passing would come as a relief, she realizes that there is nothing harder.

The film is not cinematically challenging.  James L. Brooks keeps things easy and the mood light; he is one of the least “dark” filmmakers I know. He is a skilled moviemaker who keeps his effects invisible.  We are never meant to take away artistic inspiration from the film. Instead, Brooks wisely concentrates on the characters and the beautiful script, keeping the actors in center frame, cutting smoothly, allowing us the full  humorous, bittersweet catharsis of being alive.

Even the music, by Michael Gore (“Fame”) sounds like solace, giving the movie a consistently nostalgic tone.  The score reminds me of how I feel when paging through an old photo album, smiling, remembering, and longing for people who are gone.

“Terms of Endearment” is based on a novel by Larry McMurtry”, who is an expert at creating multi-faceted characters.  Three movies, which have been based on his novels, or for which he co-wrote the screenplay, resulted in 11 Oscar nominations (and four wins) for acting: “Terms of Endearment”, 4 nominations; “Brokeback Mountain” 3 nominations; and “The Last Picture Show” 4 nominations.

Shirley MacLaine is a triumph as Aurora, a fussy, sarcastic woman who nevertheless learns to relax, and comes through when people need her. Debra Winger has the most difficult arc as Emma, and hits the marks every time.  MacLaine and Winger have perfect mother-daughter chemistry even in their animosity. And Jack Nicholson brings his impish charm to the role of Garrett, which was invented for the film.  Nicholson makes the character his own; it's hard to imagine that the part was originally written for Burt Reynolds.

 

“50/50”

“Have you ever seen ‘Terms of Endearment’?”  --Adam trying to find a way to tell his mother that he has cancer.

In 2005, screenwriter Will Reiser was diagnosed with rare cancerous tumors of the spine. He was 25 years old.  After learning to accept his diagnosis, informing his friends and family, and enduring chemotherapy and back surgery, he survived.  Reiser’s good friend, Seth Rogen, encouraged Reiser to write a screenplay about his experience.

The result is the independently produced “50/50”, a surprisingly upbeat and enjoyable film about a dire subject.  It’s edgier than “Terms of Endearment”, often crudely funny, and is surprisingly big-hearted.  It looks at cancer and its repercussions straight in the eye, and covers the experience in an engaging and personal way.

Joseph Gordon Levitt, a wonderful and underrated young actor, plays Reiser’s counterpart, here named Adam Lerner.  Adam shares a house with his hesitant artist-girlfriend Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard); and hangs out with his best friend Kyle (Rogan, playing a fictional version of himself), who is also Adam's co-worker at the Seattle-based NPR station. Adam is likeable, health-conscious, and laid-back; he is the prototypical single 30-something, trying to make a life for himself.

Adam gets his diagnosis early in the film, from a doctor who barely looks at him as he delivers the troubling news. His specific type of cancer (schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma) is so hard to pronounce that the very name provides comic material.

"50/50" does a thorough job of taking us on Adam’s journey through his physical challenges, his emotional confusion, and his need to redefine his relationships.  The film observes how the people in Adam’s life support him or abandon him to various degrees, how they react, how they accept or deny, and try to find the right words to help ease Adam’s pain.

Kyle doesn’t hide his revulsion over Adam’s affliction,  but he handles it with loyalty and gross humor.  The head-shaving scene, with Adam using the clippers that Kyle uses for “manscaping”, perfectly sums up the lighthearted way the two friends help each other navigate this unfamiliar territory.  (Levitt actually shaved his head in this scene which was largely improvised by both actors in character). Kyle, for all of his raunchy language and unbridled libido, turns out to be Kyle’s emotional anchor in the trenches.

Seth Rogan is the comic glue that holds the picture together. At first, his outlandish behavior almost overwhelms the film. As Adam’s situation threatens to become tragic, we appreciate Rogan’s unorthodox ways of showing support and providing comfort.  He appears selfish at first, only to camouflage the deep love he has for his friend.

