Best Shot: "Peggy Sue Got Married" ... Her Second 25th Anniversary

Hit Me With Your Best Shot is a series where we look at favorite images and choose a "best shot" from a pre-selected movie. The moments that most define a film, elevate it, or merely gives us the most visual pleasure. "Best" is a fluid adjective. TWO WEEKS FROM NOW (June 29th) we'll be discussing Luchino Vischonti's Rocco And His Brothers (1960). Won't you join us? It's supposed to be awesome.

Francis Ford Coppola's PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986).

It's all in the transitions with Peggy Sue Got Married. And with Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner), who begins the picture distraught over her impending divorce and ends the picture by rejecting that new future (divorce) and for the recent past (troubled marriage). In the present tense, she's attending a high school reunion (a celebration of the past) while worrying about her future. And soon, after collapsing on the reunion's stage, she's thrust back into her own past... but aware that she shouldn't be there and viewing her past from the vantage point of the future. She's always out of time.

Note the way Coppola frames her at key moments, like this one above, where he separates her from things she is very much a part of, like this 25th High School Reunion. (I figured the movie's 25th anniversary year was a good time to revisit it and I'm so glad I did.)

In the lead up to the most magical and compelling shot in the film, she returns to her childhood home and considers knocking as the door drifts open of its own accord. Again we see the heroine separated visually from the main setting of the story, but in both cases she's about to enter into the present, whichever present that is, but she's doing so very tentatively. She either doesn't want to be there or she does but happens to be terrified. It's hard to live in the present but it's even harder when that present is the past.

The best shot in the film comes very early when Peggy Sue enters her childhood bedroom. Coppola moves the camera around the room and accelerates in a dizzying circle until we're back with the middle aged woman as she rediscovers her adolescence. There are no edits (THANK YOU!) as Peggy repeats the circling, rediscovering the room she grew up in. She seems utterly bewitched by the simplest things like a shoe on the carpet, her record player, a wee book. The room is lit so softly and superbly by the late cinematographer Jordan Cronenwerth and he was deservingly Oscar nominated for this picture! [Trivia note: His son Jeff was nominated just last year in the same category for The Social Network]. When Peggy finishes her tour, we've seen Kathleen Turner go from hypnotic trance to simple joy to confusion and then back to terrified, still not at peace with her time travelling.

WHAT is going on."

This fluctuation of mood in the space of one scene, is in perfect synch with the spotty brilliance of the movie which finds funny, sad, silly and mysterious ways to dig into the crazy moodswings of those hormonally charged teenage years while simultaneously commenting on middle aged "it's all behind me" panic. You could say the same of many time travel or body switching movies, but Coppola's vision is more adult than much of this peculiar subgenre. The movie is quite funny but it's also shot through with despair. Even the finale, a "happy ending" has a strange undertow of defeatist compromise, despite the fantastical happenings proceeding it. Even if you can go home again, you can't reboot your life; you have to make peace with it.

Peggy Sue peaked early. And so it is with Peggy Sue Got Married which is wonderfully compelling in the first third, less so in the second, and sputters and collapses at the finale. In a way the movie's primary weakness is absolutely fitting. It showed such promise during its youth! Does the movie's minor reputation reflect merely that it's an older person's film -- people Peggy Sue's age, who had the most to gain from its high school in the late 50s nostalgia would be hitting 70 about now -- or is it simply a result of its own shortcomings?

Arguably the movie is only a minor footnote now, but I still love it. If it's remembered it's mostly within the context of Coppola's career and family trivia (his daughter Sofia, her accomplished filmmaking career way ahead of her plays Peggy Sue's younger sister and his nephew Nicolas Cage gets the male lead) or as the  for the peak of Kathleen Turner's short-lived mega stardom. It had a disappointing Oscar run. Turner's wonderfully playful work, which is complicated but looks easy (that's Oscar death!) is still a real beauty of a star turn 25 years later. The final image that really stung on this revisit, is not a single shot but two of them, fused in a slow melancholy dissolve.

Peggy Sue has just broken up with her boyfriend again in an attempt to save them both from their 25 years-later divorce. She sits tired and despondent, lights a cigarette and we dissolve to the next scene. The beautiful thing is that it looks just like a memory: Soulful, colorful, lively... but half-imagined.

Check out these other Peggy Sue articles!

• Movies Kick Ass "Reverse Dorothy"
• The Entertainment Junkie "one woman's hall of mirrors" -- this is a really interesting take celebrating my least favorite scenes. It's making me rethink them!
• Film Actually loves the film's quotability. It does have great lines. And hair. And teeth. And eyes.
• Missemmamm really loves Peggy Sue and shared her favorite moments
• Awwww, the Movies Peggy's wild night.
  

Podcast With Katey. Oscar Rule Change

Hey people. Katey Rich, who you'll remember from those old vodcasts and podcasts right here (that's us to the left when we were talking up Inglourious Basterds) has been making waves with her podcast/vodcast series "Kino Katey." I'm a guest star for the first time there to talk about the Oscar changes. Listen in!

She's also doing this fab new series "Virgin Territory" where she watches a classic she's never seen before and talks it up with a friend who loves it, the latest being Apocalypse Now.

Kino Katey. Oscar Rule Changes

Unsung Heroes: The Archer of 'Robin Hood'

Michael C. from Serious Film here. As a rule, I don't indulge in nostalgic, "They don't make 'em like they used to" wallowing. I don't see the point. There was quality then and there is quality now. That having been said, it doesn't mean I can't geek out over one of the shining examples of classic Hollywood, which I will now do.

Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley it is hard not to feel a twinge of longing for the studio system, Hayes Code and all. It was firing on all cylinders with this production and, man, is it glorious to behold. Everything is bold and colorful and exciting. It can go toe-to-toe with Singin’ in the Rain for pure joy of filmmaking on display. 

