The Cult-TV Faces of: The Investigator

"I must have one of those faces you can't help believing," Memories of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)

Tonight at 10:00 pm on Movie Geeks United, "Halloween Week," -- Horror 101 --  kicks off with a discussion and retrospective of one of the horror genre's most celebrated and distinguished game-changers, director Alfred Hitchcock's oft-imitated Psycho (1960). 

Over my writing career, I've frequently discussed the way in which a horror film might cross the hurdle from being merely good (an effective and entertaining roller coaster ride) to being great (and an undisputed classic).   Something very specific must occur regarding the film's structure itself; in the very way the movie presents its narrative or message.  

Subject matter alone can't make that leap for a film; rather the achievement of greatness rests in the film's style of presentation; in the film's application of established film grammar in unexpected, new or experimental ways.

Since the goal of a horror movie is to transgress and discomfort, what this algebraic equation usually comes down to, ultimately, is some trail-blazing shattering of pre-existing expectations; the intentional blowing-up of movie traditions and even accepted Hollywood decorum so that audience actually feels unsafe in the auditorium.  It is therefore entirely susceptible to directorial manipulation.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Psycho is indeed a perfect and relatively early example of this nerve-jangling approach (one also evidenced in the other horror films Movie Geeks United is discussing this week: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974] and The Blair Witch Project [1999]).

Rightly, you might ask how Alfred Hitchcock managed to defy the studio system he toiled in, and shatter existing movie decorum and tradition so thoroughly.  In broad strokes, the answer arises in the mode of Psycho's production and the director's relative freedom from interference. 

When Universal expressed unhappiness with the unsavory elements of the film's narrative (adapted from Robert Bloch's novel), Hitchcock essentially went around the studio.  He basically financed the film himself, and took a 25% pay cut or thereabouts to get the film made.  Furthermore, Hitchcock kept the film's budget low by shooting in black-and-white, when all the rage at the time was to create films in color.

Most significantly, perhaps, Hitchcock brought in the technical crew from his popular TV anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Make no mistake, this act represents an early vote of confidence for TV as an art form from no-less-than a cinematic legend.  But this TV crew was accustomed to working fast, working effectively, and working cheap.  And those were the qualities that helped Psycho get made, and made in the style and fashion Hitchcock desired.

So, Psycho evaded some hierarchical scrutiny just by the manner in which Hitchcock approached the project.  That approach opened the doorway to a horror film that, on retrospect, shatters expectations and breaks cleanly with established Hollywood history.  

How?  Well, these breaks are numerous, and important, and I hope to enumerate some of them here.

First, Hitchcock unsettles the audience by fracturing the role of the good guy, the protagonist.  

The audience's focal point of identification in most Hollywood thrillers is one hero; a man or woman who follows a path of increased learning and ascending knowledge as the three acts progress satisfyingly to a conclusion. 

The arc of "learning" on the part of the audience -- and presented through the experiences of the lead character -- is usually a straight line traveling up and up, until, by the movie's denouement, we have reached the apex, the plateau.  We have learned everything we need to know to understand the film's narrative and message.  

If the movie is a mystery, we follow the clues one-by-one to resolve that mystery.  If it's a Western, the hero braces a challenge, faces that challenge and defeats that challenge.  Again, the trajectory is like an arrow on ascent, a straight trajectory pointing towards full audience comprehension (and, hopefully, approval.)

In Psycho, the role of the protagonist is unconventionally splintered into three or four characters: Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), Arbogast (Martin Balsam), Lila Crane (Vera Miles) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin).  Learning still occurs and the audience attains that final plateau of knowledge through a psychologist's detailed and clinical "explanation" of Norman Bates' psychosis.  But importantly, the process of learning is fractured by the three acts.   Each protagonist dominates center stage -- very roughly -- in one particular act (Marion in the first; Arbogast in the second; Lila and Sam in the third). 

Since Psycho revolves around schizophrenia -- about a splintering of a single mind into more than one individual -- the film's structure actually reflects this state of existence not only in its villain -- Norman/Mother -- but in the variety and differentiation of its protagonists.  Thus form reflects content.  Hitchcock splinters our point of identification as much as he splinters Norman's mind.

