Tender Mercies

 

Palmer, Texas

farmhouse as it is today, just East of Waxahachie

 

Director Bruce Beresford

Duvall winning a Best Actor Academy Award

TENDER MERCIES          A                                                                                                  USA  (92 mi)  1983  d: Bruce Beresford

You see, I don’t trust happiness.   I never did.  I never will.                                                         —Max Sledge (Robert Duvall)

With the recent death of actor Robert Duvall, who died of natural causes in February at the age of 95, it’s worth remembering the one role that won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, as it’s a throwback to gentler times, where his hugely understated presence infuses the film with a quiet simplicity in this organically realized redemption story about the price of fame, the devastating destruction of the bottle, and the will to recover from horrendous mistakes in life.  Completely unpretentious, never offering any easy resolutions, nothing is ever taken for granted, as each day matters in the road to recovery.  Not nearly as well known as it deserves to be, curiously turned down by David Lynch after he made ELEPHANT MAN (1980), thinking he wasn’t right for the film, it’s aptly named, written by Texas native Horton Foote, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who won an Academy Award for the lyrical screenplay, having won the same award for his earlier adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), with Foote developing a reputation for evoking everyday American life in beautifully observed minimal stories that allow the actors to shine, as Gregory Peck also won an Academy Award for his role as Atticus Finch in Lee’s legendary novel, one of the most beloved roles in American cinema, and a film where Duvall makes his first screen presence as the reclusive and pathologically shy Boo Radley.  Foote and Duvall were good friends spanning five decades, with Duvall reading a letter honoring their friendship at Foote’s funeral in 2009 (Remembering Robert Duvall and Horton Foote).  Duvall is known for his larger-than-life presence in Francis Ford Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1978), uttering the infamous line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” and will always be associated as the level-headed consigliere in Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), where his favorite role, according to interviews, was playing an ex-Texas Ranger in Lonesome Dove — TV mini-series (1989), but it is here that he really carves out a distinctive place in his career, as this is a quieter, more reserved performance, defined by stifled emotions and the decency of the human spirit, listed at #14 of Premiere magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time.  Described by film critic Pauline Kael as a “bare-bones ‘art’ movie,” intentionally avoiding big grandiose scenes, even the use of close-ups, instead filming from a respectful distance, this is a spare depiction of rural Southern life where not much ever happens, filled with long silences and the dialed-down poetry of spoken words, a reminder of simpler times where honesty prevails, having a neighborly respect for others, and above all, an effortless display of human kindness.  Very few films are able to achieve the authenticity established here, not just in the immensity of the empty landscapes, but in the personal connections, as we’ve lost this ability to connect on such an intensely personal level, where this becomes a beautiful portrait of the human spirit.

Robert Duvall stars as a washed-up country singer Mac Sledge, a star who’s fallen on hard times, almost always seen wearing a Stetson hat, an alcoholic estranged from his family who has hit rock bottom at the beginning of the film, seen as just a shadow through the window, where all we hear are the violent voices and sounds taking place behind closed doors in a remote country gas station motel on an isolated stretch of highway, with Mac eventually sleeping off a two day bender, finding himself completely broke and unable to pay for his lodging, so he asks motel owner Rosa Lee (Tess Harper in her first screen role), if he can work off his debt, which she kindly agrees to, but only with the stipulation that no alcohol is allowed while working.  Widowed at a young age, she lost her high school sweetheart husband during the Vietnam War, which looms in the background like a ghost, leaving her to raise her young son alone, a child who never knew his father.  Surprisingly, Mac ends up sticking around for months, working for his room and board, with a small salary thrown in, literally disappearing off the face of the earth, with no one knowing where he’d gone, where that anonymity seems to help him come to his senses, regain some semblance of stability, and recover from his own largely self-inflicted personal tragedies.  Like a safe port in a storm, they end up getting married (entirely offscreen, even the proposal), but he still struggles with his demons while haunted by his past, as we’re not even aware he was once a major star until well into the picture.  Country music is a thread that runs through this movie, something the studio executives failed to comprehend, eventually losing faith in the film, failing to understand what it was about and how the music connects to what was at that time a massive unidentified audience, providing few resources to promote it, but country star Willie Nelson was impressed by the authenticity of Duvall’s performance and offered to step in to help promote it.  Most importantly, co-producer Robert Duvall wrote some of the songs he sings in the film and does all his own singing, feeling a genuine connection to the character, which is why it works so well.  Authenticity is the key, something movie studios today still have a hard time understanding, producing very few films that fit that criteria.  The film helped define the American independent film movement of the 1980’s by initiating a trend of personal filmmaking that often looks beyond Hollywood conventions.  Emblematic of that is an early scene with Mac playing a song for Rosa Lee’s son Sonny (Allan Hubbard, who never made another film) in the kitchen, which is remarkably minimalistic, yet rooted in something we all universally understand, Tender Mercies Scene YouTube (2:07).   

