tieman64
Anthony Harvey directs "They Might Be Giants". The plot? George C. Scott plays Justin Playfair, a successful lawyer whose wife has recently died. Unable to cope with this tragedy, Playfair imagines himself to be Sherlock Holmes, the legendary fictional detective. Via this Holmes persona, Playfair hopes to impose logic, order and rationality upon the world. For Playfair, all occurrences now have some "deeper meaning", some "hidden cause", and all "bad things" are the result of, not a malevolent cosmos, but Professor Moriarty, the arch villain of the Holmes novels.Early in the film, Playfair is introduced to Dr Mildred Watson (Joanne Woodward), a psychologist who hopes to cure the increasingly paranoid Playfair. Believing Mildred to be the Doctor Watson of the Sherlock Holmes novels, Playfair allows Mildred to accompany him on his many bizarre adventures. These adventures find Playfair bumbling about New York City, all in the hopes of deciphering Moriarty's "crime" and "motive". Mildred thinks Playfair is unconsciously seeking to find meaning in his wife's death, and she's right, but she's also absolutely wrong. That "Professor Moriarty" doesn't exist is almost irrelevant. Playfair is correct to conclude that there are "things" everywhere responsible for "bad stuff". That he personalises an uncaring, all-encompassing Nature doesn't necessarily make Playfair insane, but hyper-rational.Mildred, of course, thinks Playfair is nuts. She likens him to Don Quixote, the fictional character who repeatedly attacked windmills, believing them to be "monstrous giants". Of this, Playfair says: "Quixote thought every windmill was a giant. That's insane. But thinking that they might be...that's not. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we'd all still be out there with the apes!" Playfair's speech thus functions as a survival plan; there MAY be giant monsters, and so he MUST test everyone and everything with a hammer.One such giant is Playfair's own brother (Lester Rawlins), a man who seeks to have Playfair killed. But the film is packed with other subtly sketched "giants". One couple, for example, live entirely indoors, nurturing indoor plants and crops because they "do not like what the outside world has become". A switchboard operator, the poor, the homeless, cops and various other men and women throughout the film, likewise live lives tormented by giants. Mildred, a lonely woman who escapes into psychoanalysis as a means of fleeing the world, is herself a woman living in the shadows of monsters. Everyone in the film is under some form of attack.Early in "Giants", Playfair admits that he likes Westerns. The genre, he explains, offers moral clarity, clear demarcations and a sense of order and justice which the universe simply doesn't allow. Imposing such "morality" and "law" upon the universe - getting it to "play fair" - becomes Playfair's obsession, but it's a futile quest, especially when nobody believes in the existence of that which he's slaying.How to get others to believe in, see and thus slay giants becomes the preoccupation of the film's final act. "Does justice ever lose?" Mildred asks, to which Playfair admits that it often does. "There are villains so big, they block the sunlight," he explains, before stating that standing up to such monsters is "what makes humans proud". The film then ends on a series of symbolic notes. Here Playfair assembles a ragtag community of believers and then battles police in a supermarket. This supermarket sequence, a middle finger to materialism and the status quo, was deleted by producers, but its message remains: "they" - the misfits who dare challenge their surroundings and stand up for others - "may be the real giants". The noble few. And so Playfair and Mildred find themselves standing before a shadowy tunnel as an "invisible monster" races toward him. "Stand closer to me, together in the light," Playfair tells Mildred, as the beast advances. But before our heroes are enveloped in blackness, consumed by the beast, a white light germinates behind Playfair's shoulder. Cooperation, love and belief, then, slays the beast. It's the old adage- when "I" becomes "we", mental illness becomes wellness."They Might Be Giants" initially appears to be a quirky 1960s/70s comedy in the vein of "A Thousand Clowns", "Being There" or "Harold and Maude". It's often dismissed as just a kooky comedy about "freedom" and "being true to yourself". In many ways, though, it's closer to the conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s ("Chinatown", "All the President's Men", "Parallax View", "Three Days of the Condor", "The Conversation", "Cutter's Way", "Network", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" etc). This was, after-all, a period in which faith in family, society, authority, institutions and public figures plummeted, and in which the common man was seen to be at the mercy of a wide range of conspiratorial forces. Literature of the era was likewise deeply conspiratorial. "Anyone not paranoid must be crazy," Edward Abbey would say, sentiments echoed by novelists like Philip Dick ("Funny how paranoia often links up with reality"), William Burroughs ("Paranoia is just having the right information") and Joseph Heller ("Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you"). Which is not to say that Playfair isn't crazy, just that he's not necessarily wrong. Someone or something is always out to "get you", and it takes more than one man hunting invisible game to keep men from going insane. Endearingly acted by Scott and Woodward.8.9/10 – Minor masterpiece. See "Cutter's Way" and "A Thousand Clowns".