Why so radically re-shape the thriller's protagonist in this fashion? 

In simple terms, Hitchcock punishes the audience --and ruthlessly unsettles it -- for  emotionally investing in the characters. 

First, Hitchcock makes us fall in love with adorable Marion Crane through her ongoing interior monologue during a road trip.  This soliloquy of sorts regards the theft of 40,000 dollars and what the acquisition of the money and the perpetrating of a crime could mean for her life personally, professionally and legally.   Marion berates herself and mocks herself in these passages, like we all do when we talk to ourselves.

The device of the interior monologue -- in conjunction with the preponderance of gorgeous close-ups during these moments in the car -- actually accentuates the feeling of connection to the character and her plight.

And of course, that's intentional.  Hitchcock wants us heavily invested in Marion's imagination, her potential, her crime; the very things that make her human and therefore sympathetic.  In other words, the director sucks us in with a likable character and her crisis.

And then, Hitchcock rips Marion -- the movie's ostensible lead character -- away from the audience in the notorious shower scene.   We watch helplessly as all our expectations and hopes for Marion (namely that she will return the money, seek a life with Sam, and escape her personal purgatory or trap) run down the tub drain with her spilled blood. 

Suddenly, everything the audience has taken for granted as "important" in Psycho (namely Marion's dilemma regarding stolen cash and her future with Sam) is now rendered unimportant.  The audience is rudderless.  Vulnerable. 

The only thing left to cling to is that stolen cash, and the hope that another human being -- sweet, harmless Norman -- will find it and use it to escape from his trap, from his Mother.

The movie goes on, and the audience still feels lost without Marion.  Thus it soon seizes on laconic, world-weary Arbogast as the focal point of identification.  Yeah, he's the guy who's going to get Norman's Mother, and set things right, for the memory of Marion.  He's got the chops.  He's got the background.  No one's going to pull the wool over his eyes.

And then Hitchcock violates narrative rules again.  He pulls the exact same trick a second time.  He kills Arbogast before our eyes (in another visually dazzling murder scene, set this time upon a staircase) and for a second time, the audience loses the focal point of identification.

Finally, identification transfers to Sam and Lila, but by this point -- on a first viewing of Psycho, anyway -- you're thinking "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," and entirely reluctant to embrace this couple, not out of loyalty to the dead; but out of the fear that, for a third time, Evil will triumph. 

Is there another reason it is difficult to warm to Lila and Sam?  Absolutely. They begin to seriously question and threaten Norman Bates, and at this point in the proceedings, the audience is still invested in him and his escape from the Motel and from his twisted Mom.  They don't want to see him railroaded for what they believe his mother did.

It should be noted that the unconventional presentation of the protagonists (and antagonist, actually) in Psycho are all part of Hitchcock's masterful manipulation, his gleeful way of mis-directing our attention and subverting our expectations.  But he doesn't just subvert by way of story points, either; he does it by actual structure; by exploding movie conventions.

The "Janet Leigh" trick as I sometimes call it, isn't the only trail-blazing, convention-shattering aspect of Psycho.  It's harder to appreciate this second factor given the direction of our culture since Psycho, but Hitchcock further shattered Hollywood decorum by revealing to the audience shocking imagery it had not often, if ever, seen before.  Things like an afternoon, pre-marital assignation in a cheap hotel room between Sam and Marion. 

Or, of course, like the famous shower sequence.

In interpreting horror films, I often return to the plain truth that those things which scare us the most are the the very things that we see in our everyday experience.  Universal ideas.  Getting lost in the woods, like Hansel and Gretel (or the kids in The Blair Witch Project).  Getting eaten by an animal (in the case of Jaws).  Or, involving Psycho, the simple and common act of showering. 

