That girl can wing

Greta Gerwig is quickly proving herself to be a female film force to be reckoned with, not only in front of the camera but especially behind it (as evidenced, most recently, by her fantastic reimagining of Little Women, released in 2019). Our CineVerse group made a date last week with Lady Bird, Gerwig’s 2017 film about a quirky and memorable teenage girl, and quickly fell in love with its many charms. Here’s a recap of our discussion (to listen to a recording of our group conversation, click here).

What did you find interesting, unexpected, refreshing, or rewarding about Lady Bird?

• Instead of being a tale about a maturing girl finding love and romance, this is a story primarily about the difficult relationship between a teenage daughter and her mother and how they need to appreciate each other more.
• It doesn’t follow the same predictable cliché paths that perhaps other coming-of-age teenage comedy typically would. For example, the losing of Lady Bird’s virginity isn’t some profound, romantic, or grandiose experience. Lady Bird isn’t some ultra-hip, edgy, completely nonconformist character designed to set trends; she follows trajectories expected of real-life adolescents, like sucking up to the cool crowd and liking the Dave Matthews Band and Alanis Morrissette instead of obscure bands with more street cred. Consider that the main character lacks finer artistic sensibilities, is an undependable friend, and is an unexceptional student. Also, ponder that the teachers and clergy at the school are kind and understanding.
• The film deftly achieves a nice balance totally between comedy and drama, minus the need for maudlin sensibilities.
• Lara Zarum of The Village Voice wrote: “Lady Bird is a rare bird: sentimental without being saccharine, emotional without being contrived, able to conjure tears without yanking at our heartstrings while the music swells. Its matter-of-factness is what makes the film ultimately so wrenching. There’s no great tragedy here, and no great uplift; just life, as it’s actually lived, and the moments that make you who you are.”
• Some of this story and its characters are semi-autobiographical, as writer/director Greta Gerwig grew up in Sacramento, had a controlling mother who worked as a nurse, and assumedly experienced many of the same feelings and events that Lady Bird does.

Themes explored

• The often awkward transition from adolescence to adulthood.
• The generation and communication gap between teenagers and their parents. Lady Bird and her mother have a strained relationship because they don’t know how to talk to each other or empathize with one another. They both take each other for granted: Marion is hyper-critical of her daughter and tries to micromanage her without being sensitive to what Lady Bird is going through or feeling, and Lady Bird doesn’t appreciate her mother’s intentions, hard work, and sacrifices she makes. While they repel each other, ironically, they are very similar in their steadfast ways, stubbornness, and convictions.
• “In a way, it is about how impossible it is for teenagers to imagine the emotional lives of their parents, or to acknowledge those stricken elders’ devastating sense of abandonment and uselessness when the child leaves home and they have to suppress the symptoms of anger, competitive rage, and loss,” wrote The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.
• Peer pressure and the importance of social acceptance. Lady Bird imposes pressure on herself to become deflowered, appeal to the popular and rich kids in school (to the detriment of her best friend), act in rebellious and forbidden ways (such as dissing the guest speaker and stealing her teacher’s grade book), and get stone drunk at a college party.
• “Liking” vs. “loving, “ or appreciating your roots and your past. Throughout much of the film, Lady Bird expresses her dissatisfaction with her hometown of Sacramento and her yearning to spread her wings and live in a more culturally enriching environment. But by the end of the movie, she realizes that she misses home.
• Recall the exchange between the nun and Lady Bird: Sister Sarah Joan: You clearly love Sacramento. Lady Bird: I do? Sister Sarah Joan: You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care. Lady Bird: I was just describing it. Sister Sarah Joan: Well it comes across as love. Lady Bird: Sure, I guess I pay attention. Sister Sarah Joan: Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?
• Lady Bird asks her mother if she likes her. Marion replies that she loves her, but her daughter responds, “But do you like me?” A parent’s unconditional love for her child is assumed, but that parent may not like, admire, or respect her child much, which seems to be the case with Marion.
• Similarly, Lady Bird realizes that she loves Sacramento after leaving it, even though she didn’t like her hometown while she lived there.
• Diksha Sundriyal of The Cinemaholic wrote: “In the final monologue, she acknowledges her love for both of them. She thinks about the first time she drove around the city and how different it felt to her while also being all the same as it had always been. And the fact that she wanted to share this with her mother is the testament of how close they actually are to each other. She also addresses herself as Christine, which means she has shed over the Lady Bird phase, and has finally got around to accepting herself as is rather than what she thinks she should be.”

