Sadly, actor and activist Danny Glover, perhaps best known
for his cop role opposite Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon series, has
acknowledged he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Always a
straightforward guy, he’d previously been frank about his youthful struggles
with epilepsy. Now, close to 80, he’s looking back at a career that has given
him a wide range of character roles in both wacky comedies and somber dramas.
His favorite? He acknowledges that he’s most proud of a 1984 slice of Americana
called Places in the Heart.
As a tribute to
Glover, and as a salute to the growing-pains of the USA in its semiquincentennial
year, I recently caught up with Places in the Heart. It’s definitely a
small film worth knowing, and not just because her leading role in it won Sally
Field her second Oscar, and the opportunity to gush to the Academy that "I
can't deny the fact that you like me—right now, you like me!"
(Personally, I can’t deny the fact that most people misquote her words as “You
like me—you really like me!”)
Places in the
Heart was written and directed by the late Robert Benton, who in 1967 came
out of New York to co-write (along with fellow Esquire journalist David
Newman) an historically -based screenplay they called Bonnie and Clyde. Their
script—about a pair of attractive young bank robbers gallivanting through the
Southwest during the Great Depression—eventually led to a production deal.
After some serious interest from François Truffaut, Arthur Penn ultimately shot
Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren
Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the leading roles. It became a national sensation
and scored 10 Oscar noms in a highly competitive year.
After that triumph, Benton pursued his interest in directing
as well as writing, winning Oscars in both categories for the 1979 divorce
drama, Kramer vs. Kramer. But he was a native Texan, and perhaps that
dry, dusty landscape continued to call to him. In 1984, he returned to his
roots, crafting a Depression-era story set in Waxahachie, Texas, with nary a
bank robber in sight. Life is not easy in Waxahachie: Edna Spalding (Sally
Field) has been left a widow after the accidental killing of her husband, the
local sheriff. Desperate to support herself and her young children, she takes
in a boarder, a bitter ex-soldier (John Malkovich) who lost his sight during
the Great War. She also takes pity on the African-American drifter (Glover) who
shows up to do chores, even though he’s been caught trying to steal her silverware.
Edna’s basic good-heartedness proves contagious, and a viable new household
forms. But there are also many external challenges: the bank is eager to
foreclose on Edna’s acreage; her sister’s marriage is threatened by a
philandering spouse; a powerful tornado (dramatically filmed) flattens the
town’s center; the Ku Klux Klan violently turns on Glover’s character. Somehow
Edna holds on, leading to a remarkable final scene in which love and redemption
surface in a way that can only be called mystical.
1985 was a year of BIG movies, led by Amadeus, A Passage
to India, and a powerful drama about journalists covering the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia, The Killing Fields. Folksy Americana hardly seemed
like one of the film-year’s major areas of interest. But Places in the Heart, a loving,
inspiring, and yet down-to-earth portrait of small-town life, holds its own
among the costume epics.
I wish Danny Glover well, and hope he’ll be able to cling
onto his memories of being a central figure in this tender film.
No comments:
Post a Comment