Tootsie

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I never liked Tootsie Roll candies. They weren't that tasty and they always became stuck between my teeth. But the film Tootsie is a delectable treat to watch. 1982 was an exceptional year for Oscar caliber films. Ghandi is a sweeping, intelligent epic, and the eventual Academy Award winner for best film, director, and actor, Ben Kingsley, in a totally believable performance as the title character. Another film, The Verdict, could also have won in any other year for its performance by Paul Newman and the enduring greatness of the script by David Mamet. And, of course, there was that creature who everyone hoped would phone home, ET. But, Tootsie was another terrific film that year, which, although a comedy, has many thought provoking insights into male/female relationships. It is also a movie that shows how the overwhelming majority of actors are unemployed and desperate to practice their craft. But, it transcends on the theme of identity, and poses questions about who we are.

Dustin Hoffman's character, Michael Dorsey, is a struggling New York actor. Because he needs money to produce the play by his roommate, played by an unbilled Bill Murray, and is perceived as too difficult to work with, he dresses up as a woman and lands a role as a strong-willed hospital administrator. The ironies pile up. As Dorothy Michaels, he is at first considered too genteel, too feminine to get the role until Dorothy asserts herself later in the audition. Dorothy becomes very popular on the show as a breakthrough “woman” who will not be dominated in a man's world. Her strength influences the woman Michael falls in love with, Julie Nichols, played by Jessica Lange in an Oscar-winning supporting actress role. She leaves her two-timing boyfriend, the soap director, Ron, played by Dabney Coleman. Michael starts to understand women in this new role, and says he knows what it's like to get rejected just because he doesn't have the right "look" for a part. Because he is an actor, he realizes what it's like to be a woman, waiting for the phone to ring. He tells his agent (played by director Sydney Pollack) that he has something to say to women like him, but Pollack points out that there are no women like him. 

We see Michael at the onset of the film on the make, just like most. He later lies to Teri Garr's character, Sandy, because he doesn't want to reveal that he has taken the part for which she auditioned. He goes to bed with her to cover up why he is caught half-undressed, ready to try on her clothes. He then stands her up so he can be with Julie. Thus, he is not unlike the director, because he uses women, too. As Dorothy, seeing how the director treats Julie, and calls women "Babe," "Hon," and "Tootsie," he tells Coleman that he understands him better than he thinks, because he realizes now that there is no excuse for how Michael has treated women. It is when he experiences the condescension that women must endure that he changes his outlook.

Early in the film, Murray's character, Ted, tells Michael, who is making money being a waiter, just one role he plays, to stop being Michael Dorsey the waiter, or the actor, just be yourself. At that point, he isn't sure who that really is. It is through the film’s narrative that he learns to become a better man by being a woman.

Julie's dad, Wes, played by Charles Durning, becomes interested in Dorothy romantically. When he later finds out that “she” is a he, Wes is able to admit that he found Michael good company, and they are on their way to becoming friends as they shoot a game of pool together at the end of the movie. So, Les actually likes the person under the costume. He connects to the essence of the other person based on what is below the surface appearance. 

There are some insightful scenes in the film. As Dorothy, Hoffman can't get a cab to stop, but when he uses his real male voice, the cab stops. In that small scene, volumes are spoken about how society will follow the commands of a male over a female. Dorothy, at Wes' farm with Julie, has to share the bed with her. He wears a fake hairnet and the wig gets stuck and looks backward when he turns his head around on the pillow, illustrating the reverse universe of the film. In another scene, Julie tells Dorothy that it would be refreshing if a man would just say I want to make love to you, showing her desire to want sex just like a man without game playing: however, when Michael as himself says those words to Julie at the party they attend, it comes off like just another pick-up line, and she throws a drink in his face – acting like a woman is supposed to act with a forward man. 

Michael also begins to realize how much money and time women spend on wardrobe and makeup since appearance is what is valued above all else in society's assessment of women. At one point, the older actor on the soap says, after Dorothy receives candy from Les, that giving chocolates to a woman is a thoughtless gift, implying that it just adds weight to the female form – another reference to the emphasis on looks when it comes to women. When Julie finds out that Michael is Dorothy, instead of slapping him, like a woman is supposed to do, she instead punches him hard in the stomach, showing a role reversal, and how she has been influenced by the strong Dorothy even in this moment of the unveiling of his deception.

