Coming Home - you are coming home

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Movie
German title Coming Home -
you are coming home
Original title Coming home
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 128 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Hal Ashby
script Waldo Salt
Robert C. Jones
production Bruce Gilbert
Jerome Hellman
for United Artists
music George Brand
camera Haskell Wexler
cut Don Zimmerman
occupation

Coming Home is an American disabled drama from 1978 by Hal Ashby that describes the consequences of the Vietnam War for both soldiers and those who stayed at home. Jones and Salt's script is based on a story by Nancy Dowd . Jane Fonda plays Sally Hyde, a woman who falls in love with veteran Luke Martin, portrayed by Jon Voight , which makes her husband Bob, played by Bruce Dern , difficult after his return from Vietnam.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three of the coveted trophies .

action

Sally is the wife of Captain Bob Hyde, who was sent to Vietnam by the US Army in 1968 and followed this call enthusiastically. Sally, now left to her own devices, doesn't really know how to deal with her sudden loneliness. Through her friend Viola Munson, whose brother Bill has to be treated psychiatric after a collapse in a military hospital because he cannot find a way to deal with what he experienced during the war, she becomes aware of the fate of the war veterans. So she decides to volunteer at this veterans hospital. There she meets Luke Martin, whom she knows from college. Luke was badly wounded during an operation and has been paralyzed since then, so he is dependent on a wheelchair. He finds it difficult to accept help. Not only this stroke of fate made him bitter and built up an anger that flared up again and again that needed an outlet, but also the indescribable horror that he had to experience. Sally, who was initially shocked by the physical and emotional injuries the returnees from Vietnam had to contend with, did everything she could to help the men.

As Sally manages to develop a relationship with Luke, she manages to reduce his aggressiveness towards his environment. Both give each other the support that they have missed in their lives so far. Little by little, Luke manages to accept his handicap. Sally's political attitude towards the war is changing radically, she is also becoming more and more independent and also deals with her marriage. Since she hardly gets to see her husband anymore, she becomes increasingly estranged from him and painfully realizes that Bob has no trust in her and that everything that concerns him wants to deal with himself.

So it happens that the friendly relationship with Luke turns into love. After his release from the hospital, Luke also finds the strength to educate students about the cruelty of war. When Bob returns from an operation, wounded and deprived of all illusions, and now has to accept that he has lost his wife to another man, events roll over. Bob, used to the tough jungle laws, attacks Luke and Sally with the gun; however, they manage to fend off it. Sally has long since decided on Luke, with whom she wants to build a new life for herself. It is unclear how things will go on with Bob. At the end of the film he takes off his uniform and swims out into the open sea.

production

prehistory

The film was co-sponsored by Jane Fonda and her production company, IPC Films, who designed and funded it. Bruce Gilbert, the producer, was a friend of the actress whom she met during protests. The idea of ​​wanting to make such a film was sparked in Fonda by the fate of a friend, Ron Kovic , a paraplegic Vietnam war veteran, whom she had also met at a demonstration protesting against the Vietnam War. At this time, Kovic had already written his autobiographical book, which was later filmed as Kovic by Oliver Stone with Tom Cruise and was published in Germany under the title Born on July 4th and was awarded two Oscars .

In 1972, Fonda reached out to Nancy Dowd, whom she knew from her time in the feminist movement, and asked her to create a script that portrays the consequences of war, seen through the eyes of a woman whose husband is a military man. The first draft differed considerably from the later film. The project dragged on for several years and was then finalized by scriptwriters. Nancy Dowd later distanced himself from the film, however, because the scriptwriters Waldo, Salt and Jones had conceived a rather romantic, but also exciting story from the formerly feminist play. She didn't want to see that the new version was far more realistic than her original script.

John Schlesinger initially took over the direction, but left the project again because he struggled with the subject. He was replaced by Hal Ashby. Jane Fonda was chosen from the start for the lead role of Sally Hyde. The male lead was offered to Jack Nicholson , Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone , but they declined. Jon Voight, a friend of the Fonda, was originally supposed to be Sally's husband but struggled to get the role of the paraplegic Luke. Bruce Dern, who had already played sadistic roles several times, was then cast as Sally's husband.

Production notes

The film recordings for the production companies Jerome Hellman Productions and Jayne Productions for United Artists were made in Manhattan Beach , California , among others . The film was shot between January 1977 and May 1977. In the sometimes very revealing love scenes, Jane Fonda had herself replaced by a body double.

The film had an estimated budget of $ 3 million.

Soundtrack

The film uses songs by the Beatles , by Janis Joplin , Tim Buckley , Buffalo Springfield , Bob Dylan , Aretha Franklin , Jimi Hendrix , Jefferson Airplane , Rolling Stones , Richie Havens , Simon & Garfunkel and Steppenwolf . At the end of the film, before the expected suicide by Bob, the piece is Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers played.

publication

The film, which had the working title Buffalo Ghosts , premiered in the United States on February 15, 1978. In the same year it started in the following countries: the United Kingdom, France, Belgium (in Ghent), Finland, Japan, Colombia, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Italy and Hong Kong. It was published in Madrid in March 197, in Hungary in May 1980 and in Turkey in October 1982. It was also published in Argentina, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Spain, Greece, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, and Portugal , Romania and the Soviet Union. On July 2, 2016, it was presented at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.

