The end, or as close as you can get to it, of the year is hardly the best time to write the first post of the year, but I suppose you go with the urge when it comes.
I'm going to dive right into it. The other day, I saw the Grand Canyon again - the film, not the actual geographical marvel. It has been on my list of best films watched as long as I can remember, but it never gets a mention anywhere else. This despite the fact that it had an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. So I kinda expected someone to remember the film, but all I get is blank stares when I do mention it. Which made me think that I saw into it too much owing to my naivety and what not. So when I had the chance, I watched it again, almost a quarter a century after it was made.
Before I talk about how the film fared on this trans-generational (well, almost) viewing, let me attempt to try and remember why I'd liked it in the first place. The film was released in 1991; India was in the throes of its discovery of liberalisation, and cable TV was making its appearance. I don't remember the year I actually saw GC, but I do know it was one of the first headline movies to show up on Star TV (or Movies, though I think this was before the time there was a dedicated movie channel), our first international channel, which brought us more than dated shows like Fraggle Rock and Fireball XL5 (Incidentally, my son recently discovered Fraggle Rock in a link coming out of an iPad app and was immensely into it for a while). So Grand Canyon, and something called Johnny Dangerously, a Michael Keaton starrer that I have never seen again, were things that seemed brand new, a nugget out of the mysterious West, of which we new only what our well-off relatives told us.
GC had a stellar cast - Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Mary McDonnell, Mary Louise Parker, but the one that made the deepest impression was Danny Glover. As a honest, plain-speaking tow truck driver, Glover epitomised cool for me, and in the years that followed, I jumped at the chance to see his films. Watching him in the Lethal Weapon series and Predator 2 was a bit of a downer, and I always wondered why he didn't get any meaningful roles after that. The other two things I remember - Mary Mcdonnell, sweet and sexy, and the human aspect of the story of a city that the filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan definitely saw as suffering from decay and dereliction. It was a story of ennui, greed, loneliness, conflict, and ultimately hope. The finding of an abandoned child brings a dynamic change in the life of a housewife which could be attributed to the empty nest syndrome, but wasn't, not really. A mugging in broad daylight awakens first remorse, and then sel-reconciliation in a moneyed film producer.
All these things resonated with me then, and they did so even now, but then there were new revelations as well. The successful media executive, played by Kline is going through a crisis of his own - mid-life or otherwise - and his uncertainty about what matters in life changes not just with one or two incidences. Things happen around him, he floats along with the tide, learns a few things, but eventually decides to risk bringing up a new child despite the feeling that his drifting life gives him. The loneliness that his assistant and one-night-stand feels is one of the most painful of emotions that I felt. The scene where she narrowly escapes a car jacking and subsequently breaks down in front of a sympathetic cop is as emotionally wrenching a scene I have ever watched.
So I stick to my original opinion - I liked this movie when I was 17, and I liked it even better at 41. Its one of those rare nuggets that people look at cursorily, nod absently over, and then ignore and forget. But a nugget it is, and retains pride of place in my humble all-time fave film list.
I'm going to dive right into it. The other day, I saw the Grand Canyon again - the film, not the actual geographical marvel. It has been on my list of best films watched as long as I can remember, but it never gets a mention anywhere else. This despite the fact that it had an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. So I kinda expected someone to remember the film, but all I get is blank stares when I do mention it. Which made me think that I saw into it too much owing to my naivety and what not. So when I had the chance, I watched it again, almost a quarter a century after it was made.
Before I talk about how the film fared on this trans-generational (well, almost) viewing, let me attempt to try and remember why I'd liked it in the first place. The film was released in 1991; India was in the throes of its discovery of liberalisation, and cable TV was making its appearance. I don't remember the year I actually saw GC, but I do know it was one of the first headline movies to show up on Star TV (or Movies, though I think this was before the time there was a dedicated movie channel), our first international channel, which brought us more than dated shows like Fraggle Rock and Fireball XL5 (Incidentally, my son recently discovered Fraggle Rock in a link coming out of an iPad app and was immensely into it for a while). So Grand Canyon, and something called Johnny Dangerously, a Michael Keaton starrer that I have never seen again, were things that seemed brand new, a nugget out of the mysterious West, of which we new only what our well-off relatives told us.
GC had a stellar cast - Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Mary McDonnell, Mary Louise Parker, but the one that made the deepest impression was Danny Glover. As a honest, plain-speaking tow truck driver, Glover epitomised cool for me, and in the years that followed, I jumped at the chance to see his films. Watching him in the Lethal Weapon series and Predator 2 was a bit of a downer, and I always wondered why he didn't get any meaningful roles after that. The other two things I remember - Mary Mcdonnell, sweet and sexy, and the human aspect of the story of a city that the filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan definitely saw as suffering from decay and dereliction. It was a story of ennui, greed, loneliness, conflict, and ultimately hope. The finding of an abandoned child brings a dynamic change in the life of a housewife which could be attributed to the empty nest syndrome, but wasn't, not really. A mugging in broad daylight awakens first remorse, and then sel-reconciliation in a moneyed film producer.
All these things resonated with me then, and they did so even now, but then there were new revelations as well. The successful media executive, played by Kline is going through a crisis of his own - mid-life or otherwise - and his uncertainty about what matters in life changes not just with one or two incidences. Things happen around him, he floats along with the tide, learns a few things, but eventually decides to risk bringing up a new child despite the feeling that his drifting life gives him. The loneliness that his assistant and one-night-stand feels is one of the most painful of emotions that I felt. The scene where she narrowly escapes a car jacking and subsequently breaks down in front of a sympathetic cop is as emotionally wrenching a scene I have ever watched.
So I stick to my original opinion - I liked this movie when I was 17, and I liked it even better at 41. Its one of those rare nuggets that people look at cursorily, nod absently over, and then ignore and forget. But a nugget it is, and retains pride of place in my humble all-time fave film list.