Similar works

• Rushmore
• Election
• Boyhood
• The Lovers
• The Edge of Seventeen
• Saved!
• The Diary of a Teenage Girl
• Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles
• The Virgin Suicides

Other films directed by or starring Greta Gerwig

• Little Women
• Francis Ha
• Mistress America

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Meet Billy, master house of cards builder

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on Billy Liar, one of the great charlatans of cinema and the subject of a fascinating early 1960s British comedy by director John Schlesinger. Our CineVerse group took a trip to the UK last week (metaphorically speaking) to investigate this underappreciated gem of a movie and came away with the following discoveries (to listen to a recording of our group discussion, click here).

What did you find interesting, unexpected, refreshing, or fulfilling about Billy Liar?

• The picture is one of several British New Wave films, influenced by the French New Wave that came before it. British New Wave movies adopted a cinema variety/documentary approach, favored social realism, and were often shot in real locations – in Billy Liar, that meant Yorkshire and Bradford.
• Billy Liar also belongs to a subgenre called the “angry young men” movie, which commonly depicted working-class male characters disheartened by contemporary society. These films often tackled social, political, and cultural problems and emphasized a gritty, realistic look and vibe.
• This proved to be an early and breakout role for young new star Julie Christie, whose free-spirited and vivacious Liz commands the screen and serves as the perfect would-be muse for Billy.

Themes at work

• The seductive nature of fantasy and illusion. Arguably, Billy chooses not to depart for the promise and excitement of London with Liz because his prospects and fortunes there cannot possibly live up to his fantasies. This movie also serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of daydreaming your way through life, which results in Billy’s grandmother turning ill, his romantic relationships falling apart, and him possibly being prosecuted by his former employer.
• The inevitability of accountability. Billy time and again demonstrates that he is not reliable or responsible in his duties at home, at work, or in relationships. But perhaps it’s the advice his mother gives him at the end of the film that forces him to confront his responsibilities and ultimately choose to remain at home. She says: “We need you at home, lad… If you’re in any more trouble, Billy, it’s not something you can leave behind you, you know. You put it in your suitcase, and you take it with you.” Interestingly, the cartons of milk that Billy purchases represent the purity and nurturing power of mother’s milk, or his mother’s advice, which contributes to him missing the train.
• The generation gap and the vast gulf between parents and their growing children.
• New world versus old world. In tandem with the theme of generational divides, Billy Liar suggests the contrast between pre-swinging London New Britain and old Britain (as demonstrated by the demolition of several old edifices and buildings being replaced by modern towers and structures) and between older, antiquated, and racist values and newer more open-minded values.
• Blogger Richard Keeble wrote: “Billy’s ambrosia is linked to the very real new world he has been exposed to through his education and the surrounding societal change… He has been seduced by the promises of the new world… Liz represents the new spirit of 1960s Britain at its most dazzling; she represents the elusive promises of the New World… She encourages his fantasies, even appealing in several of them as his wife or official aid. These are expressions of his rebellion against the world of his parents and grandparents… The film portrays the New World, for better or worse, as fundamentally disruptive. It will inevitably fall to Billy, therefore, to make a choice between its promises and his responsibilities at home.”

