Category: Dustin Hoffman

TOOTSIE

By Marc S. Sanders

Tootsie is my favorite comedy of all time.  At age ten I saw it on Christmas Eve with my family and beyond the Star Wars and Rocky films, I had yet to see an audience respond, or more specifically laugh, so uncontrollably for two hours straight.  I might not have recognized all of the innuendo and I was not yet alert to the idea of women feeling belittled while knowing they should be entitled to equal respect, but the performances, especially from Dustin Hoffman were entirely genuine.  Tootsie still remains the only film where I can forget that a man, a not so attractive or sexy man, is convincingly disguising himself as a woman who possesses internal strength and gusto.

Whether directing or acting on screen, Sydney Pollack was not someone well known for overseeing comedy at the time.  Yet, that’s an attribute to the end product of this celebrated movie.  Other than a typical Bill Murray routine in an uncredited role, no one in this picture is waving their hands in the air to insist they’re funny.  The humor of Tootsie bears from true, raw emotion, fear and desperation.  No one is doing Saturday Night Live sketches and building up to the next punchline.  Despite the cross dressing, Tootsie is not even a farce.  A guy gets a job wearing the necessary garb and modifying his verbiage, but only to earn enough money to survive.  However, it also doesn’t help that he’s falling for his co-worker.  

Dustin Hoffman is an actor living in New York City named Michael Dorsey.  He’s a great, learned performer, especially on the stage, who lives with his playwright buddy Jeff (Murray) in a crummy apartment in the meat packing district.  They need to raise enough money to put on Jeff’s play in Syracuse.  

The problem is that Michael can no longer get cast in anything.  Not on stage or even in a commercial.  His agent (Pollack) says it point blank that nobody will hire him.  He’s just too difficult with short bursts of temper and no tolerance for others who work in the field.  

So, Michael surrenders to desperation and puts on the guise of a character actress named Dorothy Michaels.  As quick as she stands up for femininity against a chauvinistic TV director (Dabney Coleman) she is cast on the most watched daytime soap opera.  As long as Michael can perform off and on camera as Dorothy he should be able to earn more than enough money for Jeff’s play.

Complications arise though when he becomes protective of his co-star, Julie (Jessica Lange, in her Oscar winning role), against her unfaithful boyfriend, the TV director.  Julie’s widowed father, Les, is falling for Dorothy though, and then there is Michael’s friend Sandy (Teri Garr) who lost out on the part that he earned, and to keep things maintained has been seduced by Michael into a romantic relationship beyond just their friendship.

With me so far?  I hope so because there’s even more obstacles to overcome.  Tootsie is very economical in its story development, but it’s also a very crowded film.

Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart (TV’s M*A*S*H) wrote this Oscar nominated script with a brilliant collection of characters.  The blessing is while it sounds like farce, Tootsie is never delivered with a slapstick tongue.  In order for the film to work, Dustin Hoffman especially had to portray Michael Dorsey as a guy with natural ticks, motivations and fears.  He accomplishes that because Michael always ensures that Dorothy is as real as she can ever be.  When Dorothy hails a cab or shops for clothes the southern accent must hold while perusing through the city streets in heels.  Michael gets frustrated over what to wear for a dinner visit at Julie’s apartment.  Especially when Julie opens up her heart, Hoffman is precise to make sure Dorothy approaches with a low whispered approach to simply be a consoling girlfriend.  

The comedy arrives when Michael has no other choice but to break this strong powered female persona.  Dorothy will call for a cab but if it just won’t stop, then a deep voiced, bellowing New Yorker will come out of this woman’s mouth with an angry “TAXI!!!”  I like to believe that Sydney Pollack deliberately arranged for Dorothy to yank a Woody Allen lookalike out of a cab that was about to be taken from Dorothy too.  Dustin Hoffman knows Michael Dorsey is such a committed method actor that he has to convince all eight million people in New York he is strong willed Dorothy Michaels – a character actress capable of playing the new Hospital Administrator on Southwest General. 

There are so many fleshed out pairs of relationships in Tootsie – all going beyond the cross dressing of the film’s main character.  All of these people could get along forever if only for the fact that some characters have befriended a man while others truly believe they have made a connection with a woman.  How long can we have it both ways?  The facade has to undo itself, right?  True.  Thankfully it occurs at the end when every single character can have it explained to them all at once.  I’ve never forgotten the roars of laughter from my mom, dad and grandmother as the end of Tootsie arrived.  Well-placed close-up shots of every actor who had a speaking role in this movie is covered (well except for Sydney Pollack as Michael’s agent). On Christmas Eve in 1982, the packed movie house at the Forum Theater on Route 4 in Paramus NJ only amplified the shocking reactions.  Tootsie is a reason why you sit among a crowd at a movie theater.  