The first scene of the film shows Michael, putting on make-up, (which is really Hoffman, an actor, pretending to be an actor preparing for an actor’s role) presenting an outward appearance that is part of a role, something that is different than who he is in real life. But, don't all people play roles, dress up as doctors, teachers, office workers, firemen, policemen, etc.  And, don't actors, as well as others, bring forth to the outer performance inward qualities? And sometimes, doesn't the role, the outward action, transform the inner person? What do you think about how much the inner person is like or unlike what appears on the outside?

Next week’s movie is Sweet Smell of Success.

Ordinary People

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I know film critics went into rage mode when Ordinary People took the Academy Award for Best Picture for the year 1980 over Raging Bull. Where do you stand on this argument? In my opinion, it was a worthy winner. The acting and the directing, by first time helmer Robert Redford, hit artistic marks with Oscar caliber ammunition. The theme about the tension between the desire for control and limitations on behavior and thoughts and the conflicting need to break rules and boundaries has always been a subject of interest to me.

The very first scene lets you know where this film is heading. We see a placid lake with a hovering bird, both representing calm and peace. We then view reassuring vistas of autumnal trees and a safe, affluent suburban setting as the ordered, hypnotic sounds of Pachebel's Canon in D wash over us. We zoom in on the youthful choir singing words accompanying the music. Then, almost brutally, there is a cut to the main character, a sweat soaked Conrad (Timothy Hutton), waking up from nightmare. Thus, the conflict has been immediately presented to us between order on the surface and caged chaos raging beneath the controlled world above.

The water references above are intentional. Conrad survived, at least physically, a boating accident, in which the only other member of the crew was his older brother, Buck, who drowned. Conrad is psychologically underwater now, suffocating from guilt, not only for what happened to his brother, but because he attempted suicide by cutting his wrists in the bathroom, which, of course is associated with water. He is a member of the high school swim team, which symbolizes how he is unable to get out of the mental ocean threatening to swallow him up because of his "faults." When he finds out that a friend at the psychiatric hospital committed suicide, the first thing he does is throw water on his face, revealing his scarred wrists, implying that he feels guilty that he could not help her. Eventually his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch) makes him realize that he has to let himself off the “hook” (fishing reference) about saving himself in the boating accident. And, that he has to forgive his mother for her limitations. He tells his patient that he is not big on "control" which stifles feeling. Conrad's independence is illustrated when he quits the swim team.

His control obsessed mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), cannot cope with the upheavals in her family and deals with the problems by going on as if nothing has happened, submerging all attempts to openly deal with the pain suffered by her son and her husband, Cal (Donald Sutherland). Conrad states that his mother will not forgive him, that it was almost impossible to wash out the blood stains in the bathroom after his suicide attempt. Water is also used as a symbol showing the desire to clean up a mess similar to trying to wipe the memory clean of disturbing thoughts. Beth immediately shoves Conrad's breakfast down the garbage disposal when he says he is not hungry one morning. She tries to stifle her husband from mentioning that Conrad is seeing a psychiatrist, because this would acknowledge that a problem exists. She heatedly rebuffs Cal at lunch after he suggests that they all get things out in the open by seeing the psychiatrist. Then she quickly shuts up and puts on a happy face when the waitress approaches their table. Outward conforming appearances are what matter to her. If things look okay, then things must be okay. When they do a get-away to Texas, she and Cal argue over including Conrad in a future trip. He says that all her son wants is to let him know she doesn't hate him. She says, "Mothers don't hate their sons." She says it like it's a rule she is reciting from the Good Mother’s Handbook. She doesn't make it personal by saying that she cares for Conrad.

In the end, Cal gives a concise assessment of his wife. He says that everything would have been fine it there hadn't been any "mess." That she cannot deal with mess. This fact means that she is not really strong. This conclusion is the crux of why someone rigidly adheres to rules and accepted behaviors. They are crutches for the weak, who cannot face anything without supports to prop them up along life’s paths. People like Beth are not willing to let themselves test their inner strength by facing reality with an open, inviting mind.

There is so much layered in this movie, I think a thorough discussion can go on much longer. The performances by Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch are pitched perfectly. And Timothy Hutton, in his Oscar-winning role, hits every note, except maybe when he tries to sing. And blame Redford for the overuse of the Pachebel Canon at so many weddings.

Next week's movie is Tootsie.

