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I see that the DVD is out of print & going for an outrageous price at Amazon. For me, it was sheer luck to find a copy many years ago, when Blockbuster & Hollywood Video stores were closing down forever, selling off their stock for just a dollar or two each. It's too often the only way I can see old favorites these days.
I think that works in this film, because she's never quite a real person to Chrysagon, but more of an ideal, an embodied image of something his hard, often brutal life lacks. His upbringing & rank require him to be strong, unyielding, following a code of honor ... and he does all of that as well as any man could do in those circumstances. But he also has another side to him (as do we all), one that hungers for what Rosemary Forsyth's character represents. One might even call her an Anima figure for him, something he <b>must</b> have, no matter what the cost. He idealizes her & what she brings to his life, but that prevents him from seeing her & getting to know her as an individual human being.
I watched it again not too long ago, and for me it really holds up well. The only weakness is James Farentino, who seems too contemporary, as if dressed for a costume party. Everyone else seems of that harsh, unforgiving, honor-bound time.
Absolutely agree with you about this unjustly neglected film. It respected the mores of those times & that culture very well, put the viewer into their world, and conveyed the powerful sense of bleak fate that those times demanded of an honorable man. And the ambiguous ending is moving, as Chrysagon begins to slip into the mythic, as he goes to meet that fate.
Also agree about James Farentino—one of those actors who could be quite solid in contemporary roles, but just couldn't convince in period pieces. Richard Gere as Lancelot in <i>First Knight</i> (a bad movie all around, IMO) had the same problem.
That's a fair response.
Don't worry, you won't see the typical cliched Vietnam vet in this one. Heard's character is deeply wounded, but he's not that one-dimensional caricature. He's a human being fighting to regain his wholeness as a human being, by holding the powerful accountable for their crimes. He mirrors the desire of many Americans then for just such an accounting.
I couldn't disagree more. The film is a summation of all the shattered idealism & sense of betrayal that so many Americans felt at that time, realizing the full extent of political-military corruption (Vietnam, Watergate, illegal CIA intervention across the world), financial corruption (growth of soulless corporate power & control), and overall moral/ethical corruption in the nation's soul.
Cutter is the embodiment of all those feelings, desperately needing to make someone pay—early on, he references Ahab & Moby Dick—in the climactic scene, he's literally riding a white horse into the stronghold of his enemy, a damaged knight determined to take down the embodiment of all that's gone wrong in America. He refuses to remain uncommitted, as his friend Bone has done for most of his life—and his final action awakens Bone to finally commit himself just as fully to that pursuit of justice, no matter what the personal cost.
<i>Cutter's Way</i> is superb, with a searing performance from Heard, and an equally good performance from Jeff Bridges as Heard's initially non-committal friend. But Heard owns the film with a blazing, ferocious intensity. It's an unjustly neglected coda to the 1970s' streak of powerfully cynical films about political, financial, and moral corruption, with the cynicism having its roots in a shattered idealism that still yearns to make things right. Heard's physically & psychologically damaged Vietnam vet seethes with bitterness & venom, but he's not a stereotypical "vets are psycho" caricature. Even at his worst moments, we can understand what's driving him: the sense of betrayal by everyone & everything, and the hunger to balance the scale's of justice—not just legal justice, but moral justice.
Far too young. I liked his work going back to <i>Bosom Buddies</i>.
He didn't cheat on his wife. He shared a kiss with Gillian that was more an affirmation of what both had been through to get to their destination. Their bond is one of shared experience, not sexual straying.
I'm so glad someone else remembers <i>Chilly Scenes of Winter</i>! It's sad that John Heard is mainly remembered for the Home Alone movies, and not for his brilliant performances in films like <i>Chilly Scenes of Winter</i> and <i>Cutter's Way</i>. Such films seem to have been utterly forgotten, along with <i>Mindwalk<?i>.
Bernadette mentions being a Catholic girl from a Catholic family more than once.
I remember IMDB at its best, when there was actual in-depth discussion of thoughtful movies like <i>Mindwalk</i>. And I wish that still happened more often here at MovieChat. But the likes of <i>Mindwalk</i> won't register with most people today, even though it remains urgently relevant.
2001 holds up for all times, because it's a masterpiece.
Glad to see Out In The Country! We don't get many hit songs about Nature these days, sad to say. They used to be a lot more popular.
I don't think Nolan was a monster. He was simply a product of his times, their values, and his upbringing. I do think he'd been in his position of power & authority long enough to become stuck in it, and perhaps even trapped in it—though he wouldn't have looked at it in that light.
In my more generous moments, I even got a feeling that in his discussion with/admonition to Keating, Nolan did appreciate that Keating was a good & enthusiastic teacher. It's as if he still recognized what a newer teacher was like, having been one himself long ago, and thought that Keating just needed to tamp it down a bit—with experience, the right balance would be struck, and all could continue as before. He couldn't see that times & attitudes change, and in fact were changing even then.
If Neil's death was melodramatic, I think that was in keeping with his character. Teenagers can easily be melodramatic, after all; it's part of being a teenager. And Neil, having discovered acting & its power to play out internal emotions on a larger, more symbolic scale, quite naturally (if somewhat unconsciously) took that approach with his own life & death.
He wasn't a coward. He was crushed by his father's overbearing, you'll-do-what-I-say approach to life from the moment he was born. Not a coward, but a desperately trapped young men who's first experience of personal joy & authenticity was immediately squashed by his father. Suicides born of despair are a mistake to be sure, but when you're that low & crushed you can't think of anything but escaping the anguish. Neil's father was so obsessed with living out his own thwarted dreams through his son that he never saw his son as an individual human being. And so he was indeed responsible for Neil's problems. In fact, he <b>was</b> Neil's problem.
If you don't care for his work, that's fair. There are acclaimed writers that don't do much for me, even though I can understand why they're acclaimed by others. It's all a matter of personal taste in the end.
He defended the right of NAMBLA to speak out as a matter of free speech. That's not to say that it didn't make me feel queasy, because it did, even in the sexually freewheeling 1970s. And now, even more so. But voicing an opinion is not the same as acting upon it. And as far as I know, his sexual relations with younger men were consensual. Not my preference, to be sure!
He's celebrated because of his literary gifts. And he had as little use for the authoritarian governments of Communist countries as he did for consumerist countries of the West. His "leftism" was one of radical spiritual transformation, both individually & culturally.
And he got plenty of pushback & criticism from the liberal mainstream in the 1950s & early 1960s.