A Few of a Father’s Favorite Films—Leaving a Legacy

Sparing a child stories of parents’ sufferings

His parents were children of the new century. The flapper-style, tuxedo-elegance, and self-indulgence of the 1920s came to them through newsreels, if at all.

The Great Depression, however, that was personal; it imparted a caution, wariness, and reserve that lasted their lifetimes. Though not hobbling, the vestiges of the Depression had them pack away memories of financial worry; had them withhold accounts of financial worry and struggle; had them refrain from using deprivations as object lessons.

They were not given to financial “war” stories. Their cautions were conveyed in their reserve, their reticence. There were no admonishments of the “when I was your age” comparisons.

There was no flamboyant spending; no unnecessary spending. They spent (on tuition) so their son’s memories would be different from theirs – and better.

What to save for, impose on, subsequent generations

Now, decades and decades later, the son who was spared sufferings (and stories of sufferings) finds himself embarrassed by all the photos, scrapbooks, clippings, and mementos he has saved – in handsome meticulously-composed albums and keepsake files. There’s a vintage oak map-chest whose drawers house laminations of clippings and photos and certificates.

But be assured, he is not – not – a narcissist.

More and more, it seems – he is more and more embarrassed by all that he has saved and preserved.

He has begun jettisoning some of the photos and clippings and commendations. The winnowing seems right and feels good.

What he is holding on to are the bits about his parents. There is so little. Still, the bits and pieces he has managed to find take on increasing importance – for what they might mean to his kids and grandkids; and what they mean for him.

More and more – as he sheds more and more of his past – the past that came before he came into being has piqued his curiosity. And with so little from his parents’ lives, he concludes (with some embarrassment) that he has saved so much about his own life by way of compensation – as antithesis.

And yet, too much is, well, too much.

More winnowing, and shedding.

What to save, what to hold onto, what to tuck away and preserve? How much would be too much? What might would be too little?

A Father’s Days

At the age of 35, his father was inducted into the U. S. Army Air Corps. At the age of 38, on June 6, 1944, he went ashore at Normandy.

That father never spoke about his four and half years in the Army. Never spoke about Normandy, France, or the Rhineland.

The son sensed that his father much preferred to have moved on. Nothing from those years was prominently saved (let alone displayed). A few medals were tucked away in his father’s desk drawer, along with two photos (presumably Army entry and departure pics).

These were tucked away in the knotty-pine kneehole desk from which the father wrote checks for all the son’s tuitions. The son supplemented the father’s generosity with payments received as an ROTC cadet. The son’s ROTC clippings and commendations outnumber what his father retained from actual service in World War Two.

The irony does not escape the son. What escaped was finding out what it was like in June of 1944.

There were “slips” – when the father’s recollections may have been too pent up; and slipped out as if the release might bring about a catharsis or a putting-to-rest. The son never had the courage to pursue – perhaps sensing an opening or opportunity had not been intended.

Perhaps a mark of greatness from “the greatest generation” was the composure and restraint and reticence that is in such marked contrast to the self-congratulation and self-celebration of the new millennium.

What might have triggered and prompted the relation of what was mortally harrowing

The son reaches back and grasps at the moments of connection when he and his father watched a war movie. The father passed eleven years before the release of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Of particular interest to the son, are the Spielberg depictions of the approach to the Normandy beaches and the D-Day landing; the slog to wade ashore with heavy packs; the scramble to find some cover, any cover. The film gives us a sense of what it was like: the chance, the great and kind fate, needed to survive Nazi mines, mortars, artillery, and the criss-cross of machine-gun fire from bunkers on the bluffs.

Nearly 37,000 Allied ground personnel perished in those D-Day landings. The figures vary but whatever the numbers, the odds were not favorable.

Every so often, the son calculates the odds against his coming into being. There were so many who went ashore and never had the good fortune to survive, to have the good fortune of becoming fathers.

How does the son of a D-Day soldier commemorate the good fortune of coming into being? The father who went ashore on D-Day didn’t preserve and pass on anything tangible from that landing and the months that followed.

Not having done anything nearly as heroic, the son is embarrassed by how much he has preserved to pass on to next generations.

