thanksgiving

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

My wife has pinpointed the type of movie that she can’t stand: “Movies where bad things happen to people over and over.” It’s a surprisingly common subgenre. Requiem for a Dream, After Hours, Uncut Gems, Falling Down, The Money Pit, Pan’s Labyrinth…it’s a plot that denies no genres and no decade. Needless to say, my wife does not like Planes, Trains and Automobiles – the ultimate movie where bad things happen to people over and over.

Neal Page (Steve Martin) is a marketing executive in New York who just wants to get home to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving. The powers that be are already conspiring against him as the meeting before his flight runs overly long and the cab he bribes a man for is taken by a shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith (John Candy). When he makes it to the airport, past his boarding time, Neal is told his flight has been delayed. This will be the last good thing that happens to him for a long time.

Neal recognizes Del, also waiting on the same flight, as the man who “stole” his cab. Once the flight boards, Neal is dismayed to discover he’s been bumped from First Class and is stuck next to Del for the entire flight. Due to weather conditions in Chicago, their flight reroutes to Wichita, Kansas. They’re trapped overnight, but the kind-hearted Del offers to share his room with Neal when Neal discovers all hotels in Wichita are booked. Overnight, the two personalities clash and while they’re asleep, their cash is stolen. Using a credit card, Neal gets them train tickets to Chicago, but the train breaks down, so they hop a bus headed for St. Louis.

In St. Louis, Neal rents a car and when he gets to the lot, there’s no vehicle. Luckily, Del has also rented a vehicle and shares it with Neal. While Neal sleeps, a mishap involving cigarettes, a jacket caught in a seat, and Ray Charles causes their car to catch fire. They drive the charred automobile to a hotel where Neal finally laughs about his situation and bonds with Del. In one of the most heartwarming endings to a movie ever, Neal pieces together what Del himself can’t fully admit, takes pity on him, and invites him over for Thanksgiving dinner.

I might be forgetting a few details in my summary, but you get the gist. Bad things happen to Neal. A lot. But that’s what makes Planes, Trains and Automobiles so good. Everyone has had bad experiences with flights, holiday rushes, rental cars, and those annoying people you just can’t seem to get away from. It’s universal and is easy to resonate with. Not to mention hilarious and infinitely quotable, except for maybe the scene at the car rental place.

But what really makes the movie timeless is the sweetness with which it regards its characters. There’s a humanity in them that often gets lost in melodramas, and it carries the movie all the way to the finish line. Both Steve Martin and John Candy are laugh-out-loud funny, but they also make Neal and especially Del so heartwrenchingly sympathetic. We believe in these characters. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is like a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s stuffed with junk but ever so warm and tender inside. And it goes great with mashed potatoes.

#1118 – The Last Waltz

/ Chase Clark / Leave a comment

This film should be played loud!

On Thanksgiving Day, in 1976, The Band took the stage for the last time together. After 16 years of nearly constant touring as backing band for Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, as well as their own group, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel decided to hang it up. Well, Robbie Robertson decided to hang it up, and the rest of The Band had to go along with it. In order to go out with a bang, they decided to perform at the venue of their first show as The Band in 1969: the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and invited a gaggle of friends and influences to join the show, including Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, the Staple Singers, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, and Dr. John, and called in Martin Scorsese to film it all.

The Last Waltz acts as both a concert film, capturing this momentous event in its raw, unfiltered glory, and a music documentary, chronicling their history and where they are at the end of the road through interviews with members of The Band. Ultimately, the film is a piece of music history and a good bit of Thanksgiving-time viewing if you’re into that sort of thing.

Scorsese’s love of rock music seeps into everything we see throughout the film: camera angles, lighting, rhythm and what’s on screen and when. He’s a perfect fit. And he brings with him a slew of talented cinematographers, particularly László Kovács, who was a staple of the look of the American New Wave, having worked on such films as Easy Rider, The Last Movie, Paper Moon, and Shampoo. The result is a natural look and mood. Even a couple of songs performed on a soundstage feel real.

Behind the scenes, drug use and rockstar ego made for a difficult production, but it hardly interferes with the overall product. You can’t tell from watching The Last Waltz that Bob Dylan nearly got the entire production shut down because he backed out of wanting his performances recorded on film at the last minute. You can read into the body language and inflections on what’s said that Robertson and the rest of The Band clashed on calling it quits, but it doesn’t actually show up on film. You can’t see the glob of cocaine hanging from Neil Young’s nose because it was edited out in post-production. But it’s all part of the mythos of rock stardom and The Last Waltz.

The highlight of the movie is, of course, the music. The Band is at the top of their game as they barrel through their hits, a few lesser gems, and covers of some of their favorites. Their encore, which takes place at the beginning of the film, is an ironic cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Don’t Do It”. Other highlights include a soulful rendition of “The Weight” featuring the Staple Singers, Van Morrison belting out “Caravan”, Robertson taking over a guitar solo from Eric Clapton on “Further On Up the Road” after Clapton’s strap broke, without missing a beat, and “I Shall Be Released” which features everyone who performed over the course of the show, plus Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood, led by Bob Dylan.

The Last Waltz is considered the greatest concert film of all time, and it’s hard to disagree. It’s such a perfect storm of music and film history, during a tumultuous time in American history, that it acts as a time capsule that merits our attention even 45 years after its release.