Letters From the Big Man

LETTERS FROM THE BIG MAN        B                   

USA  (115 mi)  2011  d:  Christopher Münch

Having recently seen An Unmarried Woman (1978) starring Jill Clayburgh, this movie interestingly stars her daughter, Lily Rabe, as Sarah, an outdoor enthusiast who previously worked for the U.S. Forest Service, but is now leaving the city of Medford, Oregon with the last few personal belongings she’s taking with her following a recent breakup.  She’s hired on with the Forest Service again to do a special survey charting the natural recovery in a wilderness area nearly destroyed by a fire a decade ago, beautifully shot by cinematographer Rob Sweeney almost entirely in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness of Southwest Oregon, between Interstate 5 and the coast just north of the California border.  Sarah is seen as a strong-willed woman with an immediate sense of purpose, who wastes little time talking needlessly, who yearns for the solitary comfort of the forest as a means of recovery.  An aerial shot follows her as she winds her way through the narrow canyon roads, eventually discarding the van and then kayaking ahead further before heading alone on foot, making her way deeper into the wilderness until the wordlessness and captivating beauty of the landscape matches her curiously isolated state of mind, where she pulls out a sketchpad to draw what she sees while also jotting down notes on a tiny notepad.  Sarah is the well-trained and more experienced equivalent of the clueless Christopher McCandless character from INTO THE WILD (2007) heading for Alaska on his own searching for an adventure in the wild.  Sarah seems to be a child of privilege, as her rude and abrupt manner with people is typically intended to create space where she doesn’t want to be bothered.  Finally back in her element, accompanied by the Renaissance Madrigal sound of the chamber group Ensemble Galilei, the colors and natural sounds come into play where the audience is treated to a magnificent hiking adventure without ever leaving their seats, as the luscious splendor of the wilderness couldn’t be more stunning to the uninitiated, and to those who have been there before, this landscape beckons for your return. 

Sarah has the sense that someone is following her, where a mythical Sasquatch or Bigfoot creature can continually be seen lurking behind the rocks visible to the audience but remains unseen to Sarah.  While this might seem ridiculous in some films, Münch, the director of the scintillating SLEEPY TIME GAL (2002), uses a clever device of blending the character into the story by keeping the audience wondering if the forest creature is real or imagined, as despite her seemingly healthy physical endurance, this could all be taking place inside her head, as expressed in a dreamlike moment when a giant-sized, sunlight reflection image of Bigfoot appears before her which seems completely imagined, like a hallucination.  When a fellow hiker appears at a clearing, Sean (Jason Butler Harner), Sarah goes into her realist survival mode, investigating him and carefully making sure the hiker is not carrying a gun before sharing a campsite.  Both are ardent outdoor enthusiasts who are probably as comfortable alone in the woods as most would be in the company of their families.  Sarah makes it clear her “serenity” has been interrupted, so Sean’s visit is brief, though it appears they both have much in common when they discuss their mutual appreciation for the area.  In an unexpected, all too sudden time shift, Sarah has returned to civilization where she’s enjoying the Ashland Shakespeare Festival performance of The Tempest, which is seen as a play about art and magic and how it’s easy to confuse the two.  In an amusing gesture, Sarah, something of a fitness freak, is seen on a stationary bike and a jump rope to keep up her conditioning, as the arduous hiking is apparently child’s play to her.  Sarah’s new home is an idyllic cabin set deep in the woods, where she’s by now become used to the strange sounds of her woodland pursuer.  While she was initially suspect of being followed, not sure what to expect, she has now grown safer and more reassured, spending more time worrying about the nagging mosquitoes than this seemingly unknown but still felt presence.

Like something out of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums (1958) and Desolation Angels (1965), books which actually reflect his own personal journals that he kept one summer when he worked for the Forest Service in the North Cascades of Washington as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, a remote outpost sitting atop a mountain summit, Sasquatch appears to her as if in her dreams, where she starts making vivid sketches in her journal of what she sees, quickly becoming evident that she believes the creature is real.  Meanwhile, Münch cleverly intermixes realist argumentative posturing of local environmental activists (which includes Sean and Karen Black!) with Forest Service executives (which includes the data collected by Sarah), where they’re attempting to mediate their differences with the logging industry, which reflect the actual concerns of anyone living in Oregon, as these battles have been raging for decades.  Using Sean’s romantic interest in Sarah as a substory, the film delves into his radical beliefs, which include the ravings of conspiracy theorists who believe there’s a secret government plot for the military to build a wilderness outpost for the sole purpose of capturing and exploiting the telepathic powers of Bigfoot, who seemingly, according to Indian lore, channels soothing and harmonious beliefs into his friends while sending signals of terror into his more distrustful enemies.  One of the Oregonian relics of the logging industry is Sarah’s friend Barney, Jim Cody Williams, a heavily bearded old geezer who expresses as much love and admiration for the trees as any of the environmentalists, which adds a kind of luster to this idyllic portrait of differing sides coming together in a mutual understanding of just how invaluable the natural world can be if used wisely.  Sarah defines the spirit of those backpackers who continually need to get back into the woods, enchanted by all kinds of mysterious spirits, real and mythical, all of which add more layers of understanding to the human experience.       