Similar works

• British New Wave films and movies that imbue kitchen-sink realism and explore angry young men characters, including Look Back in Anger, Room at the Top, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, This Sporting Life, Bitter Harvest, and Alfie
• The James Thurber short story The Secret the Life of Walter Mitty
• Jo Jo Rabbit

Other films by John Schlesinger

• A Kind of Loving
• Far from the Madding Crowd
• Midnight Cowboy
• Sunday Bloody Sunday
• The Day of the Locust
• The Falcon and the Snowman

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Hollywood builds a house

Superhero movies inspire our imaginations to soar above the clouds. Science-fiction features tantalize with their futuristic prospects of technological innovation. And fantasy films bring out the hidden adventurer in us all, arousing bravery in the pursuit of an impossible quest.

But it’s flicks about fixer-uppers and homes being built in the real world that may prove to motivate us more in the long run, many believe. The reason? We can better relate to these challenging housing endeavors undertaken by serious and comedic characters alike in a variety of motion pictures. Been there, done that is the takeaway by plenty of viewers, while yet-to-be homeowners consider the cautionary tales to be learned from some of these home improvement and construction projects depicted by Hollywood.

I recently wrote an article recommending several films focused on home improvement and construction, published in the Dallas Morning News, available here.

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Life in the big city--from a 7-year-old's vantage point

Revered by cinema scholars, filmmakers, and fans as one of the true pioneering works of the independent film movement, Little Fugitive, co-created by written Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, and Ray Ashley, stands as a verité Americana masterwork and classic time capsule of life in early 1950s New York City – as told from the perspective of a seven-year-old boy and his older brother. Using nonactors and shooting primarily outdoors on location among thousands of New Yorkers, the picture still wows nearly seven decades later, perhaps functioning more effectively as an accurate sociocultural document than a work of commercial entertainment. We applied the CineVerse approach to this film last week and arrived at several realizations (To listen to a recording of our group discussion, click here).

What took you by surprise about Little Fugitive and left a strong impression?

• This film serves as an important bridge between the Italian neorealism period of the 1940s and the French new wave of the late 1950s/early 1960s. Françoise Truffaut cited it as a major influence on the latter, particularly thanks to its guerrilla filmmaking approach to on-location shooting to capture the immediacy and honesty of a particular time, place, and community naturalistically.
• This movie is credited as being the first commercially successful independent American feature film. It grossed four times its production budget of approximately $30,000, earned an Academy award nomination for best writing, and was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
• A major reason behind it success was the ability of the filmmakers to shoot on location, practically incognito, thanks to the invention of a one-of-a-kind concealed strap-on camera that didn’t require a tripod or big crew. Co-director Morris Engel was able to strap this small handheld camera on his shoulder and shoot up close and personal to his subjects, allowing him to organically document the rhythms and actions of real New Yorkers.
• Importantly, the filmmakers opted not to use low-cost and lightweight 16-mm cameras/film stock, which could have provided the same mobile camera freedom and flexibility. Using 35 mm created a higher-quality, less gritty image, making Little Fugitive look like many other professionally-shot Hollywood black and white movies at the time.
• Additionally, the film employed non-professional actors. The casting of Richie Andrusco, a seven-year-old with no acting experience who was discovered while waiting in line for a carousel ride, is inspired; the entire film and its success rides on our belief in Andrusco’s portrayal of Joey and his effortless ability to act naturally, never breaking the fourth wall or giving an over-rehearsed line reading.
• Wisely, the filmmakers emphasized character, look, and slice-of-life spontaneity over narrative or plot, apparently allowing many of the scenes to unfold spontaneously or present themselves as happy accidents (like the abrupt rainstorm that occurs, or the way Andrusco hits the baseball in the batting cage).
• This picture stands as an incredible time capsule of a very particular place and time in American history, when kids idolized cowboys, parents seemed less micromanaging of their offspring, the Brooklyn Dodgers and Coney Island were major Big Apple draws, and you could eat, drink, and make merry on the spare change in your pocket.
• It’s also fascinating to see the friendly coexisting and intermingling of white and black New Yorkers, even before anti-segregation laws went into effect.

