FOOL FOR LOVE
US, 1985, 108 minutes, Colour.
Sam Sheppard, Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid.
Directed by Robert Altman.
Fool for Love is a screen adaptation of a play by Sam Sheppard, prolific writer of plays during the 80s and 90s. Sheppard also had a full-time career as an actor and is the lead in this version of his play. He is supported by a young Kim Basinger who was emerging as an actress and not simply as a glamorous star. Harry Dean Stanton and Randy Quaid were always reliable supporting cast.
In 1984, Sam Sheppard had won awards for his screenplay for Paris, Texas, starring Harry Dean Stanton. Commentators point out the similarities of the Stanton character in each film, the wanderings after fire in Paris, Texas, the consummation by fire at the end of Fool for Love.
The film is set in the west, New Mexico’s Mojave Desert. It is the end of a cowboy era – although there are dreams of moving to the open plains and mountains of Wyoming.
The film also explores family themes, opening of family secrets, fidelities and infidelities, tortured relationship, almost incestuous family relationships. The film also has a strong soundtrack with a range of songs by Sandy Rogers (who is, in fact, Sam Sheppard’s sister).
Robert Altman had a very successful career in the 1970s starting with MASH and moving through films like McCabe? and Mrs Miller to Nashville. During the 80s he tended to film plays like this one and Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and Beyond Therapy. During the 90s he had a new lease of life starting with The Player.
1. The work of Sam Sheppard, poetic, dramatic, plays, stories? His particular perspective on characters, insights, interiors, offbeat? His explorations of the west, the western American roads, motels? Ordinary situations, strange people? Relationships? His role as an actor and interpreting his own work?
2. The career of Robert Altman, his offbeat career, the 1980s and his adaptations of plays to the screen? How cinematic? Structure, static, flashbacks, emphasis on language, action? Theatrical?
3. The New Mexico landscapes, the town, the microcosm of the world? The detail, the diner, the rooms, the road, the trailer? The environment? Sequences in the night, in the day? Long shots and close-ups? Editing and pace? Wide screen?
4. The importance of the score, the songs and their lyrics, the place of insertion, their comment on the action and characters?
5. The title, folly and madness, mad love? Contemporary, ordinary, earthy?
6. The motel, May’s presence there, deserted? Eddie and his arrival, his search? The old man and his trailer, hovering? The visitors, the countess, Martin? The other guests? An enclosed world? Parallel to the real world?
7. May, Kim Basinger’s presence and style? Work, the detail, in herself? The relationship with Eddie, the family secret? Love, marriage? The relationship, love and hate? Hiding, fleeing? Eddie stalking, fighting? A mixture of joy and sadness? The madness in her character, exasperation? Her experiences and becoming desperate? Her relationship to the old man, seeing him, ignoring him? Her relationship with Martin – as a substitute for Eddie? Her wanting to go out, relate to Martin? The tension with Eddie? The visitors, the child and the sandpit? Identifying? May’s memories, her mother, sharing, her father and his absences, driving, the desert? Her growing up, discovering Eddie, love? The relationship and its haunting aspects?
8. Eddie, the rodeo, horses, his arrival, the build-up of his character, the search? His violence, tension? His relationship with the old man, drinking? The desperation in Eddie’s life, his taunting others? Going away, returning? Waiting for Martin, taunting him? The truth of the story about his life, boyhood, his mother, father, meeting May, loving her, the chase? A physical man, inarticulate? Oppressor, victim? A fool for love?
9. Martin as the outside, awkward and naïve, work, the cinema, credible or not, manner of talking, the drinking, the fight? The puzzle and his reaction? The audience view of the characters through him?
10. The old man, his caravan, drinking, hovering, observing the visitors, his laughing? The bar, watching, present, absent? His interventions? The story of his families, his wives, treatment of them, his children in the different families, the way of relating to them? A failure? The revelation in the flashbacks, in the action? A comment on American fathers, love, failure, their heritage?
11. The visitors, the family, the father disappearing and returning? The child locked out? The family as a mirror of May and Eddie and their family?
12. The cook, the husband, the return, the girl and the play?
13. Symbolism of America, the west, its lifestyle, its secrets, its ghosts? The issues of relationships, healthy relationships, unhealthy, family? Real and symbolic?
