Tender Mercies
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| Tender Mercies | |
 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Philip Hobel |
| Written by | Horton Foote |
| Starring | Robert Duvall Tess Harper Betty Buckley Wilford Brimley |
| Cinematography | Russell Boyd |
| Release date(s) | March 4, 1983 |
| Running time | 100 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb | |
Tender Mercies is a 1983 film which tells the story of a recovering alcoholic country singer whose relationships with a young widow and her son help to turn his life and career around. It stars Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin and Lenny Von Dohlen. The movie was filmed in the Dallas, Texas area (specifically near the town of Waxahachie in Ellis County, Texas, where another well known picture, Places in the Heart was also filmed.)
The movie was written by Horton Foote and directed by Bruce Beresford.
It won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert Duvall) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, and was nominated for Best Director, Best Music, Song (for Austin Roberts and Bobby Hart for "Over You") and Best Picture.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
(Although the scenes are shot chronologically, there are no indicators as to whether the scenes are days, weeks or months apart.)
The movie begins showing silhouettes of two men arguing in a hotel room. They are arguing over a bottle of liquor. A man, later identified as Mac Sledge (Duvall), is seen falling down and passing out.
After that night of drinking, Mac wakes up somewhere in Texas at a run-down, roadside hotel and gas station. The owner of the hotel, a young widow named Rosa Lee (Harper), informs Mac that his companion has left him. Mac asks Rosa Lee if he can stay and work off the debt for his room. Rosa Lee agrees. Mac later asks Rosa Lee if he can stay on and continue working for her for room and board. She agrees, as long as he doesn't drink while he's working. (We find out later that Rosa Lee's husband was killed several years earlier in Viet Nam, leaving her a widow at age 18, with an infant son to raise.)
Mac and Rosa Lee's growing affection for one another is subtly portrayed. Most telling is a scene where they are sitting one evening, chatting as they watch TV in Rosa Lee's living room. Like a couple on a first date, they shyly share bits of their life stories. They are interrupted by Rosa Lee's young son, Sonny, calling to them from his bedroom, and asking them to stop talking so he can go to sleep. Some time later (not clearly defined), while working in Rosa Lee's garden, Mac asks her to marry him. He says, "A blind man can see how I feel about you." We never see her give her answer, but from later dialogue, we come to know that they did marry.
One day, Mac goes out to their pump to gas up an automobile. The driver of the car, a newspaper reporter, asks Mac whether he is "Mac Sledge, the singer". Mac refuses to answer. The reporter asks a series of questions, trying to get Mac to reveal where he has been, why he stopped recording music, whether he was an alcoholic, whether he has remarried, and what Mac thinks about his previous wife, country music star Dixie Lee (Buckley). He states that Dixie became famous singing Mac's songs. The reporter tells Mac that Dixie is performing nearby. Mac refuses to answer any of his questions.
After the reporter's story is printed, a local country western band comes to see Mac at the hotel. They tell Rosa Lee that they are fans. Although Mac is obviously pleased to see that someone still remembers him and his music, he is hesitant to open up that part of his life again.
Mac goes to Dixie's concert. Dixie is an aging country western singer, but it is clear from her performance that she is tremendously talented. Dixie performs a song, obviously written by Mac, expressing deep and unending love. In the middle of the song, Mac gets up and walks out of the performance.
He meets Dixie's manager (Brimley) outside of the concert hall. Mac gives Dixie's manager a new song he has written. Mac then goes backstage to see Dixie. Dixie is extremely upset to see Mac, and rebukes him for visiting her. She warns Mac to stay away from their daughter, Sue Anne. Later, Dixie's manager tells Mac that his song is no good and that the country music business has changed.
Angry and hurt, Mac returns home. Rosa Lee asks him why he went to see Dixie. She admits to him that she is jealous. Mac, apparently ambivalent about his feelings, cannot tell Rosa Lee why he went to see Dixie. As she presses him, he storms out of the house. Mac then visits a bar, and buys a bottle of whiskey.
