Newspaper Page Text
Biloxi Blues
Thoughtful Remembrances
Directed by Mike
Nichols
From Universal Pictures
Biloxi Blues stars Mathew Broderick as the fresh-faced Army recruit experiencing life for the first time in
Neil Simon's latest release. Pictured left to right are Broderick (Eugene Morris Jerome), Penelope Ann
Miller (Daisy), Christopher Walken (Seargeant Toomey) and Corey Parker (Epstein). Photo by Rastar, ©
1987 Universal City Studios.
If I say that Biloxi
Blues is the strongest film adaptation
of all Neil Simon's plays, I hope you
already recognize this as qualified
praise. None of the films made
previously from his work has been
successful (Barefoot In the Park came
close), but then neither were the plays.
Imagine sitting through only a
partial retrospective of Simon's films:
say, California Suite, The Goodbye
Girl, The Sunshine Boys, and The
Prisoner of Second Avenue. If you
managed to get out of that alive,
there's the macabre possibility that
you might begin speaking
Simonese-the grating one- and two-
liner exchanges (arguments,
really)-that characterize his dialogue.
The simple truth is that Neil Simon’s
writing is phony to the core. It's
gloppy sentimentality wrapped in
fake-bitchy repartee that's meant to
pass for laughing-through-the-tears
acrid realism.
So what makes Biloxi Blues
different, better? Mike Nichols, I'd
say. From the beginning, a tone new
to Simon's work is established. It's
called thoughtfulness. We see a long
view of a train peacefully crossing a
railroad bridge in a beautiful summer
dusk. The mood is underscored by
faintly melancholy music, and the first
shot inside one of the train cars is of
Matthew Broderick sitting in repose,
his head pressed against a window
pane, which is a tried, but here
perfectly true, image of a mind that
understands confusion, vulnerability,
and loneliness.
The film follows the wartime
reminiscences of Eugene Morris
Jerome (Matthew Broderick, always
fine), a smart-mouth kid from the
Bronx sent down South to undergo
basic training at a bootcamp in Biloxi,
Mississippi. The year is 1943, and
Eugene becomes the principal
adversary of his strangely low-key
drill sargeant (Christopher Walken,
daringly calm), whose determination
to transform his platoon of the hapless
into soldiers drives everyone more
than a little crazy.
Little in the film is unfamiliar. The
characters are selected in terms of
how they represent the broader
culture, so that ethnic and religious
backgrounds can be contrasted against
each other. One character quickly
emerges as the loutish leader of the
platoon, and scarcely an hour after
Eugene loses his virginity to a heart-
of-gold hooker, he falls in love with a
spellbinding blonde named Daisy (the
incandescent Penelope Ann Miller).
What raises all this above the
ordinary is the good cast and the
delicate substance Nichols manages to
bring to at least two key scenes. In
the first, we're utterly convinced that
Eugene would fall in love with Daisy
on first meeting her at a USO dance
chaperoned by nuns. All they do is
slow dance and talk softly about their
mutual devotion to books, but Nichols
renders the scene so evocatively, with
something of the bewildered deep-
breath tenderness of first romantic
attachment, that one never doubts the
sentiments at play.
In the second, Nichols and Simon
expertly depict the expulsion (to
imprisonment) of one of
Eugene's friends for
being gay. The Army's
corrupted
policy-government
sanctioned policing of
the human heart, a subject so
piercingly understood by Nadine
Gordimer in her South Africa
stories-is shown in its true ugliness.
Between them, Neil Simon and
Mike Nichols have made a film in
which the character acknowledged to
be perhaps the bravest and most
compassionate of the platoon, is
shown being humiliated and carted off
to prison by his moral inferiors
because of sexual orientation. It's a
pleasure to salute such uncommon
psychological and social verity in a
film made within the box-office
constraints of Hollywood filmmaking.
-Terry Francis
...UP, UP AND AWAY...
OH, EXCUSE ME. IN THE NEXT ISSUE.
LAMBDA RISING
BOOK REPORT
KEEP CURRENT ON GAY
AND LESBIAN LITERATURE
NGLTF Membership Form
I $30 Basic Membership [ | $20 Limited Income Membership
! 1 Monthly Pledge j | $100 Organizational Membership
Name
Address
City /State/Zip
Telephone
NGLTF membership brings you 1) subscription to our quarterly newsletter; 2) for organizational members,
monthly organizers newsletter; 3) the right to serve on ana vote for our Board of Directors; and 4) invitations
to special forums and events around the country for members only.
Return Form to:
NGLTF
1517 U Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
202-332-6483
Strengthen the Force that works for you!
Join NGLTF Today!
The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force
has an activist agenda for gay liberation. We
work every day to create a society where lesbians and
gay men can live openly, free from violence, discrimination
and bigoted misunderstanding.
Every day, NGLTF’s programs advance gay and lesbian freedom by:
ORGANIZING: With timely and critical projects on Anti-Gay Violence, Privacy Rights, the
Media and AIDS discrimination, the Task Force challenges prejudice with constructive
education.
RESOURCE SHARING: Our 14 years of experience and contacts are used daily to strengthen
local efforts.
LOBBYING: Whether It's AIDS related discrimination, or gay rights protections;
Whether opposing a judicial nomination or pressing for immigration reform, NGLTF
lobbies the federal government on the full range of gay issues.
RECOVERY
An Exercise Workshop for Those
Involved in the Process of Recovery
Designed for those who ore healing themselves of
codependency or chemical dependency NEW
MOVES RECOVERY WORKSHOP offers a forum for
vigorous exercise without self-abuse or self
consciousness.
The workshop is open to people at all levels of
fitness and is designed to support the process of
physical and mental healing via:
EXPRESSIVE AEROBIC EXERCISE
J( PROGRESSIVE YOGA TECHNIQUES
^ INNER JOURNEYING
ART JOURNALING
Workshop begins
Wednesday, June 8, 7:30-9:30 pm
and runs
five consecutive weeks.
Cost is $100.
Contact NEW MOVES 688-6683 for registration.