Don't you think we're crying
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Don't you think we're crying |
| Original title | Bless the Beasts and Children |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1971 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Stanley Kramer |
| script | Mac Benoff |
| production | Stanley Kramer |
| music |
Barry De Vorzon Perry Botkin Junior |
| camera | Michel Hugo |
| cut | William A. Lyon |
| occupation | |
| |
Just don't think we're crying (GDR distribution title “... and they're just kids”) is an American feature film from 1971 by Stanley Kramer with a largely unknown cast of young people. The film is based on the novel " Bless the Beasts and Children " (1970) by Glendon Swarthout . With this “small” film, which is atypical for his mostly star cast oeuvre, Kramer intended to make a clear statement against the largely problem-free access to firearms in the United States.
action
At the center of the action is the fate of six adolescent boys who are dropped off by their busy parents in a summer camp called the Arizona Box Canyon Boys Camp. It is common to all of them that they have a mental or emotional disorder, or at least that they are “behaviorally abnormal”. John Cotton becomes the leader of the outcasts and outsiders who, derisively derided as "bed-wetting", have so far hardly been able to develop anything like self-esteem. Humiliated and exposed to ridicule, Cotton soon developed the right feeling for his wards. He sets out to form his people into a solid unit that demands respect and rejects ridicule. His task becomes even more challenging when two new, obviously severely disturbed boys come into the camp: They are the two opposing brothers who are only introduced as "Lally 1" and "Lally 2". Lally 1 responds to threats to his emotional integrity by responding with outbursts of anger that often hit his younger brother Lally 2. He then regularly plunges into a fantasy world in which tiny creatures rule, which he calls "Ooms", and also seeks consolation in a charred foam rubber pillow that he always carries with him.
The teenager Lawrence Teft III is another boy, also a problem child. At the core of his being he is actually calm, but immediately shows his rebellious streak as soon as he is confronted with authority. He ended up in this youth camp for the difficult to educate because his favorite hobby is car theft. The only reason he's never ended up in jail is because each time his influential father let his relationships play out. But now he's fed up with it too. Teft senior hopes that one will drive out his filius' nonsense and teach him more discipline. After all, the failed son should one day follow in the old man's footsteps and make a career. Sammy Shecker, a plump Jewish boy whose father is a successful comedian, joins Cottons group. Often Sammy imitates his daddy with his comic acts and begins to annoy the others. Sammy is exhausting: he is loud, a bundle of nerves and is chewing on his fingernails. The fact that the little group around Cotton was given the unflattering nickname "bed wetter" has to do with Gerald Goodenow, the sixth and last member of the group. He has already been removed from two youth camps. In addition to bed-wetting, Gerald reacts to school sui generis with phobias. He was then sent to a psychiatrist - but to no avail. To top it all, he also has a rough stepfather who wants to turn the boy into a "whole man" with very rustic methods. All these behaviors that explain the presence of the deranged children and young people in the camp are revealed through regular flashbacks.
One day the sensitive and dysfunctional boys will be startled by an upcoming event that will challenge them in every way. The opposite world to their youth camp for psychological problems is a group of solid and highly insensitive cowboys who plan to put an end to a herd of buffalo that is disturbing their work the next day. In a night-and-fog action, Cotton leads his boys to the fenced bison on foot, on horseback or in a stolen car in order to free the herd. But this is easier said than done, because the somewhat dumb animals don't understand what the boys are up to and don't just run away, as hoped. Instead, there is a disaster, a confrontation with the future buffalo slaughterers. Cotton, who actually had a mission with the liberation of the bison, namely the inner liberation of the boys from all their constraints, is killed in his courageous effort when one of the cowboys kills him with a shot.
Production notes
The film, shot from late July to mid-October 1970 in Prescott (Arizona) and Santa Catalina Island (California), premiered in June 1971 during the Berlin Film Festival. The US premiere took place on August 1, 1971 in Los Angeles.
George Glass took over the production management. Lyle R. Wheeler designed the film structures, George James Hopkins created the equipment.
Awards and nominations
- Interfilm Award for Stanley Kramer at the Berlinale 1971
- OCIC Award for Stanley Kramer
- Nomination for the Golden Bear (Berlinale 1971)
- Nomination for an Oscar, category best film music ( Barry De Vorzon , Perry Botkin junior )
- Nomination for a Grammy Award for the aforementioned two
Reviews
The November 29, 1971 Cleveland Press stated, “Bless the Beasts and Children is far from a perfect movie. It is flawed, artificial and heavily symbolic. But his heart is in the right place. It says something, not only about killing stupid animals, but also about our awareness of values. "
Film critic Roger Ebert railed on November 9, 1971: “I've had enough of films that unnecessarily end with the old shooting the young to give us the impression that a point of view has been taken. I left the cinema in a bad mood. "
The Movie & Video Guide called the film an "exciting and well-intentioned, if monotonous story."
Halliwell's Film Guide found the film to be "a fairly obviously pointed melodrama, well done, but not very interesting."
In the Lexicon of International Films you can read: “A suggestive mixture of adventure drama, camp romance, melodrama and social criticism; the confrontation with the "American way of life" is pushed into the background by the smooth staging. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bob Thomas, Associated Press: "Kramer slaps festival boycott", in: The Dallas Morning News, August 14, 1971, p. 4a.
- ^ Review in Cleveland Press
- ↑ Review on rogerebert.com
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 128
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 118
- ↑ Don't you think we're crying. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 24, 2020 .
Web links
- Do not think only that we howl in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Bless the Beasts and Children in the American Film Institute catalog
- Bless the Beasts and Children on Turner Classic Movies