As he re-evaluates the worthwhileness of what he has kept, he comes to the conclusion that rather than talk about what he has done and may have accomplished, he will record what has been memorable for him: Movies have been memorable for him.

Rather than have pass-alongs be resolutely in the first-person singular, he thinks it might be interesting to make annual lists of the movies he would like to view with his son and grandson. At least, he would like to let them know what he thinks would be worth the sharing.

Would others find such a sharing to be a meaningful way of connecting with children and grandchildren?

Maybe, maybe not. To each their own archiving and legacies. To each their own self-determined “bequests” and “legacies.”

Archiving Movie Memories

For this son, every year he’ll put together a list of movies that stay with him and which he revisits via a laptop screen and an iPad, which allow for intimacy. On the chance that his son or grandson might want to share the experience on one of their screens, he’s making lists.

He’s not declaring that his selections are the greatest or best in any given year. He’s not presuming to be the arbiter of what is best or appropriate for wide public consumption. He’s merely recalling what stood out for him and what still sticks with him – as touching and moving; as engaging and entertaining; as truly memorable.

The Lion in Winter (1968)

Compelling. The wisest and wittiest of any historical drama he can recall.

This succession-to-a-throne story is very much about marital relations and jealousies, and extramarital one-upmanship; about sibling rivalry; about vying for attention and favoritism; about domestic discord, dysfunction, disfavor, and disappointment. Schemes and intrigues, hard feelings and recriminations abound. Between King and Queen, there is resentment, retaliation, and biting humor.

As to accolades and triumphs: The film received a castle-courtyard full of award nominations – and was “crowned” with the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama, with Peter O’Toole (as King Henry II) winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. Katharine Hepburn (as Eleanor of Aquitaine, the deposed Queen) won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. James Goldman’s screenplay and John Barry’s original music score also won Oscars.

The opening credits stay with the son (the movie-list-maker) who is bent on archiving favorite films: The torches set at the castle’s interior stone walls flicker to light the stone carvings of faces that menace or seem to express torture pain. As the credits roll against these stone walls, we hear orchestral music that portends majesty and threat – something regal and something ominous.

There are so many indelible gibes and comebacks that, in “documenting” his favorites, the list-maker finds it hard to single out just a few. Indeed, there are so many caustic and devilish lines. Though still rethinking his choices, he gives in to temptation and quotes just a few:

On receiving a physically-heavy gift from his dismissed wife, Henry thrusts, “Oh Eleanor, you’ve brought me my tombstone! You spoil me!”

Requiring that his every syllable send his family members quaking, Henry remonstrates Eleanor, “I’m vilifying you for God’s sake – pay attention!”

Escorting his deposed and banished wife to the Christmas Eve feast, King Henry almost pleads, “Give me a little peace.” Smiling strictly to the phalanx of gathered guests, she delivers this: “A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now there’s a thought.”

She later adds, “If you’re broken, it’s because you’re fragile.”

There a few lines which Eleanor delivers to infuriate Henry. Her boastful description of her exploits during the Crusades is something to put off until grandchildren reach a certain age. There are, however, moments when she reveals a past fondness for her king: “He had a mind like Aristotle, and a form like mortal sin.”

To one of her vying would-be-king sons she admonishes, “Hush dear, mother’s fighting.”

Still, she notes their 12th century barbaric ways: “We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside.”

Famously, the cast-aside and exiled Queen (speaking to the film audience) observes, “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs.”

The year: 1,183. Has so much changed in more than 800 years?

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

A gem. Sweet in an endearing way, and even thought-provoking as to how we use our allotted time on Earth. Sweet while still being satirical, and a little tart. Appealingly sweet while being quite humorous. An all-clothes-on romance that delivers environmentalism; delivers populism that isn’t strident and divisive.

There was a 1941 predecessor, but this “remake” has even more substance and takeaways – along with music that has real charm.

The 1978 film won the Golden Globe as the Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. Garnered nine Oscar nominations, and was recognized by the Writers Guild of America as the Best Comedy Adopted from Another Medium. The adoption – the screenplay – and the performances by all the actors and actresses are to be savored. The 3:20 trailer provides a sampler, yes – a taste like the one offered at an ice cream shop, on a tiny plastic spoon. The film’s 101 minutes deliver barrels of deliciousness.