Later that night, he returns home. He confesses that he bought the alcohol, but says he poured it out. He then says that he tried several times that night to leave Rosa Lee, but that he always came back.
He explains to her that he had recorded a few songs before he met Dixie. He wrote a song for Dixie, and she recorded it, and the song was very successful. After he and Dixie married, Dixie said that she wanted to sing "for five years to get it out of her system." But, Dixie never stopped singing.
Mac and Dixie's daughter Sue Anne then visits Mac at the hotel. Mac tells Sue Anne that he wrote to her, and asks if she ever got his letters. She says that she never did. Sue Anne tells Mac that Dixie does not want her to see Mac, but that she is eighteen and can see whoever she wants. It is revealed that Dixie divorced Mac after he tried to kill Dixie in a drunken rage. But Sue Anne tells Mac that over the intervening years Dixie place all the royalties from Mac's songs into a sizable trust fund for her, and that she wants for nothing. She tells Mac that she has a boyfriend who is a musician Dixie's band, and that she and her boyfriend have to sneak around to see each other because Dixie doesn't like the boyfriend. As she is leaving, she asks Mac if he remembers a song he used to sing her about a "snow white dove". Mac says that he does not. Immediately after she leaves, we see Mac standing at the window watching her drive away, and singing to himself the old hymn "Wings of a Dove," -- " When Jesus went down to the water that day, He was baptized in the usual way. When it was done, God blessed His Son, sign from above, on the wings of a dove. On the wings of a snow white dove, He sends His pure sweet love. Sign from above, on the wings of a dove."
Mac and Sonny (Rosa Lee's son) are baptized at Rosa Lee's church.
The country western band Mac previously met asks Mac if they could perform one of his songs. He agrees. They later ask Mac if he would sing the song so that they could make a record. He agrees. He then performs the song (a song about Rosa Lee) with the band in front of an audience. The audience enjoys the music, and heartily applauds Mac. Mac is obviously pleased that people still enjoy his music.
At some later time, the band has recorded Mac's song. They bring Mac the record to enjoy, but Mac and Rosa Lee tell them they do not have a record player. Just as Mac and Rosa Lee are leaving to go to a friend's house to listen to the record, the telephone rings. Mac answers the phone and is told that his daughter has been killed in an automobile accident.
Mac attends the funeral at Dixie's lavish home in Nashville. Dixie has had an emotional breakdown. She asks Mac why their daughter died, why this has happened to her, and why God has done this to her.
Back at the home, Mac is tending the vegetable garden. Rosa Lee asks him how he is doing. Mac is obviously upset and in pain. He tells her that years ago he was almost killed in an automobile accident. He doesn't know why God spared him and yet his daughter died in an automobile accident. He also doesn't know why Rosa Lee's husband was killed in a war. He says, "I never trusted happiness."
The next scene shows that Mac has bought Sonny a football and left it for Sonny to find in his room when he comes home from school. We see Mac in the field across the road from the hotel, singing to himself "On the Wings of a Dove." Sonny comes running up to him, thanks him for the football, and the movie closes with them playing football in the field
[edit] Cast
- Robert Duvall stars as Mac Sledge, a recovering alcoholic country western singer attempted to rebuild his life with a young widow and her son. Horton Foote was rumored to have written the role of specifically for Robert Duvall, who had always wanted to play a country singer. Foote denies this, claiming he finds it too constraining to write roles for specific actors, but he did hope Duvall would be cast in the part. Duvall, who Foote had worked with many times before and has described as "our number one actor," contributed some ideas for the Sledge character.[1]
- Tess Harper plays Rosa Lee, the young widow and mother who marries Mac Sledge. Harper was performing theater in Texas when she attended a casting call for a minor female role in the film, but Bruce Beresford was so impressed with her that he cast her in the leading role. Beresford said while previous actresses who auditioned demonstrated a sophistication and worldliness inappropriate for the part, Harper brought a kind of rural quality without coming across as simple or foolish. Beresford said of Harper, "she walked into the room and even before she spoke, I thought, 'That's the girl to play the lead.'" Tender Mercies was Harper's feature film debut, and she was so excited about the role that she literally bit her script just to make sure it was real.[1]
- Betty Buckley plays Dixie Scott, Mac Sledge's ex-wife and a successful county music singer. Buckley attended a casting session in New York City and was chosen largely based on the quality of her singing voice; Bruce Beresford said although many actresses auditioned for the role, few of them were able to sing. Robert Duvall said he thought Buckley perfectly conveyed the underlying frustration of a country singer and felt she "brought a real zing to that part."[1]
- Wilford Brimley plays Harry, Dixie Scott's manager and an old friend of Mac Sledge. Brimley was cast at the urging of his good friend Robert Duvall, who was not getting along well with director Bruce Beresford and wanted "somebody down here that's on my side, somebody that I can relate to."[1] Beresford felt Brimley was too old for the part, but eventually agreed to the casting. Brimley, like Duvall, would occasionally clash with the director during filming.[1]
- Ellen Barkin plays Sue Anne, the daughter of Mac Sledge and Dixie Scott. Barkin was cast after impressing director Bruce Beresford during an audition in New York City. At the time of her audition, she had appeared only in television movies and no feature films, although her feature debut, Diner, would be released before Tender Mercies. Robert Duvall said of Barkin, "She brings a real credibility for that part, plus she was young and attractive and had a certain sense of edge, a danger for her that was good for that part."[1]
- Allan Hubbard plays Sonny, Rosa Lee's young son. Filmmakers visited several schools and auditioned many children for the role of Sonny before coming across Hubbard in Paris, Texas. Film director Bruce Beresford said like Harper, Hubbard was chosen based on a simple, rural quality he possessed which filmmakers felt was appropriate for the part. Hubbard was able to easily relate to the character because, like Sonny, his father died at an early age; in fact, some later media reports would later falsely claim that Hubbard's father was killed during the Vietnam War, like Sonny in the movie. ie, developed a strong relationship and sense of trust with Hubbard, which filmmakers felt improved the duo's on-screen chemistry. Hubbard would often play guitar with Duvall during breaks from filming.[1]
- Lenny Von Dohlen plays Robert
[edit] Production
[edit] Development
Tender Mercies was written by screenwriter Horton Foote. Robert Duvall, who worked with Foote in many films including To Kill a Mockingbird and was involved in Tender Mercies as an actor and co-producer from its earliest stages, said the script appealed to him because of the basic values it underlined and because the themes were universal even though the story is local; Duvall also felt it portrayed the central region of the United States without parodying them, as he said many Hollywood films tend to do.[1] Harper described Mac Sledge, the protagonist of his story, as "a very hurt, damaged man (for whom) silence was his weapon."[1]
The script was rejected by many American directors, creating concerns among Foote and producers that the movie would never be made; Foote later said "this film was turned down by every American director on the face of the globe."[1] The script was eventually mailed to Australian director Bruce Beresford, who had received dozens of other Hollywood scripts based on the recent success of his 1980 film Breaker Morant. Several of the filmmakers involved with Tender Mercies had reservations about an Australian directing a movie about a country music star; Beresford himself also found the decision strange, but kept his thoughts to himself because he so wanted to direct the movie.[1]