This is Dustin Hoffman’s all-time best performance.  He was nominated against fierce competition from Paul Newman in The Verdict, Jack Lemmon in Missing, and Ben Kingsley in Ghandi (who took home the trophy). Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels is a much more challenging role than what Hoffman superbly accomplished in his two Oscar winning roles (Kramer Vs Kramer, Rain Man).  Robin Williams or Tom Hanks could have played Michael Dorsey who invents Dorothy Michaels.  Yet, what Hoffman emotes are the natural tics of a guy who is constantly broke while he charms an array of women at his birthday party, only with the intention of bedding them and hardly ever listening to what these ladies have to say.  When Hoffman puts Michael literally in a pair of woman’s shoes though, he begins to identify the lack of respect that women endure on a daily basis.  

Watch Dustin Hoffman’s body language.  He becomes angered with his agent upon learning that he lost out on a role which somehow leads to a debate about whether a tomato should walk or talk or sit or stand.  That back and forth is outrageously hilarious.  Having seen Tootsie hundreds of times though, I now appreciate how a schleppy looking Michael hustles across the streets of New York, avoiding traffic and then marches down the hallway to his agent’s office.  Hoffman twitches his head and shrugs his shoulders as if he’s prepping to give the agent a piece of his mind.  Hoffman is so absorbed in this guy he’s playing.  I am not recognizing any other kind of Dustin Hoffman that I’ve seen anywhere else.

Sydney Pollack is also attuned to the cutthroat atmosphere of desperate theater folk trying to survive in this concrete jungle.  Tootsie opens with a montage of quick episodes for Michael.  He is leading a workshop while being candidly ugly with his fellow thespian students about how challenging it is to get work.  In between, are auditions that he goes on where there is one reason after another why he can’t land a role.  Michael Dorsey is an incredibly skillful actor, but that means nothing for this role or that role.

On this most recent viewing I caught on to a detail that never occurred to me.  Bill Murray as Jeff, the broke playwright, is snacking on lemons and wincing while he talks to Michael.  Now I don’t know if this is in the script or if this was Pollack or Murray’s idea.  Nevertheless, it’s a brilliant detail.  These guys are so broke that they have resorted to smuggling lemon slices out of the restaurant they work at to live off of.  Another actor or filmmaker would have used an orange or cookies.  Who snacks on lemons?  Only those with nothing else to rely on.  

Makeup bottles with spirit gum, cannisters of fake blood, prosthetic teeth, props and sloppily hung costume wear are all given focus beyond the broad comedic storylines.  Sydney Pollack pans his camera over all of these items with no actors in frame because he wanted to ensure that being an actor or a playwright in New York is nothing glamorous.  It’s a world of unending torment. All of these nuances and details justify the extremes that Michael has to go through to achieve his goal.  

Jessica Lange never plays her role for laughs.  Her portrayal of Julie, the beautiful, blond celebrity of daytime television, is authentic and she inherits a new girlfriend to confide in. Finally, Julie can share what she values and holds dear.  You can’t not fall in love with someone who only treasures the best parts of her young life and yet only seeks a companion to chat with.  A humble celebrity is hard to find and that is one reason Michael falls hard for her.  Lange is outstanding while being so heartfelt.

Teri Garr’s comedy stems from the insecurities of actors.  Sandy is described as someone who wants to commit suicide at a birthday party.  Doing community theater for over thirty years I know precisely who this person is.  I’ve been this person, and I’ve encountered hundreds of these people.  It’s hard to be a big fish in the small pond of community theater.  Imagine trying to hold on to your sanity when you have to compete with all of New York.  Teri Garr was rightly Oscar nominated for what could have been a throwaway part. Like Hoffman she also has these little gestures that suggest her lack of confidence. After she sleeps with Michael and he’s getting ready to leave, Garr peaks at her naked chest hidden underneath the sheets.  It’s as if she’s wondering was I not attractive enough.  She’s hurting. No matter if she just had sex with one of her favorite people, she is still suffering.

Charles Durning is familiar for having the tough guy, intimidating persona because he’s usually so much larger than life.  However, he offers a sweetness to this guy who’s ready for companionship.  You don’t want Michael or Dorothy to let him down.  Les doesn’t deserve to get hurt.

Again, as I described any of these characterizations, none of it is funny.  They are wrapped in sensitivity. There’s a lonely sadness to people like Michael, Jeff, Julie, Sandy and Les.  Yet, when this variety of sorrow and anguish collide, while poor Michael is only trying to make some money, does it all combust in hilariously, unwinnable scenarios of tremendous proportions.

Tootsie is an amazing film.  It is one of the smartest, most insightful scripts ever written and it is blessed with a cast and director who mastered how to live in an unforgiving and unsympathetic industry.  This picture offers lessons in the human spirit while demonstrating the lengths and boundaries that must be broken in order to survive.  By practically not performing as a comedy, it only becomes that much more funnier and wiser.  

Tootsie is a perfect film!

MEGALOPOLIS

By Marc S. Sanders

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is undeniably the director’s most ambitious project of his long career.  Like other films, Coppola put up the entire $120 million to finally make the picture, including selling his well-known vineyard to make it happen.  Every penny he invested is well spent.  Especially seeing it on IMAX, this is an absolutely gorgeous motion picture, like James Cameron’s Avatar films.  I mean…wow do the colors pop and shine.  

However, as beautiful as the visuals are in Coppola’s self-described “Fable” (it literally says that in the title card), it is mostly devoid of substance beyond the paint by numbers debates that cause conflict among these very strange characters.

In New Rome City, an alternative reality to the Big Apple (the Statue of Liberty holds the torch in her left hand), Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is a “designer” who recently invented Megalon, a substance that he believes is the answer to a utopian future.  It’s indestructible and it can be molded to serve practically any purpose.  For example, you don’t even have to walk to where you’re going.  Step on the Megalon puddle and it will move you there.  Not much of a departure from the flat movable floors you find in nationwide airports.  This is one of Megalon’s major innovations, designed to impress me?

Megalon can also be used for healing, and it has the ability of transparency.  It is more durable than wood, steel or concrete.  It’s truly the next greatest wonder of resources.  Frankly, I was more dazzled by the Vibranium found in Wakanda.

As Caesar the artist pushes his agenda for absolute Utopia, the hardened Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is the opposing side of the argument declaring Utopia to be an impossibility.  Caught in between the two figures is Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of Cicero and in love with Caesar.  Gotta have a soap opera element to this piece so the stubborn divide between these two men remains firmly in place.

Just as in typical political rings, the Mayor works to smear Caesar the idealist who is solely focused on his end goal design.

Outside the boundaries of their public quarrel are other overly colorful and garish looking characters such as the banker Hamilton Cressus III (Jon Voight), his wife, the gossip reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Constance Cassius Catalina who is Caesar’s mother (Talia Shire), a lone, crazed revolutionist and nephew to the Mayor called Clodio Pulcher (Shia LeBeouf) and Nush “The Fixer” Berman (Dustin Hoffman).

These names are exhausting.  Coppola’s film is even more tiresome.  The filmmaker truly must believe he is the second comings of both Nostradamus and William Shakespeare.  The ego of this picture could not be more apparent.  The director’s head must be THAT BIG to believe he has the nerve to tell this story of such biblical proportions.

Much of those character names, and the actors who play them, are here for show and tell.  Their value to this piece is nowhere near as prized as anyone living in Harry Potter’s world, though. Megalopolis only takes time to calm itself down when the three principal players have scenes isolated to themselves or when they only occupy the screen together.  Otherwise, this movie serves as vehicles for much of the cast to be adorned with updated and trendy Roman costume wear, from fig leaf crowns to golden armored chest plates.  At times, LeBeouf is so unrecognizable in hair, makeup and clothes you don’t even realize you’re looking at him.  

The performances are all over the place.  I never once believed that whatever Dustin Hoffman was talking about that he knew what he was even saying or representing.  Shia LeBeouf mostly runs with the privilege of getting to say “Fuck Caesar!” while finding motivation only in whatever weird appearance he’s dressed in.  Adam Driver can lead a picture for sure, but here he looks like he showed up for filming with a bewitching overnight hangover.  

This is a film that cannot be ignored for its technical achievements at Oscar time.  For no reason other than aesthetics, Driver and Emmanuel will share a scene while balancing themselves on swinging steel construction beams high above the city. The view is spectacular.  All undeniably eye opening.  You also cannot look away from the costumes or scenic art direction.  The sound mixing in an IMAX theater totally envelops you in this weird world.  It’s a digital film’s dream just like James Cameron banks on.  

Still, maybe none of these efforts will be recognized because frankly much of the visuals, audio and physical construction make zero sense or relevance to the central storyline that Coppola is striving for.  Namely, the possibility for Utopia versus the practicality of simply living through life with the necessity for economics, technology, healthcare, fuel and on and on and on.

Of all films I thought about while watching Megalopolis, my mind went to William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  Shatner had the idea to have the Enterprise crew meet face to face with the almighty God.  Well, if you’re going to deliver God to a movie house, without George Burns or Morgan Freeman in the role, you’re setting yourself up to disappoint at least half or maybe even one hundred percent of your audience.  When you factor in the tremendous assortments of beliefs and religions, I’d argue no two people who believe in God, see the ethereal, omnipotent entity in the same way.  The same goes for Utopia.  How can Francis Ford Coppola be so audacious as to believe audiences will accept Caesar’s vision of a perfect land?  

Reader, he can’t!

My Utopia is different than your Utopia.  This is practically an untouchable subject and Francis Ford Coppola is far from the fabled prophet that the world needs or will draw their attention to.