Themes at work

• The innocence and simplicity of childhood and the secret life of kids. Despite being surrounded by a complex urban mileu and countless adults running things, little Joey navigates his way to fun and fulfillment, making the viewer recall his or her own youth and appreciating the small details that matter to kids.
• The wonderful randomness of life. A sudden rainstorm, an unexpected urge to use the bathroom, the unforeseen emergence of a means of needed income (collecting pop bottles), and the lucky circumstance in which Joey’s brother is able to find his lost sibling all stand as examples of how life is often unplanned and unscripted, as this movie commonly feels and looks.
• The resourcefulness and resiliency of children. Joey, only seven years old, proves himself rugged, tough, self-confident, and physically and emotionally capable of caring for himself despite extreme circumstances – including being lost, lacking money and shelter, and feeling guilt and fear from presumably killing his brother.

Similar works

• Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts
• The 400 Blows (1959) and other works of the French new wave
• Italian neorealism films, including Bicycle Thieves and Rome: Open City
• Faces and other works by American independent movement pioneer John Cassavetes
• Kes
• The Spirit of the Beehive
• I Was Born, But…
• Home Alone
• Small Change

Other films by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin

• Lovers and Lollipops
• Weddings and Babies

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Walk a mile in my silent shoes

African-American filmmaker Charles Lane does more than pay tribute to Charles Chaplin and his film The Kid with Lane’s Sidewalk Stories. His black-and-white silent comedy serves as a time capsule showcase for New York City and its diverse occupants and neighborhoods in the late 1980s and demonstrates that a fully realized artistic vision can be achieved successfully without sound or color, especially if you give the audience characters and situations they can appreciate. CineVerse metaphorically walked the concrete and steel streets of the Big Apple last week in its examination of this picture (click here to listen to a recording of our group discussion) and arrived at the following observations.

What struck you as surprising, curious, fulfilling, or out of the ordinary about Sidewalk Stories?

• It’s both a black-and-white and silent film in the modern age of cinema, one of only a handful of this type to be made in the sound era of the last 90 years.
• The filmmakers choose not to even use dialogue cards in between shots, forcing us to pay closer attention to the character’s actions and body language and even read lips to some extent – essentially requiring active participation from the viewer, who must learn things in context.
• Roger Ebert wrote: “I think perhaps the silent format inspires us to participate more directly in the movie. A sound film comes to us, approaches us - indeed, it sometimes assaults us from the screen. But a silent film stays up there on the glowing wall, and we rise up to meet it. We take our imagination and join it with the imagination of the filmmaker."
• Director/actor Charles Lane has plenty of opportunities to mine comedy gold and evoke bigger laughs via Chaplin tricks like slapstick and sight gags, but he chooses not to go as much for the funnybone as for the heart.
• The success of this movie, and our interest in it, depends a great deal on the chemistry between the artist and the little girl (played by Lane’s real-life daughter), who is irresistibly adorable and perfect for the scenes she’s in.
• This picture was filmed over only 15 days on a $200,000 budget, yet the filmed locations include a great cross-section of memorable New York sites and areas.
• While Lane infuses sentimentality into this story, it’s not saccharine sweet. For instance, the ending remains ambiguous: it’s not clear if he and the store owner end up together or how the little girl grows up. Instead, the filmmakers leave us with thoughts of the underprivileged and societal castoffs, who are given the last word – literally.

Themes at work

• The voicelessness of the homeless and underprivileged. The movie is making a statement about how the struggles of the homeless and poor aren’t being heard or paid attention to by society. Interestingly, the film remains completely wordless until the last scene, in which the voices of the destitute and displaced are given volume by the filmmakers.
• “Comedy as a mode of survival,” according to Slant magazine critic Steve Macfarlane. Telling this tale straight without humor and exaggerated comedic effect would be powerfully depressing for the characters as well as the audience. “Diverting his viewers time and again from the grimness of the film’s scenario, Lane actually manages to reinforce it, driving the stakes higher,” Macfarlane continues.
• Everyone can make a difference in the lives of others, regardless of class, race, or clout. A seemingly insignificant street peddler proves that, despite his lack of resources or parental know-how, he can salvage a tragic situation and assume the responsibility of caring for a young temporarily orphaned child.
• The tapestry of intersecting and interesting lives found in a big urban melting pot. The artist isn’t the only colorful and attention-grabbing character in this movie. There is also the street dancer, street magician, rival artist bully, the pair of hoodlums, and the store owner who falls for the artist.

Similar works

• The Kid, City Lights, Modern Times, and other works by Charles Chaplin featuring the Little Tramp character
• The Artist
• Films and shorts starring and directed by Buster Keaton
• Midnight Cowboy

Other films directed by and/or starring Charles Lane

• True Identity
• Posse
• The Mind

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You don't have to search far to find the finest western ever

Glenn Frankel

For Cineversary podcast episode #37, host Erik Martin teams up with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and film scholar Glenn Frankel, author of The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend, to honor the 65th anniversary of one of the greatest western of all time: The Searchers, directed by John Ford. Erik and Glenn probe deep into the dark psychological crevices of this celebrated but controversial American classic and investigate the myths and majesty of Ford's glorious western canvas as they explore why the film is worth celebrating all these years later, its cultural impact and legacy, what we can learn from the film in 2021, and more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download or subscribe to the Cineversary podcast using Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Castbox, Pocket Casts, PodBean, RadioPublic, and Overcast.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at anchor.fm/cineversary and email show comments or suggestions to cineversegroup@gmail.com.

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An empress on the outs

Palace intrigue pictures and period costume dramas have entertained audiences for generations. A recent standout in this subgenre is Farewell, My Queen, which uses the last days of the French monarchy as a backdrop for a tale about a commoner determined to serve her endangered queen Marie Antoinette. This film got the CineVerse treatment last week, with numerous opinions given and observations made during our group discussion (which you can listen to here). Here’s a summary of our conversation:

What did you find notable, unexpected, distinctive, or satisfying about Farewell, My Queen?

• The setting is the start of the French Revolution, but we aren’t shown any beheadings or violence. For that matter, the story is entirely told from the perspective of the queen’s faithful servants, particularly her reader Sidonie.
• This is not a story about Marie Antoinette – it’s about one of her servants and the way that monarchs use their power, and the access they grant to that power, to create a hierarchical structure in which power dynamics can shift depending on how close you are to the king or queen.
• Also, this is not an action narrative: it’s a reaction narrative, in which suspense and intrigue are built by following the reactions of the queen’s servants to an impending revolution.
• The camera seems to be voyeuristically prowling about, as evidenced by how it follows Sidonie around (often from behind) and lingers on bustiers, cleavage, and naked bodies. While it’s doubtful that the filmmakers were trying to be prurient and exploitative, the way the lens focuses on the female form suggests perhaps that this is a male-dominated society in which females were treated as objects.

Themes at work

• The contrast between the haves and have-nots. Farewell, My Queen depicts the opulence and decadence of the royal household versus the grimy, tainted banality of the commoners’ and peons’ habitats. We see the power, privilege, and wealth that the monarchy commands compared to the relative lack of agency, freedom, and resources that the Queen’s subjects possess.
• Slant magazine’s Jesse Cataldo wrote: “Control is the operative element in Benoît Jacquot’s work, with the main caveat being that when someone has it, someone else does not. This prevailing concept sets the stage for detailed examinations of interpersonal power dynamics, presented as games or struggles, with an acute eye toward the roles and responsibilities of women.”
• Likewise, we see imagery and hear evidence of vermin and pests like rats, mosquitoes, and spiders representing the inability of the royal household to remain pure, clean, and unblemished and signifying impending doom and decay.
• Running out of time. We know from the dates given that it’s only a matter of time before heads will roll and the monarchy comes crashing down in France. This film depicts a handful of days that lead up to those monumental events, and the predominant symbol at work is the royal clock lent to Sidonie; once that clock is stolen, order and structure begin to collapse and the countdown to the end of an era for the royalty and its court begins. The takeaway? Nothing lasts forever, especially something created by human beings, who are fallible and impermanent.
• The secret lives of women both powerful and unpowerful in a world controlled by men. Farewell, My Queen features predominantly female characters, shining a spotlight on the private passions, proclivities, and lifestyles of women just prior to the French Revolution. Interestingly, Sidonie begins the film as a servant but ends it as a survivor, outliving her female counterparts. Consider, also, that Sidonie appears to have a young crush on the queen and demonstrates her undying fealty to Marie Antoinette.

