As a follow-up to his wonderful FOUR SEASONS, Alan Alda wrote, directed, and starred in SWEET LIBERTY - a film that explores the way movies unmake books and historical accuracy, and film productions on location upset local populations. It's a good follow-up film, but not as good as FOUR SEASONS because that film had some serious underpinnings about friendship and aging at it's center.
In SWEET LIBERTY Alda plays Michael Burgess, who lives is a southern college town with his mother Cecilia (Lillian Gish). He is a professor of history, who has just written a carefully researched best seller about the events in the region from 1779 to 1781 when the British under Cornwallis invaded Georgia and the Carolinas in the American Revolution. I have mentioned this somewhat forgotten aspect of the Revolution in other reviews on this board, and how Cornwallis' actually had a clever scheme that could have worked (there were far more loyal Tories among the population there than further North), but how through the jealousy and foot dragging of Sir Henry Clinton (Cornwallis' superior) the scheme slowly unraveled. Forced by the Americans under Nathaniel Greene into a series of "phyrric" victories, wherein he lost more men than the battles were worth, Cornwallis decided to fight his way to Virginia and to have Clinton pick up his men there. This led to his defeat at Yorktown. Burgess's book deals with the diary of a local woman who witnesses these events. It also deals with her having a love affair with Cornwallis' "Green Dragoon", the notoriously deadly Sir Banastre Tarleton.
Tarleton has appeared under a different name in Mel Gibson's controversial THE PATRIOT, as the cavalry leader who did not mince words with the rebels. He exterminated them. The most notorious incident was when he ordered the massacre of rebels who had been captured at the Wraxhall River. But this was 1780 so war crimes trials were never heard of, and General Tarleton lived to die in his bed in 1833. By the way - Tarleton never ordered burning alive civilians in a church to set an example (that was a Gibson invention). Particularly an Anglican Church. King George III, as head of the Anglican Church (and a serious believer in the religious rights of his flock) would probably have ordered Tarleton's arrest and execution for such an act.
Burgess sells the rights to his book to a film company, and soon realizes the hurricane he has released on his sleepy community. Burgess finds that he is working on the screenplay with Mr. Stanley Gould (Bob Hoskins), who loves the book - but is constantly changing it to fit film consumers attention spans. The director of the film is little better than a presumptive kid named Bo Hodges (Saul Rubinek), who has a ludicrous theory of what people want to see (it includes mayhem, buildings being blown up, and people who are naked). Burgess has a close understanding with a fellow teacher named Gretchen Calsen (Lisa Hilboldt), which may lead to marriage. But both find themselves enthralled by the film leads, Elliot James (Michael Caine) and Faith Healy (Michelle Phifer). Both are temperamental egotists, but they can lay on the charm to improve their roles or enjoy themselves. Soon Burgess finds himself approving changes in the script that benefit Healy (which leads to counter improvements for the insistent James).
On top of all this Burgess has problems with his mother, a kindly woman who is partly insane. This also leads to him trying to resolve an issue regarding her past and a love affair she claims she had.
The changes range from the ludicrous to the insulting. Remember that Tarleton was known as the "Green Dragoon". A wealthy man, he dressed his crack cavalry regiment in green outfits, not in red. Hodges has James wear the traditional red uniform - American audiences expect "red coats". The culmination of the film is the so-called turning point in the war in the south, the American victory over Tarleton at the battle of the Cowpens (a bit of farmland - the victor was General Daniel Morgan, and it has been called the best tactical victory of the war). But Hodges wants to make it comic, with the Americans running around stupidly as the British bombard them. This, and a nasty confrontation between the film extras and the locals sets Alda up for leading his own revolution, and showing the film people just where to get off.
SWEET LIBERTY works as a comedy, and is worth viewing. Besides Alda's growing frustration at the extremes of movie making, Hoskins friendly but ruthless script reworking, and Gish's comic insanity, and the obnoxious Rubinek, Caine does wonders showing ego and charm in it's turn (see his rendition of "Knees Up Father Brown" when going out), and Michelle Phyfer's twisting Alda around her finger. It is certainly a fine film comedy.
