1. Today was another glorious day at Vizio University. I returned to the Criterion Channel's collection, Brit Noir, and decided to watch the splendid portrayal of life on London's East End, in Bethnal Green to be precise, entitled, It Always Rains on Sunday (1947).
The noir films made in Britain in the late forties and on into the fifties definitely laid the groundwork for those slightly later British films known as The British New Wave. Like the movies to come later, It Always Rains on Sunday is, in part, a domestic (or kitchen sink) drama, and relies for its power on capturing the everyday atmosphere of pubs, a jazz club, and street markets as well as shadowy, petty thieves, dark, gritty places in the East End, and small time acts of corruption and sexual betrayals.
The story of It Always Rains on Sunday centers on the lives of the members of a blended family and how Rose, the mother, played by the sturdy and brilliant Googie Withers, tries to juggle the comings and goings of her husband, two stepdaughters, and son while she harbors, in their home, her ex-lover who has escaped from prison and shows up in search of food, sleep, and pleasure. Withers plays the complicated discontent, boredom, divided loyalties, and yearnings of Rose perfectly. Unlike many women characters in American film noir, Rose is not a femme fatale. She's not cunning, not manipulative. She's caught between the excitement of her past and what she's settled for in her present.
It's poignant.
2. So when I'm home alone, it's easier for me to poke around on the Criterion Channel, find surprises, and explore avenues I hadn't even thought of.
So, today, I had thought of British noir films and I had planned on watching It Always Rains on Sunday.
What (or I should say WHO) I hadn't thought of was Hope Davis.
I was poking around and I clicked on the icon of a movie I'd never heard of called The Daytrippers (1996). I saw that Criterion had organized a small collection of features around this movie and the first one that caught my eye was a filmed conversation between the superb Hope Davis and the director of The Daytrippers, Greg Mottola.
Before I set this discussion in motion with a click, a rush of great movie watching memories filled my heart and mind.
I'd say it was about 15-20 years ago. I discovered that a bunch of actors, all women, all in their late thirties, forties, and early fifties were doing invigorating work in movies, playing grown up women with a wide range of emotion, gravity, humor, and fierceness. I began searching out their movies -- or having them find me. Let me name several of these actors: Laura Linney, Patricia Clarkson, Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, Joan Allen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Melissa Leo, Frances McDormand, Amy Ryan, and several others. I can't list them all.
After listening to Hope Davis and Greg Mottola discuss The Daytrippers, I had to watch it and, my oh my, what a discovery!
The story takes place briefly on Thanksgiving night, but almost entirely on the day after Thanksgiving.
It centers around how Eliza (Hope Davis) finds a letter her husband, Louis (Stanley Tucci), carelessly dropped in their bedroom.
It's a love letter from someone named Sandy.
Confused, Eliza takes the letter to her parents' house, where her sister and her boyfriend have travelled for Thanksgiving Day.
I forgot to mention that The Daytrippers is the epitome of a low, low budget independent movie -- and, yet, the cast is absolutely first rate. Here are the main players, in addition to Hope Davis and Stanley Tucci:
Rita (the mother): Anne Meara (OMG! She's stupendous!)
Jim (the father): Pat McNamara
Jo (the sister): Parker Posey
Carl (the boyfriend): Liev Schreiber
Having read the letter, the family decides to pile into the family station wagon and drive from Long Island to Manhattan so that Eliza can track down Louis (who works in Manhattan) and find out what this letter is about.
Suddenly, I was reminded of one of my favorite Thanksgiving movies and one of my favorite Patricia Clarkson movies. In Pieces of April, a family also piles into a station wagon and travels from suburbia to Manhattan (Lower East Side).
Both movies are structured, in part, around the cars' journeys, but also on the journey into the complicated relationships between family members -- and each movie features a boyfriend who is an outsider.
I'll set Pieces of April aside. I've made my point. Both are road movies or journey stories about the American family.
As Eliza and her family are on their journey in search of Eliza's husband, the movie begins going on detours. It digresses. These digressions are rich. Two of them give us more glimpses into other families and other digressions take us into social scenes in Manhattan. They all, in their own ways, test the relationships between members of Eliza's family and each of these digressions unfolds more to us about what makes each of these family members tick.
Ultimately, Eliza tracks down Louis, but I'll say no more about what Eliza learns and how she responds.
I'll only say that if I could go back in time, I'd return to January of 1983 and January of 1984 at Whitworth College. During those two Jan terms, I taught a course called "The Family in American Drama". I would love to be able to revisit those classes, but somehow reach into the future and bring Pieces of April and The Daytrippers back to those two classes, watch both movies with those students, and add them to the awesome discussions we had about great American plays and movies that explored the difficulties, tensions, strengths, and weaknesses of the family in American life.
3. After being moved by Hope Davis' work in The Daytrippers, I watched another discussion about the movie, this time with director Greg Mottola, Parker Posey, and Liev Scheiber -- and they were joined toward the end, via speaker phone, by Campbell Scott, who appeared in the movie and also helped produce it.
By now, the day had cooled off and as Cameron Avenue darkened a bit, I went on a twenty minute walk, not only for exercise, but to further relish the delights of having discovered The Daytrippers and of sorting it out as I strolled, mostly, on the street where I live.
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