Bucking Conventional Wisdom--Some Hollywood Success Stories

Hollywood often appears to guide itself exclusively on conventional wisdom, an amalgam of “If it worked before, try it again,” “If if works, don’t fix it” and (as Adlai Stevenson once described Republican policies), “Try anything, but never for the first time.”

The operating principles of Hollywood wisdom include Action in Summer, Feelies in Fall, Biggies at Christmas and Happy Endings Anytime. But the conventionally wise are going to have a tough time fitting 1989 into the comforting patterns of the past.

In the films that are certain to be prime Academy Award contenders: one ends with everyone you cared about killed in battle; in another, the heroine is at last having to be spoon-fed in a nursing home; in another, the beautiful young heroine dies after childbirth; in another, the handsome young hero ends as a paraplegic in a wheelchair; yet another centers on a teen-age suicide and the dismissal in disgrace of a charismatic teacher.

The list can be extended easily, to a protagonist who is an almost totally crippled cerebral palsy victim, to a marital comedy so dark and lethal you almost need a flashlight to see the screen.

The conventionally wise might say that, ah, well, there are always tough films, but they never make money. The surprise (heartening to anyone who cares about the state of the movies) is that all these tragedy-toned films are doing or have done very well at the box office--better than some starry attractions (“We’re No Angels,” “Family Business”) that had little on their minds but what is known in the trade as sheer entertainment.

It may be that there will have to be a new commandment on the tablet of conventional wisdom: Try a little bravery; it couldn’t hurt.

In truth, the offerings have not been revolutionary. One piece of conventional wisdom that has not been overturned is that audiences don’t mind and may welcome a good cry; it’s that they don’t like to go away depressed or convinced that the world is beyond redemption.

The slaughter at Fort Wagner, S.C., that concludes “Glory” is at least as compelling a statement about and against war as “All Quiet on the Western Front.” But the film, directed by Edward Zwick and written by Kevin Jarre, also illuminates an important piece of American history: the creation and the brief, valiant exploits of the first black regiment in the Civil War.

It is a rich human drama that carries the reverberating truth of history and as an act of film making it is amazing in its scope and smoky realism. The Civil War battles, as they were fought, have never been so well depicted on screen.

“Born on the Fourth of July,” regarded as the short-odds favorite in the Oscar sweepstakes, is another piece of American history, recreating Ron Kovic’s life from gung-ho Marine to embittered paraplegic fighting against the war, and echoing the larger national turmoil about Vietnam. Its scenes of battle, of a rat-infested VA hospital, of family divisions and private anguish, are brutal and uncompromised, but ultimately there is a cleansing and triumphant uplift.

The Irish-made “My Left Foot” succeeds on the power of Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Christy Brown, the severely crippled cerebral palsy victim who by force of will became a poet, painter and novelist. The later years were sad for both Brown and the woman he married. But the film leaves him at the peak of his triumphant happiness and it’s the possibility of hope that the audience carries away.

“Steel Magnolias” and “Driving Miss Daisy,” both expert middle-class comedies drawn from successful plays, were nevertheless daring in the eyes of conventional thinking: the former virtually an all-women’s film with the men as ciphers on the fringe and with a tragic death as its centerpiece. The latter watches an elderly Jewish widow and an elderly black widower grow older. Not, you’d have said, sure-fire stuff despite the play’s success and not, as it turned out, a cinch to get financed.

But at the heart of both films is sharp and sympathetic observation of loving relationships. The authors, Robert Harling of “Magnolias” and Alfred Uhry of “Miss Daisy,” obviously evoked responses in their audiences in matters of parenthood, tolerance and compassion. And the performances, directed by Herbert Ross and Bruce Beresford, respectively, are smashing.

“Dead Poets Society” defied the wisdom on summer fare, as being about school, literature, frustration and suicide. Not a car crash in sight. It was not that great a risk, in retrospect, with Robin Williams as its star and a theme--young people in contention with their elders--certain to appeal to young audiences. And, as written by Tom Schulman and directed by Peter Weir, it is a first-rate film. But the early summer opening defied that old devil conventional wisdom, raising again the treasonable thought that decisions may be conventional but not necessarily wise.

“War of the Roses” is unrelenting in its cynical view of marriage, no last-reel forgivenesses, a defiance of the film proprieties. It divides viewers sharply between love and hate, but presumably there are enough customers who’ve had searing matrimonial experiences to make the Danny DeVito film written by Michael Leeson from a novel by Warren Adler a hit.

There seems finally no substitute for a nice, healthy defiance of the rules, and for following a particular passion to get a film written, cast and made as passion would have it. The year’s best films--”Glory,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and “My Left Foot” high among them--play as works of passion, not calculation, conventional wisdoms thankfully ignored.