There’s the business tycoon’s epiphany that results in the capitalist announcing that do-goodism would be good for business. This kind of conversion from grasping, rapacious profit-making also comes about as a result of romance in the zany You Can’t Take It with You (1938).

But the 1978 Heaven Can Wait (with Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Dyan Cannon, Charles Grodin, James Mason, Buck Henry, and Jack Warden) is a better buy for the archivist’s select portfolio of triple-A-rated movies.

Heightening Awareness, Sensitivity, and Respect

Charly (1968)

And the Oscar for the Best Actor in a Leading Role went to Cliff Robertson for his portrayal of a mentally-and-emotionally challenged man, who through experimental brain surgery has a stellar intellectual life – temporarily.

Based on the much-admired Daniel Keyes’ never-been-out-of-print novel Flowers for Algernon, the film makes vivid the disabled adult’s difficulties and indignities, his beyond-belief surgical reinvention, and the heart-breaking reversion. The depiction still tugs at the heart, and the brain.

At the end of the film, there’s a very short but profoundly moving scene in which the sympathetic teacher who had encouraged Charly (in both learning and love) tries to continue their connection. The exchange is brief. One word from Charly, softly delivered, is memorable – hauntingly so.

This closing scene in Charly’s apartment is even more vivid – affecting and unsettling – for the stark setting and the delivery of the spare dialogue.

Charly and his beautiful teacher speak of love. It’s Charly who delivers what might be thought of as a universal “disability” –

Q: “What’s enough love?”

A: “Always a little more than anyone ever gets.”

Rain Man (1988)

And the Oscar for the Best Actor in a Leading Role went to Dustin Hoffman for his portrayal of Raymond Babbitt, a savant who becomes a road-trip accomplice to his younger brother’s excesses, born of discontent and ill will.

This brother-bonding movie won Oscars for Best Director, Best Screenplay written directly for the screen, and for Best Picture of the year.

There are scenes that convey the struggle to capture what was never afforded in childhood and youth; the struggle to make a connection with a sibling when there is so little in common.

Routines and obsessions are major components, as are harbored resentments and a history of parental control and partiality. The screenplay, direction, and performances suggest ways of coming to terms with these obstacles. We see how road-trip travel and stopovers provide opportunities (unusual ones) for a relationship to develop between siblings. Can something meaningful come about even though the father-son relationship was so very problematic – and, in some ways, quite unrewarding?

The story is about what can be inherited – money yes, of course, but family history and family problems as well. And yes, resentments. And yes, the chance, the opportunity, to make a relatively-meaningful fraternal connection.

Top-Tier Guilty Pleasures

Bull Durham (1988)

While the story is set in the realm of minor league baseball, there are major league moments –

· on the pitcher’s mound – between the wise and wry catcher (Crash Davis), and the dull rookie pitcher (Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh) who may have Major League possibilities;

· on the pitcher’s mound – Crash advises the rookie pitcher to ease up on throwing “thunderbolts” because “Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls – it’s more democratic.”

· on the pitcher’s mound – with the coach whose chewing-jaw is non-stop, the battery mates, and the entire multilingual infield discussing wedding-gift options for an out-of-touch teammate;

· at home plate – between the catcher and opposing teams’ batters;

· on the team bus – with the catcher imparting sports-talk clichés to the bumpkin who has a Major League fastball and a very minor-league mind;

· at parlors and porches – between the catcher and the groupie Annie whose gospels about relationships and intimacy are based on “quantum physics, molecular attraction, pheromones,” and, of course, timing, along with metaphysics and “the Church of Baseball.” Foreplay for her may well include recitations from Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and “fundamental ontological riddles.”

In the scene in which Annie (played by the luscious female grand-slam Susan Sarandon) explains her “ground rules” for hooking-up, Crash (the catcher played by Kevin Costner) rebuts: “After twelve years in the minor leagues, I don’t try out. Besides, I don’t believe in quantum physics when it comes to matters of the heart.”

What does he believe in? The recitation can only be fully appreciated by watching the film – again, and again.

