Title: IRONWEED

Date: 6/15/1995; Publication: Magill's Survey of Cinema;

Magill's Survey of Cinema

06-15-1995

IRONWEED

Abstract:
Francis Phelan (Jack Nicholson), an alcoholic drifter, returns to his hometown of Albany, New York, and attempts to confront the violent mistakes of his past, which haunt him every waking hour, and his family, whom he has not seen in more than twenty years. William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about wasted lives played out against the Depression becomes a bleak film that showcases the formidable acting talents of Nicholson and Meryl Streep as Phelan's companion.


Summary:
Director Hector Babenco's IRONWEED and William Kennedy's novel IRONWEED (1983) are two entirely different entities. Although the latter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is the foundation for the former, IRONWEED the film is an example of the perplexing intricacies involved in translating literature into film. More than one reviewer, however, noted that Kennedy's direct contribution to the film version increases the irony in its failure to capture the qualities that made the novel such a critical success. These qualities proved difficult to translate to the moving image, since much of the novel's appeal resided in the rich suggestiveness of its language, which described the inner life of its alcoholic protagonist and his subjective encounters with the fantastic, the unknowable, and the unfathomable.

While some critics blamed the fundamental inappropriateness of any attempt to translate Kennedy's novel to the screen, others blamed Babenco, whose earlier critical successes included the modestly budgeted but highly acclaimed foray into politics and fantasy, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (1985), and PIXOTE (1980), the story of street life among abandoned Brazilian children. Babenco, some critics suggested, possessed a Latin American sensibility that was incompatible with both the Depression-era setting of Kennedy's novel and the author's Irish-Catholic blending of guilt and black humor. Nevertheless, Babenco's demonstrated ability to handle the fantastic in KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, as well as the unflinching realism of PIXOTE, could easily be used as evidence of directorial virtues well suited to guiding a film version of Kennedy's book.

IRONWEED showcases the acting of Nicholson as Francis Phelan, former baseball player and family man who, after accidentally killing his infant son, spends the next twenty-two years running from his guilty past. The film opens in the icy blue of predawn, downtown Albany, New York, in October of 1938. Arising from a back alley, Francis awakens, not to greet a new day but to start a new round in his battle for daily survival. The sound of a baby crying is heard, but this phantom noise is merely the first in a series of phantoms which haunt Francis' booze-sodden existence.

Francis joins others gathered outside the local skid-row mission run by Reverend Chester (James Gammon). He meets his friend Rudy (Tom Waits), whose clean suit might, in other circumstances, be a sign that he has met with good luck, but Rudy has been in the hospital. The doctors have given him a new suit and a death sentence: He has cancer and does not have long to live. Francis and Rudy take work shoveling dirt at the cemetery. The few dollars' pay will buy a bottle and a place to sleep. At the cemetery, Francis stops at the grave of his infant son, Gerald. Riding back to town on the trolley, Francis imagines that he is again a youth standing amid the striking trolley-car workers. A chance throw of a rock and Francis killed a scab driver who was doing nothing more than standing at the controls of a car. Francis' thoughts return to the present, but he continues to see the man he killed as a ghost who will later be joined by the ghosts of two boxcar hobos Francis killed in self-defense. These ghostly figures, with their luminous, glowing wounds and pale faces, appear Felliniesque in their white suits and are among the most critically controversial aspects of the film. Several critics thought their presence was distracting and crudely conceived as a vehicle to literalize Francis' guilt.

At the mission, Francis finally locates Helen (Meryl Streep), his companion for the past nine years. With her harsh street talk, paranoia, and strangeness, Helen constantly attempts to recall her earlier life, in which she was, she says, the refined daughter of a well-to-do family. In their search for a place to sleep, Helen, Francis, Rudy, and some of their friends go to a bar where they run into Oscar (Fred Gwynne), an old acquaintance who no longer drinks. Now a singing bartender, he encourages Helen when she talks of her experience as a radio singer. In a moment combining fantasy and reality, Helen takes the stage and belts out a song dedicated to Francis, ``He's My Pal.'' Her talent and training are obvious; she has not been lying about her past. Her fleeting recapturing of former success is a fantasy, however, shared only with the film audience. The viewer sees the actual end of her song, with the bar patrons indifferent to her pathetically used up voice and nervous stage presence.

Still searching for a place to spend the night, Helen and Francis visit a drunkard husband and wife who manage to keep an apartment. The husband is interested in Helen, and the slovenly wife appears to be amenable to bedding down with Francis. Seeing that a bed for the night will involve the exchange of sexual favors, Helen insists that they leave. She and Francis viciously fight on the street. They reconcile, and he finds an abandoned car in which she can sleep, but the dollar he gives to its resident bum will not be enough for his own rent. After Francis leaves, Helen is forced to submit to the sexual advances of the man in order to keep her place in the car. When she leaves in the morning, she goes to confession, then finds some money on the church floor that enables her to redeem her possessions from the pawnshop and rent a clean hotel room.

