1979
Sometimes Best Pictures are works of meaning and substance that hold up over decades. Sometimes they tell a story that audiences connect with so completely they become a classic. Sometimes they tell stories of people the Academy thinks are important. Sometimes they’re just such a well-made movie they can’t help but give it a trophy. And sometimes they’re Cavalcade or Green Book.
And sometimes you just grab two of the best actors working, find a zeitgeist-y topic, and throw ’em together.
And The Oscar Goes To…
US divorce rates skyrocketed in the 70s, because (as Adam Conover can explain) no-fault divorces became available nationwide, and getting a divorce because you don’t like each other and aren’t happy (or because your husband is abusive) became an option. Of course, Conservative America is always better at monocle-dropping shock and horror than introspection and nuance so it wasn’t seen like the inherent positive that it was (female suicides dropped 20% once there was a second way out of that marriage).
So no wonder the Big Divorce Drama stole some awards love from Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic.
To me, this movie mostly works as an acting showcase for Dustin Hoffman. Which, sure, fine, “acting showcase” has been the motivation for much worse Oscar movies. Much, much, much worse yes I mean you, Fences, always you, Fences. Hoffman plays Ted Kramer, an ad executive devoted to his job, who comes home in the opening minutes of the movie to find his wife Joanna (Meryl MFn Streep) is leaving him as she hasn’t been happy for some time, and no-fault divorce exists so she does not, in fact, have to just suck that up. Ted must now take care of his son Billy while trying to land major advertising accounts, something his boss isn’t thrilled about.
Okay that’s the second way in which I think this movie works. The notion of “mother is unhappy and leaves, father has to actually parent a little” has lost some shock value in the last few decades… or all of it… but the unhealthy, borderline abusive relationship some companies demand with their employees? That’s still very much worth exploring. Ted gets in trouble with and ultimately fired from his work because they feel caring for his child is distracting him too much from being devoted to his job 24/7. His boss’ first thought when Joanna leaves is that Ted should ship Billy off to live with an aunt or something so that Ted isn’t distracted from account pitches. He is fired for experimenting with this crazy, hippie notion of “work/life balance.”
And the fact that he ultimately gets fired for, among other “I have to parent” incidents, missing a meeting because his son had a fever and he didn’t just say “walk it off” and go back to work, shows that devotion to your job is often a one-way street. The ad agency demanded everything of Ted, and when he needed some leeway to be a father, they fired him. And when Joanna inevitably returns and wants custody, her lawyer uses that against him.
So let’s call North America’s puritan obsession with Work and Toil being the sole way a person justifies their existence one of the two entrenched toxic ideas this movie exposes. Number two? The patriarchy!
Specifically that gender roles were and continue to be heavily entrenched, so that the father’s role was to work and earn money and the mother is in charge of nurturing, so if the parents have split, it’s just assumed that the mother should get custody because she’s inherently more nurturing. That’s right, MRAs, women having the edge in custody battles isn’t feminism, it’s patriarchy.
In order to have a chance at winning custody, Ted’s lawyer needs to tear Joanna apart on the stand, and despite frequent objections from her lawyer, the judge is on board with it. He’s all “No, I’ll allow it, it’s okay that this man forces her to admit on the stand that the divorce was a personal failing on her part.” And it’s still not enough! Ted’s lawyer eviscerates her, Joanna’s lawyer’s approach hinges partially on “Ted had to change jobs because he was too devoted to parenting,” and he still loses, that’s how entrenched gender roles are.
(He does a speech about that on the stand, so we know that one was intentional.)
And then at the very end Joanna decides that maybe Ted should keep custody and we cut to credits, it felt like a focus group didn’t like Ted losing custody so they brought Hoffman and Streep in for an afternoon to shoot a reversal.
It’s got charms. The scenes showing that Ted and his son are building a new rhythm together really work. And it’s not a one-sided story: after building the movie around “Ted learns to parent when his wife walks out on him,” and then shooting Joanna’s return like she’s Michael Myers stalking Jamie Lee Curtis, Joanna’s testimony walks us through how she became unhappy, how Ted accidentally instilled in her such deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy that she honestly thought her son would be better off without her, and Meryl Streep is delivering the speech so of course it’s heartbreaking. So is the scene where Ted explains to his son that Joanna left because of Ted, not Billy.
