Blue Velvet (1986)

 

Some filmmakers have such a distinctive style that we've come to call that style by their name: Hitchcockian, for example, or even Spielbergian. The late, great David Lynch belongs in that kind of rare company, as anyone could tell you after watching Blue Velvet (1986), a most distinctively Lynchian film. The film begins (and ends) with images of seemingly placid small-town existence, but then we burrow under the ground (literally and figuratively) and discover some rather harsh truths about such calm exteriors. The plot is a relatively straightforward narrative. In fact, it's quite linear in its method of storytelling, but as the film progresses, events just seem to get weirder and stranger and odder as we learn more and more about what's going on in the seemingly peaceful town of Lumberton. The trajectory of the story just keeps seem to keep getting farther and farther away from whatever we would consider realistic. Sadomasochism, sexual violence, murder, drug use, voyeurism -- it's really quite a list of vices that the film depicts. What constitutes "normal" begins to shift and morph until, at times, you wonder how you wound up in such a surreal environment. All of this begins with the rather common event of a young man (Kyle McLachlan, at the peak of his beauty, as Jeffrey Beaumont) returning home after his father has been hospitalized. You might be expecting a different story than what emerges, though, when Jeffrey discovers a severed human ear on the ground near his family home. He goes to the police, reconnects with a teenage girl he once knew (the lovely Laura Dern as Sandy in a very early screen appearance), and begins plotting to find out whose ear he located. That leads him to a nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini's Dorothy Vallens, a brave and shocking performance) and the man who may have kidnapped her husband and son: Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, giving all he has to the role). Frank is the catalyst who upends the narrative beyond recognition, and the film veers into some even darker, even weirder directions after his first appearance. None of this is necessarily meant to make you feel comfortable, by the way. What can you make of what happens in Blue Velvet? So much seems to be -- shall we say? -- off-kilter. Lynch was also the screenwriter for the film and what you see on the screen is his vision of... something. It's not always easy to comprehend the meanings of some of the images you see and the sounds you hear. I mean, you'll never quite listen to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" the same again after watching Dean Stockwell and then Hopper lip synch to it. The same is also true for Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet," performed here multiple times by Rossellini. Then again, perhaps Lynch is trying to suggest to us that we've been seeing and listening to everything the wrong way anyhow. Like I said at the beginning, Lynchian. Indeed.

Oscar Nomination: Best Director (David Lynch)

Top Gun (1986)

Top Gun may have a little bit of romance incorporated into its plot, but the filmmakers’ true sentiment lies with the male Navy pilots. There are so many shots of fighter planes that it’s little surprise that this film became a powerful recruitment tool for the Navy after its release. It stars Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and you just know he’s a rebel from his first appearance on the screen. He doesn’t care for following rules and obeying orders. When he’s not wearing the various uniforms, he’s in jeans and a leather jacket, sporting those aviator sunglasses everyone wanted in the 1980s and riding his motorcycle. In case the visual cues aren’t enough, the other characters describe him as “reckless” and “dangerous” and even “too aggressive.” He and his Radio Intercept Officer (a sort of a co-pilot), Goose (played with a bit of wry charm by Anthony Edwards) are assigned to the Fighter Weapons School, also known as Top Gun, in Miramar, California, to undergo the highest level of pilot training. Within moments of their arrival, you know that Maverick is going to clash with the commander, Viper (William Skerritt), a pilot who flew with his father. (Yes, of course, Maverick has “daddy issues” that must be—and will be—resolved before the film’s end.) Maverick and Goose will also face tough competition from rivals Iceman (a smug Val Kilmer) and Slider (Rick Rossovich) for the Top Gun trophy awarded at the end of the training. To make the plot even more complex, Maverick acquires a love interest in Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), who is a civilian contractor with a Ph.D. in astrophysics and who serves as an advisor for the pilot training. It’s more than halfway through the film before they kiss or have sex for the first time, and the sex scene is very stylized and rather short and not especially explicit. Part of that might be due to the fact that the homoerotic undertones to the film negate the attempts at heterosexual display. Actually, can you call them undertones when they are this obvious? Putting aside McGillis’s character’s masculinized name of Charlie, there are several moments that do very little to the further the narrative and instead seem designed to display the sexual appeal of the beautiful young actors. The infamous volleyball match, for example, only serves as an excuse for Maverick to be late to his first date with Charlie. It’s set to the tune of “Playing with the Boys” by Kenny Loggins, and they’re all shirtless and sweaty and quite sexy. I never did think Cruise had a great body, but the rest of the guys certainly do, particularly Rossovich, who flexes between serves just in case you missed the point of the scene. Another moment involves the men in white towels and white briefs (not your standard Navy issue, I think) standing around the locker room. Again, there’s no particular reason for this moment to occur where it does other than to provide an opportunity to display the beauty of the male form in this scene. (Rossovich tries to hide the bulge in his briefs with a towel, but he’s still a pretty spectacular sight.) Quentin Tarentino famously discussed the homoerotics of Top Gun in the film Sleep with Me (1994), but even if you remain skeptical, you’d have to admit that the film raises some interesting questions about masculinity. Goose’s death later in the film due to the loss of both plane engines, for example, sends Maverick into an emotional downward spiral. He mourns his friend by taking tokens of affection—pictures of them together, Goose’s dog tags, etc.—due to his guilt over his role in Goose’s death. He’s just not the same afterward, and his performance as a pilot suffers. He’s unable to complete his missions successfully; make of that what you will. Of course, this being a Cruise movie, he has to overcome his failures and behave heroically by film’s end. It’s up to him to rescue Iceman and Slider and a couple of other teams who are fighting Russian MiGs over the Indian Ocean. In other words, he has to bond with his former rivals and prove that he is as much of a man as they are. Given all of this masculine posturing, is it any wonder that Wolfman (Barry Tubb—whatever happened to him?) says early in the film, “This gives me a hard on”? To which his pilot, Hollywood (the stunningly handsome Whip Hubley), replies, “Don’t tease me.” This film is noteworthy beyond its proficiency in getting young men excited about joining the Navy and giving some of the most explicit homoerotic imagery in a mainstream film marketed to the male audience during the decade of the 1980s. It features early screen appearances by Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins, and McGillis’s performance is quite good, very understated compared to her co-star’s guileless charm. And there’s the music. Aside from the aforementioned “Playing with the Boys,” Loggins had another big hit with “Danger Zone” and Berlin got the song that would win the Oscar, “Take My Breath Away,” which underscores the film beautifully at various moments.

