ERIC

US, 1975, minutes, Colour.
John Savage, Patricia Neal, Claude Akins, Mark Hamill, Sian Barbara Allen, Nehemiah Persoff.
Directed by James Goldstone.

Eric is a very moving telemovie from the mid-70s. It was directed by James Goldstone, a veteran director of television series (who achieved some fame in directing the Star Trek episode from the original series entitled Where No Man Fears To Go). He made, as did a number of other television directors, a number of cinema films during the 1970s – but they tended to be routine films including They Only Kill Their Masters, Swashbuckler.

The film was the story of a young man, a talented athlete, who is diagnosed with leukemia. The film traces the effect of the illness on him both physically and psychologically. He is played by John Savage. Savage had appeared in a number of television films and series. This was his breakthrough film. In the next few years he appeared in such films as The Deerhunter, Hair, The Onion Field and began a very strong career on the large screen and the small screen. Patricia Neal appears as his mother. Patricia Neal had a career for over fifty years in film and television, despite a debilitating stroke from which she recovered – and which was seen in the telemovie, The Patricia Neal Story (1981). She was portrayed by Glenda Jackson, her husband Roald Dahl being portrayed by Dirk Bogarde.

The film had cinema release in the 1970s in some parts of the world – and still remains a rather strong film about sport, growing up, terminal illness, the reality of death.

1. The quality of the film as a tele-movie, as a film considered useful for cinema screenings?

2. The importance of the theme, the trend in the seventies of love stories and the presentation of terminal illnesses? The reason for popularity of films about love and death in the seventies? What does it say about people and their attitude towards death?

3. How much understanding of love, death and illness was there in the film, for the audience? In emotional identification for understanding? The emphasis on the true story aspect of the film, the didactic overtones and helping people understand and cope? Or is this kind of film really escapist?

4. The quality of the cast, the dominance of Patricia Neal as Eric's mother?

5. The television techniques, especially the use of close-ups, locations, commercial breaks? Did this kind of artificial structuring detract from the impact?

6. The film's focus on Eric, as an athletic young man during the credits, engaging audience sympathy, his ego and his turning 21 during the film? An ordinary young man, his strengths of character, his place in the family and his bonds with mother and father. brother and sister? The importance of sport? The introduction of threat to his health by the sores? His experience of the hospital. seeing the doctors advising his parents from the window? What did he learn about himself through his illness, the need to think over the experience by himself and talk it over with his parents. the way his mother revealed the truth? His basic attitude of hope, his wanting to communicate this? The challenge of life and death and illness to a young man like this? How real did it seem?

7. The realities of leukaemia, physically, mentally, the lack of cure? The effect on the physical health, psychological health, the ability to move around and do things? The need for a cure? The experimental stage of drugs, the side effects of experimental drugs? Decisions to use them, be part of an experiment? The visual presentation of this, the courage needed, Eric's attempt to try, the scenes of his experiencing the effects of nausea, dizziness, etc.? The interaction of his life at home, his life in the hospital? The psychological repercussions? His growing weakness. his achievement? The importance of the final stages of his life when he knew that he would die, facing up to dying?

8. The presentation of his mother and father as ordinary people, his mother at home, her work, looking after the children? His father at work? The bonds with the children, meals? The father's work? The fact that the father lived in the present and couldn't look to the future, the complementarity of the mother with her overall view? Their pride, their carrying on in an ordinary way? The qualities of strength and support in Erie's mother? Her knowledge of the truth, her wanting to interfere but being asked not to? Their happiness at his success? Wanting to be present at his death? The importance of his mother's walk while he was dying?

9. The bonds between the two brothers? The scone of going to the shop, the car? His brother's anger when he found out, the support that he gave him? His sister and her more serious approach?

10. How attractive a character was Marilyn, the meetings at the hospital, the sharing of friendship, the visit to the hotel, the outings? The bonds of love, Marilyn and her facing falling in love with him, her wanting to marry? Her being accepted within the family? Her hurt in not being able to marry? Her facing of Eric's death? Her contribution
medically in the crises?

11. Eric as portrayed amongst his friends, classes, sports and the soccer matches, his 21st birthday, the outings? The balance of this with the hospital scenes and seeing him with the people there?

12. The portrayal of the doctors, their realistic approach, hard attitudes, trying to help? The nurses? The hospital sequences and the personalities of the men in the ward, the gambling, the young man who was the book-maker and yet who died, the old man, the lady who couldn't speak and loved Eric as a son? Emotional involvement in this?

13. The build-up to Eric's death, the audience knowing and the parents not? The final soccer match, Eric's reputation, the party and happiness?

14. The treatment of the death scone with the long presentation of Eric in hospital? Audiences prepared for this from the four days in coma? His parents returning, the mother going for the walk, the cross-editing between these two sequences? The long close-ups of those close to him with their superimposition on Eric? The emotional impact? Enough, too much?

15. How romantic was this presentation of illness and death, how real? The pathos, the sentiment? Audience involvement, experiencing the values of life and death, love? The appropriateness of the song and the lyrics and their places where it was presented?