Most of Tender Mercies was filmed in Waxahachie and Palmer, two small towns in Ellis County, Texas. Beresford deliberately avoided some of the picturesque elements and Victorian architecture of Waxahachie and instead filmed more barren locations that more closely resembled the West Texas area. The Texas town portrayed in Tender Mercies is never specifically identified. Foote said when he wrote the script, he did not have the same isolated and lonely vision for the setting that Beresford did, but he felt the atmosphere Beresford ultimately captured served the film well.[1]
Jeannine Oppewall was hired as the film's art director. Beresford praised as Oppewall as "absolutely brilliant,"[1] especially for her attention to very small details, "going from the curtains to the color of the quilts on the floors."[1] Oppewall made the home of Mac Sledge and Rosa Lee from an old house that had been sitting abandoned by a Waxahachie highway.[1] Australian cinematographer Russell Boyd photographed the movie, largely utilizing available light to give the film a natural feeling which Beresford said was crucial to the movie. Actress Tess Harper said Boyd was so quiet during filming that he mostly used only three words: "Yeah, right and sure."[1]
[edit] Music
Tender Mercies includes no original film score, and the music is limited to small amounts of guitar music and the country songs within the story. A score was composed for the movie, but Bruce Beresford he had it removed because he felt it was "too sweet" and that it sounded phony in the context of the film, although he acknowledged it was a "very skillful score."[1]
Although Robert Duvall was rumored to have written the country music for Tender Mercies himself, Duvall claims to have only written a few "background, secondary songs."[1] Duvall did, however, do his own singing, and he insisted that it be added to his contract that he sing the songs himself; Duvall said regarding the subject, "What's the point if you're not going to do your own (singing)? They're just going to dub somebody else? I mean, there's no point to that."[1] Duvall played a large part in the directorial decision during a pivotal emotional scene to sing "Wings of a Dove," the Bob Ferguson country song Mac Sledge used to sing to his daughter daughter as a baby, while looking out a window with his back to the camera, rather than facing the camera, after reflecting on his reunion with is daughter. Horton Foote thought the decision made the scene more moving and called it "an extraordinary moment" in the film.[1]
Betty Buckley also sang her own songs, and was in fact cast largely based on the quality of her singing voice; one of the songs she performed, "Over You," was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.[1]
Several country singers, including George Jones and Merle Haggard, were believed to be the inspiration behind Sledge Mac and Duvall's portrayal of him, but filmmakers insisted the character was not based on anyone in particular.[1]
[edit] Filming
Tess Harper said Robert Duvall inhabited his character so fully that "Someone once said to me, 'Well, how's Robert Duvall?' and I said, 'I don't know Robert Duvall. I know Mac Sledge very well.'"[1] Bruce Beresford, too, said the transformation was so believable to him that he could feel his skin crawling up the back of his neck the first day of filming. Duvall made efforts to help Harper, who was making her film debut with Tender Mercies. During one scene in which Mac Sledge and Rosa Lee were fighting, Duvall yelled at a make-up artist in front of Harper specifically to make her angry for the scene; Duvall apologized to the make-up artist after the scene was shot.[1]
Bruce Beresford and Robert Duvall did not get along well during the production, in part due to cultural clashes and Duvall's apprehension with an Australian directing a film about a country singer. Duvall also felt restricted by Beresford's practice of storyboarding and meticulously planning each individual scene. While filming one scene with Tess Harper and Ellen Barkin, Beresford became so frustrated during a phone conversation with Duvall that he said, "Well if you want to direct the film, go right ahead," and walked off the set.[1] But Beresford said he did not feel the fights negatively affected the film because the two men never disagreed on the interpretation of the Mac Sledge character. Wilford Brimley, a friend of Duvall who was cast in a supporting role at the Duvall's instance, also clashed with Beresford. During one instance when Beresford tried to advise Brimley on how Harry would behave, Duvall recalled Brimley responding, "Now look, let me tell you something, I'm Harry. Harry's not over there, Harry's not over here. Until you fire me or get another actor, I'm Harry, and whatever I do is fine 'cause I'm Harry."[1]