In SWEET LIBERTY Alda plays Michael Burgess, who lives is a southern college town with his mother Cecilia (Lillian Gish). He is a professor of history, who has just written a carefully researched best seller about the events in the region from 1779 to 1781 when the British under Cornwallis invaded Georgia and the Carolinas in the American Revolution. I have mentioned this somewhat forgotten aspect of the Revolution in other reviews on this board, and how Cornwallis' actually had a clever scheme that could have worked (there were far more loyal Tories among the population there than further North), but how through the jealousy and foot dragging of Sir Henry Clinton (Cornwallis' superior) the scheme slowly unraveled. Forced by the Americans under Nathaniel Greene into a series of "phyrric" victories, wherein he lost more men than the battles were worth, Cornwallis decided to fight his way to Virginia and to have Clinton pick up his men there. This led to his defeat at Yorktown. Burgess's book deals with the diary of a local woman who witnesses these events. It also deals with her having a love affair with Cornwallis' "Green Dragoon", the notoriously deadly Sir Banastre Tarleton.
Tarleton has appeared under a different name in Mel Gibson's controversial THE PATRIOT, as the cavalry leader who did not mince words with the rebels. He exterminated them. The most notorious incident was when he ordered the massacre of rebels who had been captured at the Wraxhall River. But this was 1780 so war crimes trials were never heard of, and General Tarleton lived to die in his bed in 1833. By the way - Tarleton never ordered burning alive civilians in a church to set an example (that was a Gibson invention). Particularly an Anglican Church. King George III, as head of the Anglican Church (and a serious believer in the religious rights of his flock) would probably have ordered Tarleton's arrest and execution for such an act.
Burgess sells the rights to his book to a film company, and soon realizes the hurricane he has released on his sleepy community. Burgess finds that he is working on the screenplay with Mr. Stanley Gould (Bob Hoskins), who loves the book - but is constantly changing it to fit film consumers attention spans. The director of the film is little better than a presumptive kid named Bo Hodges (Saul Rubinek), who has a ludicrous theory of what people want to see (it includes mayhem, buildings being blown up, and people who are naked). Burgess has a close understanding with a fellow teacher named Gretchen Calsen (Lisa Hilboldt), which may lead to marriage. But both find themselves enthralled by the film leads, Elliot James (Michael Caine) and Faith Healy (Michelle Phifer). Both are temperamental egotists, but they can lay on the charm to improve their roles or enjoy themselves. Soon Burgess finds himself approving changes in the script that benefit Healy (which leads to counter improvements for the insistent James).
On top of all this Burgess has problems with his mother, a kindly woman who is partly insane. This also leads to him trying to resolve an issue regarding her past and a love affair she claims she had.
The changes range from the ludicrous to the insulting. Remember that Tarleton was known as the "Green Dragoon". A wealthy man, he dressed his crack cavalry regiment in green outfits, not in red. Hodges has James wear the traditional red uniform - American audiences expect "red coats". The culmination of the film is the so-called turning point in the war in the south, the American victory over Tarleton at the battle of the Cowpens (a bit of farmland - the victor was General Daniel Morgan, and it has been called the best tactical victory of the war). But Hodges wants to make it comic, with the Americans running around stupidly as the British bombard them. This, and a nasty confrontation between the film extras and the locals sets Alda up for leading his own revolution, and showing the film people just where to get off.
SWEET LIBERTY works as a comedy, and is worth viewing. Besides Alda's growing frustration at the extremes of movie making, Hoskins friendly but ruthless script reworking, and Gish's comic insanity, and the obnoxious Rubinek, Caine does wonders showing ego and charm in it's turn (see his rendition of "Knees Up Father Brown" when going out), and Michelle Phyfer's twisting Alda around her finger. It is certainly a fine film comedy.