Sure it’s lost some impact, as we learn that divorce isn’t the End of Days and maybe we’ve never really wrapped our heads around how human relationships work because we let squeamishness about sex drive the conversation… where was I, got lost for a minute there… right. Sure all of that, but it’s still good, and Hoffman and Streep are great.
And Rotten Tomatoes Says: It’s down at #67, above Ben-Hur (good) but under The Sound of Music. Maybe I’m overvaluing it because of Dustin Hoffman, maybe I think it opens doors to talk about North America’s deep need to get serious about work/life balance, but it feels low.
What’s New, Hollywood? Divorce used to be a third act tragic turn or the way in which the Bad Wife was wished to the cornfield so the protagonist got to be with the real romantic interest (what up, Best Years of Our Lives), rather than the emotional arc of the whole movie, but the times they were a-changin’.
Okay, so the Big Divorce Drama took the Oscar, what won over the crowds? Since the Age of the Blockbuster started, we’ve battled a great white, learned about the Force, and believed a man could fly, so the big winner of ’79 must be something really–
The Box Office Champ
Wait
What
No. What?
It was… really? Kramer vs. Kramer? In 1979? Over the chestburster, Kermit the Frog, Captain Kirk, Rocky Balboa’s rematch with Apollo Creed? All of those iconic classics, each in a franchise that lasted decades, most of them the first instalment, and the biggest earner was a drama about a fight over child custody?
Huh.
Okay, so… Art and Commerce agree with each other one last time before the decade wraps and blockbusters go into overdrive. Let’s… have a Twitter thread and move along, then.
Other Events in Film
- This Year in Bond: Star Wars mania catches up with 007, resulting in Moonraker, which made Jaws the only henchman to appear in two movies, and never die.
- To recap what I skimmed through earlier… Ridley Scott brought horror to deep space in the simply titled Alien; Kermit the Frog gathered up some friends and was “Movin’ Right Along” to Hollywood for a standard fame and fortune contract from Orson Welles in The Muppet Movie; the crew of the Enterprise reunited for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which reignited Star Trek as a franchise; and Stallone took the first step from legit Oscar material to cash-grab franchise with Rocky II, which was still good, and could be seen as a commentary on Stallone dealing with sudden fame and expectations, and also being dragged into a follow-up he didn’t expect. I don’t know that it was, but it could be.
- Francis Ford Coppola’s most troubled production, Apocalypse Now, makes it to screens. It’s good but some say the making-of documentary, Hearts of Darkness, is even better. The Globes and the BAFTAs both think Coppola is the Best Director, but the Oscars go with Kramer Vs. Kramer, Coppola can’t catch a break with those people.
- Animator Don Bluth quits Disney to start his own company
with blackjack and hookers, Don Bluth Productions. They managed some big things. - Disney gives live action sci-fi a whirl with The Black Hole. Kids love the robots but it would be hard to consider it a success. There were rumours Disney was going to try a remake, but if that was true the tepid success of Tron: Legacy and failure of Tomorrowland quashed it.
- Some damn fools attempt a prequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid without Newman or Redford. Does about as well as you’d expect.
- George Miller begins building a post-apocalyptic world of car bandits with Mad Max.
- Monty Python’s Life of Brian takes a piece out of the biblical epic genre.
- Horror fans would want me to mention Phantasm, with its Tall Man and flying death ball. I only saw the sequel. It was weird.
- Malcolm McDowell’s HG Wells hunts David Warner’s Jack the Ripper through 70s New York in Time After Time. Better than it sounds.
- The Warriors come out and play-ay. …Look you get that one or you don’t. But it features Black Lightning’s James Remar!
- Meatballs launches the film career of Bill Murray and the directing career of Ivan Reitman, putting them on course to make just the best movie ever in a few years.
- If I mentioned everyone whose film career launched in 1979 we’d be here all night. You can find it here.
Next Page: Parting Thoughts
