CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER prepared me, but did not cure me, of my youth's struggles with a romantic tragedy. That blessed first quarter in Fall 1980 at UCLA Graduate Film School, I felt free, alive and clear of mind. I was free from my nagging college girlfriend/former fiancee and free from the bondage of christianity. I made love to a Parisian girl and shared classes with peers from all over the globe, from Greece, New Zealand, India, and even Iowa. My consciousness was expanding. Gone were the mental, as well as physical, self-limitations consistent with the religious mind.
One of the prime benefits of film school was being able to see films in advance of their release, accompanied by representatives from the cast and crew who make themselves available for a post screening question and answer session. My pals and me heard about this romantic comedy directed by Joan Micklin Silver that was being screened at Melnitz that evening. We decided to go packed. We'd spent hours watching films in Melnitz and the theatre itself had become like a clubhouse. We sat in the back rows and, after the movie started, we passed around cans of beer and a bottle of vodka. I must admit that when the John Heard character pulled that bottle of vodka out of his desk, and it was the same brand as ours, I was a bit spooked at the coincidence.
Further aggravating the matter, Mary Beth Hurt looked a lot like my former girlfriend. While the overall satire of pointless, 70's, post-hippie lives was amusing, even then I understood the struggles in trying to find meaning in a society mired in myths. It wasn't until a few weeks later, when my ex-girlfriend informed me she was pregnant and didn't want me to have anything to do with her or the baby, that I became as obsessed with her as the John Heard character did with the Mary Beth Hurt character in CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER.
I forget if the movie was still running or if it was during the q&a session that we slid the empty vodka bottle under the seats, along the concrete floor and towards the front rows. Of course, we all acted innocent and were probably too messed up to know how stupid we were being, but nobody made a big deal of it.
Actor Mark Metcalf showed up for the q&a. As well as producing the film with Griffin Dunne and Amy Robinson, he played Mary Beth Hurt's character's husband "Ox." But we all recognized him as "Doug Neidermeyer" from ANIMAL HOUSE. Here was "What's it like to be an asshole, Neidermeyer" playing a relatively nice guy placed in the unsympathetic role due to no real fault of his own. Metcalf told us a story about the time he entered El Coyote for dinner and some patron recognized him and shouted from across the dining room, "Neidermeyer, you're a dead man." He admitted this kind of thing happened to him often. He was the victim of having played a memorable screen villain. If anyone ever deserved being a Vietnam soldier purposely killed by his own men, it was "Doug Neidermeyer."
That night we saw the first version of the film and it was titled CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER. This first version had the same "happy" ending as the novel. By the time I became wrapped up in my own romantic tragedy, the box office results of the first release proved to be so bad, that the distributors released a new version titled HEAD OVER HEELS, which ended with the end of the relationship. The filmmakers defended this second version, arguing this more cynical ending matched the spirt of the novel better than the first. Maybe so. Maybe times had changed from the time of Ann Beattie's 1976 novel to the 1979-1980 period when the film was produced and released. That glorious fall quarter also brought us the death of John Lennon and the election of Ronald Reagan. Dark times seemed to be coming and they haven't left us since.
Eventually, time and reality brought my melodrama to an end and I became free once again and forever. Still, I understood the John Heard character's final resignation and realization that "It's not that you get over it, it's that you just get used to it."
POE NOTE: Ann Beattie presently teaches at the University of Virginia, where she is the Edgar Allan Poe Chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment