Friday, November 25, 2011

A Child Is Waiting
















A CHILD IS WAITING          B                     
USA  1963  (102 mi)  d:  John Cassavetes  

I've always had a sweet spot for this 1963 film, made 5 years before the release of FACES, a more conventional film using footage of handicapped children from the Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, California, one of the first State facilities for mentally impaired children.  This is a remarkable attempt at realism, using moments of documentary style in a fictional film about mental retardation that refuses to look at the children in a group home as victims, but rather as human beings, each needing the help of others.  The film attempts to give the children as much screen time as the so-called stars, which caused something of a scandal on the set.  Apparently, Cassavetes’ message was too radical at the time, as he was fired from the film by producer Stanley Kramer, who then recut the film, ordering more close-ups, making it more sentimental.  Apparently both Lancaster and Garland appealed to him for help from Cassavetes' direction, both openly defying him on the set.  In Ray Carney's book, it is described as follows:  "Cassavetes' treatment of his stars was a textbook lesson in how to alienate everyone possible."  However, in Cassavetes' view, the children were more important in this film than the stars.  Despite some overglossed musical strings on occasion, it’s still a surprisingly unflinching look at a largely ignored problem—one might say a follow up to Frank Perry’s 1962 film, DAVID AND LISA.

Burt Lancaster is appointed by the State to run the home, and at first he appears hard and ignoble with the children, especially one problem child, Reuben (played by actor Bruce Ritchey), who he believes the system has failed, but his somewhat radical intention is to treat the children as responsible individuals.  Enter Judy Garland, of all people, as a troubled, down and out spirit who is looking to find a place where she might be needed.  Having no real qualifications, other than being a Julliard Music School drop out, and having no real professional objectivity, she immediately pities the children and assumes the role of Reuben’s missing mother, so he follows her wherever she goes.  Then on false pretenses, she summons Reuben’s real mother, Gena Rowlands, as every Wednesday, Reuben gets dressed up and waits for his parents that never show up on visiting day.  This calls into question everyone’s views in an extraordinarily dramatic confrontation.  Lancaster's unbending system is challenged by Garland, whose histrionics are challenged by Rowlands, all are challenged by Reuben, enter the State bureaucrats who really want to wash their hands of the whole problem, threatening to cut finding as it’s not a feel good issue with the public.  Who wants to raise children no one wants to see? 

Largely disowned by Cassavetes for changing the entire tone of the film, the theater of the uncomfortable is really evident here with broken families, love gone awry, disturbingly flawed characters, big emotional moments, Gena Rowlands nervously smoking a cigarette while wearing gloves, as it’s hard to witness mentally impaired children being themselves, but Cassavetes raises important issues, mostly through the peppering questions of Lancaster, who refuses to let the bureaucrats decide their worth through potential employability.  The film does a good job examining society’s response to “damaged” children, where parents immediately alter their expectations, becoming disappointed, embarrassed, eventually hiding their children from public view, supposedly for their own good.   And if they allow them to interact with normal children, they’re bound to be teased and humiliated, as children can be relentlessly judgmental.  Rowlands, of course, is excellent as the disappointed parent who’s too consumed with personal anguish and shame to be able to relate with her son anymore.  Cassavetes wraps up the entire issue in a manner unique to his own particular vision, in a grand, sweeping finale that features the children in a Settlers and Indians Thanksgiving theatrical revue where they are all, at least for a moment, shining stars, continually perplexed with remembering their lines, but singing happily anyway.  In Cassavetes' view, it's the adults that label them retarded, when really, they're just children.   

No comments:

Post a Comment