Still, I remained as open minded as I could with Megalopolis all the way towards the ending that finally arrived.  The Utopia shown on this giant IMAX screen was told by the film’s narrator (Laurence Fishburne, also paying Caesar’s chauffeur) that the world was showered in gold dust.  A far cry from the Bible’s claim of arriving upon a land of milk and honey.  Why should I ever need the nourishment of milk and honey when I can have gold dust?

Think about that for a second.  Gold Dust.  I know.  The narrator is being allegorical.  Still, couldn’t that be interpreted as a little too materialistic for the Utopia we yearn for?  Gold is only a precious metal the same way a diamond is only a precious stone, or the Atari 2600 is now an expired precious commodity among former twelve year old kids in the 1980s.  

I have little shame.  I’m an admitted materialistic kind of guy.  My Mustang and my flat screen TV and my Star Wars collectibles mandate that I am. Yet, none of these possessions have ever delivered me into a paradise of perfection.  The Mustang needs precious fuel to operate.  Try as I might, I can’t collect everything.  My flat screen TV is still on the fritz.  (DAMN YOU BEST BUY GEEK SQUAD!!!)

Coppola contradicts himself with the conclusion of his fantasy opus.  He pans over the extras who occupy this film with big toothy grins of enormous gratitude while the very well dressed and bejeweled surviving characters of his story seem to be shot from an elevated stage above me, the viewer, and all who occupy a brightly lit Times Square located within the heart of New Rome City.  I am meant to look up to these giants!!! 

THIS IS UTOPIA???  

No!  I could never accept this interpretation of grand decadence as the enigmatic paradise we have all envisioned in dreams and discussion and literature.  Shouldn’t Utopia consist of a life where stress is absent, and pain is a foreign unfamiliar word and feeling? I’m not even giving Utopia its fair due.  It’s practically impossible to describe, but I’m at least certain that the rich shades of gold and black glamours within a Times Square shopping district is not the way to go.  Yet, Francis Ford Coppola is suggesting this is all that it is.  A Times Square showered in gold dust.

Frankly, I normally would give much more credit to the man who pioneered the stellar Godfather films along with the bombastic Apocalypse Now and the intimate The Conversation.  He’s never been more short sighted though, than when he finally made his “fable,” Megalopolis.

The greatest flaw and tragedy of Megalopolis is the very broad contradiction that Francis Ford Coppola declares within his fictional, fantasy-like prophecy.  Once the “fable” is all over, I feel like I paid an enormous amount of money for a cult like weekend seminar meant to brainwash me into broadening heights of positivity and awareness, showered in gold dust of course.  

Where’s The High-Level Minister Coppola?  

I’d like my money back because this preach is no more believable than an L Ron Hubbard doctrine.  Battlefield Earth just might be a little more convincing Megalopolis.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s an irony to John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy.  At first, the film centers on a Texas bumpkin eager to relocate to New York City and succeed as a hustler.  Upon his arrival though, he could not appear any more virginal.  The cowboy’s name is Joe Buck, portrayed by Jon Voight in his Oscar nominated breakthrough role.

The first act of the film follows Joe on his long cross country bus ride.  He’s dressed in his finest country western shirt, stitched with floral patterns.  He’s got his black leather cowboy boots and of course the cowboy hat.  His origin bred Texas twang completes his image.  He meets a variety of comers and goers on the bus and then finally he reaches his destination. 

Schlesinger’s camera follows Voight as he treks through the city.  A man is passed out (heck, maybe he’s dead) on the street in broad daylight.  My Cinemaniac pals that I watched the film with noted how it’s funny that the streetwalkers don’t take one look at the poor fellow.  Rather they’re looking at Joe’s get up as he clearly stands out among the masses. Joe is the only one looking at the guy on the street.

Interspersed within Joe’s travels and entry into the city are quick flashbacks to where he stemmed from.  It does not look like a favorable upbringing spent with his grandmother.  There are flashes of Joe being victimized by possible sodomy.  There also appears to be a gang rape that he might have participated in.  None of it is made completely clear.  Though, it is evident that Joe has been trying to escape that environment for good. 

Eventually Joe encounters a sleazy, squat fellow who calls himself Rico Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), addressed by others as Ratso.  Joe is so naïve that he’ll trust Ratso to get him some action where he can earn some money.  In exchange, Joe is completely willing to surrender the cash in his wallet.  He’ll learn from that mistake once he’s drained of everything but a few coins, locked out of his hotel room he can’t pay for and denied of his cow skinned suitcase that contains his possessions.  Eventually, he has no choice but to live in a condemned tenement building with Ratso. Joe Buck is about to lose a second virginity as he experiences how hard it is to live within the city.  He’ll also realize the value of friendship as he sees no choice but to take care of Ratso who is very sick.  Hoffman’s appearance shockingly changes as Ratso’s health submits to a harsh, unknown illness.  The sweat all over his face is palpable.  The chilling, sickly feeling he exudes is clearly felt.

