Coming Home (1978)

          Inarguably the best movie made during the ’70s about the unique difficulties facing American veterans returning from Vietman, Coming Homeis at once moving, political, provocative, and tender—and it’s also the apex of actress Jane Fonda’s anti-Vietnam War activism, even though it was released three years after the fall of Saigon. While “Hanoi Jane” alienated as many people as she inspired while the war was raging, she used Coming Home—which she developed—to focus her rage at needless conflict through the prism of war’s impact on individuals. Rather than being polemic, even though some detractors saw the film that way, Coming Home is poetic.

          When the movie opens in early 1968, Sally Hyde (Fonda) is happily married to a Marine officer named Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), and both unquestionably accept the rightness of U.S. involvement in Indochina. Once Bob leaves for his tour of duty, Sally begins to hear different opinions about the war, notably from her feminist friend Vi (Penelope Milford); Sally also begins to question the subservient role she plays in her marriage. Eventually, Sally volunteers at a VA hospital, where she meets returning soldiers including embittered but passionate Luke Martin (Jon Voight), who is paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. As part of her larger spiritual awakening, Sally recognizes Luke’s humanity, and they become lovers in a crucial scene that director Hal Ashby executes with a memorable combination of eroticism and poignancy. The fragile world that Luke and Sally build together is upset, however, when Bob returns from Vietnam, having been changed in disturbing ways that echo the film’s theme of how war affects different people differently.

          Placing Sally’s character at the center of the story was a genius move on many levels. First and most obviously, the role gives Fonda a way to express her deep feelings about the war; she dramatizes the ravages of conflict by meticulously charting Sally’s shifting attitudes. Second, making the central character a witness to the horrors of Vietnam—rather than an active participant—allows the audience to see soldiers as real-world people instead of battleground heroes. What does it mean when a draftee is rewarded for his service by wounds that will last the rest of his life? What does it mean when a career soldier encounters horrors during combat for which he wasn’t prepared? How can those left behind in the homeland ever hope to understand the experiences of soldiers?

          Coming Home is a deeply compassionate film, with Ashby and cinematographer Haskell Wexler capturing a spectrum of complex emotions in soft, painterly images; the movie is a tapestry of souls making connections and, alternately, slamming against insurmountable barriers. Coming Home is also a showcase for spectacular acting. Fonda and Voight both won Oscars, Fonda for her precise demarcations of stages in one woman’s life and Voight for his deeply touching openness. (His show-stopping speech to a group of young people near the end of the picture, while a bit of a narrative digression given its length, is among the finest moments Voight’s ever had onscreen.) Dern, unluckily overshadowed by his costars because he’s playing yet another in his long line of screen psychos, gives a performance every bit as powerful as Fonda’s and Voight’s—portraying a man who’s betrayed by the ideals to which he’s dedicated his life, Dern is frightening and yet also completely sympathetic.

Coming Home: RIGHT ON

Days of Heaven (1978)

          Much of the mythology surrounding enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick stems from the making and aftermath of his sophomore feature, Days of Heaven. Following idiosyncratic artistic instincts rather than Hollywood convention, Malick took nearly three years to craft this moodily poetic work, which treats its simplistic storyline like an afterthought. During that time, rumors spread about the director’s offbeat methods: For instance, he dictated that large sections of the film be shot at dusk, thereby abbreviating many of his shooting days to short bursts of activity. Then, after the film received a mixed critical reception, Malick disappeared from the Hollywood scene for 20 years. His mysterious withdrawal cast Malick as an artist too pure for the crass ways of Hollywood, triggering years of reappraisal and rediscovery.

          By the time Malick resumed directing with The Thin Red Line in 1998, Days of Heaven was firmly entrenched alongside the director’s debut feature, Badlands(1973), as one of the most respected films of the ’70s. Does it deserve such rarified status? Yes and no. Visually, Days of Heaven is unparalleled. Malick and cinematographers Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler mimicked turn-of-the-century paintings and photographs to evoke the supple textures of a Texas wheat farm circa 1916, the movie’s central location. Malick presents several astoundingly beautiful scenes of workers wading through fields, their bodies silhouetted against pastel-colored sunsets, while composer Ennio Morricone’s lilting music evokes a time when life moved at a more contemplative pace.

