Drive, He Said (Criterion #547).
1971 BBS Productions and Columbia Pictures.
Starring: William Tepper, Karen Black, Michael Margotta, Bruce Dern, Robert Towne, Henry Jaglom, Michael Warren, Charles Robinson, David Ogden Stiers, Cindy Williams
Produced by Steve Blauner and Jack Nicholson
Screenplay: Jeremy Larner, Jack Nicholson, Terrence Malick (uncredited)
Director: Jack Nicholson
Drive, He Said is only available as part of Criterion's box set America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. Amazon listings: Standard DVD. Blu-ray.
Jack Nicholson's directoral debut not surprisingly features basketball as one of the central plotlines. It's also an interesting, but disorganized film. I still found it compelling enough.
Hector Bloom (Tepper) is a star college basketball player from California who has found himself at a small university somewhere in Ohio (modeled after Kent State). His roommate Gabriel (Margotta) is from a well off family, but he's still harboring radical feelings and getting involved with campus protests. Both Hector and Gabriel are both facing the draft: Hector to the NBA, while Gabriel will do just about everything to not go to Vietnam. And Hector, as the film goes on, seems more and more unhappy at the thought of turning professional.
Hector is also having an affair with the wife of his favorite professor, Olive (Black), which comes to an end once he realizes that he's in love with her. And then, Olive reveals she's pregnant. Coach Bullion (Dern) does his best to run the team and keep Hector motivated while slowly realizing that his star player may not have the heart for the game and the rest of the team anymore.
Drive, He Said has one notable standout performance, from Margotta as the increasingly crazed radical Gabriel, and the film itself is good, but not great. Interesting, I felt nonetheless, even if the finished project came across more as a series of unrelated, episodic sketches that are only tied together by the main characters. Recommended movie.
Showing posts with label terrence malick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrence malick. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Days of Heaven
Days of Heaven (Criterion #409).
1978 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz
Music: Ennio Morricone
Director: Terrence Malick
Amazon listings: Criterion DVD. Original DVD release.
As of this writing, Terrence Malick has directed only four feature films, and is reportedly working on his fifth for release in 2010. Regardless, every single one of them are considered "masterpieces" by film critics, so Malick has to be doing something right by taking his sweet time between projects. Days of Heaven is the first Malick film I've bought and owned, so let's see how I feel about it.
Scenario: Chicago, 1916. A laborer named Bill (Gere) gets into a fight with his boss at the steel mill, and Bill knocks him down, probably killing him. Bill flees the Windy City before he can find out the fate of his boss, along with his sister Linda (Manz) and his girlfriend Abby (Adams). Everyone ends up in the Texas panhandle as seasonal workers for a rich and shy farmer (Shepard) who Bill hears is dying of a mysterious disease. Bill and Abby pose as brother and sister to prevent gossip.
The farmer falls in love with Abby, and Bill encourages her to marry him so they can inherit his money when he dies. After the wedding, Bill stays at the farm as Abby's "brother", but the farmer's foreman begins to suspect their scheme. Unfortunately for Bill, the farmer's health actually stabilizes.
Bill's true relationship with Abby is found out, at a time where she is falling in love with her new husband. The farmer attacks Bill with a gun, but Bill kills him in self defense with a screwdriver. Since there's a class difference between the farmer and Bill, not to mention that scam he was perpetrating, Bill would be considered a murderer if caught. Bill and the girls leave the farm, and the foreman puts the police on their trail. Bill is killed by the police, and Abby goes off on her own after leaving Linda at a boarding school.
Days of Heaven took two years to complete, with Malick scrapping the script after just two weeks, and instead shooting "miles of film with the hope of solving the problems in the editing room". The film fell way behind schedule, and went over its budget. Malick's new approach aggravated Gere, and producer Bert Schneider, who had mortgaged his home to cover the overages. The editing process took over two years to complete, and Malick had great difficulty piecing the film together, until he finally struck on the idea of Manz's character providing narration. Schneider, still angered with Malick, had to ask Paramount for more money to complete the movie, which he was not comfortable with. They got that, and more after a screening with studio executives. Malick was reportedly given "carte blanche" for his next movie, but the ordeal of making Days of Heaven saw him abandon his next movie for Paramount while it was being developed. He would return in 1998 with The Thin Red Line, however.
Highly recommended movie.
1978 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz
Music: Ennio Morricone
Director: Terrence Malick
Amazon listings: Criterion DVD. Original DVD release.
As of this writing, Terrence Malick has directed only four feature films, and is reportedly working on his fifth for release in 2010. Regardless, every single one of them are considered "masterpieces" by film critics, so Malick has to be doing something right by taking his sweet time between projects. Days of Heaven is the first Malick film I've bought and owned, so let's see how I feel about it.
Scenario: Chicago, 1916. A laborer named Bill (Gere) gets into a fight with his boss at the steel mill, and Bill knocks him down, probably killing him. Bill flees the Windy City before he can find out the fate of his boss, along with his sister Linda (Manz) and his girlfriend Abby (Adams). Everyone ends up in the Texas panhandle as seasonal workers for a rich and shy farmer (Shepard) who Bill hears is dying of a mysterious disease. Bill and Abby pose as brother and sister to prevent gossip.
The farmer falls in love with Abby, and Bill encourages her to marry him so they can inherit his money when he dies. After the wedding, Bill stays at the farm as Abby's "brother", but the farmer's foreman begins to suspect their scheme. Unfortunately for Bill, the farmer's health actually stabilizes.
Bill's true relationship with Abby is found out, at a time where she is falling in love with her new husband. The farmer attacks Bill with a gun, but Bill kills him in self defense with a screwdriver. Since there's a class difference between the farmer and Bill, not to mention that scam he was perpetrating, Bill would be considered a murderer if caught. Bill and the girls leave the farm, and the foreman puts the police on their trail. Bill is killed by the police, and Abby goes off on her own after leaving Linda at a boarding school.
Days of Heaven took two years to complete, with Malick scrapping the script after just two weeks, and instead shooting "miles of film with the hope of solving the problems in the editing room". The film fell way behind schedule, and went over its budget. Malick's new approach aggravated Gere, and producer Bert Schneider, who had mortgaged his home to cover the overages. The editing process took over two years to complete, and Malick had great difficulty piecing the film together, until he finally struck on the idea of Manz's character providing narration. Schneider, still angered with Malick, had to ask Paramount for more money to complete the movie, which he was not comfortable with. They got that, and more after a screening with studio executives. Malick was reportedly given "carte blanche" for his next movie, but the ordeal of making Days of Heaven saw him abandon his next movie for Paramount while it was being developed. He would return in 1998 with The Thin Red Line, however.
Highly recommended movie.
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