When we bathe, we are truly at our most vulnerable (with the exception, perhaps, of slumber...a key fear exploited by generations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers).  We are naked, without clothing.  Only a thin drape -- a shower curtain -- protects us from an unseen larger world.  The space in a shower stall is also limited and therefore mobility is hampered.  You can't exactly run anywhere. The standard shower stall is not that different in dimensions from an upright coffin, if you think about it.

So -- arriving in 1960 -- Psycho broke a critical rule/taboo in film history.  It showed a vulnerable person virtually nude in the bathroom (heck, how often had we even seen toilets in films before Psycho?) and then depicted that character brutally murdered in nothing less than a frenzy.  

Many film critics and Hitchcock scholars have written expertly and at length about the staging and cutting of the Psycho shower scene, but the important thing to remmeber is how it plays. It is a visualization of frenzy, rage, and madness. 

The helter-skelter pace of the shock editing and the very closeness of many shots give the inescapable impression of a trapped animal being murdered in a blinding, fury-filled rage.  No one had ever seen anything like this before Psycho.  Violence, close-up, with adroit film technique embodying psychosis and powerful anger.

A sequence featuring this graphic murder in an unconventional locale would have broken taboo alone; but remember, the person killed is a beautiful woman and the movie's heroine; a person we have invested in emotionally.  To dispatch Marion when she is vulnerable, when she has so many reasons to live, and to do it in such indecorous, nay unchivalrous, fashion, is...bracing.  To say the least.  It's literally a shock to the system.

The presentation of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) represents another shattering of tradition too.  Hollywood often lives by the edict that what is beautiful must also be good.  And young Anthony Perkins, like Janet Leigh, is certainly beautiful.  He is innocent, boyish, graceful, handsome and charming.  Simultaneously, he is a brutal murderer when "possessed" by Mother Bates.  The film asks us to countenance competing visions of Norman -- that he can be both innocent and guilty; a good boy and a very naughty boy -- at the same time. 

In large part, Hitchcock was able to get away with this complexity because of the burgeoning popularity of Psychology, and Pop Psychology, in 1950s and 1960s American culture.  Horror films such as The Bad Seed (1956) began to ask very pointed questions about human "monsters," thereby exploring the eternal nature vs. nurture debate. To a very large extent, that's the milieu as well of Psycho.  Norman is a good boy, perhaps, by nature.  But a very bad boy via nurture, by his mother's behavior.  Nurture is stamped over nature, in his case, and the result is psychosis.

An earlier generation of horror movie (say, in the 1930s or 1940s) may have had to hide Norman.  It may have had to "code" him in terms of being both a man and a literal monster (think the Wolfman, or Dr. Jekyll  and Mr. Hyde.)  But Psycho does not have to play with metaphor in that particular fashion. 

This is an important turning point in horror history: a period wherein supernatural and fantasy can be subtracted from the genre formula and the human being can take his (rightful?) place as the pre-eminent "Monster" in the cinema, thus paving the way for a slew of slashers, serial killers, and 1990s Interlopers.  Indeed, this is the point in horror history where many "monster" horror movie fans cut bait: preferring their monsters as more fantastical creations like vampires, Gill Men, or the Mummy.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, either.

In terms of breaking taboos, Psycho spreads the act of "heroic" learning across three sets of protagonists, and delves into uncomfortable imagery not commonly depicted on the silver screen of the 1950s. 

Still, Hitchcock ends Psycho by restoring a sense of order.  Norman  is captured, diagnosed and understood.  In this way, an audience might leave a showing of the film knowing that it need not be afraid in real life.  The good guys still come out on top; the dangerous bad guy is punished...or at least apprehended.

In the years after Psycho, directors like Tobe Hooper (TCM) and Brian De Palma would go even further than Psycho to break established movie decorum.  Hooper denied the audience (and Chainsaw's characters) the act of learning in toto; and in Sisters, De Palma did not bother to  re-establish order, instead leaving the film's heroine a confused amnesiac.

But those bold, innovative steps in the genre, perhaps, could not have been broached had Hitchcock not re-written the rules of the game first, with Psycho.   

If you ask yourself why the 1998 remake of Psycho failed, it is not because of re-casting.  It is not because of color photography.  It is not, even, because of Hitchcock's absence in the director's chair.  