An Unmarried Woman

AN UNMARRIED WOMAN        B                 

USA  (124 mi)  1978  d:  Paul Mazursky

Something of a bridge from the radical 60’s women’s liberation movement to the mainstream, where much of the mood and cheesy music from Bill Conti are reminiscent of the Mary Tyler Moore TV Show (1970 – 1977), which features a single woman capable of solving her own problems and making her own way in the world, usually stopping to help out others along the way, yet feeling little satisfaction in her role.  Jill Clayburgh as Erica is the focus of nearly every shot, where her seemingly secure upper class marriage of seventeen years hits the skids one day when her husband Martin, Michael Murphy, announces he’s fallen in love with a 19-year old woman he met while buying a shirt at Bloomingdales.  What should feel ridiculous becomes the centerpoint of the film, as Erica’s world crumbles, where she’s all of a sudden alone in the world.  It’s a stark and complicated revelation made even more intensely personal from Clayburgh’s iconic portrayal of loneliness and confusion along with deep seeded layers of contemptuous guilt, where she oozes anger and resentment at being betrayed.  Their fifteen year old daughter Patti (Lisa Lucas) finds her dad immensely hateful afterwards and the two have similar abandonment and anger issues.  While Erica has a part time job at an art gallery, she depends on continued financial support from her ex-husband, as she’s used to living in an upper echelon, choice corner high rise apartment with wall to wall window views on two sides offering a panoramic New York City landscape.  As they sit and have cereal in the morning and attempt to lead a normal life, the audience can’t help but be mesmerized and a bit overwhelmed by the stunning view out the window, one of the best ever seen in the movies. 

Listed as Ebert’s #1 film of the year Siskel and Ebert Top Ten Lists (1969-1998), offering plenty of intelligence and humor with a few bits of social realism thrown in, it’s hard to feel sympathy for such outrageously fortunate people of wealth, who have been protected all their lives from the problems of the real world.  Almost anyone would be perfectly willing to exchange places with her, man or no man.  When the film was released, Erica and her life of privilege continues to represent the world of the establishment and hasn’t a clue what people were fighting for during the social movements of the 60’s, yet she reaps the benefits from the struggles of others as she’s fortunate enough to have options that weren’t available in previous decades.  Despite railing against all men, Erica has a Sex and the City (1998 – 2004) support group of 3 other women her age that meet every week, usually over lunch and cocktails, where they commiserate over their middle age emptiness, lack of self-esteem, and especially their problematic sex lives.  While they offer friendship, she’s obviously missing the central purpose of her life, which has been defined by taking care of her husband and daughter, never once thinking of herself.  When it’s finally all about her, she hasn’t got a clue what to do, so she finds a female shrink, Penelope Russianoff, which was actually unusual for the times.   People might question the advice given, as the therapist urges her to get back out there and re-establish contact with other men.  Since her treatment was broadening her view of herself and redefining her own sense of independence, this might seem like a contradiction, but it’s based on the reality that women have sexual needs as well, so long as they establish them on their own terms. What’s unfortunate in this film is there are no likeable characters along with a clearly drawn line finding the husband completely at fault, which allows the wife to flaunt her superiority even as she flounders in misery and self disgust.        

Centered so much on the streets of New York City, this bears some resemblance to Woody Allen films, made a year after ANNIE HALL (1977), especially since Michael Murphy was so prominent in MANHATTAN (1979), as this film similarly features the open expanse of street scenes, bridges, skylines and panoramic views of the city, where the cinematography by Arthur J. Ornitz immerses the viewer into the vitality of the city.  When Erica begins making the rounds on her own, it at first feels cheap and pathetic, right out of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977), like meeting all the wrong people in the wrong places, where her fumbling awkwardness and sexual inhibitions reveal her repressive sense of confinement set against these spacious art studios which also offer spectacular views of the city.  When she meets Alan Bates, a successful artist from London, this feels like an idyllic, happily ever after version of reality and a stark contrast from the more difficult idea of discovering her self worth and redefining her sense of independence on her own, as once more she’s defining her happiness through a relationship with another man.  While Erica’s occasional grating on one’s nerves and somewhat berating sense of self justification makes it clear she’s made some progress, it’s not a radical shift to feminism, instead she simply takes what she likes from the movement, as her new agenda is once more structured upon the age old principles of wealth and monetary support to achieve happiness, and while she’s progressed to not jump head over heels into another dependent marriage where she’s just an extension of someone else’s personality, it’s also clear this is not the revelation it intended to be, as her happiness is defined by the prince in shining armor idealization, as someone else is coming to her rescue to make her happy and whole again.  Unfortunately, if this man dropped her, as her husband did, she’d be right back at the same starting point and is relying heavily upon the hope that this new guy is somehow different.  While the budding relationship is more ambiguous, where the lines are not so clearly drawn, it’s clear that she’s simply fallen for another guy, and where she may have more self respect and is not dropping everything to run away with him, she remains the picture of an overly self-centered rich bitch, a pampered New York City woman of privilege who is just as dependent upon his wealth and financial security to lead the kind of life to which she’s accustomed.