Francis has obtained a job as the helper to a junk man (Hy Anzell) who loves life. He finds himself in the neighborhood where he was reared and where his wife and two grown children still live. As Helen is cleaning up and preparing for his return, Francis prepares himself to visit his wife, Annie (Carroll Baker). Annie does not recognize him at first, but it becomes clear as they talk that she is willing to take him back into her life. He has a chance for redemption, but Francis no longer seems to want anything, including redemption. When she asks him what he needs, he can only reply: a new shoelace. Nor does acceptance by his sympathetic son, Billy (Michael O'Keefe), and finally by his embittered daughter, Peggy (Diane Venora), provide him with the hope that he needs in order to change. He tells Annie that he knows his staying would not work. He leaves as quietly as he appeared.

Francis finds Rudy sleeping on the street. They pass time at a shanty town. Amazingly, Francis can finally speak of his loss. He tells his drunken, uninterested companions of his accidentally dropping his son and recalls his kindly wife who ``never told a soul I did it.'' The meaning of Francis' story is lost on them, however. Suddenly, vigilantes arrive to torch the shacks and drive the bums out of Albany. Rudy is viciously attacked, but Francis manages to drag him away. By the time they reach a hospital, Rudy is dead. Francis leaves him in order to find solace with a bottle and with Helen, but when he discovers Helen in her rented hotel room, she is dead of alcohol poisoning. In his drunken state, he incoherently promises her that he will get her a tombstone -- a promise that, like all the others in Francis' life, will never be kept. IRONWEED ends with Francis returning to the rails to escape Albany. He throws away his bottle, but Francis' escape from liquor, like his escape from his past, is doubtless a temporary and futile gesture.

Described as ``a joyless classic'' by Pauline Kael and greeted with reviews that characterized it as serious, somber, and slow, IRONWEED missed receiving the kind of critical enthusiasm which its investment ($23 million) and its participating talent might have seemed to ensure. In spite of the disappointing critical reception given the film, the acting of Nicholson and Streep was greeted with widespread praise and with nominations by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Actor and Best Actress. Streep, in particular -- so often the subject of a rather begrudging admiration for her acting technique coupled with a sense that she does not hold the screen with the authoritative style that signals a truly charismatic Hollywood presence -- finally received unreserved praise for both her technique and her charisma. Nicholson also was widely praised, with some critics noting, however, that the role of Francis did not fully exploit what is most captivating about Nicholson: his energy and his humor. Thus, IRONWEED became marked as that rarest and most financially dangerous of modern Hollywood products -- a film that is too serious.


Country of Origin: USA

Release Date: 1987

Production Line:
Keith Barish and Marcia Nasatir; released by Tri-Star Pictures

Director: Hector Babenco

Cinematographer: Lauro Escorel

File Editor: Anne Goursaud

Additional Credits:
PRODUCTION DESIGN - Jeannine C. Oppewall
ART DIRECTION - Robert Guerra
SET DECORATION - Leslie Pope and Elaine O'Donnell
COSTUME DESIGN - Joseph G. Aulisi
MUSIC - John Morris

MPAA Rating: R

Run Time: 145 minutes

Cast:
Francis Phelan - Jack Nicholson
Helen - Meryl Streep
Annie Phelan - Carroll Baker
Rudy - Tom Waits
Oscar - Fred Gwynne
Billy Phelan - Michael O'Keefe
Peggy Phelan - Diane Venora
Katrina - Margaret Whitton
Reverend Chester - James Gammon
Junk man - Hy Anzell

Review Sources:
Los Angeles Times. December 18, 1987, VI, p.1
Macleans. CI, February 15, 1988, p.57
The New Republic. CXCVIII, January 25, 1988, p.28
The New York Times. December 18, 1987, p. C24
The New Yorker. LXIII, January 11, 1988, p.78
Newsweek. CX, December 21, 1987, p.68
People Weekly. XXIX, January 11, 1988, p.12
Time. CXXX, December 21, 1987, p.74
Variety. CCCXXIX, December 16, 1987, p.10
The Wall Street Journal. December 17, 1987, p.28

Named persons in Production Credits:
Keith Barish
Marcia Nasatir

Studios named in Production Credits:
Tri-Star Pictures

Screenplay (Author):
William Kennedy

Color

c



Video Available.
Genre:
Drama

Award Citations:
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Actor - Jack Nicholson
Academy Awards - Nomination - Best Actress - Meryl Streep
New York Film Critics - Winner - Best Actor - Jack Nicholson
Los Angeles Film Critics - Winner - Best Actor - Jack Nicholson (tie)

Return to Main Articles Menu Page or Return to Home