From time to time I come upon a film that is revolting, but that I am sure that could be recut from existing footage and made into a fine project. This is such a film. Changing just the score might tip it into tolerable. What's there now is a syrupy Hallmark violin jelly that swells when the composer thinks we should be following expected emotional urges.
Superficially, this is a simple redemption story: an "old" man (at 47!) is tied to his mother and is reluctant to marry the long time love of his life. She is the war widow of his best friend. The crisis that makes things end happily (in that artificial cinematic notion of happiness) is his affair with a damaged 17 year old. She is a seductive student of his. He gets "carried away" with the girl, repents and then teaches his real love to do the same with him.
At this level, we have little material on which to build a successful narrative. But it has Dennis Hopper in one of his strong acting periods. I watched this because he recently died, and I miss him.
There is one device here that could never be made to work, and it seems to have come from the inept director. Hopper's character is a teacher in a one-room rural school, to be imminently closed. He is an uneducated man himself; but is a teacher because his long-time love is one and he has a bad leg leaving him unfit for farming.
But he is a poetry enthusiast, knows the passion of a possible life and tries to pass it on to his students. This is crudely represented by his desire to play on the beach. He has a painting of a beach which the filmmaker uses as a visual representation of poetry and the urges it stirs. Being "carried away" in this sophomoric sense means being taken by passion to the beach, which (no fooling) happens at the end. Midway in the movie, the girl drops and breaks the painting. This never could have worked. It and the immature score work against the thing.
But there are some powerful, key scenes. If the filmmaker (or his producers) wasn't working against himself these three scenes by themselves with Hopper could have made this memorable, penetrating. They all are rooted in the barn.
We are introduced to Hopper's character as he awakes before dawn, leaves his bed and the house where his mother is dying. He goes to the barn. There he milks the cow, with whom, we discover, he is more emotionally open than to any person. This is the first of the three anchor barn scenes. It sticks because it is so early in the narrative and because Hopper makes it so.
Later, the teen girl places her horse in that barn and the rutting begins. He naively believes it will stay in the barn, but of course it "gets out." We have some nudity from this lovely young girl, enough for it to register as a token of her openness. This is linked to the horse, which she rides for sexual pleasure. We see her nude on the horse. It is clumsily done, but we get the message that her sex in his world is her horse in his barn.
The next anchor scene makes my heart ache. We have learned that the girl's father is a rough military type, at home killing things. We have seen the two men together, competitively hunting and we have had the pecking order established. We learn as Hopper's character does that the father is coming to get him for screwing his daughter.
Now what happens works because of Hopper. He gets the hunting rifle that has been a treasured gift just received from the doctor who cared for the man's just deceased (a few days) mother. It is by way of a bereavement token. He goes to the barn, by now the well established space for his internal being. In the same loft where he lost himself in the girl's body, he takes up a sniper's position, intent on killing the Colonel by surprise. The emotion Hopper conveys is built on an entire life and we get it all.
He spies a wolf, already discussed as impossible in that area — a noble animal, free. The man has a clean shot and chooses not to take it. Again, Hopper makes the soul fly. Then the scene is abruptly defused with deliberate, punctuating skill.
The final anchor scene... the young girl shows up at the man's house. He has already conquered his passions and gently rejects her advances. She knows this and admits that she has set the barn on fire. Her horse runs from the barn ablaze and dies (thankfully offscreen, but the concept is revolting). The next morning we see Hopper walk out to the now smoldering barn just as his cow comes in from the field to be milked. The two ponder needs, the future and the ruins.
Making a powerful narrative is in part an understanding of these key images and when to invest. Hopper did.
The filmmaker is not so clean. He works in three other scenes associated with the women. Hopper's mature love (Amy Irving) in a nude coming out, the girl in a scene where she rewins him after a rough car ride and the dying mother coming clean about her desires for her son. Each of these had juice. But none of them really work because they had not had a place built for them in the narrative.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
Superficially, this is a simple redemption story: an "old" man (at 47!) is tied to his mother and is reluctant to marry the long time love of his life. She is the war widow of his best friend. The crisis that makes things end happily (in that artificial cinematic notion of happiness) is his affair with a damaged 17 year old. She is a seductive student of his. He gets "carried away" with the girl, repents and then teaches his real love to do the same with him.
At this level, we have little material on which to build a successful narrative. But it has Dennis Hopper in one of his strong acting periods. I watched this because he recently died, and I miss him.
There is one device here that could never be made to work, and it seems to have come from the inept director. Hopper's character is a teacher in a one-room rural school, to be imminently closed. He is an uneducated man himself; but is a teacher because his long-time love is one and he has a bad leg leaving him unfit for farming.
But he is a poetry enthusiast, knows the passion of a possible life and tries to pass it on to his students. This is crudely represented by his desire to play on the beach. He has a painting of a beach which the filmmaker uses as a visual representation of poetry and the urges it stirs. Being "carried away" in this sophomoric sense means being taken by passion to the beach, which (no fooling) happens at the end. Midway in the movie, the girl drops and breaks the painting. This never could have worked. It and the immature score work against the thing.
But there are some powerful, key scenes. If the filmmaker (or his producers) wasn't working against himself these three scenes by themselves with Hopper could have made this memorable, penetrating. They all are rooted in the barn.
We are introduced to Hopper's character as he awakes before dawn, leaves his bed and the house where his mother is dying. He goes to the barn. There he milks the cow, with whom, we discover, he is more emotionally open than to any person. This is the first of the three anchor barn scenes. It sticks because it is so early in the narrative and because Hopper makes it so.
Later, the teen girl places her horse in that barn and the rutting begins. He naively believes it will stay in the barn, but of course it "gets out." We have some nudity from this lovely young girl, enough for it to register as a token of her openness. This is linked to the horse, which she rides for sexual pleasure. We see her nude on the horse. It is clumsily done, but we get the message that her sex in his world is her horse in his barn.
The next anchor scene makes my heart ache. We have learned that the girl's father is a rough military type, at home killing things. We have seen the two men together, competitively hunting and we have had the pecking order established. We learn as Hopper's character does that the father is coming to get him for screwing his daughter.
Now what happens works because of Hopper. He gets the hunting rifle that has been a treasured gift just received from the doctor who cared for the man's just deceased (a few days) mother. It is by way of a bereavement token. He goes to the barn, by now the well established space for his internal being. In the same loft where he lost himself in the girl's body, he takes up a sniper's position, intent on killing the Colonel by surprise. The emotion Hopper conveys is built on an entire life and we get it all.
He spies a wolf, already discussed as impossible in that area — a noble animal, free. The man has a clean shot and chooses not to take it. Again, Hopper makes the soul fly. Then the scene is abruptly defused with deliberate, punctuating skill.
The final anchor scene... the young girl shows up at the man's house. He has already conquered his passions and gently rejects her advances. She knows this and admits that she has set the barn on fire. Her horse runs from the barn ablaze and dies (thankfully offscreen, but the concept is revolting). The next morning we see Hopper walk out to the now smoldering barn just as his cow comes in from the field to be milked. The two ponder needs, the future and the ruins.
Making a powerful narrative is in part an understanding of these key images and when to invest. Hopper did.
The filmmaker is not so clean. He works in three other scenes associated with the women. Hopper's mature love (Amy Irving) in a nude coming out, the girl in a scene where she rewins him after a rough car ride and the dying mother coming clean about her desires for her son. Each of these had juice. But none of them really work because they had not had a place built for them in the narrative.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.