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Classic Movie of the Week OnM - July 6, 2002 *******
I stood in this unsheltered place
In this house of make believe
Down by the railway siding
Oh the wheel is turning spinning round and round ............ Peter Gabriel ( excerpts from Secret World ) ******* Got to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. ............ Bruce Cockburn ******* Oh no, you're thinking, he's going to be recommending one of those dreary, depressing, Ingmar Bergman-esque flicks that'll get me all broody and depressed, and then I'll have to climb out of my funk by forcing myself to remember that it's a warm, lovely summer night, and that I should go out and party for several hours just to get over it, and ... hey! that's a good idea! Well, party on, Wayne and Garth, but, no I'm not going to be recommending a broody, depressing flick, so either way things will work out. Read on if you dare! What I am going to be talking about isn't in regard to how depressing life is (or can be), it's about how normal life is (and will be). In fact, in the opening quotes'n'lyrics department just above, I was going to have a different Bruce Cockburn quote than the one you see there, namely the quip that is one of my all-time favorites from the extensive oeuvre of this brilliant man, The trouble with 'normal' is that it always gets worse. The reasons that I didn't are several-fold, but the primary one is that I consciously try not to repeat myself too often in my scribblings here at ATPo, and I have used this quote at least about 4 or 5 times over the last two years, I would guess. The secondary reason is that here, as I often do, I use quotes or song lyrics from people that may be taken out of their original context, and used to support an alternate one. I don't apologize for doing so, understand, because the nature of art is that it can be interpreted differently by different partakers-thereof, and so I see nothing wrong with taking a fine turn of phrase and bending it to serve my interpretive will, as long as that 'bend' doesn't do harm to the original general intent of the artist. For example, it would be wrong to take a lyric from a song about peace and brotherhood, and interpret it to support, say the KKK or neo-Nazi fascists, etc. Now by way of specific illustration, the set of lyrics shown from Peter Gabriel's song Secret World is not the complete set, some lines have selectively been removed. This makes the song work to describe some of the emotional/philosophical aspects of this week's movie, but it doesn't really change what the song is about. Many of the extra lines exist to make the poetry better fit a musical structure-- if the same work were to be written for straightforward oral recitation, and not singing, Gabriel would very likely have written it somewhat differently. Anyway, you get the idea, I think, and so we return to the Cockburn line 'the trouble with normal...'. I'm going to reprint the entire lyrics of this song here, so you can see the original context Cockburn intended: The Trouble With Normal / June 30th,1981 / Toronto, Canada. (c) Bruce Cockburn
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Fashionable fascism dominates the scene Jeez, now that's kinda extremely scary, isn't it? He wrote this in 1981-- over 20 years ago!!-- and it still seems as relevant as ever, maybe even more so. Obviously, this is what some factions would refer to as a 'political' song. Bruce is quite prolific, and writes tunes coving a range from the highly spiritual to the ironically comic, and on occasion does an 'angry' song like this one, or If I Had a Rocket Launcher. Now, I happen to know that each and every time that I have used this quote here at ATPo, I have not really used it in this sense. What meaning I have intended extends to a more general interpretation of the same line, namely something similar to the thoughts expressed in the old Grateful Dead tune, Uncle John's Band, where Garcia sings "When life is on Easy Street / There is danger at your door". To me, nothing is ever truer than this concept, and actually it's rather logical when you stop and think about it. After all, if you are at some peak point in your life, where everything is honey, gold and kittens, top o' the world, Ma-like and all, where else is there to go but down? Right? Right. What is sneaky is that 'normality' is like that too, if you consider that for a very large segment of humanity, the 'peak point' never occurs. Most folks don't get a high point, they just get a middle point. Call it a glass ceiling, call is class warfare, call it discrimination, call it plain damn fate, it doesn't matter-- 'Normal' is as good as it gets for millions of people all over the globe. And so there is (usually) nowhere but down from that point, either. But as with all rules and most generalities, there are exceptions, and those exceptions are critical, because they provide hope. One person who somehow manages to succeed, either by learning to become at peace with one's lot in life, or by managing to rise above it, inspires others to do the same. Which brings us to this week's Classic Movie, Gas Food Lodging, directed by the not overly prolific, but very talented Allison Anders. This film's screenplay is supposedly based on a novel written by one Richard Peck, but if you do a bit of research into the real life story of the director, you will find what seems to be a lot of semi-autobiographical material present. This isn't the standard rags-to-riches tale that Hollywood loves to hustle. Instead, Anders tells about the lives of three women; a mother