DESPERATE CHARACTERS

US, 1971, 87 minutes, Colour.
Shirley Mac Laine, Kenneth Mars, Sada Thompson, Gerald S. O ’Loughlin.
Directed by Frank D. Gilroy.

An off-beat dramatic study of a married couple in New York. It features Shirley Mac Laine in an excellent role and she has very good support from Kenneth Mars and Sada Thompson. It has been considered an indictment of the depressing way of life in the city.

The film was written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, who wrote such plays made into films as The Subject Was Roses, The Only Game in Town. Gilroy himself wrote and directed the Charles Bronson mythical western From Noon Till Three. The film is accurate in its depiction of ordinary life, emotional crises, conflicts. It is grim entertainment.

1. The reputation of the film, awards, direction, Shirley Mac Laine’s performance? Its lack of cinema exhibition? Audience having to see it on television?

2. For whom was it made? An American audience, overseas audience? Older audiences, younger? The people whom it was portraying? Its impact? Depression, realism?

3. The significance of the title? The desperation and the quotation from Thoreau that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation? The persons in the film characterised as characters? The husband as symbols of modern man and woman? The other characters as symbols?

4. The impact of the film as a film about New York, the portrayal of the city and its settings? the apartments and its streets? Colour? The quiet music and atmosphere? What kind of a city is New York? in itself, as an environment? for desperate characters, its impact on the characters?

5. Audience involvement with the structure of the film, the progression of days and nights, the focus on the couple, the gradual introduction to their friends, the small crises, visits? The buildup of the atmosphere of physical danger? The ending as no real ending? A slice of life? The open endedness and audience satisfaction?

6. The first scene: the portrayal of the apartment in its detail? The meal, the introduction to husband and wife, the bonds between them, love, interest, the way they talked? Their qualities as persons, and characters? How desperate? The focus of talk about the dissolving of the partnership, the reasons and the motivation? Sophie’s response? The focus on the cat and the symbolism of the cat’s domestic but violent scratching and possibly poisonous? The basis of the cat and its later influence in the film?

7. The second scene: the transition from the apartment to the party? Mike and Flo and their way of life, manner of speaking, their friends? The atmosphere, talk the kinds of people who were there? The impact of the vandalism and how it affected the party? The effect on Sophie and Otto?

8. The third scene: the continued worry about the cat? Charlie and his arrival, his aims, break down, his wife? This triggering off the memories for Sophie about her affair with Francis early? The reasons for her confiding this to Charlie? The effect on him, on her? Their walk?

9. The transition to a busier scene with moving outside the apartment, the puzzle of the sprawled man, the impact and busyness of the subway, its impersonality, the meeting with Ruth, the meeting with Clare, and the talk about Leon, further depression? Ho well delineated was the character of Clare through her talking? How desperate a character? How desperate was Leon? The visualising of this desperation of the broken marriage yet the need for companionship? The impulse to phone Francis early, the irony of his not answering, and his being involved with another woman? How well visualised? Impact on Sophie?

10. Scene 5: the importance of the incident about the black man borrowing ten dollars, the fear of invasion of privacy, the reaction of Otto, of Sophie? The story, no one believing it, the giving of the money? The formalities of it only being a loan and the confidence trick perpetrated? Desperate characters allowing themselves to be conned? The transition to hospital, the question of catching the cab, Sophie's desperation and preoccupation about her wound? Her not wanting it to be a preoccupation?

11. Scene 6: the outside atmosphere, the drive to their house, the impact of the house, the contrast to the city apartment, the importance of the vandals presence, the destruction, the effect on them? Their making love, the motivation of Otto, of Sophie? Did they want to? The clash with Haines? The desperation of their return home and their talk about adopting a child?

12. What had been achieved by the end of the film? How much insight into the modern human condition? The portrayal of ordinary men and woman, their lives, dullness, their work, marriage, city life, the threat of violence, communication and lack of communication, hope and hopelessness? One critic said it was a film about ex-lives. Accurate?