In the Federal Republic of Germany the film was released on June 2, 1978, in the German Democratic Republic on February 26, 1982, and it was screened on February 15, 2008 at the Berlin International Film Festival .

The film was released on March 5, 2007 by the Twentieth Century Fox studio for the first time with a German soundtrack on DVD. Another version was released on June 13, 2008, and the film was released by Studio Two Thousands as Film 289 of the Edition.

Assessment and criticism

In the Neue Presse Hanover it was said at the time that the film renounced an “effective representation” of acts of war and “concentrated more on the efforts of those involved to survive in its shadow. The scenes at the veterans' hospital showing many forms of crippling are never speculative. The psychological consequences of the experience and its processing [are] in the focus "of the plot, which clearly sets the film apart from the" Vietnam film " The Going Through Hell, which was released in the same year .

At the time, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger read: "A powerfully staged, committed film against the war in Vietnam, which, by the way, manages without a single war scene and shows the devastation in America itself."

The author Thomas Jeier wrote that the film shows “not a single combat action, but it is probably one of the most haunting and best films on the subject of Vietnam. […] Coming Home does not conceal anything, on the contrary, the war [is] omnipresent, especially when it is not talked about and one can only read from the expressions of those who stayed at home what suffering it is causing [e] . Especially in the scenes that take place in Veteran's Hospital, the whole cruelty of the war [becomes] evident ”. Jeier went on to write: "This story could very easily have turned into an extremely cheesy film, but Jane Fonda and Jon Voight play so convincingly that even the maudlin scenes seem believable."

Marsha McCreadie, who wrote Films in Review, was less satisfied: “Unfortunately, the greatest tragedy of the last decade has been reduced to ideological black-and-white painting - those who demonstrate against the war are sensitive and even-tempered, and good lovers too. This is especially true of the homecomer, who is played by Jon Voight and has the gentle charisma of a cult hero of the sixties. And the hawks in the film are, of course, all oppressors and male chauvinists, especially the marine Bruce Dern has to play. Captain Hyde is one-dimensional in such a stupid way that we can see around him. "

“You are released from this film knowing that the war in Vietnam was a bad thing. But who - except perhaps John Wayne  - still doubts it? Such a cautious (by no means unsympathetic) film like "Coming Home" should have been made ten years ago in order to generate more than non-binding sympathy for the victims. "

- Hans-Christoph Blumenberg in Die Zeit , June 1978

“A film of humane disposition; Successful all round on the human-psychological level, rather blurred in the historical-political debate. "

- Lexicon of international film

The film magazine Cinema judged: "Silent, sensitive accounting with 'soldier-like' thinking patterns." Conclusion: "Moving appeal against the madness of war."

Awards (selection)

The film received eight Oscar nominations in 1979 : in the categories of "Best Picture", "Best Director", "Best Actor" ( Jon Voight ), "Best Actress" ( Jane Fonda ), "Best Supporting Actor" ( Bruce Dern ), " Best Supporting Actress ( Penelope Milford ), Best Original Screenplay (Nancy Dowd (story), Salt and Jones (screenplay)), Best Editing ( Don Zimmerman ), and Best Picture ( Jerome Hellman ).

The award went to Jon Voight , Jane Fonda and screenwriters Waldo Salt and Robert C. Jones and Nancy Dowd , who wrote the story.

Jon Voight and Jane Fonda were also each honored with a Golden Globe in the same year . A year earlier, the film participated in the 1978 Cannes International Film Festival and Jon Voight was named Best Actor. The film was also nominated in the categories of "Best Drama", "Best Director" (Hal Ashby), "Best Actor in a Leading Role" (Bruce Dern) and "Best Screenplay" (Salt and Jones).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Thomas Jeier: Jane Fonda - your films - your life. Heyne Film Library No. 26,
    Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1981, ISBN 3-453-86026-8 , pp. 122, 126, 128.
  2. ^ Sylvia Shin Huey Chong: The Oriental Obscene: Violence and Racial Fantasies in the Vietnam Era ,
    Duke University Durham and London 2012, p. 164 (English), ISBN 0-8223-4854-3 .
  3. ↑ Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom: The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs and Films . Greenwood Publishing Group., ISBN 978-0-313-30183-4 , p. 76.
  4. ↑ Jeremy M. Devine: Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second: A Criticfal and Thematic Analysis of Over 400 Films about the Vietnam War. University of Texas Press., 1999, ISBN 0-292-71601-X , p. 148.
  5. ↑ Coming Home - you are returning home at prisma.de, accessed on May 16, 2017.
  6. ↑ Coming Home - You are returning home DVD case Two Thousand One Edition
  7. ↑ Coming Home - You return home In: KinoSchule Hannover, cooperation project, p. 17, at presse-hannover.de, accessed on May 16, 2017.
  8. ↑ Coming Home - You are returning home ( memento from April 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) at djfl.de, accessed on May 16, 2017.
  9. ↑ Hans-Christoph Blumenberg : Ten years too late . In: Die Zeit , No. 24/1978
  10. ↑ Coming Home - You are coming home. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 28, 2017 . Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  11. ↑ "Coming Home (1978)" - a parade role for peace activist Jane Fonda. Disabled drama at cinema.de (with original video clips and film images)