FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
US, 2000, 100 minutes, Colour.
Matthew Modine, Kelli Williams, Bonnie Bedelia, Ron Rifkin.
Directed by Jeff Bleckner.
Flowers for Algernon is based on Daniel Keyes’ short story. It was filmed for television with Cliff Robertson in the early 1960s. Robertson bought the rights and was able to make a cinema version in 1968, directed by Ralph Nelson. He appeared with Claire Bloom and won an Oscar for best actor of the year.
The film has been updated by John Pielmeier (writer of Agnes of God, Choices of the Heart).
Matthew Modine appears as Charlie Gordon. He is a retarded young man, wanting to learn, working in a bakery where he is picked on by his fellow workers who, generally genially, enjoy his mistakes. However, he is chosen for an experiment and undergoes an operation. This gradually improves his intelligence – and within a space of months he moves to genius level, more intelligent than the scientist (Ron Rifkin) who operated on him. He continues to go to therapy as well as to progress in learning, reading, memorising, able to understand mathematics and science.
Watching him is his teacher (Kelli Williams) who has agreed that he should have the operation. She herself is rather timid, he encourages her, wants to know what it is to be loved because development is not simply a matter of the head but also of the heart. He also realises that he needs to develop in both if he is to survive.
In the background are experiments with mice, especially one called Algernon. Algernon increases in intelligence but Charlie soon realises that he is weakening, reverting. He ultimately dies. Charlie realises that this will happen to him – and he goes to a convention in Chicago where he humiliates the scientist in explaining that he was considered a burden when he was retarded and is being exploited.
The film is moving as it shows Charlie’s regression, still retaining some memories, but losing his intelligence. However, with the relationship with his teacher, he has had an experience of love. He also goes back to visit the mother who abandoned him, a strong cameo by Bonnie Bedelia, a woman who loved her son in some ways but could not deal with him.
The film is a plea for understanding of those who are mentally retarded but have all kinds of other human and humane qualities.
There are references several times in the film to Frankenstein. The film takes the path of not creating a monster but rather showing humane progress. A parallel film was The Lawnmower Man, based on a Stephen King story, where a scientist also achieved intelligence for a retarded gardener but who then was overtaken by the Pentagon and trained as a military weapon.
1.The impact of the film? For understanding? Emotion? Satisfying?
2.The contemporary locations, the town, the school, laboratories? The ordinary atmosphere? The bakery? The Chicago convention? The musical score and its emotional backing?
3.The title, Flowers for Algernon, Algernon and his friendship with Charlie? The experimental mouse, his reversing, his death? Charlie burying him? Flowers on his grave? Algernon as a symbolic representation of what would happen to Charlie?
4.Charlie and Matthew Modine’s interpretation, of him retarded, intelligent, reverted? His being filmed and his wanting to learn? To be a ‘genas’? The support of Alice Kinian in the school? Professor Strauss and his choosing Charlie for the experiment? Getting his mother’s permission? His hopes, seeing him in his studies with the group in the school? Seeing him at work, doing a Charlie Gordon, his workmates picking on him, the jokes, carrying the flower, picking up the container? His not realising that he was being mocked?
5.The experiment, the gradual improvement in his understanding? In his manner, stances? His reading, going to the therapist who had asked him about inkblots? His turning on him – and the therapist playing back the record and Charlie realising what had happened? His growing anger? Learning, memorising Shakespeare? Understanding?
6.The effect of going to work his angers, with the workmates, his achievements, baking? Using the machinery? Their taking him out, learning the Twist? The antagonistic workmate and his humiliating him?
7.Doctor Strauss, his hopes, wanting Charlie to go to the convention? Charlie’s agreeing to go – after his criticism of Doctor Strauss? Wanting Alice Kinian to go, coming to the class? Her being in the audience? His wanting to talk at the convention, his taking umbrage ad Doctor Strauss’s reference to him as a burden? His explanation of himself, the Russian research, the fact that he was going to revert? His letting loose the mice? His attack on Alice? His later apologies?
8.His attempt to help with the reversal situation? His reading, the mathematical formulas? Doctor Strauss and his being more humble? The support of Alice? The relationship with her, wanting to be loved? The sexual encounter?
9.His realisation that he would revert? The need not simply for head development and intelligence but also for heart and humane development? Realising that as the old Charlie he had these humane qualities?
10.The final talks with Alice? His realisation of what would happen? Her grief? Algernon, his death, the burial?
11.Charlie and his coming back to class, the reaction of the group? Alice’s grief? His going back to work, asking for his job back after the men did not want to work with him because he was a different Charlie? His pratfalls, enjoying his company? His realisation that he would eventually have to go to a home?
12.A humane picture? An experiment? Should attempts be made to improve intelligence? The risks?
13.Charlie’s visit to his mother, her unwillingness to see him, her personality, the photo with him, her memory of him as a baby, unmanageable as a boy, the necklace and her appearance in the flashbacks and critical of him? His wanting her to sing, her singing the song? The goodbye, his kissing her on the forehead, her lack of response, going back into the house? His understanding his mother – and that it was not his fault that she was disappointed?
