1
hr & 55 min, b&w, 2013
Bruce Dern has been high on
my list of movie actors for almost as long as I can remember. He has filled very few leading roles over the
six decades that he has been in business, but he has turned in some of the most
incisive supporting portrayals, so many I could not begin to list them all,
each one distinct. He would be very hard
to pigeonhole or typecast. The first
time I encountered him was in an episode of Gunsmoke, wherein he created a
villain who, as I recall, bullied a child he held captive. He proved quite a challenge for old Marshall
Dillon to bring down. I suppose most of
his work has consisted of villains or, if not that, contentious or creepy
troublemakers who pose some kind of threat.
Everything he has done he has done in deadly earnest. He could sink a ship with those stalking eyes
of his or break a heart or two as he did in “Coming Home.” I quiver as I remember the psychopathic,
suicidal blimp pilot he gave us in “Black Sunday,” who nose dives his ship
right into a stadium full of people. He
is one of those many performers who have never gotten anywhere near the
recognition they deserve for consistent quality work, only a few Oscar
nominations that failed to produce an award.
Naturally I was exceedingly
pleased when I learned that he had become a leading contender this past year
for his starring role as Woody Grant, an aging, very senile, scraggly,
dipsomaniac husband and father in “Nebraska,” who drives his family crazy
insisting that he has won a million dollars and is determined to set out from
Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to obtain it, even if he has to
walk. What is different about this role
is the fact that he has so few lines. He
is the central pivotal character, but he has less to say in it than anything I
have ever known him to take on. Most of
what he does say he says with his body language, chiefly his loping walk and
his vacuous eyes (nothing like the stalking ones I just mentioned). He is harmless though oblivious and rather
mule-headed, enough to be a puzzle to his family, especially his bitchy, coarse
but basically benevolent wife Kate, played magnificently by June Squibb (also
an Oscar nominee). She is the inveterate
scene stealer in this movie, enough to make me wish at moments that she had
been a main character. But in a real
sense the story is not chiefly Woody’s or June’s. That distinction belongs to the son David,
played pleasingly well and appropriately low-keyed by Will Forte. It is his decision making that turns the
wheels of the plot.
What does a man in his early
thirties do when faced with the peculiar vagaries of a father such as Woody, a
potential danger to himself? David,
unmarried and childless and working at a lackluster job, has lived near his Dad
right along, but has never been close to him.
He tries to talk him out of his fool idea of going to Lincoln, knowing
that the notification he received in the mail is only a scam, but to no
avail. Woody will walk there whatever
anyone says, unless someone drives him.
David, feeling responsible for the old man, decides to take a few days
off and do that, knowing that Woody will have someone to keep an eye on
him. So, yes, this turns out to be what
is known in the movie jargon as a “road picture.” The journey takes them to more than
Lincoln. Woody gets to visit along the
way former relatives and acquaintances, whose ears and eyes light up when they
learn that their old friend is an alleged millionaire. One minute he is scarcely noticed, next
minute he is everybody’s topic of conversation, especially those to whom Woody
owes money and think they are entitled to a slice of the winnings. The most adamant in putting his hand out and
somewhat deadly in his revenge for being misled is a former employer played by
Stacey Keach, a fine stage actor who seldom shows up on screen, certainly the
most insidious and detestable person we meet up with. I was gratified by his performance.
The quality of life among all
these back country folk is rather dispiriting from all surface appearances, but
if one sticks around, as Bob Nelson’s carefully crafted screenplay has us do,
we see a slice of life both funny and in its own way poignant. We begin to sense how rugged things have been
for them and how with quiet dignity most of them hold up and keep pushing,
despite some gravitation toward nastiness when they feel cheated. David, a basically quiet young man, seems out
of his element among these snidely
aggressive people but does all he can to shepherd his father through the
thick of them. The film’s latter scenes
concern the two of them, David trying to break through barriers and give his
Dad a few golden moments, the Dad in limp-wristed response to what he may or
may not be appreciating. Following them
to the end of their journey is a curious study, under the sensitive direction
of Alexander Payne. Father/son
relationships have furnished the substance and the framework of many fine
motion pictures. Unlike so many, this
one is not high strung or intensely combative.
But it leaves somewhat mysterious the matter of what David really
achieves by the questionable trouble he goes to, perhaps more for himself than
for his father.
“Nebraska” is a modest
picture on a modest budget, with no great pretensions; it is even filmed in
black and white. We do not see that
process used much anymore. But it is
honest and absorbing and takes us into a subculture where movies do not often
venture.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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