Rachel feels obligated to help Adam through the worst part of his chemotherapy, but soon is turned off by it, admitting that she doesn’t want to mix his hospital visits with their domestic life.  She winds up betraying him.  With Kyle’s help, Adam convinces her to move out (and hilariously destroys one of her awful paintings in the bargain).  

Bryce Dallas Howard has a thankless role as Rachel. Her character does redeem herself when she gives Adam an adopted dog.  The sad-eyed, anorexic-looking Greyhound, named Skeletor, is an awesome addition to the movie.  You can't not fall in love with this needy little guy.

The film goes deeper. 

Adam is referred to Katie, a young therapist who turns out to be a doctoral student with little experience.  The stilted attempts at therapy slowly turn into actual communication and caring.  Anna Kendrick plays Katie with the halting enthusiasm of a young professional who tries too hard but prevails with sincere interest and compassion.  Seeing Adam and Katie develop their relationship is intriguing.

Adam meets two men in his chemo sessions who are much older than he is. In spite of their age difference, they become friends; they even turn Adam on to pot-laced macaroons, which provides some temporary comic relief from Adam's discomfort.

Most poignant are scenes with Adam and his parents.  His mother, played by the amazing Anjelica Huston, is a strong presence who worries over Adam to the point of smothering him.  She is also a caregiver to Adam’s father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.  Adam’s sudden recognition of his mother’s concern for him in the midst of her lonely, difficult situation, and the depths of her love, provide the film’s most moving subplot.  

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a perfect audience surrogate. He has an open, honest face, and he transitions easily between the movie's emotional highs and lows.  Levitt does more than inhabit the life of an actual person; he infuses Adam's character with real humanity.  

Like “Terms of Endearment”, “50/50” concentrates on character, and shows that the statistics about “cases” and “fatalities” are actually stories about individuals whose lives touch many people.

Adam’s illness and recovery are not too different from the situation in which we find ourselves.  Every day poses new questions about the coronavirus.  And even when the virus is under control, there are millions of others suffering from diseases that have thwarted science for decades.  Eventually, we will get a handle on the Covid-19 situation; but the challenges won’t entirely disappear.

The final line in the film, spoken between Adam and Katie as they reach a new crossroads in their lives and their relationship, sums up what we might all be saying when we do find the right path to obliterating the pandemic: “Now what?”

I found great comfort in watching “Terms of Endearment” and “50/50” on consecutive evenings.  While the former is a conventional tale, a grand soap-opera and a master-class in writing and performing, the latter is like its offspring, trying to break away from its elder’s conventions, yet eventually recognizing the value of character and emotion. Best of all, both films approach their material with great humor and honesty. 

"Fiddler on the Roof" (1971)

                                                        

    

“Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years…You may ask, ‘How did this tradition get started?’  I'll tell you!  [pause} I don't know.  But it's a tradition...”    Tevye the milkman, in the opening monologue

“Fiddler on the Roof” remains one of my favorite movies, and one of my all-time favorite musicals, for over fifty years. It mixes comedy, domestic drama, fantasy and earthy realism, pays tribute to a community in the approaching shadow of history, and features some of the greatest songs ever written.

As I watched “Fiddler on the Roof” on the eve of July 4^th, I thought about things that have changed or disappeared because of the pandemic.  Fireworks.  Barbecues.   Handshakes. Hugs. Get-togethers.  Baseball games and other seasonal sports. The Olympic games. Theater. Concerts. Proms. Graduations. School activities. Summer camps. The ways we recognize personal milestones and other special occasions. Working out at the gym. Shopping and strolling through a mall. Birthday parties. Weddings.  Church services and religious rituals. Dining out. Writing in a coffee shop. Awards ceremonies. 

Going to the movies.

These and other traditions, or habits or whatever we call them, give our lives order and balance, something to look forward to, something to reach for, to measure our achievements, or confirm our human connections. Another way to think about “traditions” is to consider them as rites of passage, rituals, celebrations, or affirmations.  They comfort us, make us feel like we belong to something.