Rather, the failure occurred because that remake failed to re-structure its narrative and format in a pioneering fashion; in a way that would have actually honored Hitchcock and the spirit of the original film. 

Had Gus Van Sant found a new, taboo-busting method of telling Psycho's tale -- one that violated the movie decorum of the 1990s and shattered all of our pre-existing conditioning about what movies can and should do -- then he would have really been on to something vital.  Instead, the shot-for-shot remake approach suggests only that film structure has been "locked" -- hermetically-sealed -- since Psycho, and that's simply not the case.  Film is growing, living, thriving thing, and horror films continue to push the envelope of acceptable Hollywood decorum.  The 1998 remake should have honored this fact.

You can learn more about Psycho tonight on Movie Geeks United. Don't miss the show!

The Week Ahead: My Halloween Events

In the week ahead, leading up to Halloween Night, you won't be able to escape my presence! 

No, seriously...you won't.

On Monday, October 25, I'll be appearing as one of many, many guests (including John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rick Rosenthal, Danielle Harris and more) on A&E's Biography's "The Inside Story: Halloween" -- all about the magic of The Shape, Michael Myers and his bloody but long-lived film career. 

You can see a preview of the program here, and the two hour event airs from 9:00 to 11:00 pm, EST.  I have no idea how much screen-time I'll ultimately get, but hey...I'm in it! (And I got to visit The Myers House in North Carolina...).

The same night, Monday, October 25th,  I'll also be amongst the interviewees for the outstanding Movie Geeks United's  radio/pod-cast and celebration of horror movies. 

Monday's subject of interest is Alfred Hitchcock's seminal Psycho (1960), a film that changed the genre. The program airs 10:00 pm, EST and will also feature great analysis and commentary from author Stephen Rebello, director/writer Tom Holland and documentarian Robert Galluzo (The Psycho Legacy).

On Tuesday, October 26th at 10:00 pm, I'll be back on Movie Geeks United with host Jamey DuVall to discuss Tobe Hooper's conventio-shattering masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).  This is going to be an exciting show that also features an interview with TCM cinematographer Daniel Pearl.

On Wednesday, October 27th at 10:00 pm, I return to Movie Geeks United, and the subject is the controversial but brilliant The Blair Witch Project (1999).  I'll be analyzing/interpreting the film, and other interviewees include writers/directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick and co-star Michael Williams.

I'm very excited about each of these broadcasts, because they all concern horror "game changers" (as Jamey DuVall calls 'em); movies that changed the way horror looks and sounds.

Finally, on Thursday, October 28th, at 10:00 pm, I'll be discussing with Jamey horror movies and horror genre history in "Horror 101: The State of the Genre" on Movie Geeks United.  Some of the topics include 1980s horror films, the savage cinema, Romeros' living dead cycle (from Night to Survival), and the serious moral underpinnings of The Last House on the Left (original). 

And last, but in no way least, I've contributed a new article to BacktoFrankBlack's Millennium-themed holiday celebration, a piece entitled "Inside the Labyrinth of Millennial Post-Modernism: Millennium's "Thirteen Years Later"...Not Quite Thirteen Years Later." 

I will let you know when the Millennium piece is posted, and excerpt it here on the blog.  And I'll also remind you about the upcoming events...cuz it's going to be one hell of a busy week with tons of tricks and treats.

My Old Office...

Okay, I've now had two requests from long-time readers to display my old home office (from my first home, in the historic district of Monroe).  Ah, I miss that place...there was no room to write.

Prepare yourselves...the room had 12 foot ceilings, and the toys literally covered every inch of wall, from floor to ceiling.  By the end of the time we lived in the house, my wife refused even to walk into this room.  Yes...I had a problem.

This is quite clearly before my "less is more" stage of tasteful office design.

Sci-Tech # 2: Altrusian Edition

In Sci-Tech # 1, "The Cage" Edition, I looked back at some of the early imagery from the Star Trek TV universe, including those great goose-necked intercom screens and an overall "busier" fashion of set design for the starship Enterprise in Captain Pike's era. 

