"Schmidt Happens"

Hi Angie and bienvenido!

Very nice discourse on Nicholson and 'Schmidt'.

I very seldom pay to see a movie twice but I'm going back to see Schmidt again.

I'd like to see Far From Heaven and then watch the movie it is somewhat based on, All That Heaven Allows. Love those time warp double features (new topic alert?).

c.i. : after you see Far From Heaven, please let us know what you think.
I'd love to hear what you and others think about that movie.

And, thanks all for the kind welcome.

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I havn't read all the posts on this thread, so my comments may be superfluous. Someone commented that some reviewers felt the movie was condescending to middle america. It was but truthfully so. I almost never feel depressed. But after seeing About Schmidt yesterday, I was depressed for about seven hours. America looked so seedy. And it was an accurate portrait. It was a GREAT movie, a work of bona fide art, a work that moved me (depression was one way it did it, and my uncontrollable tears in the last scene was another). What an unfortunate man. He tried so hard to be good (he never left his office early, he pissed sitting down to please his wife), but it got him nowhere. His gesture of sending twenty bucks monthly to an african kid, saved him in the end. But what moved me into depression (aside from the banality of American life) was the son-in-law. Also a good guy, trying to do the right thing by others, but SO DEFECTIVE, and his defectiveness is normal. His naivete (going to sales pitches thinking they were "seminars," falling into the trap of ponzi schemes. Expressing his good will toward others by means of platitudes revealed so much about him, and about the average American we experience every day. Sad movie, very discouraging, I'm getting depressed again. Better go to another subject. Wow, that's art.

angie, Looked for "Far From Heaven" in the movie theater schedules, but none seem to be show it now.
JLN, Depressed for seven hours? After a move? The only long-term effect I got out of that movie was the increase in donations to Africa. That news was kind of uplifting for me. I guess I put that character in perspective; I'm sure many sacrifice their lives to work, but not to that extreme. He really didn't have a personality, because he lived by his job and what his wife told him to do. In the final analysis, he didn't know his wife or his daughter. I think Japan may be an exception, although maybe not lately. Salarymen in Japan go out drinking after they spend the day in the office, and they still consider that part of their jobs. I find that to be depressing!

c.i.

I saw 'Chicago' yesterday (duly noted on the 'Chicago' thread)
it was WONDERFUL.

I think I'm in love with BOTH Catherine Zita-Jones AND Renee Zellwegger!

jjorge, At one time in my life, when I lived in Chicago, I used to go to the Chicago theater to see movies. When they had premiers there, the actors used to come and talk to the audience. It was the golden age of movies. c.i.

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One more point. Notice that the only person who behaved decently at Kathy Bates' table (besides Larry) was the ASIAN woman, the wife, I think, of Larry. When Bates' character treated Larry so cruely, telling him that he was embarassing everyone, including his wife, the wife barked back "He's not embarassing me!" That was a beautiful character. I suspect her ethnicity was designed to contrast with the red necks.

Yeah, but I can only see him as the character in "WKRP, Cincinnatti." c.i.

I saw and really liked About Schmidt.

He is sad and lonely. True. But he is also someone without emotions. Or, at least does not display them. He doesn't cry. His role in life has been an insurance salesman. That's it. No more. Not a real father or husband.
He's not malicious. He's just a cypher. But he slowly starts to connect with the kid. But it is the kid's drawing that changes his life. The kid has never seen Schmidt and, yet, draws the stick figures holding hands, touching each other. We are shown the drawing several times. So, being human entails the consideration of others. He cries at the end (beautifully, I think) at what was mostly a wasted life. He has discovered that "About Schmidt." It is a revelation. I believe the movie is a cut above other movies because of this self revelation and his subsequent change. Now he can go to the wedding and be considerate of the needs of his daughter. Characters in movies are not often developed to a moral level.

About Schmidt is a tragicomedy - a fusion of the tragic and comedic. Not a mixture of serious and funny, but a fusion of the two. 'laughing through your tears"

BF, Interesting interpretation of About Schmidt. I guess I missed the comedy part of his life. c.i.

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BilllyFalcon, thanks for a very insightful response.

Billy Falcon

Nice observations. Thanks for posting.

I finally got around to seeing this movie. I think Schmidt was a man trapped in his career just as those cattle with the big sad eyes were trapped on that truck roaring toward the slaughter house. He had over time become exquisitely sensitive to all that was phony and punishing and insulting in middle class life and society. His work and experience were not valued. Note how he was replaced by a young up-and-comer with an MBA who trashes the project upon which Schmidt had been working. I think he left the party because he sensed the phony nature of the things being said, and he couldn't stand it. The scene where his wife sends him the the store and tells him not to dilly-dally. So he defies her by going to the Dairy Queen for a monster blizzard. There's a guy like this in our family, so it rang so true.

