More Work Was Needed on Remake

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"I know now that the love we hold back is the only pain that follows us here."

Pete (Richard Dreyfuss)

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It's hard for me to think of "Always" (which debuted on this day in 1989) without comparing it to the movie upon which it was based, "A Guy Named Joe."

And, for the most part, I think the actors who were cast in the remake were pretty good choices, but the movie fell short of the mark.

Holly Hunter has been excellent in just about everything she has done, and she was a good choice to play Dorinda, the role originally played by Irene Dunne. Film critic Roger Ebert agreed. "The best casting in the movie is Hunter," Ebert declared, "bringing some of the same urgency and hard-bitten impatience that made her right for 'Broadcast News.'"

I like John Goodman. He's one of those guys who is funny no matter what he says or does. As far as I was concerned, he was much better than Ward Bond as Al, the colleague and best friend of the main character, Pete, who died early on and appeared as a spirit for the remainder of the film. But Goodman has been in better movies.

There were different characters who assisted Pete in his transition from the mortal world to the spiritual one. In "A Guy Named Joe," which was set in wartime, it was the spirit of a fellow pilot who had died in a fiery crash. He was played by Barry Nelson, who wasn't as good as the spirit Hap, played by Audrey Hepburn, who assisted Pete, a peacetime pilot who put out forest fires, in "Always."

Van Johnson played the guy who courted Dorinda after Pete died in "A Guy Named Joe," and it might seem like a no–brainer to prefer him to Brad Johnson, who played the role in "Always," but Van Johnson was appearing in his first movie. He wasn't as polished as he became. Brad Johnson was one up on him, having appeared in a low–budget production the year before "Always" was made, but, essentially, they were at the same point in their careers; over the long haul, it is safe to say that Van Johnson did more with his than Brad Johnson did.

It was pretty close, but I would give the nod to Van Johnson.

It was in the starring role where "A Guy Named Joe" had a decisive advantage, as far as I was concerned. Don't get me wrong. I like Richard Dreyfuss very much. I think he is quite talented, and I liked his performance in "Always."

But Spencer Tracy delivered what may have been the best performance of his career in "A Guy Named Joe."

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Don't let that take anything away from Dreyfuss' performance. He was very good. But there was only one Spencer Tracy, right?

Ebert struggled with many of the same issues when he reviewed the movie 25 years ago. His bottom line about "Always" was that it suffered from a "lack of urgency."

"Even though pilots are flying into the jaws of hell," Ebert wrote, "they have an insouciance, a devil–may–care attitude, that undermines the drama."

Hmmmm. I hadn't really thought about that, but it does explain some of my ambivalence about the movie. I mean, with all the advantages "Always" had in its cast and director (well, I guess that depends on how one feels about Spielberg as opposed to Victor Fleming, who directed "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind" before he directed "A Guy Named Joe"), why, I wondered, did I prefer "A Guy Named Joe"?

I think it was because there was a kind of nobility, an admirable sense of self–sacrifice in "A Guy Named Joe" that was missing from "Always." Maybe that was a by–product of the war backdrop. Tracy didn't like helping someone else win Dunne's love, but it was part of his mission to "give back" to the living. He seemed to fully grasp that fact after his conversation with the general (Lionel Barrymore).

Tracy's mission went farther than just helping Dunne love again and move on with her life. His mission involved passing along his expertise as a pilot and contribute to a greater cause.

Putting out fires is an important cause, too, and Dreyfuss' character was one of the best at it, but fires are more random than war. I'm not saying that firefighters don't put everything on the line because they do, but the pressure on a soldier during wartime is unrelenting whereas the pressure on a firefighter mostly exists (it seems to me, anyway) while the fire exists.

That was the impression I got from the characters in "Always." They were dedicated to their jobs, but they were relaxed when they weren't trying to control a fire. It went in waves.

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Of course, this is all speculation on my part. I was never a firefighter, and I never fought in a war.

I'm sure many of my beliefs about both have been influenced by things I have seen in movies — and movies, I will grant you, are not necessarily factual.