and two teenage daughters, who live in the contemporary western desert lands of the United States, and who are quite possibly 'going nowhere' for the simple reason that circumstances leave them with very few options to go anywhere. The mother's name is Nora (Brooke Adams), and while she makes a modest living as a waitress in the tiny town where she and her daughters live, it's never enough to get ahead. Her husband left her some years back, and she has raised the younger daughter, Shade (Fairuza Balk ) and the older one, Trudi (Ione Skye) by herself. The two daughters have very different personalities. Shade is quiet, introspective and often involved in 'looking out for' her mother, such as by trying to fix her up with new boyfriends that could possibly become husband material. Shade spends a great deal of her free time at the local 'Spanish' movie house, and has an obsessive fascination with a charismatic Mexican actress. Trudi also lives at home, but resents her mother, or more accurately resents that her mother has passed along to her her tendencies toward 'failure with men'. This latter belief of Trudi's isn't very accurate, but it becomes easy to see how her life has led her to believe that it is so. Trudi, like Shade, sees attachment to a male figure as intrinsic to gaining 'a better life'. The differences lie in what the attachment would obtain. In Shade's case, she sees marriage for her mother as a way to elevate both her mother's financial status and basic sense of well-being. She understands her mother's pain in knowing that she doesn't have the skills necessary to better the household, and almost no chance of obtaining them on her own. The family lives from one paycheck to the next-- there is nothing left over for college or trade schools. Moving wouldn't help, this would only incur more debt that could never be supported. In Trudi's case, Trudi sees a relationship as a way to escape the small town life she hates; hates so much in fact, that she behaves in a sexually promiscuous manner in desperate hopes of finding anyone who can help her get away. These themes could easily become cliches before the first ten minutes of the film roll by, but in Gas Food Lodging they never do thanks to the excellent writing work Anders provides in her screenplay. No one in this film is 'typical'-- each character has his or her own circumstances that essentially force them into the particular directions taken in their lives, and this is what is important to realize as you become increasingly involved in the story. It is all too easy to say 'Well, why don't they do such-and-such...' until you realize that the answer to this is 'how?' Take Trudi's situation, for example. We start out by presuming that she behaves the way she does because she is some kind of 'golddigger', looking for a free ride. The reality turns out to be both shocking and sad, as Trudi finally admits the truth to a British geologist who comes to the area looking for some special rocks, and who quietly and persistently befriends her. We get the distinct impression that Trudi has never revealed this truth to anyone, not even her mother or sister. She does so to the geologist because unlike any of the men she has slept with in the past, he seems to show genuine affection and caring for her. Knowing this information (which I won't reveal here) changes one's whole perspective on Trudi, and makes what happens later in the film especially sad because we in the audience can clearly sense what Trudi cannot, because of the psychological predisposition that life has directed her into-- that there is some logical reason why the kindly and caring geologist has 'abandoned' her. You or I might make some phone calls, or do a little reasonable checking up when a loved one 'vanishes' for no particularly good reason. This never occurs to Trudi, and why should it? No one else has ever stayed with her. Past becomes prologue. Shade is equally fascinating. Unlike Trudi, Shade is content with her current surroundings, she just isn't fully aware of this fact yet, although she will be by the film's end. She isn't looking to escape from her 'small town life', she just wants to make her mother and sister happy again, because she has a tendency to live through others, not herself. What starts her on a direction to change this attitude is her steadily growing relationship with a local Mexican boy, who increases her sense of self-worth by accepting her for herself, and believing in her. This is the key to Shade eventually 'escaping' her destiny of 'normalcy', just as Trudi's key is to understand that she cannot stay in her birthplace, no matter what the cost of escape. (The price is high, but it wasn't a fully 'chosen' option anyway, it was a matter of making the best of a lousy situation, something Trudi has experience in dealing with). If a side-effect of bad fortune is the good fortune of getting away from an ugly past and starting all over again elsewhere, then you have to go for it, and she does. This film is photographed in a simple, but beautiful fashion that has the feeling of a documentary, and the 'ring of truth' aspect that comes from that variety of storytelling motif. It isn't a documentary in the traditional sense, of course, but it could have been, and that's a high compliment for a story about 'the trouble with 'normal''. Please check out this film at your earliest opportunity. It will raise your own 'normality' up a notch or two, and that's not sad at all-- it's a great way to kick the darkness
E. Pluribus Cinema, Unum, OnM
