In Which We Deal With Woody's Unreal Expectations

Woody's Husbands and Wives

by CHAD PERMAN

Make no mistake about it, marriage is difficult. It's a wonderful, complicated, messy, beautiful, frustrating ball of emotions that can strangle you one day and make you blissfully happy the very next. At the same time, it just might be the single most misunderstood institution in our lives, and Hollywood is in no small part responsible for that, feeding rather gleefully into the 'happily ever after' syndrome that we all, on some level, aspire to — despite its absolute impossibility. No relationship (let alone a marriage) is ever a fairy tale, at least not in a conventional sense; nothing can live up to that, though we very nearly kill ourselves trying to prove exactly the opposite.

Which is precisely why a film like Husbands and Wives is such a welcome cinematic breather of sorts, something that those of us in the midst of the battle for happily ever after can watch and realize, heads nodding with knowing laughter: "Yes, exactly!"

Did desire really grow with the years? Or did familiarity cause partners to long for other lovers? Was the notion of ever deepening romance a myth we had grown up on, along with the simultaneous orgasm?

Perhaps the best thing about Woody Allen's 1993 classic is its recognition of life and relationships as they actually are, rather than as we would like them to be. True, at the time it was released Allen and co-star Mia Farrow were embroiled in a rather nasty and hugely publicized break-up, but the fact that the film itself - if not the stars' actual lives - seemed so accurately to depict the state of modern marriage ultimately means something. Whether we stay together or divorce, cling to each other or go our separate ways, this film has something to tell us, something to offer by way of proximity. And in the end, what else can great art ever really hope to do?

Judy: Do you think it could ever happen to us?
Gabe: Well, I'm not planning on it, are you?

Gabe and Judy Roth (Allen and Farrow) are a modestly happy married couple of ten years whose lives begin to unravel when their closest friends, Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis), suddenly announce to them one night before dinner that they have decided to separate. They assure Gabe and Judy that this is an amicable decision, mutually arrived at and agreed upon: things simply weren't working out how either of them wanted any more, and they both felt the need to explore other options in life. And, while this turns out to be only barely true in actuality — an ugly collision of naivity and denial that manages to masquerade as a type of bold open-mindedness on the part of both Jack and Sally — it's still more than enough to shake Gabe and Judy's own relationship to its very core. After all, if their best friends in the entire world could split up, how could they (or anyone else, for that matter) ever expect to stay together for the long haul?

Jack and Sally's decision to separate quickly leads Gabe and Judy to some tough, emotional, heartbreaking conversations about the reality of their own relationship. In their room together late at night, getting ready for bed, they have the kind of conversations that most married couples end up having from time to time — at least, those couples who actually talk to one another — the kind where you carefully confess and backpedal, provoke and soothe, a crazy and numbing dance known so well by long-time lovers. You only hope that in the end they don't break you apart.

Judy: All those memories, they're just memories...they're from years gone by and they're just isolated moments. They don't tell the whole story.

As Gabe and Judy struggle to regain their footing, Jack and Sally continue their exploration of "other options". Jack quickly takes up with another woman — a much younger, ditzier aerobics instructor whom he quickly moves in with — while Sally slowly begins to test the waters of the dating pool, eventually jumping in with one of Judy's work colleagues. At first, their separation from each other allows them fleeting moments of relief that they mistake for happiness, forgetting that freedom always brings with it a certain anxiety and that, as unglamorous as it is to say, there is always a certain comfort and safety in the familiar that the excitement of something new can rarely replace, at least not fully.

While the first few pleasurable bursts of romance, lust, and love might convince us that things will somehow work out differently this time, they seldom, if ever, do. Miserable, but determined to keep trying, Jack and Sally struggle on.

Sally: Well, I've learned that love is not about passion and romance necessarily, it's also about companionship: it's like a buffer against loneliness.

Meanwhile, Gabe begins to fall for one of his much younger writing students (this is a Woody Allen movie, after all) and Judy starts to develop strong feelings for someone in her office (Liam Neeson). Gradually, their relationship drifts apart, the slow erosion of trust — along with continual arguments over whether or not to have children ∏— ultimately wearing the both of them down. It's heartbreaking to watch but, again, it's so very real.