Today, I want to turn the attention to Land of the Lost (1974 - 1976), an inventive Saturday morning program set in "Altrusia," an artificial (?) planet positioned inside a closed pocket universe. 

According to the mythology of the program created by celebrated science fiction author David Gerrold, advanced humanoid Altrusians once lived peaceably in this strange habitat, and boasted a great science and high sense of technology. 

But the Altrusians ultimately de-volved into barbarian Sleestaks, and their technology -- in the time of the stranded Marshall family --  has been largely left untended and in disrepair.  To the Sleestaks, their repository of  race knowledge -- the Library of Skulls -- might as well be magical.

Interestingly, there are Star Trek connections here beyond the presence of story editor Gerrold. Walter Koenig (Chekov) wrote one of the earliest and best episodes -- "The Stranger" -- which introduced Enik (Walker Edmiston), the Altrusian.  He was a time traveler from the land's more civilized  past; a character shocked by how primitive (and superstitious) his people had become.

Also, Herman Zimmerman -- who went on to design several Star Trek TV series and films -- served as the art director of Land of the Lost.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Zimmerman some years back, and he told me: "I built the opening miniature of the series: the rapids.; The show began with a group of young people, their father, and their raft, in Colorado, and I created this a large miniature, probably 25 to 35 feet long. I shot it on videotape with miniature figures and a life raft. And the letters that arose out of the mist and announced the title Land of the Lost? I carved those personally."

Zimmerman designed and created many of the mechanisms and strange devices of "Altrusia," which seemed based on a crystalline-technology.    "Saturday morning TV was not blessed with much money, so we built all the Sleestak caves out of heavy-duty tin foil," he also reported.  "A good bit of my time was spent repairing holes in the foil when someone leaned against it and tore it open."

And yet despite the grievously low budget, there remains great visual consistency to the world of Altrusia, as you will hopefully detect from the selection of photos below.  From the miniatures to the live action sets, from matte painting to the props, Altrusia seemed like a real living place...a place you could reach out to touch and explore.  It's amazing how far that "tin foil" goes when creative minds are at work; creative minds determined not to talk down to children.

I've always maintained that at its heart, Land of the Lost offers a powerful environmental message.  Frequently, the various races inhabiting Altrusia (Human, Sleestak and Pakuni) must work together to maintain the balance of the environment so that life there is beneficial for all the species.  The series goes to great lengths to depict how in a single eco-system, all life-forms are intimately interconnected. 

For instance, in one episode, Sleestak attempt to modify Altrusia to exist in perpetual night, so they can hunt for the nocturnal Altrusian moths which fertilize their eggs.  The Sleestak neglect to remember that in the coldness of perpetual night, the moths will die from the low temperatures.

Several episodes of Land of the Lost deal with the mechanisms of Altrusia that cause an environmental imbalance.  The land seems to get an "irregular heart beat" in "One of Our Pylons is Missing."  Devices called "Skylons" warn of weather anomalies in "Skylons" and "Hurricane."  And so on. 

If only on Earth, it were as easy to correct such problems of environmental imbalance.  If only a re-shuffling of a planetary "matrix table" that could set everything right...

Anyway, here are some photos that reveal the lost world of Altrusia, one of sci-fi television's most unique destinations.



The Lost City of Altrusia, after the fall of civilization.



An Altrusian "maghetti," a kind of divining rod for locating time doors.

From "Album," a time-door.  Lots of mist in Altrusia.

An Altrusia Pylon catches the attention of Grumpy, The T-Rex.

Skylons.

The beating heart of the Land of the Lost/Altrusia.

A more advanced Altrusian matrix table? Mysterious tech from "The Musician."

More Altrusian architecture; from "After Shock."

Altrusia's repository of Knowlwedge: The Library of the Skulls.

An Altrusian Matrix-table (interior Pylon).

An "ancient" Altrusian guardian.

An Altrusian spirit dwells inside a Pylon ("The Possession").

