The Appearance of Nostalgia for American Cinemas History in the Films of the 1970s - Research Paper Example

Introduction Movies may give the viewer a sense of nostalgia. This is when the movies portray events that occur during a period of time in a somewhatidealized way. For instance, Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies provide a nostalgic view of the 1950s, in that these were cute romantic comedies that featured a masculine man, a pretty petite woman and lots of innocent fun. Leave it to Beaver provides a very nostalgic view of the 1950s, portraying a world where father knows best, kids are obedient, and families intact. Westerns may also provide a sense of idealization, when it shows the land as being a place of dreams, the hero always wins, and the anti-hero is redeemed. This is not the case with the two movies explained below, The Last Picture Show and Days of Heaven. They portray a world directly opposite of the typical nostalgic view, as provided by the television shows and movies that provide a view that is just the opposite of this. In The Last Picture Show, families might be intact, but they are dysfunctional, and it is perfectly acceptable for a 40ish woman to have an affair with a high school student. In Days of Heaven, the hero gets killed, as does the anti-hero, and the land is symbolic of nothing but hardship and strife. Because of this, these movies can best be described as anti-nostalgic. Discussion The Last Picture Show was made in 1971, which is significant in that this was during the Vietnam War and a period of “the most violent social and political upheavals the United States had experienced for at least a generation, and probably not since the Depression in the mid-1930s” (Elsaesser, 2004, p. 37). Society was a period of time when there was a great deal of uncertainty about the future, so perhaps that was a reason why Bogdanovich chose to access the past. However, Bogdanovich’s rendering of the early 1950s was not the idyllic time that people imagine the 1950s to be, therefore it is arguably not exactly nostalgic. According to Cook (2005) nostalgia relies upon a kind of fantasy and is inauthentic, even moreso than memory (Cook, 2005, p. 3). It is arguable that, if Bogdanovich was shooting for nostalgia, he perhaps would have made his film have more of the feel of a nuclear family, or, at the very least, he would have portrayed at least one nuclear family and at least some kind of prosperity in his film, for this is the stereotype that was assumed by the early 1970s – that the 1950s were a time of nuclear family and father knows best. A time of unlimited dreams and houses in the suburbs. Picket fences and family dogs. Benevolent fathers who dispense advice, and mothers who wear aprons and bake cookies. That sort of image. These images are stereotypical, yet are still the stuff of 1950s fantasies. These images are also not the way that it really was. Stephanie Coontz (1997) provides a coherent counterpoint for this idealized version of the 1950s. Coontz states that, although Americans in 1996 voted the 1950s as the most idyllic time for a child to grow up, in reality, the decade still left much to be desired. The 1950s was a time of prosperity, in that wages were growing at a higher rate than any other decade, while the median priced home was only 15 to 18 percent of a man’s salary. Yet, women were not treated well, nor were minorities, and parents did not communicate well with their children. The children of the 1950s, meanwhile, have stated, by and large, that they would not want the same marriage as their parents. They state that their fathers did not provide good role models, and their mothers could not be happy (Coontz, 1997, p. 34). Coontz argues that the nostalgia for the 1950s was rooted in a desire to return to a time when kids were kept on the straight and narrow. The decade was also seen as family friendly, presumably because it was the decade that is not necessarily known for the pornography and media violence that has marked the decades hence. There was also a feeling of optimism (Coontz, 1997, p. 35), more than what is seen in the current decade, and, certainly, more than was seen in the early 1970s. The nuclear family was, by and large, a reality in the 1950s as well. Only 25% of marriages ended in divorce in the 1950s, and young people did not really experience the single life. They tended to move from their parents house into a marriage and started having families of their own (Coontz, 1997, p. 37). Because of this, 90% of all households in the 1950s were families, and 70% of kids grew up with a mother and father at home (Coontz, 1997, p. 37). Yet women had a hard time in the 1950s. They were supposed to tend to their families, and, basically, not complain or have a life outside the home. Friends, jobs, and extended family networks were all distractions for the young mother in the 1950s, and these distractions were discouraged. Coontz argues that this is what led so many 1950s housewives to seek refuge in alcohol and pills (Coontz, 1997, p. 38). Coontz argues that the shows that were supposedly representative of the typical household in the 1950s – Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet – were not only not the reality of most families, but that most families knew that these shows were not the reality. Rather, these films were viewed as