I went to the movie expecting to see a man in the grip of malaise, but instead saw a man driven to depression from being clapped into the iron maiden of a career with spikes of phonyness. At his daughters wedding he couldn't stand himself for getting up and giving a speech praising all that he despised.

I thought the hall mark of this guy was that he couldn't respond to much of anybody in a normal way. I know everyone will disagree with me on this but I thought his response to Ndugu (or what ever the name was) was off base. To begin with he writes to him as if he were an adult, telling him things that no child, let alone an African child, could understand. Then in the end, after he had failed to really get in touch with or appreciate any of the other people in the film, he finds sympathy with a poor, deprived, disembodied child who he does not know but can only imagine. What he knows of the child he learns from a letter written by the missionary lady in such a wy that it hooks into his self pity, just as the words of the trailer lady did. So, even in the last scene, I saw him as unhinged from effective human feeling and still, perhaps hopelessly, effected by his life in the world of business.

I realize, of course, that the scene allows of the interpretation that most here have put upon it, and you all are probably right.

I will say that the movie depicts the business world somewhat like I experienced it, but much more severe.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give it a 9.

Hazlitt, As you say, I think many interpretations to this movie is possible, and all can be right. I can see how you came to your conclusions - seeing that you have somebody that resembles Schmidt in your family. Thanks for your input. It makes this movie somewhat controversial, but also allows the viewer to come to different conclusions about the main character - depending on our own experience and observations. c.i.

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Wonderful, Hazlett.
I am one of those who think the last scene was positive, showing how the painting saved him from himself and the death of the iron maiden (a wonderful metaphor for deadening careers).

As I watched this movie, I couldn't help thinking of Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces." Here he was a young man playing the part of the rebel in middle class society. Now, here he is as a mature actor showing us how stifling that society can be.

What it shows for me is the 'trap' most men get into with their jobs at the sacrifice of life with their wife and children. I remember a time here in Silicon Valley where many people lived in their offices 24/7 with no outside life. When I first started to work, I worked long hours, because I wanted to show devotion to job and high productivity. It paid off with many salary increases and promotions. But, I always made it a point to spent most weekends with my kids when I wasn't on the road. c.i.

Hazlitt

To me the overarching theme of 'About Schmidt' is a late life one:
ie:
coming to grips with ones own finite life, mostly gone, finding consolation in ones accomplishments and finding something(s) to live for in the remaining years.

Late life is a time of looking backwards and forwards and when that happens there is, inevitably regret. We remember the early hopes we had, for our careers, for our marriages, ourselves.
Schmidt has numerous regrets but there are no second tours. Like the sad-eyed cattle he too is headed towards his own death. He speaks of it several times and verbalizes what his possible life expectancy is. As an actuary he's been in the death-predicting business.

Schmidt is experiencing the regrets that that self-reflection produces and the losses that inevitably come to every life. He has lost his job
(that he retired is irrelevant) and the sense of himself as a productive working person. Soon he loses his wife. There is loss in his relationship with his daughter also. Whatever relationship he had with her is changing, as somebody else becomes the man in her life and he, is relegated to the periphery.

I disagree with you on the wedding speech.
Yes, he knows that the son-in-law to-be is a nicompoop. Still, I think the speech represents the beginning of reconciliation and acceptance on his part. He struggles with himself and then says the right thing. He does it, in my opinion, out of love for his daughter who LOVES the nincompoop.

His daughter no longer needs him the way she once did. His wife is gone. How can he be relevant, useful...needed? That little child in Africa needs him. I'll say it directly: Schmidt's sponsorship of the child is a gift of love. The picture shows that the love is returned.
That's why Schmidt cries. Not self pity.

Jjorge, you may well be right about the interpretation of the movie. One thing about great art is that it often provokes different views.

I'll stick to my view of the wedding speech. Else, why did he rush to the men's room in a panic, then return to the hall to find everyone dancing and not join in. At that point I too thought he had reformed out of love for his daughter, and expected him to join in the joyous scene, but he sat down and retreated within himself, in a fit of despair.

Also, I still think his post retirement life was a continued reaction to what was essentially an aired, ultimitely meaningless career. It strikes me that the reaction as portrayed by Nicholson may have been a little overwrought for the sake of art, but containing a strong element of truth.