Misplaced Pages

Ordinary People

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 75.128.230.29 (talk) at 23:40, 28 August 2011. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 23:40, 28 August 2011 by 75.128.230.29 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about the film. For other uses, see Ordinary People (disambiguation). 1980 Template:Film US film
Ordinary People
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRobert Redford
Written byAlvin Sargent
Nancy Dowd
Produced byRonald L. Schwary
StarringDonald Sutherland
Mary Tyler Moore
Timothy Hutton
Judd Hirsch
Elizabeth McGovern
CinematographyJohn Bailey
Edited byJeff Kanew
Music byMarvin Hamlisch
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • September 19, 1980 (1980-09-19)
Running time124 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6 million
Box office$54,766,923

Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of Robert Redford. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton.

The story concerns the disintegration of an upper-middle class family in Lake Forest, Illinois, following the death of the older son in a boating accident. The screenplay by Alvin Sargent was based upon the 1976 novel of the same name by Judith Guest.

The film was a critical and commercial success, winning that year's Academy Award for Best Picture over Raging Bull as well as three other Oscars, including one for Hutton.

Plot

The camera pans over Lake Michigan as the Pachelbel Canon begins. Scenes of Lake Forest, Illinois, in the autumn come into view. The time, fall, is an allegory. The location beautiful and serene lake Michigan, is misleading offering a false sense of tranquility, and security. These opening scenes make the point that the location, including the lake, and the seasons, are as much a character of this story of life as the people who live here. And so we are invited into Lake Forest High school and its choir. The camera focuses on one boy in particular, Conrad Jarrett (Timothy Hutton). The Jarretts, are an upper-middle class family trying to return to normal life after the death of one teenage son and the attempted suicide of their surviving son, Conrad. Conrad, recently returning home following a four-month stay in a psychiatric hospital, feels alienated from his friends and family. He chooses to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch), who learns that the boy was involved in a sailing accident in which his older brother, Buck (whom everyone idolized), died. Conrad now deals with post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt.

Conrad's father, Calvin (Donald Sutherland), who awkwardly struggles to connect with his surviving son and understand his wife, is tormented by depression, guilt, and the lingering trauma of the accident. Conrad's mother, Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) struggles to comprehend her loss, maintain her composure, and focuses on what her family once was, and cannot be again. She appears to have loved her elder son more (though It's perhaps more what he represented), and as a result has now grown cold toward Conrad. She is fixated with maintaining the appearance of perfection and normalcy. In one telling scene, Beth overhears her husband confiding in a friend at a party that their son has been seeing a psychiatrist. On their way home (in private), she unfairly berates Calvin with palpable anger for revealing something she thinks should be hidden behind closed doors.

Conrad, working through a minefield of emotions with Dr. Berger, learns to try to deal with, rather than control them. He starts dating Jeannine (Elizabeth McGovern), a beautiful, kind and nonjudgmental girl from his school choir. Conrad begins to regain a sense of optimism. However, the suicide of Karen (Dinah Manoff), a friend from the hospital who he had recently reconnected with, threatens to send him spiraling back into depression (while Beth and Calvin are in Houston). Conrad struggles to communicate and re-establish a normal relationship with his parents and schoolmates. He cannot seem to allow anyone, especially Beth, to get close. Beth comes across Conrad alone in the back yard and approaches him with a jacket in an attempt to appeal to him for some sort of normalcy, and to express concern and love for her son whom she doesn't understand. Beth is rebuffed, once again, this time with a story of how she was an unfair mother for not allowing him or his brother to own a dog. In another scene Conrad gets into a fistfight with a loutish schoolmate (Adam Baldwin) over a minor provocation, and rejects the overtures from another former friend because it re-opens the wounds of Buck's death.

Conrad often argues with his mother while Calvin tries to referee, generally taking Conrad's side for fear of losing him. Things come to a climax in a revealing moment near Christmas, after Beth discovers he has been lying about his after school whereabouts stating: "If its starting all over again, the lying, the not eating .. the coming home late, I can't deal with it, I WON'T DEAL WITH IT". Conrad retorts with the fact she never came to the mental hospital to see him: Conrad: "You would have come if Buck had been in the hospital!" Beth: "Buck never would have been in the hospital!" followed by Beth's plea to Calvin: "Why do you always take his side, well I won't do it!!" We know, but Beth and Calvin don't, that Conrad isn't doing the same things that lead to the suicide attempt, although his actions appear similar. Beth's reactions are not unfounded, but neither are Conrad's like so many situations where the whole truth is not available to the participants. Beth and Calvin take a trip to see Beth’s brother in Houston where, still charged by the encounter with Conrad, Calvin confronts Beth calling her out on her attitude. In a moment of utter rage Beth shouts at Calvin, "what kind of mother doesn’t love her son?" It is a public outburst underlining the depth with which a normally overtly repressed Beth is suffering.