Annie leaves us with this wisdom: “The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.”

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Steve McQueen, who played rough and tumble action-adventure types, carries off ultra-dapper. In this up-up-scale cat-and-mouse film, McQueen, a race-car and motor-cycle enthusiast calmly drives a Rolls Royce. In tailored three-piece suits with a watch-chain spanning his vest, he is a calm, cerebral, plotter and manipulator. We root for him to pull off and get away with his supremely-well-orchestrated bank heists.

Faye Dunaway (Vicki Anderson) is unfailingly striking (and alluring) in high-fashion outfits and glam hats, while doing her “dirty little job” as a commission (recovery) based independent investigator for insurance companies on the hook for losses sustained in the bank heists.

Their engagement over a chess board in Thomas Crown’s Beacon Hill mansion (antiques, art masterpieces on the walls, a fire in the stately fireplace) is one of incomparable clothes-on sensuality. In eight and a half minutes, with evocative soft-jazz accompaniment, these are the only lines spoken:

[sitting opposite one another, each holding rich luminous buttery-brown cognac in a brandy snifter]

VA: “You do live very well, don’t you.”

TC: “No complaints.”

VA: “It would be a shame to have to give all this up.

Wouldn’t it?”

[looking over the chess pieces]

TC: “Do you play?”

VA: “Try me.”

[after a series of moves accompanied by facial expressions and finger gestures that are extraordinarily expressive]

VA: “Check.”

TC: “Let’s play something else."

So hot, and so very very cool.

Guilty Pleasures, Despite the Violence

The Death of Stalin (2018) the power of farce and the larkiness of paranoia takeover this comedy about the struggle for power in the Soviet Union in 1953. Inhuman oppressions, executions, and death tolls are no laughing matter. These “send-ups” are. The cast and dialogue are worth billions of rubles.

Burn after Reading (2008) The Coen brothers wrote and directed this zanily-inept extortion effort that spins into bizarre territory. The deliveries and facial expressions of the film’s ultra-famous actors make Washington, D.C. delusions and betrayals entertaining.

Quantum of Solace (2008), unlike the off-putting violence of Burn after Reading, the avenging-a-death violence in this Daniel Craig James Bond thriller seems just and right. The lines, as usual, are quintessential for a Bond adventure. The locations – Italy, Chile, Austria, Panama, Spain, and Mexico – make engaging movie-goer travel.

Classic Characters

Oliver! (1968) On the one hand, this 1968 incarnation of Oliver Twist’s troubles and exploits has immensely impressive and memorable music and lyrics. On the other hand, Dickens’ crafty Fagin – “a receiver of stolen goods” and exploiter of a band of young pickpockets beholden to him – is clearly Jewish. While not as reprehensible as Shylock - Shakespeare’s Jewish “pound of flesh” moneylender in The Merchant of Venice – Fagin is not a role model. There’s enough real life, real world antisemitism. No need to perpetuate the prejudice. So, probably eliminated from the movie-list-maker’s “bequest-legacy.”

The Odd Couple (1968) Yes, the movie that provided the impetus for the TV series. Like the TV series M*A*S*H, there was an acclaimed movie whose characters were recreated with some fidelity for TV. If pressed, the movie-archiving son would own up to having both Felix and Oscar phases, in his seventy-some years.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)

He’s only seen previews. The early reviews are not wholly favorable. No matter, for any effort to bring the knight of woeful (and confused) countenance to the attention of audiences is worth waiting for. And due to legal contest over rights to the production, there will be a wait.

Memorable Music

A wide and varied list, yes. Is there a common denominator?

As the list-making-movie-archiving son viewed the candidates and did his eliminations and then his rankings, he found that the music scores and theme songs of many of the films that made the final cut are quite memorable.

There’s the music of John Barry (The Lion in Winter), Henry Mancini (Heaven Can Wait), Ravi Shankar (Charly), Michel Legrand (The Thomas Crown Affair), Neal Hefti (The Odd Couple)….

Their compositions – songs and soundtracks – are the welcome playbacks of his mind’s ear.

Do the eyes take their cues from the ears?

The opening and closing scenes of Saving Private Ryan – and the accompanying John Williams music – these still bring tears.