It just seems to me that the pressure on soldiers would be constant. Even if they are not in a battle, soldiers can't let their guard down for a second because an enemy attack could happen at any time.

The only comparable experience for pilots who fight forest fires would be during periods of extreme drought. In such times, pressure must be unceasing for those pilots.

A kind of sense of invincibility seemed to permeate the pilots in "Always."

Of course, one of the points of the story was that they were not invincible.

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And I would be remiss if I didn't say more about Hepburn's contribution to the story.

She was, as I have said, the spirit who helps Dreyfuss make his transition to the spiritual world. I've been a Hepburn fan for many years, and I was deeply saddened by her death at the age of 63.

She was the third–greatest movie actress, according to the American Film Institute.

And Hap's understated way of breaking the news to Pete — while she was cutting his hair in the woods — was really delightful.

"I don't want you to think that I'm doubting your good faith," Pete said. "I just want to get one thing clear, okay?"

"Okay," Hap relied.

"Am I dead?" Pete asked.

"That's right," Hap answered.

"I'm dead?" Pete asked again.

"Right," Hap replied again.

"Keep the sideburns," Pete said. "Boy, what a jerk I turned out to be. Dead! And now I'm sitting in the woods, getting my hair cut."

"Always" was only modestly successful commercially (unlike most Spielberg productions), which may be why Hepburn wasn't nominated for an Oscar. Of course, her part was really just a cameo appearance, but it was her final movie role. Seems a shame for a great actress like that to go out without even a nomination for her final performance.

Of course, at the time, no one knew it would be her last performance.

Actually, "Always" received no Oscar nominations so it isn't as if Hepburn was denied something her colleagues received.

So the Oscar shutout wasn't really a surprise. It wasn't an original story, and the cast, while good, didn't really make a major impression.

Ultimately, I had to agree with Ebert's conclusion: "The result is a curiosity: a remake that wasn't remade enough."

The Softness of The Firm

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Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise): I know it's weird, but if we follow the law, it just might save us.

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As I have mentioned here before, my parents were devotees of the mystery genre — books and movies (and similar things, like stage plays and TV shows).

Well, the past tense applies only to my mother. My father is still alive, and he still enjoys a good mystery.

I inherited a taste for some of my parents' preferences. I enjoy Hitchcock movies, for example, and I like Agatha Christie novels. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, there are some things I've never really warmed up to. Dad likes John Grisham novels (I don't know if Mom ever read one); I've never really developed a taste for them.

Consequently, I cannot explain why I went to see "The Firm," a Tom Cruise movie that was based on one of Grisham's best–selling novels and made its theatrical debut 20 years ago today. But I did. And I actually enjoyed it.

I can't say I watched it because of Tom Cruise. I have never been a Tom Cruise fan.

And it wasn't because I read the book and couldn't wait to see it on the big screen. I haven't read many Grisham novels in my life, but I know "The Firm" was not one of them.

Besides, I've heard the movie took considerable liberties with the story.

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Perhaps it would have been received better if it had been true to the book. As it was, I found it hard to have much sympathy for Cruise or his wife (played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, who I honestly thought would see more of an upsurge of her visibility in movies than she had after appearing in 1992's "Basic Instinct," in which she played a rather small role as a police psychologist and Douglas' mistress.

(Tripplehorn's career, however, seems to have gravitated more to TV roles of late.)

In "The Firm," Cruise and Tripplehorn played a young, struggling couple in Boston, where Cruise was finishing his law school studies. Like generations of college students before them, they had lived a frugal lifestyle while Cruise was in school, but, upon his graduation, they were swamped with lucrative offers from law firms.

The most appealing offer came from a firm in Memphis. It was almost an offer that Cruise couldn't refuse, and he didn't.

But it wasn't long before Cruise and Tripplehorn came to realize that there was a big catch. Essentially, they had to sell their souls to the firm, something that Cruise was initially willing to do, but Tripplehorn was not.

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One of my favorite scenes was when Cruise was being prepared by The Firm for his bar exam. Various associates were assigned to help him with different aspects of the law, and each enunciated the clear talking point — "No associate has ever failed the bar exam."