This is how relationships often play out in each of our lives, whether we want them to or not. While some of us manage to struggle through the tough times and keep the whole thing together somehow, others feel they can only stand by and watch as the whole thing goes up in flames.

Jack: That stuff is really important, someone to grow old with...the thing that's so tough, that kills most people, is just unreal expectations.

Husbands and Wives is many things, but above all, it is honest. Make what you will of Woody Allen's own personal marital and domestic failings, the man knows how to hold up a mirror to all of our lives, our relationships, and show us the many ways — both humorous and heartbreaking — that we choose to live. It's a rare thing in American cinema today to see marriage so deftly captured onscreen — not just in its broad strokes but in its smaller moments as well — that when we find a film like Husbands and Wives, we must be careful to embrace it. As far as I can tell, it's really the only sensible kind of antidote we have to all those happily-ever-after stories, the cheap and dangerous Hollywood romances that only serve to whet an appetite that life itself can never hope to fulfill.

Chad Perman is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can read his essay on Brewster McCloud here. You can read his essay on National Lampoon's Vacation here.

"Bag of Bones" - The Maccabees (mp3)

"No Kind Words" - The Maccabees (mp3)

"Seventeen Hands" - The Maccabees (mp3)

In Which Twenty Singles Fill The Space Where Your Brain Was

Twenty At The End of May

by CHAD PERMAN

While it's true that there is no real way to predict if any given year will be a "good" year for music until that year actually plays out, I nonetheless had high hopes for 2009 well before the year itself had ever arrived. As a guy who ran a music blog for nearly four years (which he stupidly, rather impulsively shut down last month, though that's another story entirely), I became somewhat good at guessing which years would be the better musical ones, at least in terms of my own taste, by using a relatively simple formulation that went something like this: most artists/bands put out a record every couple of years, so if X is a year in which a lot of good music comes out, then there is a very good chance that X + 2 will be a good year for music as well.

By such dizzying, dazzling mathematical logic, then, 2009 would wind up being a wonderful year for music by simple virtue of the fact that 2007 was so filled with riches. With a whole host of new records to anticipate this year (many of which have yet to be released - I'm looking at you, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, and Wilco), 2009 was looking good, if only from a distance.

But, of course, that was before it got started. Now, with the year nearly halfway behind us, I admit it: I've been rather disappointed in 2009, musically. A few things have grabbed me and managed to move me in some way, though I certainly had a harder time coming up with this list than I would have imagined. (Which is not to say the list isn’t good listening: there are real treasures to be found here, and you should definitely listen to every single one and you can thank me later.)

Perhaps it's just me though, perhaps I'm finally just too old to be hip or cool or even pretend to have the energy to keep up with any kind of music scene (it's not uncommon for me to browse the entire list of "popular" tracks on Hype Machine lately and have no real idea who or what any of them are). So, hipster scenes and music blogs aside, a rambling introduction filled with multiple disclaimers now behind us, here's what an Old Man Who Used to Be So Much Cooler has enjoyed listening to the most, so far, this year. Now, get off my porch.

1. "Two Weeks" - Grizzly Bear (mp3)

2. "Epistemology" - M. Ward (mp3)

3. "James Blues" - J. Tillman (mp3)

j. tillman4. "You and I" - Wilco (w/ Feist) (mp3)

5. "So Far Around the Bend" - The National

6. "Nikorette" - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (mp3)

7. "Funeral Song" - Laura Gibson

8. "Northern Lights" - Bowerbirds

9. "Only Pieces" - Here We Go Magic (mp3)

10. "Lille" - Lisa Hannigan (mp3)

11. "Beach Baby" - Bon Iver

12. "Effigy" - Andrew Bird

13. "Echo" - David Williams (featuring Laura Gibson) (mp3)

david williams14. "Wooden Arms" - Patrick Watson (mp3)

15. "Don't Hide Away" - Bishop Allen (mp3)

16. "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

17. "The Wanting Comes in Waves" - The Decemberists (mp3)

18. "Rollin' Home Alone" - Jason Lytle (mp3)

19. "Too Much Time" - John Vanderslice (mp3)

20. "Laughing With" - Regina Spektor (mp3)

Chad Perman is a writer living in Seattle. 