A Man for All Seasons

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

Even if you do not subscribe to any established religious faiths, the issues raised by religion are essential to human nature. And religion's impact on history has been immense. One might think that a story set during Henry VIII's time about a conflict between the King and the Chancellor of England over the Catholic prohibition concerning a divorce would not speak to us today. But, that's not what this intelligent film by director Fred Zinnemann is really about. Its focus is on honor, integrity, and the courage to adhere to one's convictions no matter what the consequences.

Henry the VIII, played by a larger than life Robert Shaw, appoints Sir Thomas More, a lawyer and magistrate, as Chancellor to make him beholden to him in his battle with the Catholic Church. Sound familiar? The same situation is depicted in the film Becket, which has similar themes, and which I will discuss in another entry. Henry was given approval by the Pope to marry his brother's widow (considered by many as incest). He then wants to divorce her, saying that he shouldn't have been allowed to marry her in the first place. He now wants to marry Anne Boleyn (a wordless Vanessa Redgrave). Although I do not agree with the positions of the main characters in Becket and this film, I still find myself admiring them because the kings they oppose are not arguing an opposing ideology, but instead are only interested in fulfilling their own desires.  

Shaw's loudness is offset by the quiet strength of Paul Scofield's Oscar winning performance as More. Thomas tries to walk a moral tightrope as he tries to not open himself up as a traitor to the crown and at the same time keep his allegiance to the Pope.  So his fate hinges on what he says and especially on what he does not say. Words are very important in this story, and More's brilliance shines as he plays this legal cat and mouse game. The King, in order to get what he wants, breaks with Rome, and establishes the Church of England, with himself as its head. Those who oppose him on this action are considered traitors. Thomas resigns as Chancellor when he sees he cannot openly support the King, who requires his followers to sign a loyalty oath, which More will not do. And so he is brought to the Tower of London. But, he is very careful not to ever say that he opposes the King, not even to his wife, played by Wendy Hiller. It is ironic that he tells her at one point that he does not consist of the stuff of which martyrs are made. It is Richard Rich (John Hurt) who betrays him, perjuring himself by saying that More told him that the King through Parliament could not undermine the Pope's authority.

More is a complicated character. He is a devout Catholic, believing in the Pope's authority handed down from Jesus to St. Peter and his successors. He refuses to have his daughter (Susannah York) marry Will Roper (Corin Redgrave) until he renounces support for Martin Luther and thus stops being a heretic. But, he believes in the laws of man, too. He tells Will that he would give the Devil himself benefit of the law for his (More's) own safety's sake, stating that for the law to be effective, it must be applied universally. What More objects to in Roper, and especially with Henry, is that they have no codes to live by, no core belief systems, and that they change the rules on a whim to suit themselves. More says to Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles) that when a man in office ignores his own morality, he leads his country to chaos.

The motifs in the film enhance its themes. There is a great deal of going back and forth by boat between the seat of government and Thomas' home. This fact comes to symbolize the ethical distance between the King and the affairs of state and More's religious morality. At one point, because he is now considered out of favor with the King, the water taxi boatmen will not shuttle Thomas, and he must find his own way home, which emphasizes the loneliness of the person taking a moral stand against those in power.

When the King visits Thomas, he jumps from his boat into the mud. He laughs and, following his example, his followers all jump into the mud. The mud symbolizes the moral muck in which the King and his followers now reside. Henry's filthy mind is seen in how he lusts after Thomas' daughter, but turns away from her when she exhibits the beauty of her mind with her fluent Latin. Ironically, the man of no morals seeks the approval of the man of truthfulness to legitimize his selfish, lustful ways. Rich is tempted by Cromwell (Leo McKern) to inform on More, and when Rich falls backward into the mud after he is offered a post for his collaboration, you know that he, too, now wallows in corruption. 

Thomas tells Rich that he cannot employ him at Court or recommend him for a job in public office because he knows he will accept bribes. Thomas asks him what he would do with the money from a bribe. Rich says he would buy proper clothes. As we see Rich become more involved with Cromwell in the conspiracy against More, Rich's wardrobe becomes more expensive and elaborate. His exterior increases in adornment as his soul declines in worth. 

At the end of the film we are told that Cromwell, like any henchman whose mission in life is doing the dirty work their superiors delegate to them, was executed at the end of his usefulness. Henry died, appropriately, of syphilis. Rich, however, became Chancellor of England, and died in his bed. In this world, alas, the bad are not always punished. Thomas, whose moral constancy made him a man for all seasons, says at his execution that he was "the King's good servant, but God's first."

Does this film make a good argument about the need for the separation between church and government? What do you think?

Next week's film is Ordinary People.