Waldo Salt’s award-winning script, based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy, explores the good nature found within two different walks of life despite the dodgy pasts that follow them. Ratso and Joe are one of the oddest couples in cinematic history.  There’s no way these two would want to be together unless one was trying to take advantage of the other or one was left with his guard down, open to being taken for and deceived.   Jon Voight has a tall youthful stature, a handsome man.  Dustin Hoffman is scrawny and significantly shorter with greasy hair, an uneasy limp and a weird squawk to his voice.  The often-times method actor seems to make himself increasingly hideous. 

Perhaps I needed to see Midnight Cowboy at the time of its release.  It surprises me the film merited the prestigious accolades it collected, including Oscars for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.  The two actors also received Oscar nominations.  It remains an honest film of its time in the year 1969.  Yet, it is disturbing and ugly too as it captures the seedy side of New York with experimental drug use and Joe’s victimization for sex.  He gets ripped off by who he thought was a kind woman (Sylvia Miles) looking for an intimate evening with his hustler capabilities.  Later, he’ll surrender himself to a man looking for oral pleasure in a movie theatre.  It’s not the typical glamourous epic of a Hollywood yesteryear.  In fact, for a time it was the only film to be recognized for winning Best Picture with an X rating.

The celebration of Midnight Cowboy’s achievements falls upon the relationship between Joe and Ratso.  Had Joe not been so naïve to how lowlifes operate and had Ratso not become so ill, yet welcoming to Joe when he needed a place to stay, then a friendship would not have gradually developed. 

The ending to Schlesinger’s film is touching, though sad.  As the story began, it also ends on a bus heading towards a new destination – another new way of life, different from what Joe experienced in small town Texas or New York City.  The two characters sit together in the back seat and the other passengers eventually observe them like they had on Joe’s first journey.  Either individually or together Ratso and Joe are simply strange to any sort of environment.  Yet, they’ll learn from each other and that’s where Midnight Cowboy triumphs.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN

By Marc S. Sanders

People talk too much.

Ten minutes into Alan J Pakula’s film, that’s all I can think about. William Goldman’s dialogue heavy script pounds away at depicting Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s uncovering of the Watergate break in, and it shows that simply, people talk too much. So much so that just a stutter or a name in passing conversation will dig the hole deeper and deeper towards self-incrimination, and that of other accomplices. Once a source trips up, then a good reporter can pounce.

Names, dates, slamming doors, rotary phones, typewriters and papers fly fast and furiously during Pakula’s film and that’s what upholds the breakneck pace of the investigative journalism. In a film like this, a crime is depicted and investigated, only the words are the real weapons.

I don’t find All The President’s Men to be a history lesson in the corruption of Nixon’s administration. Rather, I only see what was necessary for Woodward & Bernstein to truthfully prove the corruption took place. The reporters, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, seem to run on endless adrenaline of coffee, cigarettes and fast food effectively showing their drive while donning loose ties, wrinkled shirts, and crumpled notepads amid unkept desks and apartments. It’s visually convincing. A story like this doesn’t sleep, nor does it take a vacation. A story like this makes a viewer feel like he/she is still up at 2am, catching a cab to meet a shadowy source in a haunting parking garage; thanks Hal Holbrook for Deep Throat (“Follow the money.”).

Redford has a great scene where Pakula never stops running the camera on close up for over six minutes. All that Redford is doing is dialing, and talking on the phone while maintaining two different conversations. I don’t know if this moment happened in real life but I imagine the best reporters in a pre internet phase had to hold out for opportune times like this to fall into their laps. The cut does not end and Pakula was instinctively wise to do that. The scene itself serves that harrowing pace. Less is more in a moment like this. Props to Redford for maintaining the statuesque momentum.

Equally so, Hoffman has a couple of good moments with Jane Alexander (his eventual costar in Kramer vs Kramer.). She beautifully depicts a victim of intimidating threat, and Hoffman must tread carefully with his questions by strategically letting himself into her home, puffing on a cigarette, sipping cold coffee, speaking softly and eventually getting out his notepad as she gradually breaks down her shell. Alexander doesn’t make it easy and so their scenes work so well in taut suspense of low whispers.

Nixon’s cohorts really are not the antagonists here. In essence, Goldman’s script (based on the reporters’ published book) welcomes the challenge of acquiring factual reporting as the overall conflict. This is best represented by Jason Robards’ portrayal of Post Editor Ben Bradlee. Robards won an Oscar, and he so deserved it. He wouldn’t give “Woodstein” a break until the truth willed itself out by the proper means that are necessary. He’s intimidating in the role but he’s open minded enough to not ignore the young reporters’ instincts. I love watching his scenes; the way he commands an office from a chair with his feet up or fidgets and writes with his red pen. When his boys finally get a solid piece, Bradlee’s character breaks for one moment to knock on a desk and clap his hands as he walks away from his men. They got it. He didn’t relent, and they finally got it. I love that moment. Simply marvelous.

