CHUD Film Of The Month Club: Searching for Bobby Fischer/The Last Days of Disco

"He's better at this than I've ever been at anything in my life."

Searching for Bobby Fischer
1993
Wr./Dir: Steven Zaillian
Starring: Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantenga, Ben Kingsley, Lawrence Fishburne
Cinematography: John Corso, Conrad L. Hall
Music: James Horner


"I consider you to be a person of some integrity, except in your dealings with women."

The Last Days of Disco
1998
Wr./Dir: Whit Stillman
Starring: Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin, Robert Sean Leonard
Cinematography: John Thomas
Music: Mark Suozzo

I'll post my write-ups on these two movies later in the week, but definitely by the 1st of the month. I went for two fairly well known films, one which recently got a Criterion release on DVD after years of being out of print, but films that we haven't really talked about at length in this forum. Both of them are available on Netflix.

The theme is, roughly, coming of age in New York -- a New York that can be anywhere, but is still distinctly evocative of the city. More on that later...

I'll talk about this a little bit more later, but both films are universal when it comes to their themes (gifted children, fathers & sons, talent for Fischer, general twenty-something ennui and love in Disco). The films work on those levels because they feel very real, very relatable, very identifiable, regardless of when the viewer is watching them. I've seen Last Days of Disco at three key points in my life: as a teenager and as a young twenty-something not living in New York, and recently as an older twenty-something living in New York. The themes resonated with me for different reasons at each of those times.

However, while the themes they're discussing are universal -- the way they are about them is distinct to New York City. The chess community of Greenwich Village and the tables at Washington Square and the club scene of the early 80s are both places and periods that are unique to the city*, and those affect the way the stories are told. They feel like stories that can and are taking place anywhere -- there are always twenty-somethings looking for love, there are always white people with problems, there are always fathers trying to live out their dreams through their sons -- but these stories could only take place in New York.

Plus, neither of those places really exist anymore (I might have to take some pictures to show you what I mean, because the chess tables in Washington Square are gone due to this atrocious renovation the park's going through). The monologue at the end of Disco where a character talks about being old enough to having "lived through a period that has ended" is something that is universal, true, but it's also something that can be felt very keenly and very personally in New York, which Pete Hamill called "the capital of nostalgia."

...And I've said too much.

*Although you could argue that one of the reasons Disco works is because while it has a disco soundtrack, Stillman doesn't go for the obvious hits, choosing more obscure stuff, and he doesn't pop culture the place up. His mentions of current culture feel very natural, with the characters discussing Lady and the Tramp and Bambi and Wild Kingdom the way trying-too-hard intelligentsia discuss them.

Bumping this because it's now the first. I've decided I'm going to do my write-ups a little differently and spread them out over the month, so each week, I'll post a different write-up about one (or both) of the movies.

The way Mantenga plays that scene is so brilliant. It makes the father-son story much more powerful, and makes Fred much more than a "bad dad." He knows that what he's saying is true, and it kills him. Part of the reason he goes off on Laura Linney is because he's being confronted by his own failures, as a writer, as a husband, as a father (because that's the implication there). In the book, Fred was also an amateur chess player inspired by Fischer's original run at the title. I'm glad they didn't make that as obvious, but it's still sort of there in the background.

Also, William H. Macy (who brings his Mamet rhythms to such classic dialogue as "I'm gonna get you a tuna-fish sandwich."), Tony Shaloub, Austin Pendleton. EVERYBODY is in it.

You hurt me, Tati. You hurt me.

In fairness, I'll agree with you that the story is almost secondary to the experience these characters are going through, which is that post-college period of wanting to have a real life with dinner parties and worthwhile work and trying to fit that into railroad apartments and conversations about Lady & The Tramp until 4.

I actually feel bad for Beckinsale through most of the movie. She's such a kid, and she so desperately wants friends, but she also so desperately wants to be an adult -- and that being this raging bitch is a good way to be an adult. She's the kind of person that thinks being tactless and speaking her mind are signs of adulthood. Also, given what limited information we learn about these characters' backgrounds, she's probably rebelling against the environment she was raised in, big time. (The cameos from METROPOLITAN are cute, but also telling, because that film informs this one -- the characters went to college in that world of debutante balls and penthouses, and are now trying to exist in the 'real world' of railroad apartments and shitty jobs.)

Kind of surprised you liked the film, Kate, but glad you did.

Hey now, Kate can be annoying, but I appreciated what she had to say on the film.

I know we've got a few days left in March, and I didn't do a formal write-up on the films, but I might throw some more thoughts down in the next couple of days. Regardless, I still really enjoyed sharing these movies with you guys.