THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
Tagline: Robin Williams is Garp. He's got a funny way of looking at life.
Preshow Entertainment: Sixth Annual Young Comedians Show
Pizza: Pizza Guy
IN 1982, ROBIN WILLIAMS LEFT ORK FOR GARP
PRESHOW ENTERTAINMENT:
In 1976, when HBO was a puppy, they broadcast a stand-up comedy show called ON LOCATION, each episode featuring a different comedian. Some of them were old school even for 1976 (Shelley Berman, Totie Fields, Phyllis Diller, etc.), so it made sense that sooner or later HBO would get a "hip" replacement and skew young. A year later, they broadcast the SECOND ANNUAL YOUNG COMEDIANS SHOW. Oddly, I can't find any information on a first. Maybe that was the joke. Or maybe the FREDDIE PRINZE AND FRIENDS (including Jay Leno, Richard Belzer, Elayne Boozler) a year earlier was considered the first one.
Tonight we watched the SIXTH ANNUAL edition. If you rock at mathematics, you've already figured out it's from 1981. It was directed by Martin Calner, who in 30 years went from directing Myron Cohen to Chris Rock, and it was hosted by The Smothers Brothers who we coincidentally saw live just a few days ago. The show featured nearly all future a-listers, though at this point in time they were pretty unknown. So unknown that Dickie Smothers introduced him as "Jerry Steinfeld," though that too may have been a joke judging by Jerry's reaction. It was one of Jerry's first TV appearances, and...I remembered it! Okay, he may have done the same jokes on other shows, so I may have remembered the act from elsewhere. Okay okay, he definitely did the same jokes in lots of venues, for years, but come on, just let me believe I saw this show when it first aired. How's that going to change the world? I have to say, Seinfeld's "fattest man in the world" bit still makes me laugh ("1200 pounds? I mean, that guy really let himself go.").
The Brothers did a huge (maybe 20 minutes, let's see anyone do that today) hunk up top featuring one of their signature songs "Boil That Cabbage Down" and the "take it!" gag. Also on the show, Howie Mandel, Harry Anderson and an awful performance by Maureen Murphy (notice she's the only one that didn't go on to a series).
AND NOW, OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION:
There's nothing I hate more in movies than ones that seem to say, "Let's make a really super quirky movie!" That's a byproduct, not a goal. Yet every now and then (like once a decade) a movie comes along that can pull off calculated quirkiness. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP is less of a plot-driven narrative than an offering of vignetted life lessons whilst floating in a world that borderlines fantasy. It's like an adult fairy tale where people are named Garp, Cushie and... Pooh. And best of all, like any fairy tale, it still smells fresh after so many years.
"Mork from Ork in a serious role?" was the cry of the day. And Robin as POPEYE didn't help. But GARP is a black comedy. So it's serious, sure, but it's brimming with humor. PATCH ADAMS didn't have that and it was supposed to.
Robin Williams plays T.S. Garp. If you ask him, the T.S. stands for Terribly Shy, then Terribly Sexy, and later, Terribly Sad. If you ask his mom, it stands for Technical Sergeant, in honor of the dying soldier that unwittingly impregnated her. And if you ask me it's a reference to T.S. Eliot, as Garp is an aspiring writer.
Dog's Head Harbor, New Hampshire, 1944. Single mom Jenny Fields (Glenn Close, her first movie!) is doing her best to raise her son Garp. But Jenny's philosophies on life are extreme, absolute and often wacky. It's no wonder Garp grows up a mix of enthusiasm and timidness, wonder and cluelessness. He's an imaginative little boy obsessed with planes. He wants to fly just like the dad he never met. His drawings come to life, drawings of...flying. He plays on the roof with a toy plane, and slips off. Yes, his quest to fly (a metaphor, he wants his life to take off and soar) just may kill him.
And so we follow T.S. Garp through his infancy, boyhood, teen years, marriage, children, and writing career. Some awful events occur; people get shot, others die in car crashes and penises get stuck in zippers or bitten off. Through it all Garp tries to remain an eager optimist.
Garp wants to become a writer because the girl he likes, Helen, wants to marry a writer. He wants to wrestle because he likes the helmet (like his dad's pilot helmet). And he wants to fly. Remember, as a newborn he was being tossed in the air.
Garp's over-protectiveness of his kids has washed onto him from his mom, as like all of us, he finds himself saying things to his children that his mom had once said to him. Lots of traits were handed down from Jenny, a woman with confident (sometimes logical, other times not) philosophies set in granite. Why, even prostitutes are unsure what to make of her - Prostitute (played by Swoosie Kurtz) to Garp: "Your mother's weird." Garp: "You can say that."
Death plays a big part in Garp's life. It's foreshadowed throughout, from the Halloween death costume that hangs ominously on his kids' door to a monologue Jenny gives to Garp: "You know, everybody dies. My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I'm going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure, having a life."
Near the end of the movie, we find Garp still wrestling with life, this time as a wrestling coach.
I've never read the book, but I have to give writers John Irving (book) and Steve Tesich (script) applause for creating such a fun and thought-provoking world within a world. Tesich had a wonderful grasp for non-movie dialogue, characters and situations, as witnessed in his too short career that included AMERICAN FLYER, FOUR FRIENDS, EYEWITNESS and BREAKING AWAY.
Director George Roy Hill only made a dozen or so films, but he sure knew how to knock it out of the park. Witness THE STING, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and SLAP SHOT.
Life is great. Life sucks. And everything in between. We all wrestle with it, and we all dream of soaring. But GARP proves again how our personalities and emotions rule us. They can make us live an entire lifetime in one day or can kill us like that. "It can be a real adventure, having a life." And Garp is a celebration of life. For better or worse. And in the end, Garp finally gets to fly.
