I resonated with this picture on so many levels that I found the viewers comments as interesting and revealing as this excellent character study of the Vietnam era. However, I thought the title was poorly chosen and a bit macabre for the subject matter. I was particularly intrigued with the writer of the novel, Scott Spenser and turned to his bio for clues. Born 1945 in Washington, DC was a tip-off for me. Does this account for his awareness of the seamy side of politics and his apparently ruptured idealism? He would have been 17 when JFK was killed and in a couple of years become a prime candidate for service in Vietnam or a fast trip to Canada, as he has his flawed hero admit while explaining his cop-out by joining the Coast Guard. Spenser obviously knows about being conflicted.
I just don't see Fielding Pierce as being idealistic in his political ambitions as so many readers do, at least not until the image of his lost love comes back to drive him to near mental collapse at the climax of a very physically draining political campaign. And such ventures, unless you are blessed by a very wealthy and powerful father, as with JFK and more recently George Bush -- are totally exhausting experiences in which the candidate can feel that he is absolutely alone and that the people around him are just sucking him dry. Fielding is portrayed as a totally passive pretty boy who is picked up by a powerful King Maker and who appears to have not a single political or social thought, whether his own or anyone else's, not even his eminently lovable and totally idealistic lover. So he loved the sex, but what else? And who doesn't? He had a childish dream, which he casually puts forth, of wanting to be President. Which is the sum total of his political and social awareness in so far as the story goes, until the image of his lost love finally reconstructs his insensitive soul.
I was particularly struck by the writer's very short line that no one would have voted for JFK if they had really known him. How did that one get by the Hollywood censors? And did this account for the less than glowing reception this very well acted and directed "sensitive" story actually received? Did Jody Foster or Ed Harris approve that line? Can it be that these presumably politically sensitive Hollywood stars do not sit at the feet of the Democratic Party's latter day Saint Francis? They both must have had something to say about the script before they became attached to this project.
Hmm. I find these clues fascinating. I'll have to watch this one again. And read more about it.
I just don't see Fielding Pierce as being idealistic in his political ambitions as so many readers do, at least not until the image of his lost love comes back to drive him to near mental collapse at the climax of a very physically draining political campaign. And such ventures, unless you are blessed by a very wealthy and powerful father, as with JFK and more recently George Bush -- are totally exhausting experiences in which the candidate can feel that he is absolutely alone and that the people around him are just sucking him dry. Fielding is portrayed as a totally passive pretty boy who is picked up by a powerful King Maker and who appears to have not a single political or social thought, whether his own or anyone else's, not even his eminently lovable and totally idealistic lover. So he loved the sex, but what else? And who doesn't? He had a childish dream, which he casually puts forth, of wanting to be President. Which is the sum total of his political and social awareness in so far as the story goes, until the image of his lost love finally reconstructs his insensitive soul.
I was particularly struck by the writer's very short line that no one would have voted for JFK if they had really known him. How did that one get by the Hollywood censors? And did this account for the less than glowing reception this very well acted and directed "sensitive" story actually received? Did Jody Foster or Ed Harris approve that line? Can it be that these presumably politically sensitive Hollywood stars do not sit at the feet of the Democratic Party's latter day Saint Francis? They both must have had something to say about the script before they became attached to this project.
Hmm. I find these clues fascinating. I'll have to watch this one again. And read more about it.