The relatively barren locations are perhaps more reflective of West Texas, taking place on a little desolate stretch of flat land, yet the film was mostly shot in and around Waxahachie and Palmer in north central Texas by Australian cinematographer Russell Boyd, who has the distinction of shooting one of the most beautiful films ever made, Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), while the film is directed by fellow Aussie Bruce Beresford, whose groundbreaking war drama BREAKER MORANT (1980) helped usher in an Australian New Wave, so it may come as a surprise to some that an Australian is able to so eloquently capture the poetic nuances of small-town America, yet that is what truly elevates this film over so many others.  Perhaps the only other film that gets the unique distinctiveness of the South right, particularly Texas, is Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971), which was adapted by Larry McMurtry from his own novel, though the Truman Capote autobiographical adaptation of David Perry’s A Christmas Memory - made for TV (1966) captures the subtle nuances of small-town life in rural Alabama.  Tess Harper was raised as rural and working class herself, coming from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, providing just the right touch of firmness, grace, and mercy, with an ever-observant eye, always watching over others.  The film has a stripped down, almost raw feel to the narrative, taking its time, only revealing what’s essential, as so much is expressed by what is left unsaid, where every scene feels valued, contributing to the overall build-up of the interior realms of the characters.  With its themes of sin and redemption, forgiveness, hope, and personal transformation through religious faith, some may recognize this as a religious movie, as it also speaks to the power of prayer, which is where the title comes from, with the kind-hearted frontier woman Rosa Lee, a devout Christian, revealing, “Each night when I say my prayers I thank God for his tender mercies,” which is simply a wonderful revelation, whether it has religious intent or not.  The church also figures prominently, as the family attends a Baptist church on a regular basis, accentuating the singing of the hymns and the idea of baptism (the visual expression of baptism by immersion is rare in films), where it eludes to the possibility of being reborn in the spirit of the Lord.  God does not protect us from the inevitable pains and sufferings of life, but he knowingly sends the “tender mercies” that somehow make life worth living, regardless of the circumstances.  Most people do not recognize this as a religious movie, but to those who see it that way, this is a profoundly powerful film, as religious a movie as you could ever find, as it speaks of God in an unusually secular way, yet is also fundamentally human, expressing the stirrings of love in an existential sense.

Initially released in only a handful of theaters, coinciding with the early days of MTV, which is diametrically opposite to what this represents, it was a box office dud until word of mouth spread, as critics who saw it provided enthusiastic reviews.  While it’s rare for movies to portray rural characters as complex human beings, the back story revolves around Mac’s embittered ex-wife, Dixie (Tony Award winning actress/singer Betty Buckley), who became famous singing Mac’s songs, Betty Buckley from "Tender Mercies" singing "Over You YouTube (3:59), the first country single to be nominated for an Oscar, with Wilford Brimley as her over-protective manager Harry, but their contentious divorce-filled allegations of alcohol-fueled violence left their daughter in limbo, with Dixie refusing to allow Mac to see or speak to her as she grew up.  Now that she’s reached the age of 18, Sue Ann (the wonderful Ellen Barkin sparkles in a very early role) can decide for herself, as their worlds intersect briefly when she pays him a visit, a girl he barely knows, where she remembers a song he sang to her at night, but she can’t quite remember it.  Taken by surprise, Mac doesn’t either, but the moment she leaves he’s seen alone at a window with his back to the camera quietly remembering the song in what may be the film’s most poignant moment, with the song carrying the central theme of the movie, “On the wings of a snow white dove, God sends his pure, sweet love,” Tender Mercies (1983) - “A Song You Used To Sing To Me ... YouTube (2:59).  With the encouragement of a band of local kids who idolize him, Mac makes a comeback, of sorts, balancing the sacred and the profane, singing with them in a honky tonk bar, Clip from "Tender Mercies (1983)" YouTube (3:22).  The film deals with a constant refrain of “champagne ladies” and “broken dreams,” the subjects of his old songs, but also paints a picture of how much it hurts to face reality, expressing the pain of mortality, where nothing can explain the sudden loss of life of a loved one, especially a child, as there is so much meaning packed into such a devastating loss, where there are simply no words that can fill the empty hole in one’s heart, but love may be the closest thing we have, in all its forms and permutations, with real emotion literally filling the screen in the haunting final moments when reality comes crashing into our lives in the most unexpected way, Scenes & End Credits from "Tender Mercies (1983)" YouTube (4:31).  The final musical ballad, the Craig Bickhardt song You Are What Love Means to Me YouTube (4:11), which takes the film to the end credits, feels surprisingly commercial and out of place, completely altering the tone of bare essentials and stripped-down authenticity, though the lyrics do fit the story.  Still, it may be the film’s only misfire.  Mac comes to embody a second chance in life, whose redemptive arc is largely a symbol of a possible resolution to the American chaos and disorder inherited from the 60’s and 70’s, yet despite the anguish and grief associated with death, where there’s no clear answer or road map, love prevails, in all its simplicity and grace, as in the end that’s all we really have to fill the void of meaninglessness. 

