TAKING OFF

US, 1971, 92 minutes, Colour.
Buck Henry, Lynn Carlin.
Directed by Milos Forman.

Taking Off is a Milos Forman film made in America. In cinema style and techniques it resembles his comic looks at ordinary Czech society, providing insights into people and cultures by simply observing them a little more closely and sympathetically. A Blonde in Love; Peter and Paula; The Fireman's Ball are very good examples.

The result here is a film that is European in format, but quite perceptive about U.S. society and its difficulties. The Americans are not so different from the Czechs underneath despite different settings, emotional reactions and so on. There is also light and humour in the film. Forman looks at the dropouts from suburban life, the music cult of the young, the popularity of drugs. The film does not arrive at conclusions but shows us how to look at people better. Lynn Carlin and Buck Henry are excellent as the parents - they are sympathetic whatever their drawbacks. The use of songs is clever, especially the audition collage which shows us a lot about average American girls. Some episodes (and the film is episodic) are very funny including a lesson in pot-smoking to instil empathy into parents. Not a major film, but a good one.

1. What nuances are there in the title? How are they relevant for the themes of the film?

2. Comment on the successes of the film's style - use of song commentary, the concentration on humorous incidents, focusing on faces. Did these contribute to an understanding of average U.S. families?

3. Singing auditions - how did the song, edited for so many girls to sing a line each, comment on the characters and aspirations of the young?

4. Why did the girl leave home? Why didn't she communicate with her parents? Were they an average type of family?

5. How were the parents presented? How did the smoking, counselling, therapy, anxiety about their lost daughter, women's gossip, comment on the way they would relate to their children? Did you like the Camptown races routine?

6. What comment on adults did the father's encounter with the society mother make? Should the father have pursued the lost girl and rung her mother?

7. What was the reaction of the parents motoring to their arrested daughter?

8. Why was the Society for the Parents of Fugitive Children satirised? Was the pot-smoking lesson well handled? What was the point? Why was it funny?

9. Was the strip-poker funny? Why?

10. Why did the reconciliation dinner not succeed very well? Did this imply that the generation and communications gap are almost impossible to bridge? How was the boyfriend satirised?

11. How ironic was the finale with the father singing Broadway musical comedy, "Strangers in Paradise"? Why?