Oscar Win: Best Original Song for “Take My Breath Away”

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing

An American Tail (1986)

 

An American Tail manages to take a dark episode in world history, the fleeing of the Russian Jews from the pogroms of the late 19^th century, and turn it into a strangely educational and even somewhat entertaining animated film aimed. It manages to do this by focusing not on actual humans, but instead emphasizing a family of Russian-Jewish mice, the Mousekewitzes, who live with the human family of Moskowitzes and experience an attack by cats while the humans have their lives endangered by Cossacks. Everyone, humans and mice alike, boards a ship for America, a land that has been the subject of a lot of tales over the years, including the of-repeated myth that there are no cats in America. In fact, there’s even an entire song sung by the mice on the ship about the viciousness of the different cats in different countries which expresses how happy they will be that they will no longer face that kind of threat in America. The little mouse who is the central character of the film, Fievel (voiced by Phillip Glasser), gets swept out to sea because he’s rather naïve and constantly exploring when he should be minding his parents. Believing Fievel has died, his family members continue its journey on the ship. However, Fievel still makes his way to America, specifically New York City, in a bottle. They all arrive at about the same time as the construction of the Statue of Liberty, and the statue plays a prominent role in a couple of lovely if overly sentimental sequences. Its unfinished nature meshes nicely with the idea that America had (has?) yet to grapple fully with all the promises that it holds for immigrants. During his search for his family, Fievel befriends a couple of mice, one of them an Irish anti-cat activist whose speeches give a nice sense of the rhetoric associated with reform movements common at the time. He also encounters Warren T. Rat, a con man who runs a gang of cats who wreak havoc on the mice community. There’s a rather silly subplot involving the mice trying to figure out how to rid the city of the cats by using an old folk tale of the Giant Mouse of Minsk, but really, most of the events in the second half (or so) of the film seem designed to bring Fievel and his family into proximity only to have them miss seeing each other. This being a children’s film, there’s no surprise when the happy ending occurs. Before the Academy established the Animated Feature Film category, most such films were relegated to nominations in so-called minor categories involving sound and/or music. An American Tail received one nomination for “Somewhere Out There,” which became a huge pop music hit for Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram. In the film, it’s rather surprising that the duet is between Fievel and his sister Tanya. Certainly, that song is beautiful, but my favorite is “A Duo,” a duet (what else) between Fievel and the cat who is supposed to guard him while the young mouse is under Warren T. Rat’s control, Tiger (voiced by the great Dom DeLuise), about all the things that they have in common. Ultimately, the blending of Russian, Italian, French, Irish, and other nationalities, of pigeons and mice, of so many disparate combinations, speaks to the ways that immigrants became Americans—at least, in part, through their contact with other people. It’s a nice lesson for younger viewers. The Bluth Studios, which released An American Tail, typically used a darker palette than Disney did at the time. The use of very rich colors in the film and the striking combination of those colors make for a series of beautiful images. And the animators were very clever at times, such as when they made the storm aboard the ship resemble Neptune (or maybe Poseidon). Really, though, it’s the empathy you feel for the lost child that determines whether or not you think the film is successful.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“Somewhere Out There”)

A Room with a View (1986)

After watching A Room with a View, nominated for Best Picture of 1986, you can never hear "O mio babbino caro" without recalling this romantic film. It's such an integral part of my experience with this movie that I cannot truly picture most of the images from it without hearing the song playing in my head. And there are many beautiful images from this film. It's one of the best movies made by the collaboration between director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Add to that mix the source of the film, the lovely novel by E.M. Forster, and you have one of the greatest achievements of the 1980s.

Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith, in an exquisitely detailed performance) is accompanying her cousin Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) as chaperon on a tour of Italy. They are newly arrived, and they are unhappy with the rooms they have been assigned in the pensione. It seems that they were promised a view from their windows, but Charlotte, in particular, is unsatisfied--in more ways than one, the film suggests. A fellow English tourist, Mr. Emerson (Denholm Elliott), overhears their complaints and offers them the rooms he and his son George (Julian Sands) have. After much flustering embarrassment on Charlotte's part, the Rev. Beebe (Simon Callow) volunteers to act as intermediary. Crisis averted, at least for now, without Charlotte feeling a sense of obligation to a strange man.

What actually happens, of course, is that Charlotte and Lucy now come into repeated contact with the Emersons. The Emersons are rather free thinking compared to people like Charlotte, who always prides herself on being a model of propriety. After accidentally witnessing a stabbing while she is walking on her own, Lucy faints and is carried to safety by George. He tells her afterward, "Something tremendous has happened," and it has, just not to the poor stabbing victim. George has become obviously enamored of Lucy, and when they are on a trip into the countryside, he surprises her by kissing her. Charlotte sees the kiss and yells for Lucy to stop. She realizes that she must quickly get Lucy back to the protection of the Honeychurch family in England.

Unfortunately, Lucy has a suitor back in England by the name of Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis in an early role quite unlike the ones he would later play), and to be polite, he's a bit too effete and snobbish for a girl who has just had her first taste of what romance and passion can truly be like. We know this because Lucy plays Beethoven in such a vigorous manner that everyone feels obliged to comment upon it. (There's a link there between piano playing and sexuality that the film hints at ever so slyly.) She's agreed to marry Cecil, but when the Emersons take possession of a nearby house, she starts to worry about whether or not she has made the right choice. Through a bizarre set of circumstances, Freddy Honeychurch (Rupert Graves) and George become good friends, and George begins visiting the Honeychurch home with regularity.

I'll try to avoid a lengthy discussion of the sequence involving George, Freddy, and the Rev. Beebe at the pond. It has to be one of the most prolonged scenes of full male nudity in contemporary non-pornographic film. Of course, Lucy, her mother, and Cecil accidentally cross paths with the naked bathers. It's an interesting moment in the film, a sort of encounter between the free-spirited and the repressed. I'm sure it's meant to be symbolic in the way that Mrs. Honeychurch and Cecil seem embarrassed but Lucy is intrigued.

Charlotte comes to visit the Honeychurchs and discovers that the Emersons are living nearby. She and Lucy talk about what happened in Italy, even moreso after Lucy discovers that Charlotte has told a novelist named Eleanor Lavish (Judi Dench mining comic gold in a small part) about the encounter between herself and George, and now it has become the subject of the writer's latest trashy romance novel. You know at that point that Lucy must confront her feelings for George and for Cecil, and she must make a decision as to which man she truly wishes to marry.

I love the use of intertitles throughout the film. They are the same as some of the chapter titles from Forster's book, and they bring a smile to my face each time I read them. Few modern films can carry off the use of this technique more associated with silent movies, but A Room with a View manages it. I also love the repeated use of the word "muddle," a word taken directly from the novel as well. Mr. Emerson says at the beginning of the film that George is in a middle; I take that to mean that George hasn't yet found his way. He hasn't decided yet what he wants in life. Later, Mr. Emerson uses the same word to describe Lucy's emotions. It's a clever choice of word, and it's a good decision on the part of the screenwriter to keep it.

I realize that most people find the so-called Merchant-Ivory films to be all about surface beauty, and I will readily admit that they are beautifully shot almost like a series of postcards. The light always seems to be perfect, and the details of costumes and sets and props are always immaculately handled. Yet, while it may seem that very little happens in films like A Room with a View, a great deal happens within the characters. True, the only physical contact between Lucy and George is a kiss or two, but it's the repercussions of those kisses that matter. Lucy has to make a decision, and we as viewers are privileged to see how she does. It's rare that films delve with thoughtful intelligence into the psychology of characters, but when they do, as in this film, they can provide moments of tremendous clarity and beauty.

