Post by StevePulaski on Apr 2, 2014 10:36:20 GMT -5
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Directed by: Paul Mazursky
Directed by: Paul Mazursky
Ted, and Carol, and Bob, and Alice in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
Rating: ★★★½
Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is a devilishly funny but wickedly thoughtful and contemplative film that shows a time period in America when what happened in the bedroom between a man and a woman didn't stay in the bedroom between a man and a woman. The newer generation taught us to be more open and thoughtful with our sexual desires, expressing them freely, and not restricting them as if sex was an unnatural thing. Connecting this to film, as I so often do, just look at how Americans have quietly been told to fear sex. A violent wartime epic can still achieve a PG-13 rating, while a three second shot of a vagina will stamp you film with the "kiss of death" NC-17 rating. How have our private parts been so private we've resorted to embracing the unnatural and the cruel and fearing the natural and the serene?
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was made in 1969, right on the teetering edge of the hippie movement and during the "free love" movement, where marriage was seen as a restraint on ones well-being and pocketbook and the state had no business in dealing with it. The film, judging by its premise, deals with the concept of swinging or "wife-swapping," when it in turn, deals with the ethics and moral values that get in the way of doing such acts. We explore the lives of two couples, ostensibly similar on the surface, but royally different when examined. The couples are Bob and Carol Sanders (Robert Culp and Natalie Wood), a trendier, more liberal couple, while Ted and Alice Henderson (Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon) are your more straight-shooting, square couple, highly indicative of the parents of sexually promiscuous teens in the 1960's and 1970's trying to understand their teenage sons and daughters.
Bob and Carol spend a weekend at a couples retreat, one of those camps that allows for emotional honesty between married people to flow and allow for deeper feelings and emotions to penetrate one another. Because of the impact this has had on them, Bob reveals to Carol that while working on a film set he slept with another woman in an act he called "purely physical" and not emotional. Carol accepts this about as well as a wife could, believing Bob, admiring his honesty, and carrying on her own way, even casually revealing it to their best friends Ted and Alice, who are appalled at the thought. Alice finds herself especially sick with the idea that Bob could do such a thing and then reveal it to Carol who isn't the least bit upset with him. Damn western hippies, I tell you.
This prompts Ted and Alice to have a lengthy nighttime conversation about the affair, the impact it could have on their friends in the long term, and if they themselves are sexually promiscuous at all. This is one of the many great talks in the film, focusing sharply on human emotion and feelings, two things often traded in American cinema for punchlines and vulgarity. In this conversation, Mazursky leaves the camera turned on the couple for a long period of time, listening to the conversation, hearing what both has to say, and leaving us with a lot to contemplate by the end of talk, whether we're single or married.
These kinds of dialogs that go on for a while and leave the view in a self-contemplative state are fiercely common in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, including the nudging idea of "is it possible for a couple to be married for a lifetime and not have sexual feelings for another women, be them expressed or regressed?" Throughout his career, Mazursky has been interested in character, marriages, the arguments and debates that a husband and wife have, but most importantly, relationships. When I say "relationships," I don't mean those confined to a marital or dating relationship but various relationships people can find themselves in. Harry and Tonto explored one man's journey of self-discovery with a man's most loyal companion - his cat. Down and Out in Beverly Hills explored how a filthy rich couple dealt with a dirty bum who has paid them both a visit. And Scenes from a Mall explored the vicious cycle of marriage, following an argumentative couple working out their personal differences in a crowded mall.
The actors here couldn't have been more perfect for their roles. We have the unbelievably gorgeous and beautifully mannered Natalie Wood in a role that requires impeccable conviction and plausibility, given the tender nature, Robert Culp in an equally uncomfortable but rewarding role, with Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon assuming the role of the uppity parents trying to comprehend this "sexual openness" these couples speak of. All of these actors, equipped with Mazursky's and co-writer Larry Tucker's biting dialog, help illustrate the generation gap where sex is a revered act that should be kept on the down-low or sex is an act embraced and discussed.
With Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Mazursky and Tucker ask the biggest questions I've seen them ask yet. Is free love something to embrace or condemn? Is swinging, wife-swapping, or an orgy lethal to a marriage and its long-term prosperity in health? Is it healthy in itself to casually dismiss an affair or harp on it and risk losing the one you love? To show that these questions are still very much alive and the idea of sexual openness is still one discussed today, the modern-day film equivalent to Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is Joe Swanberg's Drinking Buddies, a film that clearly is influenced by Mazursky's film right down to its poster. Both films explore the aforementioned ideas, only one takes a much younger cast and puts them to use while the other takes couples grappling with an older age and simply trying to fit in. Both films are two of my favorite romantic comedies to boot, as well.
Starring: Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, and Dyan Cannon. Directed by: Paul Mazursky.