The Altrusian city before the fall of civilization.

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: The Right Stuff (1983)

"There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate.

The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred-and-fifty miles-an-hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way.

He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier..."

- Opening Narration, The Right Stuff (1983) 



The Mercury 7: Men with the right stuff.

Sometimes, in the day-to-day struggle to make ends meet, it's easy to forget the scope and breadth of human achievement. 

We don't always recognize that the sky itself is no longer the limit, perhaps because our feet are planted so firmly on terra firma as we concern ourselves with mortgage payments, health insurance, and keeping our cars running.

But The Right Stuff (1983), directed by Phillip Kaufman and based on the best-selling book by Tom Wolfe, is a splendid cinematic reminder of our potential and possibilities as a species; at least if we keep our gaze heavenward. 

One of the film's valedictory flight scenes -- in which a test pilot daringly aims his needle-nosed jet heavenward and zealously attempts to pierce the veil of stars -- gets at this idea with a sense of emotional intensity, not to mention lyrical visual storytelling. 

Sometimes here on the blog, I write of "perfect movie moments," and this brief, climactic passage in The Right Stuff certainly qualifies as one of them.  The accomplished special effects, the quiet, sturdy performance of Sam Shepard, and the resonant feeling of the moment -- of a deep-seated human yearning to achieve escape velocity and see what no man has seen -- combine to forge something special and indeed, universal. This is cinema as expression of the human spirit.

Taken in toto, the 1983 movie is an epic, heroic poem concerning a can-do nation in its prime, and the heroes that it produced during an all-out "space race" with the Soviet Union.  But it's also a movie about the things that man can accomplish when he is at his best.  Critic David Thomson said it perfectly when he wrote that The Right Stuff is "a mix of beauty and satire, comedy and pathos, character and reputation, that is endearing and challenging." (Have You Seen? Borzoi Books, 2008, page 727.)

"We want the best pilots that we can get..."

A funeral and tribute to the fallen.

In some ways, The Right Stuff is actually two parallel narratives in one. 

The first story concerns the unassuming, tell-it-like-it-is test pilot Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) and his on-going attempts at Edwards Air Force Base to "push the envelope"  by breaking the sound barrier and other human speed records.  

Yeager continues this task -- after his initial record aboard the X-1 in 1947 -- with little fanfare or recognition.  He doesn't do it for the plaudits.  He certainly doesn't do it for the money (he gets paid 283 dollars a month...).  He does it because there's a mountain before him, and he feels the need to climb it.  To see what's on the other side.

The second story concerns our nation's first team of NASA astronauts in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

You'll recognize the names of this famous seven: John Glenn (Ed Harris), Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank) and Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin). 

These guys are hot-shots and patriots, family men and explorers, and all their exploits are recorded under the bright lights of an enthusiastic, supportive and even frenetic national media.  The Seven are American "stars," and yet  -- just like Yeager, again -- they undertake great, heroic tasks too.  Shepard is the first American in space; Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth, etc. 

The high-profile astronauts ultimately use the press's unceasing attention and devotion to assure that they get a "say" in their own destinies at NASA, and on the direction of the space program itself.  In return for being heard and respected, they invest themselves -- heart and soul -- in the program.

We are meant to understand the parallel stories of The Right Stuff as deliberate reflections of one another.  Yeager is held up as an example of an iconic, mythic American hero: an old-fashioned, aw-shucks cowboy-type. 

Yet the very modern Mercury Seven have a difficult task too.  "The astronauts are depicted as struggling to maintain a sense of individual heroics in the face of mediation between technology and the press hullabaloo that surrounds their every move," suggests author Geoff King in Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster (I.B. Tauris Books, 2000, page 69).

That intriguing fulcrum -- the so-called mediation between technology and the press hullabaloo -- is, in some senses, the core of modern America, and American celebrity/politics.  How do you use the press to get your message out?  How do you control both technology (such as the net, or television) and the mechanisms of the press to stay true to your own values?  These are not small issues, and in some sense, The Right Stuff functions as a critique of the new hyper-connected America, thus forecasting, perhaps, the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle and the domination of Cable TV.