Similar works

• Previous films about or featuring Marie Antoinette as a character, including Madame Du Barry (1934), Marie Antoinette (1938), and The Affair of the Necklace (2001), and Marie Antoinette (2006)
• A Royal Affair (2012)
• The Duchess (2008)
• The Girl King (2015)
• The Favourite (2018)
• The Lady and the Duke (2001)
• The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

Other works by Benoit Jacquot

• La Désenchantée
• A Single Girl
• Deep In the Woods
• Three Hearts
• Diary of a Chambermaid

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Dark Star: a dark horse but lightweight sci-fi

Sandwiched uncomfortably between the chasm that was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977), John Carpenter’s fledgling directorial debut Dark Star attempts to put a comedic touch on previous Kubrickian ideas while also foreshadowing the blue-collar space truckin’ sensibilities of Alien. It’s a bit of a cosmic mess, and the low-tech visual effects, amateurish acting, and abrupt tonal shifts do little to improve matters. Still, Dark Star is a film rippling with interesting ideas, imagery, and memorable bits that will be explored in later genre pictures. Our CineVerse band took a test flight last week and came away with the following impressions (to listen to a recording of our group discussion, click here):

Similar works

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Star Trek
• THX 1138, which also began as a student film
• Dr. Strangelove
• Ray Bradbury’s short story Kaleidoscope
• Alien
• Star Wars
• Moon
• Sci-fi comedies like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Spaceballs

What did you find unexpected, distinctive, or surprising about Dark Star?

• This looks to be just a few rungs above a student film on the production value, acting, and screenplay scale. Filmmakers John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon began this production as a short while they were college students; they were given more money by a producer to add more scenes and pad out the length to feature film runtime, with a final budget clocking in at around $60,000. Despite this paltry price tag, the collaborators were able to accomplish some impressive feats, even for 1974 film standards and special effects expectations.
• The influences here are obvious (especially Kubrick works), but Dark Star also would have inspired Star Wars, Alien, and subsequent sci-fil films, especially with its depiction of traveling through hyperspace and its notion of an escaped alien loose on the ship wreaking havoc.
• This is a rare work of sci-fi comedy. On its surface, this seems to be a sobering drama, but quickly we pick up comedic sensibilities, jokes, and humorous bits, which makes it easier to accept the budgetary and visual effect shortcomings.

Themes at work

• Existentialism (exploring the nature of the human condition and existence), epistemology (investigating what distinguishes justified belief from opinion), and applied philosophy (like Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”). Doolittle arguing with a sentiment bomb capable of artificial intelligence, trying to dissuade it from detonating based on logic, serves as a spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey and its exploration of AI’s ability to surpass humans.
• Ennui, regardless of the setting or milieu. Director John Carpenter described this story as “Waiting for Godot in space,” and “truck drivers in space.” These are everyday, blue-collar Joes who have grown bored with their mission, despite its huge significance and the grandiosity of their surroundings. This isn’t some noble quest or giant leap for mankind; these are clock-punchers hired to pave a clear path on the cosmic superhighway.
• Cosmic irony. Having to rationalize and debate philosophical notions with a sentient but stubborn bomb, destroying rather than exploring new worlds in a routine of mindless violence, being millions of miles from Earth without toilet paper, and getting humiliated and outfoxed by a silly extraterrestrial gasbag of a pet are among the sardonic statements being made by the filmmakers, who seem intent to de-glamorize the supposed allure and prestige of space travel.
• The inability to escape our inherent human condition. It is in our nature as humans to destroy things, argue, fight, become bored and complacent, take things for granted, and abuse or neglect what we regard as lower life forms.
• The hard work required to achieve rugged individualism. Slant Magazine reviewer Simon Abrams wrote: “The fact that there’s no logical way to not emotionally malfunction aboard the Dark Star speaks to the film’s central egocentrism: everybody has to do everything themselves, even the Smart Bomb that obliterates the ship after it reasons that it is, in fact, God: ‘The only thing that exists is My Self’…Dark Star remains one of the best expressions of that quest for personal freedom because it was principally created by two artists that define themselves by their own fierce intellect and staunch individualism.”