As Covid-19 put a sudden halt to many activities that gave our lives balance and structure, few considered the importance of providing hope, and a strategy, for their eventual return.  Our lives as we knew them were stolen by a disease, and it felt as desperate and uncertain as if the seasons suddenly ended, or as if we were uprooted from our world with no promise of return.  

Which makes “Fiddler on the Roof”, the epic musical film about the slow erosion of a village’s traditions, that much easier to relate to now. 

“Fiddler on the Roof” tells the story of the fictional Anatevka, a small, rural Russian Jewish village in the days before the Russian Revolution.  Anatevka’s inhabitants are colorful, devout, flawed and fun-loving.  We observe their routines, their conflicts and celebrations, their rituals and their love of music and dance.  They are comic archetypes as well as human beings who we love immediately.

Like the fiddler of the title, they are doing the best they can to “scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking their necks.”  Their lives would be shaky without their traditions.

Our guide and companion is Tevye, a poor milkman with an intimidating wife, Golda, and five daughters. Tevye is a genial, bearded bear of a man, who breaks the fourth wall in the opening scene, welcoming us to his village in the opening number, “Tradition”.

As the film goes on, we become Tevye’s privileged confidants, eavesdropping on his droll conversations with God, as he tries to make sense of the changes around him that he can barely follow, let alone come to accept.

Three of Tevye’s daughters are of marrying age.  Traditionally, a matchmaker would find a mate for the girls. Tevye, as head of the household would give his permission.  Then the wedding would take place under a canopy, according to the long-held rituals of the faith. The pattern repeats through the generations.  

“Fiddler on the Roof” chronicles the breakdown of these conventions, with a terrific cinematic treatment of the daughters’ stories, and how each one strays further from tradition to make a life for herself.

“Fiddler on the Roof” embraces tradition, but is also ambivalent about it.  The scenes leading up to eldest daughter Tzeitel’s marriage to Motel, the Tailor, are joyous and boisterous, as Tevye accommodates small cracks in their traditions, sometimes in elaborate and hilarious ways.  A true highlight is how he convinces his superstitious wife that Tzeitel must not marry the butcher, Lazar Wolf, as was arranged by the Matchmaker.

But as the next two daughters find love, and test the traditions to the breaking point, the film takes a foreboding turn and becomes less carefree, and more serious.

Hodel, the second eldest, and Perchik, her dissident lover, persuade Tevye to accept their love, even as she must leave home to join Perchik in a Siberian prison village.   

Chava, the third child, commits the unforgivable sin of running off to marry a Christian boy, Fyedka, who connects with her over their shared love of books. This is too much for Tevye, who feels that in order to accept them, he would have to abandon everything he ever believed in.

Chava’s story is troubling to me.  As a gay man, who feared the same kind of ostracism from my family that Chava experiences, I felt her fear and emptiness.  On the other hand (to borrow one of Tevye’s favorite expressions), if someone I loved ran off with a person whose political ideas, let’s say, were contrary and even dangerous to my existence, I would understand Tevye’s bitterness. (Even so, I find his rejection of his daughter a little bit jarring, even though we see his pain, and he does  give Chava a tiny, indirect blessing later). 

As we have been discovering, over the months of closures and enforced distancing, it is tough to live without our rites of passage and rituals. We need most of them.  They enrich our lives, affirm our beliefs, and keep us connected through the generations.

Some traditions, though, belong to a troubled past, and become obsolete, like certain symbols and language, or the rejection of those who test our long-held points of view. Some traditions are so steeped in fundamental beliefs that they seem impossible to change. It is a dilemma that “Fiddler” demonstrates gently, through music and the foibles of being human.

