DALVA
US, 1996, 96 minutes, Colour.
Farrah Fawcett, Peter Coyote, Powers Boothe, Carroll Baker, Rod Steiger.
Directed by Ken Cameron.
Dalva is based on a novel by Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall) but this film has very little in common except the western landscapes and an interest in history. The ingredients are interesting but, somehow or other, in being geared for the popular television audience, it does not quite jell.
Farrah Fawcett plays Dalva Northridge, the granddaughter of Rod Steiger who has the secrets of the family’s history in Nebraska and the encounters with the native Americans, especially in journals that historian Peter Coyote, who teams up with Dalva, wants to study. However, Dalva gives the voice-over (with Shawn Cady portraying her as a young girl) and tells the story of her love for Duane Stonehorse and her grandfather’s preventing their being married – the audience knowing that they were half-brother and sister. However, she has a child, Duane has a serious illness and rides into the sea to his death. The baby is sent out for adoption and for the next decades Dalva pines for the baby. She does social work in San Francisco. On her return home, she encounters an entrepreneur played by Powers Boothe and falls in love with him. Carroll Baker plays her mother.
There is a lot of dialogue about native Americans. There is also some revelation at the end about atrocities and the stances taken by the great-grandfather for the Indians. There is also mixed drama about relationships – and Peter Coyote’s character is eccentrically non-credible and the relationship between Powers Boothe and Farrah Fawcett lacks some credibility.
Interesting ingredients but not successful as a film. It was directed by Australian Ken Cameron (Brides of Christ, The Umbrella Woman).
1.The impact of the film? For a television audience? American heritage? A contemporary romantic story?
2.The Nebraska settings, the farmlands, their beauty, vastness? The contrast with San Francisco? The musical score?
3.The structure of the film: the introduction to Dalva, the voice-over, visualising Dalva as a young girl, her love for Duane, the birth of the child, the adoption, Duane’s death and its effect on her? Her moving away from home? Her relationship with her mother, her mother supportive? Her relationship with her grandfather and his sternness? The issue of native Americans?
4.Dalva in San Francisco, the example of her social work, looking after children? Her journals, writing letters to her son, wanting to know where he was? Her relationship with Michael, on and off? Her comments on her relationships? His wanting the journals from her? The difficulty in her being persuaded?
5.Her return home, to her grandfather, her mother? Meeting Sam? Discussions with him, going out? The affair? Michael and his arriving, being picked up, wandering in the fields? His quest for the journals?
6.The grandfather and his decision to give the journals to Michael? Naomi’s persuasion? Michael and his reading them, exhilarated?
7.Michael, the oddities of his character, scholar, on sabbatical, suicidal if he didn’t get the journals? At the dance, meeting Lundquist, talking with Karen? His relationship with Dalva? His drinking?
8.Sam and Dalva, the relationship, a future or not?
9.The grandfather, his talking with Dalva, his having given money to his grandson and not telling Dalva? His death? The voice-over about his own father, with the Indians, the fights, the bodies buried, Sam and Dalva discovering them and unearthing them?
10.Sam and his promise to find out where Dalva’s son was? Her meeting with the mother? The son’s history, troubled? The finale with Sam bringing the son and the reunion with his mother?
11.How interesting and persuasive the characters, the situations, the themes?