Other films by John Carpenter

• Halloween
• Escape From New York
• The Thing
• Starman
• They Live
• In the Mouth of Madness

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75 years of the best lives (and a great film)

William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, released in 1946, took home Oscar gold for Best Picture, preventing It's a Wonderful Life from claiming a wonderful prize. But if you're going to lose out to another picture at the Academy Awards, you could do a lot worse than be bested by this William Wyler classic, probably the best cinematic story ever told about soldiers and veterans returning home from wartime. CineVerse did its patriotic duty this past Independence Day week by examining this movie. Here's a recap of our group discussion (to listen to a recording of it, click here).

How would this film have been perceived as groundbreaking and perhaps controversial upon its release in post-World War II 1946?

• It addressed, for the first time in an American feature film, the sensitive cultural, social, and psychological issues faced by returning veterans and their families.
• These issues include adultery, alcoholism, ostracism, unemployment, callous corporate practices, a hostile work environment, and problems in a marriage that appear perfect on the surface.
• It’s fascinating to hear Al’s son talk about the threat of nuclear annihilation and the start of the Cold War; this would have been one of the first Hollywood films to do so.
• The Best Years of Our Lives notably also uses a disabled man (in this case, Harold Russell, an amputee with no professional acting background) to poignantly tell its story—and without relying on circus sideshow sensationalism or exaggerated dramatic effect.
• This was nearly twice the length of average movies at the time—a runtime that risked losing audience interest. There is also no intermission.
• Framed within the context of World War II and its aftermath, the movie avoids using any flashback combat scenes or action; it’s purely a human drama about real-life issues.
• In making this motion picture, with three diverging narratives about veterans adjusting to postwar life at home, the filmmakers were taking a big risk; that’s because the Hollywood studios thought viewers were tired of movies about the war by this time. But The Best Years of Our Lives went on to become the highest-grossing movie of the entire 1940s, proving that audiences emotionally connected with these stories and appreciated the issues and characters explored.

Master cinematographer Gregg Toland, famous for his camera work on Citizen Kane, employed deep focus photography throughout the movie. Can you cite a few examples of this technique in the film and why the use of deep focus was the right choice for those scenes?

• Al’s homecoming to his wife and kids: Framed within the deep hallway, we see him embrace his son, daughter, and then his wife at a distance without employing any cuts.
• Fred’s important phone call from the bar: presented as a background detail with Homer and Butch playing piano in the extreme foreground—with no cuts or camera movement.
• The marriage ceremony: We observe two parallel lines of action (Homer and Wilma, Fred and Peggy) on opposite sides of the room, which creates emotional distance yet longing.
• The filmmakers also utilize deep focus and long takes instead of cutting to medium shots or close-ups that normally break up a scene; this strategy allows many scenes to unfold organically and enables the performers to show their acting chops.

How do you interpret the movie’s title? Is it an ironic or cynical comment, or is it sincere and hopeful?

• It could be referring to the possibility that many veterans had to give “the best years of their lives” to the military and our cause in WWII.
• Or, it could be referring to the possibility that the best years of the servicemen’s lives were during wartime, and they experienced more challenging times of a different kind when they returned home.
• Possibly it's suggesting that the veterans' best years are ahead of them.

Similar films

• Coming Home
• Home of the Brave
• Born on the 4th of July
• The Deer Hunter
• Heroes
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Forrest Gump

Other films by William Wyler

• Wuthering Heights
• Jezebel
• The Westerner
• Mrs. Miniver
• Roman Holiday
• Ben-Hur

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