By the film’s third and final hour, anti-Semitism and the encroaching Russian Revolution put an end to Anatevka and separate the community forever.  We discover the fate of some of the characters, and their destinations are symbolic of the future of the Jewish community: Jerusalem for the Matchmaker; Chicago for the butcher; New York for Tevye and his family, and Tzeitel and Motel the tailor; Siberia for Hodel and her political dissident; Chicago for the butcher; and Krakow for the Chava.

The sun itself is an important motif, rising and falling in gorgeously photographed sequences in the early sections, and then fading away into the dreariness and cold of winter as the film moves to its conclusion.  

After the breakdown of their rituals and traditions, and the end of Anatevka, Tevye still brings his “fiddler” along with him.  That fiddler represents Tevye’s hope.  By bringing the best of their traditions to America, they might build a new community through them.

I still have hope that after the temporary ceasing of our rituals and traditions brought on by the pandemic, that we will return to those things that gave our lives balance.

I especially hope to go back to movie theaters again.  I was fortunate to see “Fiddler on the Roof” in the traditional way when it was first released: on a big screen.

My parents took us to the Golf Mill Theater one chilly December afternoon in 1972.  We sat in the balcony, where it felt like the screen was right in my lap, almost close enough to reach out and touch it.

I remember watching the sun set to the horizon during the opening credits, when the fiddler performs his beautiful solo, dubbed by Isaak Stern.

The songs from the original “Fiddler” on Broadway were already very familiar to me from hearing them on radio and television.  They took on special meaning as I watched the movie at age fifteen, and as I got older, the meaning grows deeper.

I understand the joy of “Tradition”, and the tenderness of “Sunrise, Sunset”, the poignancy of “Do You Love Me?”.  Director Norman Jewison sensitively captured each number through perfect closeups and dissolves. The rich shades of lighting, and soft imagery, gave the film a perfect look. (Oscar-winning Cinematographer Oswald Morris purportedly used a silk stocking as a filter over his lens.)

“If I Were a Rich Man” was almost overplayed at the time.  Here, as Tevye performs it in a barn with his beloved animals around him, eating or ignoring him, the number took on a new freshness, so that I really heard the lyrics in a new way.

The film’s musical orchestrations provide commentary and foreshadowing.  The score is cleverly adapted, and won John Williams (of “Star Wars” fame) his first Oscar.

As a budding young filmmaker who spent hours cutting  Super-8 movies on my primitive editing bench, I was thrilled by Jewison’s rhythmic editing of the opening number, and his distortions of perspective as Tevye considered the future of each of his daughters. I was inspired, in my own attempts at filmmaking, to use closeups of interesting faces expressing deep emotion, and to pay attention to details like the dusty barns, foggy bridges, desolate train stations and celebrating crowds, that made “Fiddler” a rich experience, not simply a musical comedy on film.

I was absorbed in the sounds and the swirl of the wedding scene,  and especially the bottle dance. Not only was this something I had never seen, but for some reason I felt like I was moving through space as I watched it.  I noticed the way the camera was placed near floor level, and how it moved sideways to follow the action. Few sequences in movies have excited me as much as this.

The highlight for me was the dream sequence in the cemetery, that filled me with giddy chills and made me laugh as though I were on a carnival ride.  The desaturated color made it spooky, the operatic voices gave it sweep, and the ghostly figure of Fruma Sara, flying through the air like a silent-movie ghoul, as she gave her warning about Tzeitel’s marriage, made this scene the most memorable for me.

Topol, and Israeli actor, will always be Tevye to me.  His booming voice, easy laughter, and amusing physicality made Tevye a bigger-than life figure to me, so that his lack of reason near the end nearly broke my heart.  No one could have more completely embodied this character, and his closeups, especially of his eyes, are priceless.

“Fiddler on the Roof” inspired me creatively.  It took me through the full spectrum of emotions. It gave me tunes and images to remember and appreciate for a lifetime. Seeing it in a theater was an important moment for me as a young film enthusiast in my most impressionable years. 

How I long to have that kind of experience again in a theater!