THE SPORTING CLUB
US, 1971, 102 minutes, Colour.
Robert Fields, Nicholas Coster, Margaret Blye, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Logan Ramsay, Ralph Waite.
Directed by Larry Peerce.
The Sporting Club is quite a disturbing film – not the kind of easy film that the title might lead us to believe.
The film focuses on some 1970s macho friends, angry, gun-loving, setting up duelling pistols …
They belong to a local club which is about to celebrate its centenary.
The members are well-to-do, they are the direct descendants of the founders of the club with hereditary membership. They are essentially conservative, respectable – although, in the club, they shed some of their inhibitions.
When they open the time capsule of the founders of the club they find, to their shock, that it was a group of radicals, free love supporters. The effect on the club members is to let go of all their inhibitions and indulge in orgiastic behaviour.
This was a film of the early 1970s, heralding a kind of permissiveness – but commenting on the double standards of many respectable Americans and their 19th century background.
The film was directed by Larry Peerce who made such films as Goodbye Columbus but whose later career was mainly in television films.
The background of the film is quite strong in terms of a novel written by Thomas McGuane? whose other novels were filmed: Rancho Deluxe, Ninety-To? in the Shade (which McGuane? himself directed), The Missouri Breaks, Tom Horn, Cold Feet. The screenplay was directed by Lorenzo Semple Jr, one of the most prolific Hollywood writers of the 1970s: Pretty Poison, The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, Papillon, The Paralax View, The Drowning Pool, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong.
1. A good film? Critics were mainly hostile, also audiences? Why? Impact on an American audience, non-American audience? Reaction to the film itself , its themes, the treat¬ment?
2. How fair should the fima be seen as realistic? As allegorical? How different is the respoasea to the film as realistic, as allegorical? Why?
3. The fila is reflecting America about 1970; self-hate, suicidal, immoral? The immor¬ality underneath the surface and its breaking forth? The impact of America's past on its present? If it so reflects 1970, does it run the danger of being dated?
4. Colour, locations, music? The establishing of a nice atmosphere, respectable? WASP? And then the transition to Vietnam, the orgy?
5. How well did the film focus on Stanton, Quinn, Jamey? Could the audience identify with each of those? Understand them? As characters in themselves? Their relationship with each other? Their place in the sporting club, in society as representing young adult American values? The film’s being in favour of them, against?
6. The title of the film and its focus on the club, a WASP club, its traditions, the respectable people and their professions, their values, way and style of life? Their being horrified by Stanton's erratic behaviour? By his bringing in of Earl Olive? By the violence at Olive and his gang? Their reaction to youth? The ultimate exposure of the club and the club members as hypocrites? The respectabitity of the surface of a hundred years ago, of 1970? The same ugliness and lack of control underneath? The irony of the buildup to the centennial celebrations?
7. The impact of the the capsule and the invitation to throw off all pretences? The ugliness of the orgy? The physical ugliness, a portrayal of corruption? How valid a criticism of American society?
8. The focus of the film on Earl Olive as a character in himself, being employed, his job and his administration of it, as a symbol of the ugly evident disruptive aspects of society? The duel, his blowing up the dam, his friends and their licentious behaviour, the provocation? The inevitability of a war between Olive and the respectible citizens?
9. How well did Stanton cope with the situations, his semi-madness in himself, his detesting the older members in their snobbery, his baring his behind, fighting Olive? paying him off? The contrast with Quinn? The relationship with Jamey? the buildup to the duel and Stanton's death? The impact on Quinn and Jamey and the film ending with this?
10.The physical blowup, explosion, violence as a symbol of the human blowing up? How much insight by this exploration of American society? What was achieved by this film?