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hannah and Her Sisters, nominated for Best Picture of 1986, takes place over the course of one year. In fact, it begins with one Thanksgiving celebration and ends with the following year's party. It's an examination of the relationships between three sisters, played by Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, and Barbara Hershey. Each has her own set of issues to deal with, but many of them relate, quite unsurprisingly, to their relationships with men. This film, like many others by writer-director Woody Allen after Annie Hall, is somewhat episodic in nature, with intertitles separating scenes from each other and indicating the passage of time. By turns funny and charming and melancholy, Hannah and Her Sisters is a strong film overall, primarily due to the large and talented cast.

Hannah (Farrow) is divorced from Mickey (Allen) and now married to Elliot (Michael Caine). She's meant to be the stable one of the family, the one everyone else turns to in times of crisis, including their parents (the amazing Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O'Sullivan, Farrow's real-life mother). Wiest's Holly seems to be on a losing streak of late, having little success in her acting career and opening a catering business with a friend who turns out to be a rival for the affections of an architect. She has dated Mickey in the past, but a chance encounter later in the film starts them on a fresh relationship. Lee (Hershey) is happy, at least on the surface, in her relationship with an artist, Frederick (played by Max von Sydow), but once Elliot admits that he is attracted to her, Lee begins a clandestine relationship with her sister's husband.

Even in that brief summary, I've managed to leave out some remarkable moments, like the audition that Holly and her friend April, played with gusto by Carrie Fisher, attend. It's a disaster, by the way. There's also Daniel Stern's brief role as a potential purchaser of Frederick's art (so long as it's the right size for his big blank walls and matches the color of the furniture). The film also features several moments at Mickey's job, where he works with Julie Kavner and a series of other bright talents. The number of great performances in the movie is pretty staggering to contemplate, actually.

In the midst of all of this coupling and uncoupling and other activity, you have grand discussions of art and theater and television and numerous other "serious" topics. You also have an interesting series of vignettes involving Allen's Mickey going to doctor after doctor trying to determine if he has a tumor. It's overall a rather serious film by Allen, one that manages to blend comedic moments into realistic day-to-day events, the little moments that seem to become magnified when reconsidered. I know I've concentrated perhaps too much on the funnier aspects of Hannah and Her Sisters, but the overall emotional impact of the film is not primarily due to the bits that make you laugh. Instead, it's the warmth of the human interaction, the real feelings that are expressed--sometimes painfully--by these people. It's a well-written movie, of course, and worthy of its reputation as one of Allen's best.

Platoon (1986)

Platoon, the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1986, is Oliver Stone's examination of the nature of humanity. Through the eyes of a newly arrived soldier, a "grunt" played by Charlie Sheen, Stone's film attempts to show the two paths that Private Chris Taylor could take during the Vietnam War. He could turn out to be so hardened by the war that killing and destruction seem almost second nature to him, as in the case of Sergeant Barnes, played by Tom Berenger. Or he could become a man who has not yet lost his sensitivity, who still seems to harbor some sort of concern for his fellow human beings, as in the case of Sergeant Elias, played by Willem Defoe.

This morality tale plays itself out in the jungles of Vietnam, as a troop of soldiers makes its way along the border with Cambodia. There are several skirmishes with the Vietnamese soldiers and their allies. Many American soldiers are killed or wounded. Many villagers are harassed and beaten and killed in graphic, brutal fashion during the course of the movie as well. Platoon has numerous scenes that are incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Unlike several of Stone's other films, the narrative is relatively straightforward and easy to follow. As with all good war movies, this film suggests that the emotional and physical and psychological cost of war is just too great. It is, unsurprisingly, an anti-war film (as most of the good ones are).

There is perhaps a bit too obvious a choice that Stone makes in the fight for Taylor's soul between the two sergeants. One of them is quite clearly depicted as a Christ figure at one point. And the other has a series of jagged scars running down his face as if to suggest that he is torn on the inside as well, that he is "not whole." However, even if the choice is obvious, that doesn't mean that the struggle between the two men is any less realistic. This film features some harrowing scenes involving the two sergeants, and their conflict is what drives much of the dramatic tension throughout the movie.

A lot of people who would become famous later on in their careers appear in this film: Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker, John McGinley, Kevin Dillon. They're all good here, as are the three lead actors. This is an ensemble film, despite what the billing might suggest. Stone himself even makes a cameo appearance. (What he does to his own character is somewhat ironic, I think.)

If you haven't experienced or studied what the Vietnam era was like, this film can at least give you some perspective of how and why soldiers returned from the war changed. You can't go through what these men saw and did without being different from the way you arrived. Sheen's voice-over narration attempts to capture this sentiment, but I think that's the weakest part of the film. You don't really need words to tell you how much he sees and what he's thinking as the movie progresses. It's pretty obvious and clear.