the ideal, and gave individuals a barometer for their own life. They were a type of goal to which people aspired, but very few attained (Coontz, 1997, p. 38). They were a type of lesson for individuals who were dissatisfied with their lives – the bored women who married too young, the children who resented parental authority, the individuals who were disturbed by the changing post-war racial and ethnic makeup of their communities. According to Coontz, these shows stated that if one would just buy the right appliance, and learned from the child-raising and spousal communication ideals from these shows, then they, too “can escape from the conflicts of race, class, and political witch-hunts into harmonious families where father knows best, mothers are never bored or irritated, and teenagers rush to the dinner table each night, eager to get their latest dose of parental wisdom” (Coontz, 1997, p. 39). In other words, these shows were a combination of escapism and a guide on how to live one’s life. So, in light of the way that the 1950s really were, according to Stephanie Coontz, it can be argued that The Last Picture Show was not nostalgic in the strictest sense of the word, in that it refused to portray the fantasy life to which 1950s families were accustomed, but, rather, portrayed life as it really was. In this sense, the film is firmly placed into the movies of the 1970s, as these films “assumed the moral bankruptcy of the established order” (Thomson, 2004, p. 75). The Last Picture Show certainly would be put into the category of moral bankruptcy, for every character in the film, with the possible exception of Sam the Lion, was morally bankrupt. Furthermore, the film deals with “the rebellious youth culture” which came to prominence in the films of the late 1960s (Rosenbaum, 2004, p. 137), in that the youths of this film, far from being the stereotypical “good boys” of the idyllic 1950s, were, by and large, rebellious, in one way or another. The film centers around the exploits of two friends, Sonny and Duane. Sonny, on the surface, is basically a good kid – he is on the hapless football team, is good friends with a special needs boy and talks up to the elders when that boy is killed on the street. He is also a bit aimless. Bogdanovich shows that his portrayal of Sonny is unsentimental and non-nostalgic, simply because the audience is not privy to anything about Sonny’s home life. In fact, this is the case with most of the characters, with the exception of Jacy. These characters, especially Duane and Sonny, seem to have sprung forth in pods, as their family life is unknown. Thus, Bogdanovich strays from the conventional mode of story-telling in the 1950s with this touch alone, and is able to place the characters squarely away from the nuclear family stereotype. Sonny, as indicated above, is also morally bankrupt. He engages in an affair with the wife of his coach, and does not seem to have any moral misgivings about this. Even worse, when the woman, Ruth Popper, falls in love with him, he leaves Ruth without a word, because he caught the eye of Jacy, who is known to be the prettiest girl in town. Sonny does this and never looks back until the very end, after he had lost everything – Jacy, who dumped Sonny after they supposedly got married, supposedly because her parents made her; Billy, the special needs kid who was good friends with Sonny, who was killed by a passing truck as he swept the street; and Duane, who joined the army and was heading towards Korea. Then, and only then, does Sonny seek out Ruth. This implies to the audience that, if Sonny did not get dumped by Jacy and saw Billy get killed, he probably still would never have talked to Ruth again. So, Sonny was a character that would be the definition of anti-nostalgia in a lot of ways. Far from being a character that would be portrayed in Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best, Sonny was a sort who was, at his core, a morally bankrupt young man, even if, on the outside, he looked the part of the All American Boy. Duane was not much better, although his actions were not quite as egregious as that of Sonny. Duane was a smarmy sort, and was the ringleader when the boys attempted to get Billy to lose his virginity with the town prostitute, yet hid in the car when the boys came clean about what they did to Sam the Lion. Duane also got into a violent fight with Sonny, after Sonny takes up with Jacy, who Duane still considered to be “his girl.” Still, Duane was not quite as rebellious as Sonny, in that Duane was not careless with women’s feelings, like Sonny was, and did not take up with his best friend’s girl, as did Sonny. Plus, Duane ended up pursuing the all-American career, in that he joined the army, at the height of the Korean War, no less. One can argue that Duane was a counterpoint of sorts to Sonny, in that, perhaps, he does represent the nostalgic ideal of a good boy who serves his country and does not trample on people’s feelings. And, if it were not for the scene where he egged Billy into losing his virginity, then refused to come clean to Sam the Lion, like the rest of the boys did, Duane probably could be considered the nostalgic ideal. Jacy was another matter. Here was a girl who, like Sonny, was the antithesis of nostalgia in the traditional sense. She used Duane to get to Bobby, in that Bobby told her that she could have