Bowserb46
George C. Scott demonstrates once again that he is not a "type". Sherlock Holmes (Justin Playfair--what a great name), Buck Turgidson, Patton. Unlike some other big name actors, Scott IS the character he portrays, while other overrated actors take roles where they play themselves, and consequently, they always ARE themselves.Joanne Woodward, in my opinion, is as good here as any role she's played. I'd rate this and "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds", as her best acting performances. Yes, others are more famous, but in those others, she's often playing herself or is a bit over acting.This movie is full of familiar faces whose names we don't know. The ugly New York locations are great, too. All in all, it's worth 98 minutes of your viewing time!
hchickpea
I was a projectionist once, and I showed this film when it had its theatrical release. One aspect of being a projectionist back then was that you got to see certain parts of the films over and over, to the point that you not only could relate scenes and repeat lines, but you began to understand the films in a deeper way than the audiences.The previous reviews miss enough that I feel compelled to write a review of the film. First, the same author wrote "Lion In Winter," so it is pretty obvious he knew the craft. Second, this started as a London stage play, and according to the admittedly loopy Wikipedia, he didn't like the production and stopped further attempts at mounting the play.Once you take the concept that it is a stage play adapted for film, some of the oddities of this production become more apparent. Much like the concept expressed in "Shakespeare in Love," where everyone expects and looks forward to the dog in a play, movie audiences expect a romantic relationship and a happy ending where good triumphs over evil, the Hayes code is satisfied, and insipid movies are safe for kids to watch.The intent of the original work is darker than that, but in order to perceive that you have to look underneath the surface, much as Holmes would do.Start with the title "They Might Be Giants." Yes, it is an homage to Cervantes, but it is a double-entendre as well. In ignoring the dross of everyday life and focusing on existential topics to the point that the world calls them crazy, the "mentally ill" just might be the giants of humanity, exploring the boundaries of who we are as humans and good and evil. Certainly the Justin (justice) Playfair (play fair) character turning into a Holmsian sleuth represents that. The couple who shut themselves off from humanity for years and were very happy is another exploration of the concepts under consideration. It is only when Holmes goes looking for evil in their world that it suddenly appears.Who is to say that a person who believes himself to be a silent film star isn't, in some small measure, that person? The entire concept of empathy, as well as the concept of method acting, both require "getting into the head" of the character. Do we not all have a bit of Scarlett Pimpernel in us somewhere? Is expressing that so bad that we need to relegate our lives to being nebbish librarians forever in our existence? On the subject of the varying versions - Many years ago, I worked in a couple of television stations. The movies we showed came in on 16mm film and one of my jobs was to cut the films to fit the time slot allotted. I learned never to trust a televised version of a film as being accurate to the intention of the director. Networks modify film as well, and in some cases they have access to ADD footage as well as clip it.*Major spoiler here* - The "enigmatic" scene at the end is only enigmatic if you are blind to the modern version of the Hayes code and the inevitable studio interventions which bow to the low common denominators of "How can we maximize the money this makes?" and "Will it upset the audience?" Start with the supermarket scene and descent into "Mad Mad Mad Mad World" slapstick. The duality is that the author did want to show how, when confronted, the "establishment" is a group of enforcers of the status quo, some dressed in enforcer (police) uniforms, and some masquerading as those who would help you become sane, while wielding rubber hoses if you don't follow their instruction. At the same time, the studio wanted a feel good slapstick to lighten up a film with an underlying dark theme. Ergo: chaos in a market, where the materialism of the enforcers of status-quo becomes their temptation and undoing. The most powerful figure in the scene is reduced to saying "My wife will kill me if I don't take advantage of this bargain." The end scene is the most dark of all. Once the reality of the world Holmes has been fighting is shown to be a farce, he has nowhere to go. Death is the inevitable conclusion. The tunnel in Central Park is again double entendre and metaphorical. Tunnel - the passage into the unknown. Tunnel - the accepting of a confined world where there is no escape from whatever comes towards you. There are others that I'll let you deduce for yourself. However... the tunnel was ALSO a metaphor for a RAILROAD tunnel. The horse being heard is a clue to an IRON horse, which is borne out by the comment and visual that they will be in the light (train headlight - also metaphor for truth/God/etc.) and be found close together. He has convinced the analyst to trust him right into death.There is no way that the film company and distributor would allow a scene of Geo. C. Scott and Joanne Woodward standing in front of a railroad (or more likely subway) tunnel, and being run down by a train. All feel-good aspects of the film (and chances of repeat customers) would be lost. What surprises me is how few people "get" the ending and theme of the film.