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

Linda onstage singing with her father Gilbert

Left to right, Emmylou Harris, Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton

Ronstadt receiving National Medal of Arts from President Obama

LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE           B+               

USA  (95 mi)  2019 d:  Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman           Official site

I’ve been a singer all my life, so it’s very odd not to be able to do that.  Especially when I go to visit my family, as we always sang together and now we can’t.  But I can play music in my head ― I’ve got a huge jukebox in my brain.

―Linda Ronstadt

Probably most Americans under 40 don’t know her or aren’t familiar with her music, which was all the rage in the 70’s and 80’s, but she’s not an Internet sensation attracting millions of followers  Quoting from Peter Lewry’s 2010 book on Ronstadt, Linda Ronstadt: A Life In Music, written by band musician Andrew Gold in the Foreword, “She was, for a very long time in the seventies, the most famous female rocker in America.  As you may imagine, it was hectic and non-stop, but we were all young and ambitious, with a healthy dose of post 60’s party instinct to boot.  At the center, however, was of course the music.  The music came first always.”  Like Whitney (2018), most books or films doing biographies prefer to reveal something personal that offers deep psychological insight into one’s life, but in Linda Ronstadt’s case, that’s not the highlight, as it really is all about the music, becoming synonymous with family, as it’s what her family did together, where singing and sharing music was an essential act of love, as natural as the sky is blue, each with their own different tastes, all collaborating to form a collective musical consciousness.  So rather than search for deeper insights, this film plays the music that defines who she is, with Ronstadt providing background narration (some of it quite poetic) that literally tells the story of her life, but as it turns out, music is the expression of her heart.  While she doesn’t fit the profile of writing her own songs, making them autobiographical, instead she takes other people’s songs and makes them her own, making her rendition uniquely powerful, yet heartfelt, with Cameron Crowe revealing “When you become that sharp of a song stylist, you get authorship, in a way,” where what mattered to her was whether the songs meant something, revealing “Every song that I sing has a face I sing it to,” finding a core meaning in the message that she so beautifully conveys through radio, records, or live performances.  In the late 60’s, a comparable song stylist to Ronstadt might have been Dusty Springfield, who could get down and dirty with the soulful Dusty Springfield - Son of a preacher man - YouTube (2:26), but mostly she perfected a studio sound that emphasized sophisticated strings.  Ronstadt didn’t dance like Tina Turner or have a background group singing harmony and dancing in unison like The Pips, providing none of the visual imagery of musical stars of today, she simply faced the audience and poured her heart out, with musicians harmonizing, usually dislaying her preferance for performing barefoot, where you quickly realize that despite her small frame (only 5 feet two inches tall) her voice is a powerhouse that fills the entire space of large auditoriums, a force of nature where her command of range is seemingly so effortless, developing a reputation for being capable of singing anything, from country to pop, classic Rock ‘n’ Roll to R & B, light opera to big band standards, even singing classical mariachi music.  Undaunted throughout her career, she continued to defy categorization, often the lone female rock star in a male-dominated industry, she remains one of the most important vocalists on the American music scene, the first artist to top the pop, country, and R & B charts simultaneously, with five straight platinum albums, 11 overall, nominated for 26 Grammy awards, winning ten of them.  Yet despite her acclaim, all the other boy bands received entry into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame before she did belatedly in 2014, which, if anything, means the industry continues to underrate the significance of her career.  Perhaps this film may change a few minds.  When asked why she sings, she says it’s for the same reasons birds sing: “They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day, so the subsequent generations won’t forget what the current generation endured or dreamed or delighted in.”  Starting out in the Laurel Canyon folk-rock scene of Los Angeles in the late 60’s, she stopped singing publicly in 2009, as the inflection in her voice changed from Parkinson’s disease, the same ailment that afflicted Muhammad Ali late in his career (eventually losing his voice), a progressive nerve disease for which there is no known cure.  So the film is something of a revelation, playing it back, reliving so many of her performances, where she became a musical icon, but remained modest and humble about her own abilities, never full of herself, avoiding the spotlight, always praising others, where the essential beauty of her character is just how unassuming and unpretentious she is, where for her, she lets the music speak for itself.  With that in mind, this is the right kind of film for the occasion, as it is wall-to-wall music, offering joyful praise for her immense musical contributions.    