him only if she were not a virgin. Therefore, she got Duane to deflower her, but not before humiliating him in the very worst way that she could, by making fun of his non-performance the first time that they tried to have sex. Then, after getting what she wanted from Duane, she dumped him. Later, she has sex on a pool table with a middle-aged man who is her mother’s lover, simply because she was bored. She gets completely naked in front of a group of other teenagers, by standing on a diving board and taking off all her clothes. She gets Sonny to marry her, then makes sure that the police fetch them back to her home. In short, Jacy was a manipulator who had zero regard for people’s feelings, was only into herself, and was interminably vain to boot. Like Sonny, there was nothing nostalgic about Jacy’s character, if nostalgia is meant to evoke a fantasy. Jacy was not a fantasy, but was really a nightmare. The song that runs throughout the movie, about melting a girl’s “cold, cold heart” was evidently referring to Jacy. Jacy’s mother, Lois, represented an archetype that has only become known in hindsight. Specifically, Lois is the bored 1950s housewife who is addicted to alcohol, as described by Coontz. She is the archetype in hindsight only, simply because there is no indication that the contemporary 1950s portrayal of housewives featured the reality that was embodied by Lois. Modern portrayals of 1950s housewives, however, frequently do feature this reality, so much so that this characterization of 1950s housewives has become a kind of cliché in itself. Still, like Sonny and Jacy, Lois cannot be said to a nostalgic character, even if, on the outside, she would represent a kind of fantasy ideal that would be the basis for nostalgia – Lois is wealthy, beautiful, and has a beautiful daughter. Her external character is the fantasy, but, the reality is that Lois is desperately unhappy and bored. Therefore, her external characterization would be considered nostalgic, while the reality of her life was portrayed as anything but. That said, there was one character who might come close to embodying something close to a nostalgic representation of the 1950s, and that was Sam the Lion. Sam the Lion was the owner of the pool hall, the diner and the movie theater. These were the chief sources of entertainment for this dying Texas town, a meet and greet place for people of all ages. Therefore, Sam the Lion was presumably prosperous, which makes his character nostalgic, as being prosperous was the 1950s fantasy. More than this, however, Sam the Lion was a moral character and was the backbone of the small town. The boys in the town came to Sam the Lion for sage advice, and he did not fail to disappoint. Sam the Lion was, true to his nickname, courageous, telling the boys that, because of the incident with Billy, they were not welcome in any of his establishments henceforth. Yet Sam the Lion was also forgiving, as he showed when he forgave Sonny for his part in the Billy incident. Wise, prosperous, courageous and forgiving, Sam the Lion embodied all the best characteristics of nostalgic portrayals of men in the 1950s, such as Ward Cleaver. Sam the Lion was, therefore, probably the only nostalgic portrayal of a character in this film. Although the characters were not nostalgic, with the exception of Sam the Lion, the movie is framed, however, in a kind of nostalgic way. The title of the movie, The Last Picture Show, derives its meaning from the “local picture palace” (Cook, 2000, p. 100). The local theater was the place where the kids gathered to make out, and also was a place where the town could gather and come together as a type of community. This was a time that was really before the popularity of television, which Putnam (1995) argues is the single biggest reason why “social capital,” which refers to norms, trust and networks, has been in decline since the early 1950s (Putnam, 1995, p. 677). Therefore, the local theater being the focus of the movie shows that the movie did try to hearken back to a simpler time, a time before television fractured one’s sense of community, and the local theater, pool hall and diner were all places to meet and greet. At the same time, argues Cook (2000), the local theater was also a “metaphor for the unraveling of rural American life” (Cook, 2000, p. 101). Therefore, while the local theater is a setting for a nostalgic view of simple American life, and the sense of community that was a part of the 1950s fantasy, it was also a metaphor for how this simple life effectively unraveled - the theater closed by the end of the film. One can also argue that the theater was a metaphor for the reality of the 1950s, which was that families were fractured and unhappy, middle-aged married women were sleeping with 17-year-old boys, pretty blond girls were manipulative and vain, and bored housewives were getting drunk every night. The closing of the theater means the end of the façade that was the nostalgic view of the 1950s. The Last Picture Show is set in the early 1950s, and was evocative of that era, albeit the seedy underbelly of that era. Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven is a bit different. Days of Heaven cannot be said to be a product of nostalgia, because, while it was a period piece, there was nothing in the movie that would hearken to a fantasy of what life was like in this era. The movie was set in 1916. The period is evoked in the desperation of the men and women who toil the farm, the primitive farm equipment (or at least the farm equipment is considered primitive by today’s standards), and by the hairstyle of the leading lady character, Abby. Like The Last Picture Show, this movie does not try to idealize what life in this era was like. The work was hard and back-breaking. When a plague of grasshoppers destroy the crops, there is not anything that can be done about it, except for literally burn the critters out. That said, the central character, known only as “The Farmer” does live a life that would seem to be a fantasy, at least at first. He is wealthy, handsome and his crops are prosperous. He also comes across as gentle and kind. While this is not necessarily a nostalgic characterization, in that the values and characteristics that The Farmer embodies are those that would be sought in males of any age, still, the fact that The Farmer seems ideal would state that his character is nostalgic in the sense that he is a bit of a fantasy. However, the entire movie is based upon a big lie, one that The Farmer does not know about, at least at first. Abby is really in love with Bill, although they have tried to pass one another off as brother and sister. The Farmer is in love with Abby, and takes Abby as his wife, without knowing about the true relationship between Abby and Bill. Therefore, the audience knows that, if the The Farmer believes that he has an ideal life of prosperity and love, what he has is really built upon a house of cards, so to speak. The crops can be eaten by grasshoppers, which would end his prosperity, and his love may be somebody other than whom she is pretending to be. The Farmer therefore does not have a fantasy life at all, which would mean that his portrayal is not the basis for nostalgia, if one thinks of nostalgia as fantasy. McGettigan (2003) would agree that that any characterization of The Farmer as a fantasy is facile and erroneous “The Farmer is, in fact, more like a feudal lord. ‘The richest man in the Panhandle,’ as he is described, he watches through a telescope as migrant workers bring in the harvest for him” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). This implies that The Farmer, far from being a benevolent manager, is actually more like an uncaring slave owner. His workers have a brutal life, and he is insensitive to this fact, argues McGettigan. This converts his character from being “Godlike” to a man who is “flawed and weak” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 54). Therefore, even though, on some level, The Farmer is nostalgic, in that, on the surface, he has an idealized life, the reality of his characterization is that, like Lois in The Last Picture Show, his life is anything but a fantasy. Moreover, Linda, who narrates the film, does not portray life in a very nostalgic way, even though, curiously, her character does seem nostalgic for this period of time. The film is sifted through Linda’s perspective (Cohen, 2003, p. 49). The film is narrated in such a way that the audience must assume that Linda is looking back on these early events. Her voice, and the way that she describes the events that unfold, does have a sense of yearning, in that she tended to put a positive spin on things. For instance, she talks about herself, her brother and Abby going on “adventures,” which is her way of describing the itinerant life that the three of them led after Bill kills a man at the smelting plant where he previously worked. As Morrison & Schur (2003) observe, Linda “romanticizes their flight from Chicago as a kind of mythic quest – ‘looking for things, searchin’ for things’ though the viewer is more likely to see it as a desperate escape from the consequences of Bill’s fight with the foreman” (Morrison & Schur, 2003, p. 36). She states about the Farmer that there “wasn’t no harm in ‘im. You give him a flower, he’s keep it forever” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 54). The events that she narrates throughout the film are harrowing, yet told from a rather detached view that hints that period of time might have been idyllic for the young girl. McGettigan (2001) argues that Linda, among other things, rationalizes the character’s actions. For instance, in one voiceover, Linda states that “as long as you’re around you should have it nice.” McGettigan states that this is Linda’s way of rationalizing the ruse that the characters use to get money, which is that Abby would marry The Farmer, who ostensibly has only a year to live, so that, after The Farmer dies, she can have his money, and Bill and Linda can all share in this good fortune (McGettigan, 2001, p. 40). Linda also describes most of the events that occur in the film in the same kind of way, which is either neutrally or with a positive spin. Because Linda is describing the events in either a neutral or positive way, despite the fact that the actual events are harrowing and violent, there seems to be a bit of nostalgia in her recounting of events. Perhaps this is because Linda is telling the story from a vantage point that was before her brother was killed, therefore any events that happened prior to this cataclysmic event would take on a nostalgic sheen. Therefore, it can be argued that the use of Linda to narrate the film was a way for Malick to make the