BOB AND CAROL AND TED AND ALICE
US, 1969, 103 minutes, Colour.
Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliot Gould, Dyan Cannon.
Directed by Paul Mazursky.
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice is the first satire on the group dynamics and sensitivity therapy that boomed in the United States at the end of the 60's. People who have group dynamics very seriously at heart might well be advised to keep away because some of the humour is heavy parody. The film opens with the Hallelujah chorus booming over the southern California hills and finally alighting on lady sunbathers at the film's equivalent of the Esalen institute. The first twenty minutes or so then give us a hilarious rendition of a session.
Bob and Carol are a typical Southern California couple who are so taken by their sensitivity weekend that everything is 'beautiful', even the confiding of extra-marital affairs to one's spouse and to one's closest friends. Ted and Alice are a more down-to-earth couple, but by the end of the film they are also caught up in the aura of sensitivity. The film ands with a sugary whimper as the couples, who after a wife-swapping failure, see a little more in life; they process to Burt Bacharach's 'What the world needs now is love, sweet love'. Many Americans found the film far too mocking; however, it is a hilarious send-up of pseudo-psychological pretensions. It is real adult comedy, concerned solely with an adult world and its problems.
Natalie Wood and Robert Culp were sufficiently bland for Bob and Carol; it is Elliot Gould and Dyan Cannon who stand out as Ted and Alice. This was the first film of team Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky. There second was Alex in Wonderland (1970) where Donald Sutherland plays a director looking for a subject for a second film. It is a Hollywood 8 1/2, imitating and actually introducing Fellini. It was a comedy for those interested in film industry and not popular at the box-office. However Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice certainly was.
1. What are the targets of the satire of this film?
2. Was the satire and parody handled well? Laughter without despising the targets or did the film caricature and mock so that any values in what was satirised were lost?
3. Why were the first -twenty minutes or so eo funny? Did the "Hallelujah Chorus" and the Californian mountains blend to make audiences laugh at the group therapy? What kind of mood did the Handel music create?
4. Was the group therapy funny? eg, names, looking at one another, consoling one another in a heap? What is valuable about this kind of experience?
5. What effect did the weekend have on Bob and Carol - how did the restaurant scene show this ('Carol's thank you's in the kitchen)? How did the couple contrast with Ted and Alice who were normal?
6. What was being satirised in Carol's reaction to Bob's 'beautiful' affair? Did this 'honesty' really bring Bob and Carol closer? What was Bob's reaction to Carol's affair with the tennis player?
7. Why was Alice upset by these revelations?
8. What was the point of the long humorous sequence where the amorous Ted is trying to enthuse the tired Alice?
9. Bob and Ted talk about affairs at the pool? How do Ted's attitudes change? Why? Why does he daydream and have an affair?
10. Why was Alice worried by all this? Why does she go to a psychiatrist? What is the effect of psychiatry on her?
11. What is the point of the attempted orgy? What did they think they were going to achieve? Why did Ted look so sheepish and think it was, wrong? Why did it fail?
12. Was the procession ending and the Bacharach text - "What the world needs now is love, sweet love" satisfactory? Did it really contribute anything to the significance of the film?
13. Was the film something of an invasion of privacy, especially of marriage and of psychiatric therapy?
14. What insights did the film give? Was its satire effective?