In Which We Take A Little Time Off

His To Play Around In

by CHAD PERMAN

To understand my love of National Lampoon’s Vacation you first have to understand that my dad is Clark W. Griswald. Tone down the more extreme pratfalls and absurdly outlandish behaviors (especially in the film’s final act), strip away just a bit – and only the tiniest bit – of his enthusiasm for family adventures and traditions, and you have my father; he of the big plans and grand ideas; he of the boundless energy and optimism; he of the lists and schedules that hung like hornet’s nests over my childhood;he of the family outings, the family rituals, the family above all else; he of the big heart, and misguided grand gestures.

And, though he’s changed a good deal since my sister and I grew up and left the house nearly ten years ago – has relaxed a bit more and learned to let life happen at its own pace now and then - he is still that same man at times and, forever, in our family’s collective remembrance.

To understand my love of National Lampoon’s Vacation you also have to understand that, as a child, I would have laid down my life for Mr. Chevy Chase. Outside of my father, he was the funniest man I knew, a bumbling and hilarious presence no matter where he managed to show up.

To understand my love of Vacation you finally have to understand what it represented, what it was to a boy being raised in a sheltered, religious family and community (thank you, Seventh Day Adventism!), a world where a Rated R movie was a movie that would never be seen. Of course, we had our ways around this – we couldn’t be monitored 24/7 after all, so we managed 5-10 minute peaks at Beverly Hills Cop, Tin Men, or Flashdance, films my parents had recorded during those occasional random childhood Godsends known as “free previews” of pay cable stations.

Netflix it wasn’t, but it still allowed us to hear bad words, see some sex and violence, and feel like we’d gotten away with something. Into this mix, then, comes National Lampoon’s Vacation, a film I was sure I’d love before I’d even seen a single frame, but a film I’m ultimately kept from seeing, even on video, due to its rating.

My parents see how much this kills me, and make vague promises that we can rent it and all watch it together (a well-intentioned decision no doubt, but still an oddly premised one: that they can pause the video and put whatever possible sex and/or violence we view into some kind of context so that it doesn’t scar us as much, a pattern of logic that one day led to the enormously uncomfortable experience of my entire family trying to watch My Own Private Idaho together because it had the guy from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in it.). So, I decided at age 10 that the very day I turned 18, I would go to a video store and rent Vacation. By the time I turned 18, of course, I had much different things on my mind.

But still - the promise and allure of Vacation! The dream of a life where I was finally grown up enough to watch a movie like Vacation whenever I damn well wanted, where I could view Christie Brinkley’s breasts simply because I felt like it (my friend and I were convinced they must have been on display at some point to garner the film it’s R rating; sadly, this turned out to be untrue), where I could spend my days doing nothing but watching forbidden movies and shoving gallons of ice cream into my face (which I also wasn’t allowed to have, due to a childhood allergy to dairy).

This vision of the future appealed to me on such a deep and basic level as a sheltered kid, played over and over in my mind so many times, that the association between Vacation and a yearned for adulthood will likely never leave me.

And then there’s Vacation itself, stripped of all the subjective meanings I bring to it, still more than standing up as a fine comedy 25 years after its release: one man’s grand quest to drive the family he loves across the country to visit a Wally World, and all the misunderstandings, crazy characters, and hilarity that they encounter along the way.

It’s hardly groundbreaking — as either a comedy or a road movie –but it works like gangbusters, largely due to the chemistry between Chase and Beverly D’Angelo (his wife in all four Vacation films, despite the rotating cast of children), as well as the strong writing and Chase’s (at the time) impeccable comedic timing. Despite memorable performances from Eugene Levy, Christie Brinkley, Randy Quaid, and John Candy, this is still every bit Chase’s show, and though he’d manage to run the character into the ground by the time he all but phoned in 1999’s Vegas Vacation, here the role was still shiny and new, his to play around in, and he dove in head first.

Griswald continually subjects himself to such hardship and humiliation for no other reason than that he loves his family and wants them to have a fun vacation, dammit. And in that sense I could relate to it endlessly, could project my own father’s noisome imperfections onto the screen and laugh as they were transformed into Chevy Chase’s exaggerated cluelessness and well-meaning mistakes. Chase’s performance became funnier because I knew my Dad, and my Dad, in turn, became a less frustrating, better-intentioned person seen through the prism of one Clark W. Griswald.

Chad Perman is the senior contributor to This Recording. He last wrote in these pages about Brewster McCloud.

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