Yet the film succeeds because it portrays the astronauts -- the new heroes of the space age -- both as innately courageous and also as very real men.  A few of 'em have wandering eyes; one of 'em cracks jokes that might be perceived as racist (or at least in bad taste), Glenn enjoys having the microphone a bit too much, and so on. 

In one great and utterly human moment, the film cuts from a broadcaster (Eric Severeid)  at a launch, wondering -- to the entire, rapt nation -- about astronaut Alan Shepard and his thoughts on the verge of his first space mission.  

"What can be going through a man's mind at this moment?" the journalist muses aloud.

The movie provides an immediate and indecorous answer.  "I have to urinate," Shepard tells his friend Gordo, at Mission Control. "Permission to relieve bladder?"

To some folks, that moment may play as something perilously close to farce.  And indeed some scenes in The Right Stuff involving Jeff Goldblum's character (at the White House, with Eisenhower) qualify as political farce, as a circus. But moments such as Shepard's request to go to the bathroom are also extremely real.   So The Right Stuff  suggests that the more connected we are, and the more the press pushes the narrative of astronauts as heroes of the classic mold, the more the men themselves remain...men.

We can admire these "public" men at the same time we acknowledge that they are, in the end, men.  Warts and all. In fact, the movie's awareness of their common humanity is what helps us relate to them and understand their achievements as ones that -- with a little luck and in the right circumstances -- we would hope to make ourselves.

In both of The Right Stuff's parallel narratives, the viewer is left to marvel at the daredevil capacity of such men as these to achieve what others have not, and in some cases simply because they don't like the idea of retreating before hurdles, bowing before an unseen "demon in the sky," as the film's opening voice-over describes the unknown.

Whenever I get down about our nation, or the direction it might be headed, I remind myself of The Right Stuff and this story of such men who made a better, smarter future happen through their own grit and fortitude. 

Or as Vincent Canby wrote in his review of The Right Stuff for The New York Times: "The film almost makes one glad to be alive in spite of famines, wars and even ''the greenhouse effect...''  I would modify that thought only to say that the film does make one feel glad to be alive.  Very definitively.

"It takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV..."

Death Himself has come for another courageous pilot.

The Right Stuff goes to great lengths as well to portray the dangers that await the men who first approach the next frontier of knowledge. 

Test pilots have an astounding death rate, the movie notes, something like a one-in-four chance of dying in the cockpit, or in flight. 

To express this notion of danger visually, Kaufman expertly utilizes the technique of cross-cutting.  During Yeager's historic flight to shatter the sound barrier, for instance, the film cuts to an interesting tribute; to photographs of dead pilots, mounted on a wall in a bar called Pancho's. 

This visual connection establishes that Yeager's great accomplishment is not just a personal one, but the cumulative effort of every pilot who has put his life on the line to increase the breadth of human knowledge.  Again, we are being conveyed important information about us; about the human animal.  To move forward, to progress, we must climb over the backs of those who have gone before. We don't do it alone, or in a vacuum.  We do it through connection to our past, and to explorers of the past.

The test pilots and astronauts are legitimately pioneers, and their vocation is incredibly dangerous, so Kaufman portrays the ever-present danger in other interesting cinematic and symbolic ways too.  There are two funerals featured in the film's first thirty minutes, for instance, and then there's also the unusual presence of a taciturn man in black, a preacher (Royal Dano). 

This grave-faced figure represents nothing less than the specter of death itself, solemnly appearing out of black silhouette to notify next-of-kin that a pilot has died, or later silently stalking a rocket launch countdown at Cape Kennedy; as if to remind the audience that Death is ubiquitous..and  always ready to claim his next victim.

In the race to get a foothold in space, there is no room for cowards, and yet, simultaneously and perhaps paradoxically there is great terror in the quest.  Ultimately, Yeager -- who could have been an astronaut and wasn't -- recognizes the brotherhood of astronauts as kindred spirits.   This recognition is both a blessing from a father figure (and national hero) and an important passing of the torch to a new era of modern men.