          Working with frequent collaborator Jack Fisk (credited here as art director), Malick oversaw the creation of a remarkable focal point, the elegant mansion that sits atop a wheat-covered hill, and Malick uses this structure as an effective metaphor for man’s tumultuous relationship with nature: Not only is the house a shelter during weather, it’s a place where relationships that had previously been allowed to roam freely get trapped within the conventions of propriety.

          The main plot, which never quite gels because Malick leaves many details unexplained and/or unexplored, begins in Chicago. Traveling workman Bill (Richard Gere), his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams), and his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) flee Chicago after Bill kills a supervisor during an argument. Upon reaching Texas, the trio accepts work on the wheat farm, which is owned by a sickly man identified only as The Farmer (Sam Shepard). For murky narrative reasons, Bill and Abby pretend to be brother and sister instead of a couple. So, when The Farmer becomes interested in Abby, Bill encourages the romance—believing The Farmer is terminally ill, Bill hopes to seize The Farmer’s wealth through marriage and build a new life for his family. Unfortunately, complications ensue, leading to heartbreak and tragedy.

          Despite the gifts for incisive storytelling he displayed in Badlands, Malcik badly fumbles basic narrative elements in Days of Heaven. His characters are ciphers, his pacing is erratic, and he relies far too heavily on the narration spoken, in character, by Manz. (A similar device was magical in Badlands, but here the narration just seems like a desperate attempt to add coherence.) Thanks to these flaws, the whole movie ends up having the hodgepodge feel of a student film, albeit one with awe-inspiring cinematography. Nonetheless, Days of Heaven casts a spell, which is a rare accomplishment.

Days of Heaven: GROOVY

Bound for Glory (1976)

          A beautifully made biopic with a few peculiar flaws, Bound for Glory represented yet another artistic high point for editor-turned-director Hal Ashby, whose ’70s output was as eclectic as it was impressive. This time, Ashby tackled the life story of pioneering American folksinger Woody Guthrie, whose enduring anthem “This Land Is Your Land” reflected his humanistic fascination with the downtrodden people he met during his vagabond adventures circa the Great Depression. Perfectly timed to tap into counterculture themes of reappraising priorities and questioning authority, Bound for Glory could easily have become a vanilla celebration of an iconic singer. Instead, it’s a rougher piece, demonstrating the strange conflict between Guthrie’s devotion to “the people” and his inability to fulfill familial obligations.

          The story begins in small-town Texas, with Woody (David Carradine) working as a freelance sign painter even though his real passion is playing music (he moonlights as a honky-tonk band’s guitarist). After one day too many without making a living wage, Woody skips out on his wife (Melinda Dillon) and becomes a hobo, stealing rides in the cargo cars of westbound trains as he makes his way toward the promised land of Southern California. Along the way, Woody sees enough deprivation and hardscrabble dignity to inspire a lifetime’s worth of original songs, and he finds himself drawn to the plight of the working men who are oppressed by callous business owners.

          Once in California, Woody is radicalized through his friendships with a fruit picker (Randy Quaid) and a union-organizing country singer (Ronny Cox). Picking up a guitar again after a long musical drought, Woody starts writing incendiary rabble-rousers. Then, after he’s hired to perform on the radio, he stumbles into an existential crisis when he’s forced to choose between integrity and a steady paycheck. The willingness on the filmmakers’ part to display Guthrie’s unattractive qualities gives Bound for Glory gravitas, complicating our idea of what Guthrie represents.

          This storytelling choice also gives Carradine the most multidimensional role of his career. He seizes the opportunity with a vibrant performance, crooning and philosophizing his way to an earthy incarnation of Guthrie’s troubadour spirit. Ashby surrounds Carradine and the rest of the strong cast with wonderfully evocative physical details, from the antiseptic milieu of recording studios to the heartbreaking ugliness of labor camps. Capturing all of these rich visuals is cinematographer Haskell Wexler, a diehard lefty who actually knew the real Guthrie back in the day; Wexler’s graceful camera movements and naturalistic lighting make Bound for Glory look like classic Depression-era photographs come to life.

          That said, Bound for Glory has strange shortcomings. Ashby bizarrely cast Dillon in two roles (she also plays a country singer who performs on the radio with Guthrie), and the ending isn’t particularly satisfying. One gets the impression Ashby couldn’t decide whether Guthrie was a heel or a hero, or both. But if the worst that can be said about a movie is that it embraces ambiguity, is that really much of a criticism?

Bound for Glory: GROOVY