All The President’s Men remains a favorite film of mine. The dialogue moves so fast that after seeing it a number of times I still haven’t connected all the dots, and yet that’s what I appreciate about it. I see something new every time.

KRAMER VS KRAMER

By Marc S. Sanders

Probably the most personal film for me, the one that I watched for the first time with adult eyes even though I was only age 8 or 9 at the time, was writer/director Robert Benton’s 1979 Best Picture winner Kramer vs Kramer.

Though my parents never divorced, somehow I recognized the character of Ted Kramer, an extremely busy New York City advertising executive who could be having a great day while staying flirtatious but then also having an outburst of frustration when things are not going his way. My father was a busy man and a hard worker. He was a man who was always very proud of his work. He loved his work so much that he wasn’t as present in my life during my adolescent years. My mother on the other hand was my best friend who could make me laugh and demonstrated unconditional and very natural love for me. I learned about humor and love from my mother during those early years. I learned about responsibility from my father and some of his own humor later on. So, as I reflect on this film I imagine what life could have been for me had my mother walked out with no notice, leaving my father to tend to my needs while having to suddenly make sacrifices with his work.

On countless occasions, I’ve written about the importance of a character arc where a protagonist will start out one way and completely change through the middle and end of the film. In Kramer Vs Kramer, the arc is not focused on a character but rather a relationship between father and son. When Billy (Justin Henry in an Oscar nominated performance) at age 6 wakes up to discover mommy is not there, he sees how lost daddy is with waking up and trying to make coffee much less crack an egg properly for french toast. Ted and Billy have been blindsided and without any warning they need to adjust to one another very quickly.

Later, Benton does an insightful tracking shot of their apartment as they wake and we see they’ve grown accustomed to a routine together of getting each other up, setting the table and reading their newspaper and comic books side by side while never uttering a word. Benton realized that the comfort of living with each other does not have to be evoked with dialogue. This routine is offered one last time at the end when an inevitable and unwanted conclusion has befallen Ted and Billy. Again, no dialogue because now as a viewer I’ve become comfortable with this special relationship. Truly, I envisioned my father and I in these three moments.

Meryl Streep is the other Kramer, Joanna. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and its well earned. Benton opens the film on her sad expression in a quiet darkness. When Ted finally comes home with good news from work, Streep is really good at holding her firm stance at leaving the household permanently. It doesn’t matter that Ted has gossip to share of a co-worker’s suicide or that he got a huge promotion. She just up and hurries for the elevator despite Ted’s resistance in allowing her to leave.

Benton follows afterwards with a good long portion of the film to display the struggles that Ted and Billy need to overcome, and in a second act finally has Joanna return stating her desire for Billy to live with her. Ted will not allow that to happen. For a real actor’s showcase, it’s important to watch the scene when they meet for the first time in 18 months. The conversation is cordial and they appear pleased to catch up with one another. Seconds later, the opposite sides on what’s best for themselves, and more importantly Billy, surface and the back and forth is so perfectly timed. Streep and Hoffman have those stutters and talking over one another that seem so natural. The scene ends with a broken glass that was not rehearsed and fortunately Streep’s shocked expression remains before the scene is cut.

Hoffman is extremely good in his role. He runs a gamut of emotions to bring humor, sadness, anger, warmth and love to this part. Another powerful scene is when he desperately must find a new job within three days before Christmas. Benton makes sure that Ted appears completely strong in a disarming situation when he squeezes in a four o’clock Friday afternoon interview during a raucous office Christmas party. I love how Benton focuses a still camera on Ted sitting quietly in a lobby chair amid partiers while waiting to hear if he gets a job offer. This is determination of a very full degree. Nothing will allow Ted to lose his little boy during this custody hearing.

Kramer vs Kramer is a simple and brisk film. It moves with a fast pace, and I believe the reason for that is it takes place in a home with a father, a child and a mother. So, I like to think it was very open to relating to viewers of all ages including my preteen self. There are many different and recognizable facets to Kramer vs Kramer. Billy compares Ted’s rules to what “all the other mothers” do. There’s the school play. Ted running late for work and picking up Billy from a birthday party complete with a goody bag. Of course, there’s also the heightened drama of the courtroom custody hearing. It’s like watching stage work monologues from Streep and Hoffman. It’s brilliant.

I especially took a scene very personally where Billy falls off the monkey bars, and Ted rushing through the streets of New York to get him to the emergency room for stitches. I had a door slammed in my face once that required stitches in my bottom lip. Just like in the film there was blood all over my clothes and there was a terrible fear for this 8-year-old kid who now still feels a bump in that area. Billy’s anguish and Ted’s terrible fear and guilt seem so genuine.

