LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR

US, 1977, 136 minutes, Colour.
Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Richard Gere, Tom Berenger, Le Var Burton.
Directed by Richard Brooks.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a disturbing film about the dark side of personality, its compulsive drives, its ugliness and degradation and set in (and blamed on) a modern middle class and Catholic background. Tellingly made (generally with suggestions of lust rather than exploitive leering), the film explores teacher Theresa Dunn searching for love and satisfaction in destructive places. Diane Keaton acts strikingly as Theresa but seems very sane and knowingly balanced instead of being a vulnerable, only partially poised and bewildered woman. The men in her life are all seen as brutal. This is the world of Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy without the possibilities of hope of the former of the final optimism of the latter.

1. An interesting film? Entertainment value? Overall impact? What was the audience left with at the end? A valuable experience? For what audience was the film designed ? American? International?

2. The tone of the title, indications of search? A woman looking for a man? The significance of Goodbar? The irony of the title and Theresa's searching for the ideal man in the singles bars etc.?

3. The New York environment? The two worlds of Theresa Dunn's life? The daylight world of her family and teaching? The night world of her apartment and cruising the streets? The contrast with light and darkness, day and night? The two atmospheres? The finale with her death and the strobe lights? The contribution of the musical score and its variety of atmospheres, songs?

4. The film as a portrait of Theresa? Diane Keaton's interpretation of the role, her presence, appearance, style? How rounded a character did she make Theresa Dunn? A credible person of America in the 70s?

5. How did the audience see Theresa - as real, as a symbolic character? As almost schizophrenic in the two worlds in which she lived? The importance of the credits collage and its style, tone, information? Seeing Theresa in the New York streets as an ordinary citizen with her own private world? Seeing her in class and living her fantasies? The importance of the blending of reality and fantasy for her? The nature of her imagination? The intertwining of reality and fantasy? The prim exterior, the lurid interior? The focus on sexuality and sensuality? The background of her illness? The importance of her father and his presence in reality and fantasy? His laugh, his despising her? The importance for the audience of seeing the fantasies and helping the audience to interpret the reality? The fantasies as dreams and as aspects of herself?

6. The backgrounds of her illness, the polio, the long years on her back, her deformed back and her self-consciousness of this and facing up to it.. showing it to her lovers? The collage? The truth about Theresa and her illness and the fantasy of her memories? The importance of the revelations about her father, her father's despising her? The background of his own family, his unwillingness to face reality? His not wanting daughters? The importance of Katherine? Theresa's comparisons of herself with Katherine? Her father's comparisons? Bridget as the ordinary daughter with husband and family?

7. The presentation of Theresa as teacher - her studies, her skills, culture? Seeing her at work in her course, her graduation? Her religious background and its helping her studies, 'touching God'? The class sequences, her relationship with her lecturer? Her own skill in communicating with the deaf? The significance of her working with the underprivileged? The style of the classes, the care for Amy Jackson, the interactions with Amy's brother and her standing her ground in helping the girl? Her hurting the children by her absence? Her communication with them with songs and joy? Her achievement in communication and education? The possibilities for a fruitful life and career? The ugliness of its being dashed by her death?

8. The film's portrait of Katherine in herself, in comparison with Theresa? Her seeming to be a 'Rock of Gibraltar'? Her marriages and divorce? The importance of the truth about her and her permissive way of life ? The sharing of the apartment? The pornographic films, the orgy? The focus on sexuality? The possible marriage and its break up? Her protective attitude towards Theresa? Her influence in Theresa's moving from home, on a more permissive way of life? Katherine and her place in the family, the attitude of her father?

9. The contrast with the sketch of Bridget, Barney and her love for him, his visit to Theresa and trying to reason with her? The children, Bridget's pregnancy? Bridget's devotion to her father?

10. The Catholic background of the Dunn family, its standards of morality, religious belief and practice, expectations? The Irish tradition and its strictness? Mr. Dunn and his being a policeman? The strict atmosphere of the house, his iron control. his humourlessness? His judging his daughters? Their rebellion against this background? The final confrontation especially with the anger of Mr. Dunn, his condemnations of Theresa? His hospitalisation and the fantasy of his laughter? His own inadequacies and hard religion?

11. The portrait of Mr. Dunn and his manner at home, television, the phone, his ruling the house? His power and kicking his daughters out? The importance of the past, his illness, his confession about inadequacies? Mother-love? A home which might have been a home?

12. Theresa's relationship with Martin? The sensuality of the affair? The effect on her? The accident and her being rescued, the fantasy of the relationship? Martin's abandoning her and her later standing up to him?

13. The importance of Theresa standing on her own feet, her apartment, its squalor and the contrast with her home, the various posters and the cry. the cockroaches? The fact that she could be at home here? Her aloneness and loneliness? Her need for going out? Her apartment as symbolising the other side of Theresa?

14. The casual acquaintance with Tony. her presence in the bars. sexual relationship, his martial arts demonstration? His erratic moodiness? His return, the dancing, the confrontation with the knife, drugs and her experience of drugs, his needing money, her kicking him out? Tony and the world of the pushers and the bars contrasting with Theresa's world of teaching?

15. The casual pickups., the interactions in the bars, the telling of stories?

16. The way the film presented Theresa's cruising, the pictures of the bars and their people, singles, heterosexual, homosexual? Theresa's drinking. dancing, the experience of drugs and her fear of being arrested? The mirror?

17. The encounter with James? His background as being similar to her own? His work and his helping the Jacksons? Her illness and the phone calls? His persistence, his infatuation with her,. following her? The importance of the stories he told her? and the truth and lies? The Catholic background and primness? The sexual encounter, the condom and her laughing at him? His present? His disappointment? Could he have been a saving person for Theresa?

18. The presentation of Gary, his homosexual partner, the chance meetings, the drag scene, his clash with his companion? Theresa's picking him up, the sexuality and his defensiveness? Her laughing at him? The violence and the ugliness of her murder with the lights flashing? The narrowing focus and that being all the audience was left with? The motivation for the murder? Accidental, unnecessary?

19. The presentation of the men in Theresa's life and the fact that any of them could have been violent enough and antagonistic to kill her?

20. The importance of the squalid atmosphere, the possibilities of change, Theresa opting for her day life or her night life?

21. The emotional impact of her death? The portrait of the interior life of a woman, the Jekyll and Hyde aspects, the ultimate victory of the destructive part of her character?