Ronstadt was born in Tucson, an Indian, Hispanic, and Anglo mix, about an hour’s drive to the border in Nogales, which allowed her to hear the radio airwaves on both sides of the border growing up, from Mexican songs, Country and Western, as it was called then, or the upstart youth music of rock ‘n’ roll.  Her grandfather Fred was a Mexican immigrant who ran a popular hardware store, while a well-traveled Aunt Luisa used to perform around the world in the 20’s and 30’s, bringing back songs from around the globe.  Ronstadt’s maternal grandfather Lloyd was a prolific inventor, holding many patents, creating an early form of a toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, and one of the first electric stoves, while his design for an ice-cube tray made him millions, much of which he spent tying to find a cure for his wife’s Parkinson’s disease.  Her mother Ruth was from Flint, Michigan, but attended college in Arizona, serenaded by her father Gilbert, a rancher who sang songs beneath her window at night, marrying and eventually settling on a 10-acre farm in Tucson, where the family was actually featured in a magazine spread of Family Circle in 1953, with Linda, the third youngest of four children, owning her own horse in childhood.  Her father ran the family hardware store but was a singer during the Depression of the 30’s, playing in local clubs and social functions, bringing that love of music to the family, with an eclectic record collection that included Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald, though Linda’s favorite Mexican singer growing up was Lola Beltran, while her sister loved Hank Williams but performed in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical at school, with Linda learning the lyrics to all the songs.  In the hot summer months, many were inclined to stay indoors, where her favorite activity was listening to the radio, with evening broadcasts of “Race music,” as it was called at the time, often imitating the music she heard.  Convinced she would be a singer, she got her start with her brother and sister, calling themselves The Three Ronstadts, singing at various functions in and around Tucson.  One of their bass players, Bobby Kimmel, headed out to Los Angeles to start a band in 1963 when Linda was enrolled in Arizona State University, urging her to come out West and join him, which she did, leaving after finishing one semester of college.  Much like Elton John in Rocketman (2019), though a decade earlier, they headed to the Troubadour in West Hollywood, where playing on open mike night could gain exposure, as talent agents were always present searching for the next big thing, though most groups at the time were singing Elizabethan Folk Ballads, the kind of thing that might headline coffee shops, but nothing more.  Hanging out at the Troubadour introduced Linda to Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and Glenn Frey, all aspiring musicians at the time searching for their own niche in the music industry, mostly emulating the folk-rock sound of The Byrds, with Linda sharing a cheap Santa Monica beach house at the time.  Linda headed a group called The Stone Poneys, an eclectic folk act that captured the attention of Frank Zappa’s manager Herb Cohen, a notorious bad-ass who liked the girl and ditched the rest of the band, turning the rather amateurish sounding, somewhat psychedelic Stone Poneys - Different Drum (Live) YouTube (2:27) into a hit record with a little kick to it, featuring Linda’s distinctive voice and her gorgeous All-American girl look front and center, Different Drum YouTube, 1967 (2:39), recording a record album, where the song was a hit on the radio, sounding nothing like the rest of the album, mostly getting airplay in the LA area.  Not immediately catching on, she continued to record music, but took a turn away from folk, venturing into country music, but what surprised her most was hearing another Troubadour act play an exact rendition of one of her own signature songs, with Don Henley and his band Shiloh performing her version of Linda Ronstadt - Silver Threads and Golden Needles - YouTube 1969 (2:26), eventually inviting Henley and Glenn Frey to go on the road with her, where the two guys eventually got the bright idea to form their own band called The Eagles.  While there was plenty of drugs and alcohol to go around on the bus, what was clear is the superb craftsmanship of the musicians, a prerequisite throughout Ronstadt’s career, brilliantly concise, emphasizing but never overpowering the message of the song.   