events that occur in the film, as tragic as they are, seem nostalgic, as they are told from the point of view of a nostalgic narrator. McGettigan (2003) further states that Days of Heaven actually is kind of anti-nostalgic in that it strips the conventions of the classic Western and “reveals them as illusions” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). In this way, Days of Heaven is similar to The Last Picture Show. Just as The Last Picture Show demonstrates that our idyllic version of the 1950s, as portrayed by Ozzie and Harriet and Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies was an illusion, so Days of Heaven reveals the illusions behind the typical portrayal of a Hollywood Western. As evidence of this, McGettigan points to the working of the land, which was idealized in earlier films, such as Shane and Red River as way for the community to come together. In Days of Heaven, in contrast, the work is performed “by disenfranchised hired hands” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). McGettigan sees The Farmer as a character who would have been embodied in earlier Western efforts as an “official hero,” and argues that, unlike in earlier Western characterizations of the official hero, this official hero is “a hollow man” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). The comradeship that is the central theme of earlier Westerns is likewise missing, according to McGettigan. Another way that Days of Heaven turns the conventions of a standard Western on its head is the landscape. Instead of the landscape being a source of hopes and dreams, as in a typical Western characterization, in Days of Heaven the landscape is “a dream, a kind of heavenly apparition shared by the characters and the viewers, amorphous and unsustainable” (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). Further, the “outlaw hero,” so romanticized in typical Westerns, this time embodied by Bill, is not redeemed, as he would have been in a typical Western. Rather, he is killed (McGettigan, 2003, p. 53). Conclusion While the two films examined, The Last Picture Show and Days of Heaven represent a different time period from the present, neither of them are particularly nostalgic. As Cook (2005 ) states, nostalgia is a kind of fantasy, so much so that it is more inauthentic then memory. Nostalgia would depend upon an idealized version of what was really true and this is not the case with these two films. The Last Picture Show takes the conventional wisdom of the 1950s – that this was a time of nuclear families, lemonade stands, picket fences, benevolent fathers and mothers, and obedient children – and stands them on their head. The kids in this film are immoral and crass, one of the central adults is an adulterous drunk, and another central adult is carrying on an affair with a 17-year-old boy. Only Sam the Lion serves as a nostalgic touchstone, as he embodies the values that are supposedly ascribed to this time - virtuosity, wisdom, courage and patience. In fact, this film could be described as anti-nostalgic, in almost everything about the film is seedy, coarse and mean. Likewise, Days of Heaven strikes a decidedly anti-nostalgic tone. As McGettigan points out, if a typical Western is nostalgic, with the typical Western displaying conventions that make that time seem more idyllic then it really was, then Days of Heaven is the anti-Western, therefore also anti-nostalgic. In every way, the film disposes of the Western traditions and conventions, according to McGettigan. At the same time, the narrator gives the film a feel of nostalgia. This is because the narrator relays the events in a wistful tone. The narrator puts a positive spin on almost everything, from stating that running from the law, as Bill does at the start of the film, was an “adventure,” to giving an idealized description of the Farmer as benevolent. Because the narrator apparently has a sense of nostalgia about this era of her life, despite the reality that this was a time of great tragedy and hard work, the film itself takes on a bit of a nostalgic sheen. In other words, the narration gives the film a sense of nostalgic that is betrayed by the actual events on the screen. In the end, as typified by these two films from the 1970s, the films during this era were not nostalgic. Rather, these films were anti-nostalgic, almost purposefully showing a life that is exaggerated in its portrayals of the negative aspects of the eras with which they were concerned. Sources Used Cohen, H. (2003). “The Genesis of Days of Heaven,” Cinema Journal, 42(4): 46-62. Cook, D. (2000) History of the American Cinema: Lost Illusions. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Cook, P. (2005) Screening the Past. Oxon: Routledge. Coontz, S. (1997) The Way We Really Are. New York: Basic Books. Days of Heaven. Paramount Pictures. Elsaesser, T. (2004) “American Auteur Cinema,” in The Last Great American Picture Show. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Last Picture Show. Columbia Pictures Corporation. McGettigan, J. (2001) “Interpreting a Man’s World: Female Voices in Badlands and Days of Heaven,” Journal of Film and Video, 52(4): 33-43. McGettigan, J. (2003) “Days of Heaven and the Myth of the West” in The Cinema of Terrence Malick. London: Wallflower Press. Morrison, J. & Schur, T. 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