The obvious comparison that was made at the time the movie was showing on the big screen was that it was like the body snatchers tale told in "The Stepford Wives" — if memory serves, there were even references to "The Stepford Wives" in the movie itself — but I thought it was more reminiscent of "Rosemary's Baby," with Cruise being welcomed to the family of The Firm with open arms.

The Firm's corruption became clearer and clearer, and Cruise and Tripplehorn finally took steps to extricate themselves.

The movie itself was, I thought, overlong and a bit anticlimactic. But, whatever shortcomings the story had, I thought the acting was first rate. Cruise and Tripplehorn were strong in their roles — as were supporting actors like Gary Busey, Holly Hunter, Wilford Brimley, Hal Holbrook and Gene Hackman.

Of them all, I felt Hackman gave the best performance. As a burned out senior lawyer, he managed to do what only Gene Hackman could do with such a role — he made the character sympathetic. It was not a sympathetic role. I have no idea if it was treated as one in the book, but it took someone like Hackman to make it so in the movie.

The ending of the story did tie in with the bar exam, but I won't tell you how. Might as well let that be a surprise if you never saw the movie, but I'll warn you: it was hard for me to work up a great deal of interest by the time the movie ended. The supporting cast was good, as I said, but I just didn't feel as invested in the ending as I expect to feel when I see a good drama.

I don't consider that a failing of director Sydney Pollack or of the cast with which he worked, but something was missing. I expect he did the best he could with what he had.

"The Firm" was just too soft.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

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Director Jane Campion deserved recognition for 1993's "The Piano" — and she was nominated for an Oscar.

She wasn't the first woman to be nominated for best director (that distinction belonged to Lina Wertmüller some 17 years earlier), and she wasn't the first female director to win the Oscar (that was Kathryn Bigelow some 16 years later).

She did, however, win an Oscar for best original screenplay.

I'm inclined to think that no female director has ever taken on a project that was so risky as bringing "The Piano" to the screen.

It was risky for many reasons, largely because of its portrayal of a strong female with no voice (an intriguing element of a story set at a time when women who were not mute had no voice in anything) whose hand in marriage was promised by her father to a farmer from New Zealand (Sam Neill). With little more than her young daughter and her piano, Hunter's character embarked on the arduous journey from her native Scotland to New Zealand.

Hunter's and Neill's marriage was a loveless one, but Hunter's character found love outside her marriage with a neighbor (Harvey Keitel). Neill's discovery of his wife's infidelity prompted him to take the drastic step of hacking off one of her fingers with an axe, thus depriving her of the ability to play her piano (or so he thought).

For that matter, I'm also inclined to think that few actresses have faced a greater challenge than Holly Hunter faced in playing the mute Ada. I always thought it was a special kind of acting challenge, and the Academy rewarded it with the Oscar.

I can only presume that it must have been a considerable challenge for Hunter to say the things her character needed to say — but without articulating them. I'd been impressed with Hunter's talent before I saw "The Piano." I was filled with even more appreciation after I saw it.

Hunter's 11–year–old co–star, Anna Paquin, won the Oscar for best supporting actress. And her performance, as Hunter's spiteful daughter, certainly rang true.

Paquin remains the second–youngest winner of Best Supporting Actress. Tatum O'Neal, who won the Oscar 20 years earlier for her performance in "Paper Moon," is still the youngest–ever recipient.

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It was a haunting story, particularly if one compared the setting of the late 20th century (when the film was made and released) to the setting of the story in the mid–19th century.

I didn't see it when it was in the theaters. Instead, I saw it at home on TV a couple of years after it was released. As a result, I have no firsthand knowledge of how women in movie audiences reacted when they first saw Hunter's Oscar–winning performance. If they held her 19th–century character to 20th–century standards, that wasn't fair.

But if Hunter's performance made them think about and appreciate the strides women had made in the intervening century and a half, that would be more than fair.

Fun With Aaron, Tom and Jane

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Aaron (Albert Brooks): Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn–on?

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It was 25 years ago today that "Broadcast News" premiered.

