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Owlwise's Replies
Still, in these times, we are more aware of such things, so I can understand your misgivings.
I'm not sure "coward" is entirely fair. She's a shattered human being, freshly plunged back into the numbing hell of self-destruction. She simply isn't capable of doing more than running; her drinking & promiscuity have always been her chosen path of running away from pain & towards desired death. I don't see how anyone can feel anything but immense pity & sadness for her.
We see people smoking pipes lethargically in the den where Larry finds her, so it's entirely possible. Anything to temporarily dull the anguish of losing her husband & child.
Yes, her punishment is that she has to live with the knowledge that she actually drove away the man she loved, the one she might have had if she'd accepted him just as he was as a young man. But she loved the good life more … and now she knows that no matter how much money she has, she's still going to be empty & loveless inside for the rest of her life. Gray deserves a better wife!
I don't think so. She knew Larry & what sort of man he was, so she could make a joke like that & not worry about his taking it the wrong way. Look at the way he smiles back at her, an affectionate & amused smile, certainly aware that she was fond of him, as he was fond of her (in a non-sexual way). She's basically saying that she wouldn't mind a closer relationship with him. He acknowledges it & gently deflects it.
He means that the path to spiritual awakening, enlightenment & inner peace is as narrow & as difficult to walk as a razor's edge (going from memory of the movie & book here). Which is true.
Ironically, Mr. B seemed more hip than Steve, in his own relaxed way. DeFore had wit & subtlety in his performance, playing Mr. B as someone who might be somewhat set in his ways, but wasn't unaware of the world around him; Fulmer was more forced & frankly seemed more "square" as a result. At least to me.
If America had accepted the elections of the 1950s, we wouldn't have been there at all either. Nor should we have been.
It also shouldn't be forgotten that somewhere between one million & three million Vietnamese died in that war, the majority of them civilians. I remember free fire zones, napalm & white phosphorus dropped on civilians, and massacres like My Lai, which was <b>not</b> just one isolated incident. Ellsberg was right about our being the wrong side.
Nixon kept us in Vietnam for 5 extra years after lying about his "secret plan to end the war" that he somehow couldn't reveal while running for the Presidency … because he had no secret plan, other than to ramp up the killing. Which he did, extending it to Laos & Cambodia, destabilizing their governments & paving the way for the Khmer Rouge. He actually considered using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam at one point. He prolonged an illegal, immoral war we had no business being in from the first. As former Marine & former Vietnam hawk Daniel Ellsberg so accurately said, "We weren't <b>on</b> the wrong side. We <b>were</b> the wrong side."
By the way, I'm not absolving LBJ or JFK or Eisenhower, either.
Agreed, a surprising number of species mate for life.
And a good actress, too. I first came across her in the film One Way Passage, which is a lovely, bittersweet little story with a poignant ending.
The shifting back & forth between protagonists is an integral part of the film, I'd say. While they're "rivals under the same flag" their true opponents are within themselves.
I agree. If anything, I find it even more tender & moving from an adult's perspective than I did when I was close to Gary Grimes' age. I can appreciate the emotions involved with greater understanding now.
Beautifully stated & so very true.
I thought she was excellent in Passion Fish.
He was also very good in The Emerald Forest.
It's not snobbery to expect a film based on a series of books to convey at least some of the essence of the characters, no matter what necessary changes are made in translating book to film. But in this case, the two leads could have been given any names at random & it wouldn't have made any difference. That's what the complaints are about.
I agree with you. The primary force behind this diminishment of classic heroes is a sort of shallow, glib snarkiness that believes it's actually sophisticated, as if nobody could possibly believe in old-fashioned heroes who are basically modest, not glory-seeking, not delivering constant one-liners, not reveling in violence for its own sake.
I mean, we all know that the world is complex & ambiguous, that morality often has shades of grey, that even real-life heroes can have personal failings. But I don't think it's a bad thing to have ideals embodied in fictional heroes who stand for what's best in us, if only to remind us that those ideals are worth living up to, as best we can.
Sorry to hear this news. It's another little part of my childhood gone.
But I can just picture Eddie Haskell telling St. Peter, "My, that's a very becoming robe you're wearing, sir."
A strong plot isn't the point of this film, as it's almost a slice-of-life film, a study of two men who have outlived their time but can't (or won't) admit it. Their lives have been a romp, they want that to go on indefinitely, but times have changed & they have no place in the ongoing world. That's a theme still quite relevant to this day.