As a nine-year-old viewer it was enough to inspire lifelong devotion. More than anything I think I responded to the reality of the film. Not realism, of course. This is a Movie-Movie if ever there was one. I mean the tactile reality of the things physically happening on the set. This is what we are losing with CGI. When something isn't faked it reaches a viewer (especially a young one) in a powerful way. In this movie we have Errol Flynn’s athleticism - swinging on vines and scaling walls - the impossibly cool sword fighting. And the arrows. Above all the arrows.

Howard Hill (archer) with Errol Flynn (movie star)

No movie does archery like The Adventures of Robin Hood. Which brings us to the hero of this episode, one Mr. Howard Hill, archer. If the arrows here have an impact lacking in other movies there is a good reason for that. Howard Hill was actually shooting people with real arrows.

I’ll say that again.

For a bonus $150 stunt men would throw on a steel plate and some padding and Hill would shoot them with real arrows fired at actual lethal speed. They could get away with this because Hill simply never missed. Seriously, he has to be seen to be believed. You can look for yourself on the DVD extra features where he is shown in archival footage splitting twine from fifty paces. He even worked with the sound team shooting his own specially designed arrows past microphones to create that instantly recognizable high-pitched “whoosh” sound that arrows make in this movie and no other.

Now, if I had to decide whether it’s right for stuntmen to risk getting shot with arrows by anyone, no matter how skilled, I would have to be a killjoy and say no. But since the arrows in question all flew over 70 years ago, I feel at liberty to point out that this method is really, really cool. Not only does it come across brilliantly on camera, but it spares us all the tricks the director would have needed to get around fake arrows - the kind of minor slight of hand that viewers let slide but nevertheless take us out of the movie a tiny bit each time.

Legend has it Hill personally performed the unforgettable stunt of splitting the arrow in one take. I saw an episode of Mythbusters where they declared this an impossible feat for a variety of reasons. Call me naïve and protective of my favorite childhood movie but I’m not convinced. I would prefer Mythbusters amending their verdict to “Busted for anyone who is not Howard Hill.” 

previously on Unsung Heroes: Glengarry Glen Ross, Zodiac, Oldboy, The Iron Giant, Hedwig and the Angry Inch...

Are You New?

Professor (Nathaniel) R.My psychic powers tell me that some of you are new.

You know how some television series make it nearly impossible for newbies what with their complex mythologies, beloved idiosyncracies and verbal/visual shorthand for long running threads? I sometimes worry about new readers here at The Film Experience. Do they slip away in confusion? A friend once told me that TFE is way too complex with its hiearchies of heroines and love-to-hate-them "villains" that you'd need a user guide, or perhaps a castle map to navigate the throne rooms and dungeons of the cinephilia.

I don't know about all that but IF you're new, please say so in the comments and welcome!

The easiest way to get acquainted would be to check out the Best of... posts, top ten lists, Oscar coverage, or click around to regular programming like Hit Me..., "First and Last" quizzes, Unsung Heroes, or Curio. In the sidebar to your right you can find links to the most recent reviews. We've been on a bit of an animation kick lately. Oh and mutants.

Nathaniel -- sorry to refer to myself in the third person (it happens) -- also really likes to draw which is not something you get much of on other movie sites.

Welcome and stick around. Try us out on your preferred reader feed.

"Dick Tracy" Q&A with Warren Beatty

Alex (BBats) here, doing a lil’ scouting in LA. Oh my oh my!

BBats and Beatty! This past weekend, I had the pleasure to revisit Dick Tracy (1990) on the big screen courtesy of the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival.  The film hasn’t aged a day due to that rich pulp style that seeps through every set piece, costume, matte painting, and actor.  The main draw was a Q & A with Warren Beatty after the film! Now, I was battling the flu and taking notes as fast as I could, so keep that in mind and I wouldn’t say anything below was a direct quote.

Beatty stood in the wings as the film’s end credits rolled. Big applause for the film followed and I saw a big smile grow across his face. The moderator brought him out to thunderous ovation (duh). He seemed a little cagey and very careful in selecting his words; this Q & A was for the Los Angeles Times, he pointed out, and would be in print the very next day.

Hit the jump for some Beatty, Dick, and a lil' Bening action!

On Stephen Sondheim
'He did great stuff for this…I’m such a fan of Sondheim’s. Everytime I see one of his shows, I just fall apart on the first song.'

On the film itself
'I’m disgusting because I really do like it a lot.'

Beatty had been attached to the propertry since 1976. The moderator asked why he chose Dick Tracy. Beatty said that he didn’t want to do some picture where everything got blasted around, and that Dick Tracy was this guy who had been around forever and wanted to start a family. He paused and said he thought of it as a gentle picture. (Aside: I love when people call movies "pictures". Super classy.)

This next part is so funny, let's get it right by quoting directly from the Los Angeles Times.

 “Little by little I found myself caught up enough in it to actually go and make a movie about it, because it was hard for me. … I always think of making a movie like vomiting. I don’t like to vomit, but I get to the point where I think, ‘I’d better go ahead and do this, and I’ll feel better.’” 

Everyone  rolled with laughter. The vomiting reference also maybe gives us a little glimpse as to why he hasn’t directed a film since Bulworth (1998). But back to the Q & A.

His desk needs a bucket.

Beatty began to compliment everyone in the cast and the moderator honed in on certain performances and how he cast the roles. Interestingly, Beatty compared the casting process to writing. When you cast someone it's an instant rewrite, even if you don’t change a word.

Madonna sings "MORE" in Dick Tracy and you know you want more, too: Bening, Pacino. Hoffman, Oscars and Dick Tracy sequel nuggets after the jump.

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