Ronstadt’s next big hit is kind of a throwback to an earlier era, a heartrendering ballad that retains roots to the folk era, Midnight Special-Linda Ronstadt "Long, Long Time" 1972 YouTube (3:22), which earned her first Grammy nomination, giving us signs of that big voice that would come to define her, remaining vulnerable, yet ultra-feminine.  The film develops Ronstadt’s brief romantic flirtation with singer/songwriter JD Souther, who wrote many of the biggest hits for The Eagles, as well as Ronstadt, like Linda Ronstadt - Faithless Love (live 1975) - YouTube (3:06), co-producing one of her albums, but her biggest leap is pure rock ‘n’ roll, a song reveling in defiance, Linda Ronstadt ~ When Will I Be Loved 1976 OGWT1 - YouTube (2:11), “I’ve been cheated, been mistreated, when will I be loved?”  The enormous sound just leaps off the stage right at you, making a direct hit, literally shaking you to the bones, with Ronstadt becoming synonymous with songs of heartache and pain, where she simply belts out that wounded anguish in ways that are easily understood, becoming a megastar in the process, a fusion of vulnerability and sensuality, the most spectacular female singer of the rock era.  Touring is what generates big bucks and the instant success, yet it’s such a self-destructive endeavor, singing the same songs “over and over again until they start sounding like your washing machine.”  In an era when there were few girl singers singing rock music, probably the most incisive remarks come in an interview at her Malibu home during a walk along the beach, Linda Ronstadt Full Interview Wonderland 1977 (RARE) YouTube (5:41), speaking about the emotional toll of being on the road, the only girl surrounded completely by guys who already have an ego problem being labeled sidemen for a chick singer, but then she expounds on a male aggressive industry directing their hostility against women that unfortunately becomes adapted as part of the overall culture.  Her description of the effects drugs have on rock stars is piercingly accurate, becoming more and more isolated and self-destructive, literally destroying their music, if not their lives.  As if to combat that dilemma, Ronstadt went through a period of taking over-the-counter diet pills to retain her nightly energy, but also decided to stop playing in such enormous arenas, as the experience was so dehumanizing for her as an artist.  So instead, she simply keeps reinventing herself, becoming a trend setter, choosing her own material against the wishes of her agent and record producer, but following her heart, which makes all the difference, singing what she wanted as opposed to what sells commercially.  Because of her enormous popularity, every turn she takes becomes a proven success, because of the careful manner in which she meticulously rehearses and arranges every song, making sure each is her best effort.  The film delves briefly into the decade-long public romance she has with California Governor Jerry Brown, beautifully encapsulated here, Linda Ronstadt Playboy interview | The Pop History Dig, though also wonderfully articulated in an interview for Australian television explaining why differences in political views don’t stop her from performing in troublesome regions, Linda Ronstadt-Don Lane Show 27th October 1983 - YouTube (16:21).  Featuring a host of interview footage about her from artists like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, singing a duo with Emmylou, Linda Ronstadt - "I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You" YouTube, 1974 (2:27), reserving some of the best material for that trio of female singers (who collectively share a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame), Dolly Parton Linda Ronstadt Emmylou Harris - The Sweetest Gift YouTube, 1976 (2:46), championing other female performers where she generously defers to their talent, but also includes an unfamiliar detour, where she’s positively adorable, nominated for a Tony Award in 1981 as best actress for her role in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Poor Wandering One - YouTube (4:58) before collaborating with a few old friends, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt & Ry Cooder - YouTube 1983 (4:01), even singing with the Muppets, Linda Ronstadt The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss) plus ... YouTube, 1985 (2:58), doing a cameo guest appearance on The Simpsons, The Plow King Commercial (59 seconds), and meeting new friends alike, such as Aaron Neville, Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville Don't Know Much ... - YouTube 1989 (3:35), amusingly reminding him at the Grammy Awards to thank his wife, before breaking out into classic Mexican mariachi music, just killing it with some of the more upbeat and colorful renditions ever heard, LINDA RONSTADT.... La Charreada. - YouTube 1989 (3:35), a ridiculously cheerful song, becoming the best-selling Spanish-language album ever released, including a portion with her 75-year old proud father singing with her onstage, as he was the one that originally brought these songs into their home.  While it’s a long and beautiful career, the incredibly sad end is beyond description (as it was with Mohammad Ali), quite a contrast to the bubbly effervescent girl featured in the film, a perfectionist with a sense of personal integrity, yet a reminder for all to tread carefully and make each moment count, something she did with each and every song, leaving behind a remarkable legacy of star power and poetic grace. 

From an online search, this may be one of her better recorded concerts at the peak of her popularity available for viewing, Linda Ronstadt - Stadthalle, Offenbach, Germany 1976-11-16 (1:16:00).