Eventually Conrad is able to stop blaming himself for Buck's death and begins to get a grasp of his mother's frailties as Dr. Berger advises him to accept her as she is. Calvin, aided by a session with Dr. Berger, and his own observations, emotionally confronts Beth one last time. The confrontation is aided by an encounter between mother and son he witnessed. Scene: Conrad tries to sincerely apologize for his behavior and affectionately hug his mother, Beth freezes, turns her head, does not return the hug and fights to suppress any sentiment, though the audience can see her pain, Calvin, only seeing the back of her head, misses it. This skewed observation preempts Calvin's opinion on the degree to which Beth has emotionally isolated herself, not just from Conrad, but also from himself, and its fatal results on everyone. He confronts Beth about his new feelings telling her that he questions their love, and inquires whether she is capable of truly loving anyone. It is early morning (and a New Year), Beth turns and goes upstairs. We find her next packing to leave, her facade is momentarily shattered by a moment of sheer pain at the magnitude of her losses, but she struggles and semi-successfully restores the mask of denial. Conrad is awoken by a cab pulling away, he goes downstairs where his father tells him his mother has left. Conrad's first reaction is to blame himself. Calvin angrily rebukes Conrad for taking that attitude but then regrets losing his temper. Conrad tells him not to apologize, that perhaps he needs his father to take him to task more often, as he used to do Buck. Now, both having achieved some level of agreed upon understanding with regard to their family situation, father and son finally connect with one another, and they embrace. The Pachelbel Canon begins to play as the camera pans up over the house, leaving us to consider a family of Ordinary People...

Cast

Production

Development

Robert Redford was looking for his first job as a director. He read the novel, was immediately stunned by its plot and knew this was the movie to start his directing career. After meeting with the author, Judith Guest, he bought the rights to the novel to adapt it into a film. After that, he looked for a distributor. He met with Paramount Pictures, which offered to distribute the film and bankroll production on a very short budget ($6 million). He also acquired Academy Award-nominated producer Ronald L. Schwary.

Screenplay

Redford hired Alvin Sargent to adapt the novel into a screenplay. Sargent won an Oscar in 1978 for the screen adaptation of Julia and had been nominated previously for the screen adaptation of Paper Moon. Sargent kept the Ordinary People script faithful to the book, though he did somewhat augment the rather minimal character development found in the novel.

Filming

The movie was filmed in Lake Forest, Illinois, where the story took place, and nearby Highland Park, Illinois. The golf scene was shot in Apple Valley, California, and interior shots were filmed in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. The high school scenes were shot at Lake Forest High School (with the swimming pool scenes done at Lake Forest College). The shopping mall was Northbrook Court in Northbrook, Illinois. The storm sequence where Conrad's brother is killed was filmed on a soundstage at Paramount Studios. The movie was filmed in 1.85:1 surround with the screen inch of 35mm.

Reception

Robert Redford and Timothy Hutton both won Academy Awards for their respective debuts: Redford as Best Director and Hutton as Best Supporting Actor. The film marked Mary Tyler Moore's career breakout from the personality of her other two famous roles as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Moore's role was well-received and obtained a nomination for Best Actress. The film also won Best Picture for 1980.

Judd Hirsch's portrayal of Dr. Berger has also drawn praise from many in the psychiatric community as one of the rare times their profession is shown in a positive light in the movies, although some consider his portrayal to be too positive, thus lending an air of one-dimensionality. Hirsch was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, losing out to co-star Hutton. Donald Sutherland's performance in the film was also well received and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He was not nominated for an Academy Award along with his co-stars, however, which today is considered one of the worst acting snubs in the history of the Academy Awards. Ordinary People launched the career of Elizabeth McGovern, who received special permission to film while attending Juilliard. 1980 was also a break-out year for Adam Baldwin, who had a small role in Ordinary People while starring in My Bodyguard the same year.

This was also the first of two times director Martin Scorsese (who directed that year's Raging Bull) lost the Academy Award to actors making their directorial debut (the other was ten years later with Kevin Costner on Dances with Wolves).

Ordinary People received very positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, calling it "one of the year's best films, probably of the decade" and later named it the fifth best film of the year 1980.

Pachelbel's Canon, used as thematic and background music, enjoyed a surge in popularity as a result. It has remained popular since then.

The film was a box office success, which grossed $54 million at theaters and $23 million in rentals.

It is the last Best Picture winner without a Film Editing nomination.

Awards

Wins
Nominations

References

  1. Martin, Linda B.; January 25, 1981; The Psychiatrist in Today's Movies: He's Everywhere and He's in Deep Trouble; The New York Times; retrieved September 13, 2006
  2. Pies, Ron; 2001 Psychiatry in the Media: The Vampire, The Fisher King, and The Zaddik; Journal of Mundane Behavior; retrieved September 14, 2006.
  3. Entertainment Weekly. "25 Biggest Oscar Snubs Ever: Donald Sutherland, Ordinary People". Retrieved 2010-02-13.
  4. Ordinary People review from Roger Ebert

External links

Academy Award for Best Picture
1927–1950
1951–1975
1976–2000
2001–2025
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
1943–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Robert Redford
Films directed
Sundance
Family
Categories: