My Favorite Year
1982 US
Dir: Richard Benjamin
Str: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna
Where does this movie's charm come from?
My Favorite Year is surprisingly enjoyable. I've read several reviews
about this movie, and all of them are telling My Favorite Year is an excellent movie. I also agree with
them without hesitation. I can even say that the movie is one of the best movies I have ever seen in the 1980s.
However, it is rather difficult to explain why. It is a drama with the tinge of comedy. But neither a downright
drama nor a sheer comedy. Through the long history of movies, there appeared a lot of so-called romantic comedies.
Although this movie has the element of a romantic comedy, it is not the focus of the movie at all. So what is the
focal point? Before discussing it, I am going to explain the outline of this movie.
They are all looking energetic. Where has this energy gone these
days? Some enchantment must have totally vanished.
My Favorite Year illustrates America in the 1950s when the age of TV
was about to explode. The story is told from the view point of a young TV man. He is assigned to the job of taking
care of a legendary movie hero Alan Swan (played by Peter O'Toole) who is to appear as a guest star in the TV program
the young TV man is assiciated with and not always in good shape for acting because of his booze. The movie handles
the atmosphere of the days of incipient TV culture very well, all surrounding people acting energetic and hopeful,
and behaving as if they had no worry at all. Even the Peter O'Toole's estrangement with his daughter looks not
so serious. The optimistic view of this movie will surely become clear when compared to such a movie like Network
that is also depicting TV business. As I wrote a review about the movie Network, I am not going to explain
it in detail here. But, Network handles only darker aspects of TV business, and will surely give the audience
the feeling of a totally paranoiac mad world. Despite the fact that My Favorite Year was made in the 1980s
while Network in the 1970s, we might feel in such a way as Network's situation is nearer to the image
we are holding about TV business in present situation than My Favorite Year is depicting, if ignoring the
extreme exaggeration of Network's plot. But, now, I am wondering if the motives of making both movies, anyway,
might have stemmed from the same origin. That is; Network depicts the problems of TV media with ten times
magnification, and My Favorite Year depicts them through showing in contrast the age of devoid of them.
In short, strategies employed in both movies are completely opposite to each other, yet the real motives might
be the same. I presume that it's true whenever someone shows the glory of the past, the lack of that very glory
in the present time is always implicitly suggested. Hence, if one felt energy and hope in this movie, it might
be proving the lack of them in the current situation. In this way, it can be said that while Network explicate
our hopeless situations by depicting them straight, My Favorite Year makes us notice the lack of energy
and hope in this age through the depiction of the age when they are fully materialized. Yet, it's fun to know such
an age when people are energetic and hopeful ever exists (Oh! I feel I am extremely pessimistic by saying so).
Though I was born in 1960 in Japan, and therefore I am not in a position of judging whether the background of the
movie is accurate or not, nevertheless I don't doubt the authenticity of the movie. And I also remember the days
when firstly came a TV set in my home, and all the members of my family was literally gazing into the TV display,
though that was in the 1960s. This kind of refreshing experience never arises these days, and it's true even when
I purchased a brand new computer. Probably, the existence of this precious experience would be of what My Favorite
Year is trying to convey, I presume.
Anyway, what does the word "reality" mean these days? Can
someone tell exactly what virtual reality is?
Then, what has been lost, and what's wrong with our age? That would be very
difficult to answer. Some SF movies has depicted dreary future world where everything is controlled by authoritative
structure. But, today, the world doesn't seem to be dominated by such kind of explicit coercive force (I'm not
going to talking about inner situation. I just say, in this subject, I recommend you to read the famous book written
by Erich Fromm "Escape from Freedom"). Then what? I think there might be many answers to this question.
But, as clearly elucidated in the aforementioned movie Network, we seem to have lost the clue about what
actually the reality is, and carefully sustained equilibrium has been torn down by the massive force of recent
state-of-the-art media technology whose power against human perception should never be underestimated, as I discussed
it in the review of the movie Network. Here, I pick up one proof of our confusion about reality. These days
we frequently hear the words with the prefix "virtual-". Though I don't know the exact meaning of these
words, if they meant "assumed", it would be probably right, but if they meant "almost real",
it should be pointed out that the most important aspect of reality would be being ignored. That is; reality cannot
be an objective to be pursued in any way. Because the moment you think you catch it, it has long been slipping
away out of your palm. That is the nature of reality. It is always with you, and never without your existence,
which surely means it cannot be persued as a certain objective. So I presume that the overdosing use of the word
"virtual-something" in these days is well reflecting the recent confusion of our notion about
reality. It goes without saying that, in the age of mass media all values being originated mostly from the structual
differentiations in the cultural fabrication carefully interwoven with the fragments of embers of what used to
be considered to be a real thing that, in turn, might not have been real at all, it has become extremely difficult
to grasp what is real or even what can be real. One reason why TV, as a media, could be dangerous for all of us
resides in the fact that TV deeply involves human perceptions in its own peculiar milieu without clearly demarcating
itw own boundary.
An architect Christopher Alexander gives us some hint of what has
been really lost these years which eventually leads us to feel
the
lack of any reality.
Recently, I read the book written by an architect Christopher Alexander who
had, allegedly, had an great influence upon computer industry. His key word is "pattern". Pattern means
a kind of matrix by whose force many things can get the quality of being alive. For example, can you feel newly
built massive modern buildings are alive? Certainly not. Because, using his term, they are devoid of patterns.
Their uniformity and homogeneity are killing us. On the other hand, the buildings built in the old age frequently
gives us the feeling that they are alive, for they are full of patterns. You shouldn't consider the word "pattern"
as something like pre-determined rules. Rather, it means dynamic force that can vary according to the situation
under which it is applied, and it has nothing to do with our intentional designs or images. It will come out only
when we have succeeded in negating our own prejudice toward our environment, and becoming the part of that environment
itself. And, only after these patterns have been successfully materialized and applied to the environment we are
in, our environment will become really real for us. Because, in this way, we will be able to establish a relationship
and an interation with our own environment. Anyway, though, for now, I can't point out concrete examples, My
Favorite Year seems to be full of these patterns. I guess that this feeling is strongly related to the fact
that the movie is depicting the era when versatility and diversity are abundant which is the one important element
of those patterns coming out, not the era when uniformity and homogeneity dominate which certainly will reduce
the possibility of materialization of those patterns. In short, one answer to the aforementioned question what
has been lost in these days must be this versatility and diversity, and the "pattern"s that enable those
precious characteristics to emerge. Certainly, My Favorite Year seems to be teaching us this fact. This
is the answer to the question I raised in the first paragraph of this review. It's a great movie, isn't it?