As a journalism professor with many years of newsroom experience under my belt, I feel there ought to be something profound I should say about that. But I'll be darned if I know what it is.

Of course, my experience is exclusively in print, not broadcast, and there is a world of difference between the two. Within that difference, perhaps, is the insight that is needed to discover whatever lesson "Broadcast News" was intended to teach.

But I lacked that insight at the time, and I am afraid I still do.

Of course, I've seen newsroom romances, so the relationship between Holly Hunter and William Hurt was not, ahem, virgin territory for me. In my experience, it was a bit exaggerated at times — but, hey, can you name a romantic comedy that wasn't exaggerated?

It's the exaggeration that makes it funny. That's important in a romantic comedy.

But I kind of felt "Broadcast News" was more than a romantic comedy. It was also something of a spoof on broadcasting — not as biting as, say, "Network," but, in its way, just as prophetic.

And I guess there were no moments in "Broadcast News" that were as memorable as Peter Finch's "I'm as mad as hell" rant in "Network," but they were often just as clever — and every bit as telling.

One of my favorite lines was when Brooks was feeding information to William Hurt by phone via Hunter. He said something to her and, a few seconds later, the same thing, practically word for word, came out of Hurt's mouth.

"I say it here, it comes out there," Brooks remarked.

Hurt's presence created a romantic triangle that William Shakespeare might have envied. Brooks, naturally, was in love with Hunter, but, while she was Brooks' friend, it could never be more than that for her.

However, she was strongly attracted to Hurt, an aspiring anchorman who excelled at reading what was put in front of him and the nuances of visual appeal on camera, but he was not a reporter. He read others' prose flawlessly but often could not comprehend what the stories really meant.

Hurt's character didn't pretend that wasn't an issue for him, either. "It's not that I'm down on myself," he said. "Trust me. I stink."

And yet he was on an upward professional trajectory.

It was hard, really, to argue with Brooks' reasoning for why Hurt's character was the devil.

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What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? ... He will be attractive! He'll be nice and helpful. He'll get a job where he influences a great God–fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing! He'll never deliberately hurt a living thing ... he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit. And he'll talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

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In many ways, that sums up my feeling about modern journalism.

Or, at least, broadcast journalism.

When I was growing up, journalists were dedicated to one thing — pursuit of the truth, regardless of who might be hurt by its revelation.

But most modern journalists — primarily on the broadcast side although there are some in print, too — give their allegiance to their political agenda, whatever that may be. For most, I guess, it is a progressive agenda, but there are some whose agenda is conservative.

Either way, a political agenda has no place in news reporting — in fact, I can remember a time when anything with the slightest whiff of partisanship was clearly labeled opinion. But a place is being made for it in news coverage by reporters who, more and more frequently, insert themselves into their stories.

There is a shallowness to that that I find disturbing. And I shouldn't be surprised when my students seek to emulate it — although it really is surprising just how often I am surprised by that.

"Let's never forget," Brooks told his colleagues at one point, "we're the real story, not them."

This is more relevant to me today than it was when I saw it on the big screen.

As a journalism professor, I am constantly dealing with students who insert themselves into the story, and I am reminded of what Brooks said to his co–workers. When journalists are on the scene, we are the real story, not them.

I have had students who would have felt entitled to be given a comment by the relative of a victim of some horrific event — and would have felt ripped off to be denied one.

When journalists are covering great tragedies, like Friday's shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, it isn't about getting the facts right. It's about having something to say first, whether it is factual or not.

And it's about looking good when we say it.

But there's more to it than that.

In my newsroom days, there was always a distinct line between editorial and advertising. There were times, I'll grant you, when the relationship could be adversarial, and that was understandable, considering that it was really a territorial squabble. Editorial always wanted to have as much space as possible, and advertising looked upon space as a commodity to be bought and sold. Something had to give.

I never worked in broadcasting, but I assume a similar dynamic was — and still is — at work in that arena, in which time was/is the commodity, not space.

Hurt's character may not have comprehended the stories he read to his audience, but he understood the concept of selling:

"Just remember that you're not just reading the news, you're narrating it," he advised Brooks. "Everybody has to sell a little. You're selling them this idea of you, you know, you're sort of saying, trust me, I'm credible. So when you feel yourself just reading, stop! Start selling a little."

For anyone who has worked in journalism, be it broadcast or print, it is a familiar tug–o–war.

And, as far as I was concerned, the greatest flaw of "Broadcast News" was its failure to address that dynamic. It got off to a great start — when Hunter's character was seen lecturing a drowsy conference audience about the declining standards of broadcast journalism.

The audience was revived when she ran a video clip of an event that had been carried by every network news program on a particular night — a clip of an extended domino run that produced exactly the opposite reaction from the one for which Hunter's character had hoped. No indignation, but plenty of appreciative "oooohs" and "aaaahs" and applause.

The point had been made, and I believed the movie's message would be the triumph of style over substance. I thought it would be a lot more like "Network."

But it quickly became a romantic comedy with broadcast journalism as the backdrop.

In that respect, it probably succeeded in entertaining the audience, like the domino clip — but, like Hunter, I felt disappointed and let down, and I continued to feel that way as the movie frequently flirted with the possibility of exploring the issues it raised but always pulled back at the last moment, going for the kind of gags you've laughed at in every romantic comedy.

The cast did a great job with what it was given, and I admit that there was a very human quality to the characters. That's important for a romantic comedy. It can't succeed if the audience doesn't care about the characters.

Still, though, I was disappointed. I really expected more of an indictment of broadcast journalism than I got, and perhaps that was unfair.

I cared — and still do care — more about my profession.

When Love Hurts

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There is a condition called paraphilia in which people experience sexual arousal through extreme, usually nonsexual circumstances.

A really extreme form of this condition provided the premise for a movie that was released on this day in 1996 — "Crash."

The topic was rather controversial at the time — and, I suspect, it would still be controversial today. The paraphilia sufferers in the movie experienced sexual pleasure from car accidents.

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The movie starred James Spader, who was no stranger to controversy, having played a voyeur in "sex, lies and videotape" seven years earlier, and Holly Hunter, who also was no stranger to controversy, having played a mute 19th–century woman who has an affair in "The Piano."

And, while both of those characters could be considered dysfunctional to some degree, they were hardly as dysfunctional as the characters those actors played in "Crash."

Depending upon how you feel about that movie and those characters, it represents a high point or a low point in their careers. I'm not sure where I fall on that scale, but, either way, it was a disturbing movie.

It was disturbing when Spader's and Hunter's characters crossed paths the first time, and it got more bizarre.

They were involved in a two–car collision in which Hunter's husband was killed. As they waited, trapped in the wreckage, for help to arrive, they could see each other and Hunter, after pulling off the shoulder strap of her seat belt, exposed one of her breasts.

They met again while recuperating in the hospital. This time, Spader met a man named Vaughan who began to draw him into the world of paraphilia.

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And Spader was drawn into Vaughan's shadowy underworld, in which he staged re–creations of famous car accidents, like the one that took James Dean's life in the 1950s, for the entertainment and arousal of his fellow paraphiliacs.

(Ironically, the movie was released only a few days after the 41st anniversary of Dean's death.)

I had never heard of paraphilia before I saw "Crash," but, apparently, it transcends sexual preference, and I suppose it is obvious (if one has seen the movie) that it fairly decisively overrules traditional gender roles.

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Both Spader and Hunter had homosexual affairs in the movie, and, at one point, it was implied that a ménage à trois might be about to happen, although, as I recall, that was never confirmed either visually or via dialogue.

(I suppose supporting actress Rosanna Arquette had the most varied sexual activity in the movie. A beautiful member of Vaughan's group whose legs were encased in steel braces, Arquette's character had a scar on the back of one of her legs that resembled female genitalia — and was used as such by Spader's character — but she also had an intense lesbian affair with Hunter's character.

(I guess nothing is as hot as twisted steel.)

It may go without saying that this was not a movie for the squeamish. But, as I say, it introduced me to a world that I never knew existed. It broadened my horizons.

But, if the entry fee for that world is injury in a car crash, I think I can live without it.