When a colleague suggests that monkeys could fly a space capsule, Yeager's protective response is blistering, and telling:  "You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV."

Perhaps that's "the right stuff" of the film's title: the ability to take a personal risk for the betterment of everyone else.  It doesn't necessarily matter how you get there (a capsule riding an exploding fire cracker, as "spam in a can," or aboard a new and dangerous test vehicle).  It matters where you're going, and the grace with which you face that destination.

The Right Stuff strongly benefits from great, traditional special effects. This film was crafted well before the age of CGI, and every flight depicted in the film is accomplished with miniatures; with models.  It's amazing, meticulous, and stirring work and it hasn't aged a day (unlike the CGI effects of Apollo 13 [1995], which today appear somewhat cartoonish, to my dismay). 

The class of 1983.

Equally as important, The Right Stuff features great performances from arguably the most talented class of actors in modern Hollywood history. 

Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Shearer, Sam Shepard, Scott Paulin, Charles Frank, Barbara Hershey, and Fred Ward...and on and on.   I mean...these guys are the best-of-the-best in Hollywood today, and yet there's never,  ever a sense in this film that anyone is trying to one-up anyone else, trying to claw to the top of the pack. 

The ensemble work is flawless and charming, and among the Mercury 7 a strong feeling of esprit-de-corps -- of brotherhood -- is transmitted. 

Just as powerfully, the scenes of the strong, silent Sam Shepard (as Yeager) really resonate in the memory.  He is the lone wolf, unappreciated and even forgotten in the 1960s, but still damned courageous.  The movie strongly equates Yeager with an old fashioned cowboy at several important points.  He prowls the desert on horseback, and arrives at his X-1 riding his trusty steed.  The Marlboro Man takes to the sky.

What I also appreciated in The Right Stuff is the film's good understanding of the realities of space travel.  NASA relies on funding, and the good graces of the public (and yep, the press). As soon as public awareness fades, or press attention dissipates, the funding dissolves too.  The astronauts must put on a dog-and-pony show to remain in the public eye; it's actually part of their job description in this new modern, mass media era. 

This is so true, and the movie  also very ably captures some cruel, unspoken aspect of our fast-moving popular culture.  One day, Chuck Yeager is the cock of the walk...the next day he's a feather duster (to quote Thunderdome).  He's forgotten.

The astronauts, we are acutely aware, face the same problem.  The bulk of the film simply occurs early in the continuum; when the public is still fascinated with them and the space race.  We know today that the space program rarely draws headlines or much enthusiasm from the general public, and these great modern astronauts -- great men like Yeager -- toil without any real recognition or appreciation for the dangers they face.  The space program too often comes up in headlines only in the case of budget cuts, or worse, human tragedy.

If The Right Stuff bears any structural weakness, it is that the movie makes the engineers and scientists at NASA figures of fun, ostensibly for the sake of glamorizing the noble astronauts and pilots.  These engineers and scientists clearly don't know their asses from their elbows, according to the movie. 

This is simply wrong...those men and women are heroes and patriots too.  In the space age, everyone is part of the team, down to the folks in mission control, and down to the brilliant, problem-solving engineers who make rockets fly...and function, in the most difficult of situations.  In this regard, Apollo 13 is a more well-rounded film.  It ably demonstrates the contributions to space flight of not just heroic pilots, but those who remain on the ground and shepherd our star voyagers safely home.

Still, this is a relatively small quibble with a film that I consider one of the best movies of the 1980s (even if it was considered a box office bomb at the time).  If you were ever inspired by space travel, if you ever had an unyielding desire to touch the stars with your bare hands...The Right Stuff is a powerful depiction of those feelings.

Finally, permit me an indulgence.  I would like to close today's review of a great film with the stirring words of another national hero, President John F. Kennedy, as they were spoken on September 12, 1962. 

Philip Kaufman's 1983 film perfectly reflects the spirit of the President's message to all Americans on that day:

"The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.

"Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.

We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.

For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man..."