They Came Home. And With Them My Life Of Details: The Bridges Of Madison County (1995)

I have, much to my shame, gone for quite a bit of time without seeing a film directed by the prolific Clint Eastwood, who, politics aside, is a nearly indomitable figure in Hollywood history.  Furthermore, as a friend of mine suggests he is one of the only classicist directors still working, something that is quickly evident in what I have seen of his trailer, as well as his directing of The Bridges of Madison County.  For whatever reason, perhaps the fact that my memories of it emerge from being eight or so when it came out, I assumed this film to be an absolutely sappy and unbearable chick romance flick, one that I would never in a million years have attached to the hypermasculine Eastwood.  Of course, when I found this film again I had not realized that it was indeed directed by Eastwood and remembering that it was well received, or at the very least popular upon its release, I decided to give it a whirl.  The earnestly, beauty and intimacy with which Eastwood brings Robert James Waller's film to life, makes every lackluster adaptation of equally uninspired Nicholas Spark's books seem frivolous and ill-intended, A Walk to Remember excluded, a film for which I am quite fond.  The chemistry between Eastwood and Streep on film is palpable and instantaneous, a performance that would garner Streep one of her seemingly countless amount of nominations.  The films is not perfect by any means though and does suffer from a considerable length issue, mostly the fault of the somewhat unnecessary inclusion of the children's reading of their mothers account of infidelity.  However this minor criticism aside, The Bridges of Madison County is a magnificent work that forces viewers to reconsider their notions of first love, ageist assumptions about romantic intimacy and the degree of "infidelity" that occurs when an individual is stuck within an unfulfilling  marriage or relationship.  If we consider Eastwood to be a classicist filmmaker, which I do, it is in the way of melodramatic subtlety, a phrase I use intentionally for its oxymoronic quality.

The Bridges of Madison County begins with two adults meeting in the home of their late mother Francesca (Meryl Streep) to go through her personal belongings and undertake the enactment of her will.  The two children Carolyn (Annie Corley) and Michael (Victor Slezak) become particularly confused and reluctant when it is revealed that their mother request to be cremated and have her ashes strewn off the side of an old bridge near her house.  They make particular note of the fact that their father Richard (Jim Haynie) purchased to parallel graves to lay together in for eternity.  However, as a set of journals reveal, when the children and their father spent a week away at the state fair, Francesca engaged in an affair with a National Geographic photographer named Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood).  Michael is furious with the news, while Carolyn shows a considerable degree of intrigue beginning to thumb through the journal and see how such an act evolved.  It becomes clear, as viewers are situated into the initial encounter, via flashbacks and the diagetic narration of Francesca that the events unfolded in the most innocent of manners, first with Kincaid inquiring about the location of bridges then to Francesca offering to tag along as a guide.  Even when they spend their first evening together it is not sexual but simply the act of enjoying one another's company, over food and some brandy laced coffee.  It is the second day, after some suspicion by towns folk that Kincaid and Francesca are more weary, yet after purchasing a new dress for the occasion the two spend the evening together, eventually engaging in intercourse.  All the while we are shown Carolyn and Michael's reactions which evolve from outright discuss to deep understanding.  The night between the two is notably fleeting and despite Kincaid's demands that Francesca join him, she chooses to stay and welcome the return of her family, a painful moment that she accepts like a martyr.  By possible chance, Francesca sees Kincaid in town one last time and even has to suffer through sitting behind his truck at a red light, clutching the handle to her husband's truck as she considers fleeing into his world.  However, she does stay and instead asks in the notes of her diary that her children acknowledge her request, as it is the least they can do in return for her sacrificed happiness.

The fact of the matter with The Bridges of Madison County is that it is a first rate romance.  The love story depicted between the two aging idealists is something for the ages and is never forced.  I would suggest that it represents the simplest and most realized moments of burgeoning love.  It is hard not to see the pangs of initial attraction occur, when Kincaid first steps out of his truck, and it is certainly realized when Francesca discusses the erotic attachment she feels to Kincaid simply at the thought of ouccpying a space in which his naked body had resided only moments earlier, however, intercourse aside the evolution of their romance is youthful in the fullest of terms.  It begins by playful interactions in a car, leading to Kincaid picking wildflowers for Francesca, reminiscent of many a summer loves follies.  Furthermore, Kincaid's recollections on his brief experiences in a small town in Italy which Francesca originally hails, causes her to return to a youthful state, one that allows her to open veritable romantic floodgates.  If we then consider the location of their moment of sexual encounter, it plays beautifully into the youthful nature, in that it does not occur in a bed, but on a rug because of outside forces "condemnation" and interference.  However, romance of youthful hearts is obliterated with the reminders of Francesca's very adult responsibilities, ones that she must commit to and mean that their love must wait till the otherworldly to be fully celebrated.  In the end it causes the two adult children to reflect on their own love lives, which result in their acting with purposefully youthful zeal.

Key Scene:  The moment at the red light in which Francesca clutches the handle of the door seems to drag on forever, but it should as in her memories it went on for an eternity.

This was a stellar film, but not one I find absolutely necessary to own, yet should you enjoy romances this is top tier stuff.

You Have An Obligation To Your Own Sanity: The Hours (2002)

When you have a cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly and Jeff Daniels it is almost assured that the film will be great for acting along.  When you add Stephen Daldry to the mix as the director, it is promised that the films composition will also be something extraordinary.  Combine this together and you have a perfect film that will, undoubtedly, leave you an emotional wreck by its end.  This is clearly the case with the 2002 film The Hours, which received unprecedented praise and hype, and deservedly so, because it is cinematic magic in its most realized form.  I may come to realize this as my favorite film of 2002 and one of my favorites of the past decade, although I would have to further examine my choices at a later date.  It is an incredibly movie film that reminds viewers of the beauty and fragility of love, as well as the innate insanity of human desires.  Furthermore, the addition of a Phillip Glass soundtrack only makes what should seem melodramatic incessantly emotive and provocative.  Psychologically speaking, The Hours will grip viewers in incredibly visceral ways, despite it being a decidedly understated film.  I would group this work along the lines of something like A Single Man or some of the more vivacious episodes of Mad Men.  The Hours is a film one needs to view, if only for its delicate use of literary material, but most certainly for its transcendent answer to monotonous Hollywood filmmaking.

The Hours follows three narratives, centering on the build up to the suicide of Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman).  The Woolf portion focuses on her relationship to her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane), one that is tense at best.  Despite his best efforts to keep Virginia at bay, considering her increasing sickness, the ailing writer desires to be freed to write her work Mrs. Dalloway.  At the same time, Virginia anticipates the arrival of her sister and her children, only to scare them away considering her preoccupation with death.  Ultimately, the burden off it all proves to great for Virginia, and as history has told us, she loads her coat with rocks and walks to the center of a river to drown.  The second narrative focuses on a fifties housewife named Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) who is clearly disillusioned with her life and finds her self relating far to closely to the suicidal character in Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.  Despite having a loving husband, played on point by John C. Reilly, and the clear adoration of her son, Laura desires to escape her life because it only provides her a façade of happiness.  She plans to kill herself, like the protagonist in the novel, but decides that running away will prove more fruitful.  The third narrative ties the previous two together, focusing on the life of a openly gay New York writer named Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) who clings to her fragile relationship with her ailing poet friend Richard (Ed Harris) whose recent diagnosis with AIDS leads him to be bitter and distancing.  His attitude is only worsened by the fact that he is the son of Laura Brown from the previous narrative, causing him to suffer from serious abandonment issues.  Richard, keen to Clarissa’s suffering, nicknames her Mrs. Dallowy, a name that Clarissa carries with an unusual amount of pride.  Ultimately, Richard kills himself and Clarissa is left to clean up the pieces, most notably encountering a now aged Laura who states her reasons for abandoning her family, claiming that she does not feel guilty about her decision, because it was either that or to die.  Clarissa in a rather round-about way forgives Laura and the two’s narratives thus end, the film then cuts back to Virginia reading the final excerpts of her suicide letter, reminding her husband Leonard, that despite her imminent death that they will always have “the hours” they spent together. 

The Hours, as should be expected given its close ties to Virgina Woolf, is ultimately concerned with discussing issues of women’s lack of voice.  Woolf, clearly suffers the worst case of this throughout the film considering the era in which she lived.  Despite her clear genius as a writer and ability to be self-sufficient she is ultimately at the whim of her husband and the other males in her world, that deem her state of existence unsuitable for the public eye, thus forcing her to exist entirely in the private sphere.  After a failed attempt to escape such a life, Virginia kills herself to escape the despair of such a life, it is likely that if Leonard and other had allowed her access to the public world such actions would never have occurred.  Similarly, Laura suffers from such burdens.  The Laura narrative is indicative of the Betty Friedan notion of “the problem with no name.”  It is clear that Laura despises her lifestyle, yet given the conservative nature of the fifties and the patriarchal dominance that existed, Laura could not challenge any of these problems.  Even considering the clearly open nature of her husband, her option to rebel was not there, because to oppose the system then was simply not an option.  Even Clarissa, who represents the most advanced of women in the narrative, suffers from her own issues of silencing.  She is an openly gay woman with access to considerable wealth and education, yet it appears as though she still lacks a voice in some sense.  Perhaps it is her inability to win a prize or her continued desire to please the males in her world, but she suffers from a disillusion even greater than that of Laura.  In fact, it is not until Laura confronts her about her own problems in a past era, that Clarissa is able to take solace in her own state of power and freedom.  Ultimately, a film like The Hours shows an evolution of women’s oppression from the completely disenfranchised to the relatively free, yet is careful to note the continue need for forward momentum, while also acknowledging the advancement from the past.  Like the title suggests, reminds women that they should move away from oppression, as it is the only way to enjoy the hours of their lives.

The Hours was robbed of a Best Picture Oscar from Chicago, a film that I have not seen, but I, nonetheless, doubt is better than it.  Owning a copy is not essential, but it is well worth grabbing if you like any of the factors of filmmaking noted in the opening paragraph.