Filmmakers considered the most climatic scene in Tender Mercies to be the moment in which Mac Sledge tended a garden and discussed with Rosa Lee his pain over the loss of his daughter. Beresford and Russell Boyd deliberately filmed the scene in a long shot so the long and lonely Texas landscape would be captured in the background and so the scene could flow in one single uninterrupted shot. When studio executives received the footage, they contacted Beresford and insisted close-up shots had to be shot for the scene, but Beresford insisted on keeping it intact with the long shot. Robert Duvall said he felt the scene underscored the stoicism Mac Sledge constantly adopts in the face of tragedy and sadness in his life.[1]
Some time after filming on Tender Mercies was finished, Duvall would surprise Allan Hubbard by attending his tenth birthday, where he gave Hubbard his first guitar as a gift. Hubbard kept the guitar into adulthood and he said it helped inspire him to become a guitar instructor.[1]
[edit] Release
Bruce Beresford said the test screenings for Tender Mercies were among the most unusual he had ever experienced. During the previews themselves, Beresford said the audiences appeared to be very riveted and engaged with the film, to the point that the theaters were so silent, "if you flicked a piece of paper on the floor, you could hear it in full."[1] However, the reviews from the test screening audiences were, in Beresford's words, "absolutely disastrous."[1] As a result of the poor reviews, Universal Studios executives lost faith in the film and they made little effort to promote it. Horton Foote said of the studio, "I don't know that they disliked the film, I just think they thought it was inconsequential and of no consequence at all. I guess they thought it would just get lost in the shuffle."[1]
When Tender Mercies was released in 1983, it was exhibited in only three movie theaters: one in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in Chicago. Universal Studios had released Scarface, a far more expensive and anticipated film, the same year and the studio was concentrating practically all of its advertising revenue on that film, which left little remaining for publicizing Tender Mercies. The studio Robert Duvall also believed their lack of familiarity and comfort with the country music genre further reduced their faith in the movie. When country star Willie Nelson offered to help promote the movie, a studio executive told Duvall she did not understand how Nelson could help publicize it, which Duvall said was indicative of the studio's lack of understanding about the genre and the film.[1]
[edit] Awards
The 56th Academy Award nominations were announced about ten months after Tender Mercies were released and little campaigning was done on its behalf. Filmmakers and studio executives were surprised when the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Robert Duvall, who would win his first and only Oscar for Tender Mercies, was the only American actor nominated for Best Actor for a 1983 film; the others were Britions Michael Caine, Tom Conti, Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney. When Horton Foote won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird, he was not present at the 1963 ceremony to collect it because he did not believe he was going to win and did not attend. As a result, Foote made sure he was present for the ceremony when he was nominated for Tender Mercies; he won that Oscar as well, this time for Best Original Screenplay.[1]
[edit] Wins
- Academy Award for Best Actor (Robert Duvall)
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama (Robert Duvall)
- Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Horton Foote)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Actor (Robert Duvall)
- New York Film Critics Circle Best Actor (Robert Duvall)
[edit] Nominations
- Golden Globe Best Original Song (Bobby Hart)
- Gold Globe Best Picture
- Academy Award Best Picture
- Golden Globe Best Original Song (Austin Roberts)
- Academy Award Best Director (Bruce Beresford)
- National Board of Review Best Picture
- Golden Glove Best Director (Bruce Beresford)
- Academy Award Best Song (Austin Roberts)
- Academy Award Best Song (Bobby Hart)
- Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress (Tess Harper)
- Directors Guild of America Best Director (Bruce Beresford)
[edit] Reviews
Janet Maslin of the New York Times said, "This is a small, lovely and somewhat overloaded film about small-town life, loneliness, country music, marriage, divorce and parental love, and it deals with all of these things in equal measure. Still, the absence of a single, sharply dramatic story line is a relatively small price to pay for the plainness and clarity with which these other issues are defined." March 4, 1983
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag Bruce Beresford (actor), Robert Duvall (actor), Horton Foote (actor), Allan Hubbard (actor), Gary Hertz (director), Tess Harper (actor). (2002-04-16). Miracles & Mercies [Documentary]. West Hollywood, California: Blue Underground. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
[edit] External links
- Tender Mercies at the Internet Movie Database
- Tender Mercies at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list.
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