I find it interesting that this film won Best Picture in 1979. A year prior it was The Deer Hunter and Patton was a few years before that. In 1980, Robert Redford’s Ordinary People won the award and in 1983 it was Terms Of Endearment. Hollywood didn’t forget the impacts of hellish war and combat films. However, with the 1980 Reagan years of much decadence and pop culture positivity, a middle-class domestic life was becoming more honest and apparent. These films were not just Father Knows Best. Films like Kramer Vs Kramer were ready to show the hard parts of living a yuppie life. Things seem so normal on the outside when really there’s a struggle to love and live on the inside.

Cinderella like films showed my eight year old eyes that if a prince and princess finally meet and dance together all will be well in the kingdom. However, Kramer Vs Kramer told me that marriage and family life do not equate to happily ever after. Don’t mistake me. I’m not being pessimistic here. What I learned at that young age is that the story really only just begins after the prince and princess fall in love with one another. Thereafter, the conflicts settle in and the happy ending arrives only when the characters adjust to the evolution of their futures together, or if necessary, without one another.

MARATHON MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

John Schlesinger contributed to the long line of political paranoid thrillers that came out in the 1970s with Marathon Man, with a screenplay by William Goldman based upon his own novel.  Most films are not constructed this way any longer.  Here is a picture that, albeit may have large plot holes, leaves you curious as to what it all means while you are watching it for the first time.  Don’t belabor yourself with watching it again as a way to piece it altogether with logic and sense.  You’ll only be keeping yourself up at night.

Marathon Man begins with several different incidents occurring at different parts of globe.  A man is tirelessly running through Central Park.  In Manhattan, two elderly men get into a heated road rage argument that leaves them dead in a massive explosion.  A box of band aids is taken out of a safe deposit box and later smuggled beneath a box of chocolates.  In Paris, an explosion occurs after a sharp dressed man gets into a car.  A little later, that man is violently attacked in his hotel room, leaving a very bloody mess.  A couple is mugged, only the hoodlums are dressed in business suits.  Another man is found with his throat slashed in the balcony of an opera house.  A white haired man hiding out in South America starts to shave his head.  What does it all mean?  How are all of these occurrences connected?

As long as vague moments like these don’t carry on too long, I’m likely to be hooked because I consider myself a curious fellow.  Thankfully, Goldman’s script pieces the characters together with a few hair raising twists that I didn’t see coming.

Without giving too much away, Dustin Hoffman plays a marathon runner/Columbia University history major with a bleak family background.  Beyond his comprehension, he is connected or will find himself connected to each one of these early moments in the film.  Once a person very close to him turns up dead in his apartment, the hysteria sets in.  Hoffman plays this quite well as he is always trying to catch his breath while soaked in sweat and remaining the lightest of sleepers.  Schlesinger creates a terrifying moment with a bathroom door that Hoffman is trying to hide behind.  It reminded me of Kubrick’s use of an axe with a bathroom door that would come out four years after this picture, with The Shining.

Laurence Olivier is a mysterious elderly man who has arrived in New York, eventually coming face to face with Hoffman. Thus, leading to one of the most uncomfortable torture scenes in film history.  Cancel any upcoming dental appointments that are scheduled soon after watching Marathon Man.  You’ll thank me for it.

The set up and players are eventually explained, albeit at breakneck speed when the tension is very high.  Put it this way. It’s a challenge to sum up exposition when it’s being dictated in a high-speed car chase.  So, on the first viewing, you might miss a few details here and there.  Nevertheless, I knew who the good guys were, I knew who the bad guys were and simply hearing the word “Nazi” in any given line of dialogue is enough for me to know how sinister this all is.

I can’t deny the ending feels a little hokey as it takes place in a Central Park reservoir system with platform stairwells and waterfalls all around.  Yet the tension remains as a young Dustin Hoffman (a hot commodity of 1970s actors) pairs up with the legendary performer, Laurence Olivier.  As I came to understand, Olivier was suffering from a terrible cancer diagnosis while making this picture.  Unbelievably, he never shows his illness, as his performance is electric with a well-deserved Oscar nomination.  Hoffman was striving for method by exhausting himself personally.  I know about the legendary story where Olivier suggested he simply “try acting.”  Hoffman later clarified that conversation and explained it had more to do with a personal divorce he was going through and late night drinking at Studio 54.  Whatever!!!  The ailments these great actors were experiencing at the time lends perfectly to the paranoia. 

I try to avoid movie trailers these days.  They give away much too much.  I had not seen one trailer or commercial for Marathon Man, prior to experiencing it for myself.  All I was aware of was the infamous dental torture scene with the famous line “Is it safe?”  Out of context, I found it to give me goosebumps.  Within the framework of the film, it’s utterly disturbing and it only heightens the suspense that Schlesinger and Goldman were striving for. 