******* Technically we all live in a small town of the mind: Gas Food Lodging is not yet available on DVD, according to the Internet Movie Database, but it is available on VHS. The review copy was on laserdisc. The film was released in 1992, and running time is 1 hour and 41 minutes. The original cinematic aspect ratio was 1.85:1, which was preserved on the laserdisc edition, and probably will be on the DVD if it's ever released. Oh well. Writing credits go to Richard Peck for the novel the film was supposedly based upon, and to director Allison Anders for the screenplay. Cinematography was by Dean Lent, with film editing by Tracy Granger. Production design was by Jane Ann Stewart, with art direction by Lisa Denker and Carla Weber. Costume Design was by Susan L. Bertram. Original music was by J. Mascis. The original theatrical sound mix was standard Dolby Surround. Cast overview:
Brooke Adams .... Nora ******* Miscellaneous: The artist bios on the IMDb aren't always that complete or useful, even for a 'capsule' type of review, but just from what is here as regards Allison Anders, I think you will be as startled as I was to be made aware of how incredibly difficult her life was for most of her youth and young adulthood. To me, this makes the sense of balance and perspective she presents in her films all the more remarkable, since certainly the vast majority of people would be permanently embittered by 'life lessons' as unkind as many of these. Anders weathered a rough childhood and young adult life which not only encouraged an escapist penchant for making up characters but also an insider's sympathy for the strong but put-upon women who people her films. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's leg at age five as he abandoned her family. Traveling frequently with her mother and sisters, Anders would later be raped at age 12, endure abuse from a stepfather who once threatened her with a gun, and suffer a mental breakdown at age 15. Venturing back to Kentucky from Los Angeles at 17, she would soon move to London to live with the man who would father her first child. Upon her return to the US, Anders finally began to pick up the pieces of her life. She enrolled in junior college and later the UCLA film school and managed when a second daughter came along. Enchanted with Wim Wenders' films, she so deluged the filmmaker with correspondence that he gave her a job as a production assistant on his Paris, Texas (1984). After graduating from UCLA, Anders made her feature writing and directing debut, Border Radio (1987), a study of the LA punk scene, in collaboration with two former classmates. Her first solo effort, Gas Food Lodging (1992), telling of a single mother and her two teenage daughters, and her followup, Mi Vida Loca (1994), looking at girl gangs in the Echo Park neighborhood of LA where Anders settled, have shown her to be a deeply personal filmmaker who has used her own experience to make grittily realistic, well-observed, gently ambling studies of women coming of age amid tough, sterile social conditions. So, if you want to see more, here's a filmography, again courtesy the IMDb. As I said earlier, she's not prolific, but based on the three films I've seen, and critical commentary by others on the remainder, there's not a single loser so far. Allison Anders - Date of birth: 16 November 1954, in Ashland, Kentucky, USA Director - filmography
Things Behind the Sun (2001) *** Now, for some BC tidbits, from the website: http://cockburnproject.net/ 15 January 2002 - from Canoe Online Chat with Bruce Cockburn, 15 January 2002. Submitted by Suzanne D. Myers. Question: What is the meaning behind "Got to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight"? {lyrics from Lovers In A Dangerous Time} BC: "What I meant was that we can't settle for things as they are... just throw up our hands. There's another song called The Trouble With Normal that says things in a different way... if you don't tackle the problems they're gonna get worse." 29 June 2002 - Intro to Trouble With Normal at the Kate Wolf Folk Festival -- Submitted by Doug Stacey. BC: "Wavy mentioned to you that we were just up in Calgary where the G8, the 8 greatest hypocrites on earth, were meeting. Or at least, they would like to claim that title if they knew enough, making plans for everybody. It was interesting because there was, I mean the point of being there was to protest and there was a considerable amount of protesting going on but for once the cops actually got smart and they decided not to stop anybody from protesting. Instead of having riot cops out with shields and guns and all that they had bicycle cops. They still had guns you know but they looked less threatening they were in short pants and bicycle helmets right so you can kind of deal with that and what happened was no riot cops, no riot. Which was a great thing in one way and I was really proud to be part of a thing like that but the problem with it was vocalized by one media person that was heard to say 'if you guys have another one that is this dull we are not going to cover it any more'. So you are screwed if you do and screwed if you don't in the media world so Wavy's advice is right. I wouldn't say ignore them because it's good to know what someone is saying about something but don't be swayed by it. This is an old song that seemed timely when I wrote it and unfortunately it still does." ******* The Question of the Week: Did she jump, or was she pushed? Please do ponder, then post 'em if you've got 'em-- and I'll see you next week. Bye now! ******* Classic Movie of the Week - Gas Food Lodging - July 6th 2002
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