RAIN MAN

By Marc S. Sanders

It may surprise some people that I don’t find Dustin Hoffman’s performance of autistic savant Raymond Babbitt to be the best feature in Barry Levinson’s Rain Man.  On the contrary, the best thing about the film is Tom Cruise’s cynical, hyper active portrayal of Raymond’s younger brother Charlie.  I’m not knocking Hoffman.  He’s absolutely memorable, authentic and brilliant.  It’s so brilliant though, that it overshadows what Cruise accomplished with his part. 

Those of you who have read some of my reviews before, may recall how much I praise the best character arcs to be found in stories.  The character starts out one way and by the time the conclusion arrives, this person is completely different; practically unrecognizable.  Hoffman did this in Kramer Vs Kramer and Tootsie, Al Pacino did this in The Godfather.  Bryan Cranston used five seasons of television to do this in Breaking Bad.

Before I ever saw Rain Man for the first time, many years ago, I never knew what autism was.  I don’t even think I ever heard the word autistic before this film arrived.  I guess I was wrapped in my naïve bubble.  Now watching it years later, I see the special talents that autism can present for a person living with it, as well as the challenges that come with a person nearby who cannot comprehend the diagnosis, and carries no patience for it. 

Screenwriters Barry Morrow and Ronald Blass are wise to show an odd pairing of brothers in this film.  The movie begins when Charlie, deep in debt with his high-performance sports car dealership, learns that his estranged father has passed away.  Dad only leaves him with a gorgeous 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible.  A $3 million estate is awarded to a trust fund meant to support Raymond; the autistic brother Charlie does not recall ever having.  Charlie’s arrogance and desperation to cover his insurmountable debts drive him to yank Raymond out of his care facility and embark on a cross country road trip back home where he intends to settle the estate by how he thinks he deservedly sees it.  During the course of the trip, Charlie gets a quick education about himself and Raymond’s condition. 

Tom Cruise might look like late 1980’s cool and stylish in his linen suits and button up silk shirts with sunglasses, but his glamour does not overshadow how bitter of a guy Charlie really is.  That’s what I embrace in his performance here.  It should have been nominated for an Oscar; definitely a glaring oversight by the Academy.  Charlie looks like a guy always moving at super speed, about to collide with a wall.  He bosses around his assistant salesman with outbursts and disruptive clapping hands.  Levinson is good at showing close edits of that.  He gives no attention to his girlfriend, Sussana (Valerie Golino), even when she is trying her best to have him stop for a second and realize the special condition and attention that Raymond needs.  As Charlie’s journey continues down the back wood roads of western America, he has no choice but to uncover a realization in his own hyperactivity, and even recognize a different kind of hyperactivity that Raymond possesses. 

Raymond is the autistic person whose mental capacity must follow strict guidelines of watching The People’s Court and Jeopardy.  He has to have to certain meals on certain days.  He can not ride in a car when it is raining.  He can not fly on airlines that carry historical statistics of crashing.  Fire alarms and hot faucet water are violently upsetting.  There is a rigid, uncompromising pattern to Raymond’s behavior and lifestyle.  Because he can’t compromise, Rain Man carries some humorous and outrageous scenes where Charlie must adjust to Raymond’s limitations.  I still feel sorry for the woman who has no choice but to surrender her television and living room in the middle of day so that Raymond can watch his program, while her children are deprived of their cartoons.

Hoffman is great in focus and concentration.  Much like when he adopted the persona of a woman in Tootsie, you never see him sway from the performance of severe autism in his Raymond character.  Because he is so straight down the line here from beginning to end, I have to really admire Cruise’s change in character over all.  Rain Man really is a story about Charlie Babbitt.  Not so much Raymond Babbitt. Charlie changes during the course of the film.  Raymond does not. 

There are a lot of eye-opening moments in Levinson’s film.  You get an education in what autism really is, or at least the unique case that Raymond possesses.  He can memorize a phone book in one night or count the number of tooth picks that have fallen on the floor with simply a glance.  Complex multiplication can instantly be done in his head.  It’s fascinating.  Charlie even discovers a way for Raymond to resolve his financial crisis, thereby leading to an energetically satisfying jaunt in Las Vegas. 

Barry Levinson has assembled two fantastic actors for an engaging film that avoids preachiness and sorrow.  Yet, Rain Man is rewardingly sensitive.  Levinson says a million words with simply a close up moment of Hoffman gently leaning his head on Cruise’s temple.  Quiet moments like that which arrive following scatter brained moments earlier make for a range of emotions I treasure in a picture like this.

I look at Rain Man or Magnolia or Born On The Fourth Of July, and I wish Tom Cruise would take a break from the endless Mission: Impossible films.  Heck, there’s even another Top Gun film on its way!  Why doesn’t he focus on the roles that welcome his skills as a very effective actor?  (American Made was a recently oddly different kind of character for him. Great film by the way!)  I have an affection for most of his films, regardless of the category. I really do.  If only his action pictures could take a rest for a change, and allow the acting scenes to come back into play.