Incredible! A movie that was AGAINST unions, pro work ethic, anti- intellectual/big city types, conservative in most of its views. If you think about it, the right leaning viewpoint expressed in ths film is a very rare one, not seen much after around 1960.
How was this movie against unions? I think this film merely told a story, and it told it quite well. The leads were not necessarily heroes, just working-class folks who did what they needed to get by, and maybe a little more. This film has a very independent feel that is sadly missing these days, but I don't think it had an agenda other than good storytelling.
shareYIKES!!! I cannot imagine a LESS right-leaning author than Ken Kesey....a self-proclaimed bridge between the 50's beat-generation and the late 60's hippies! Kesey grew up in Oregon (as did I) and was certainly well-acquainted with real-life characters similar to Henry Stamper. The OP would be advised to review Kesey's history before making such assumptions (obviously based upon his own political leanings). While this film may not reflect all the nuance in Kesey's book, I believe it does portray the generation gap of the time, neither lionizing or demonizing either side of the political debate. Rather, I think the film paints an even-handed picture of the time, pointing out both the heroism and cowardice inherent in both. Clearly, the OP is focusing on the content that he agrees with and ignores the rest. Anyway, great story-telling and performances from a wonderful ensemble cast. Sadly, most all of them are gone now (Fonda, Newman,Remick Jaeckel,and most recently Sarrazin). Fortunately, the gift of film is that their work lives on, frozen in time. A very under-rated film in my opinion. Now available via direct-streaming from Netflix! Go watch it!
shareIndeed. I really hate when people try to project political viewpoints onto films – excluding the works of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, which intentionally inspire those debates
This is a very independent movie and has no agenda other than storytelling, which it does extremely well. People who detest unions as well as those who support them will find plenty of ammunition here, if they choose to look for it. For the rest of us, this is a very strong drama about the working class and the generation gap.
You don't think the films main characters have a right leaning viewpoint?
Most rural families that have their own business vote Republican and have conservative views.
Even Henry Fonda said of this film; 'This is my answer to Easy Rider', which is probably had one of the most liberal viewpoints of any film ever made.
I'm not saying Kesly was a conservative, but the viewpoint of the main characters should be clear to any viewer. After all, how many black gay jewish transexual loggers are in the world?
Maybe they were Republicans, maybe not; I don't remember any political discussions in this film. Were they even registered to vote? I honestly don't think it's relevant.
These characters seemed too preoccupied with their jobs, their relationships, their tragedies and their basic struggle to survive to endorse candidates or ideologies. You're free to disagree, but I don't see this film in terms of politics.
It seems obvious Kesey's main idea was fierce individualism (the Stampers) versus a herd-like collective (the union loggers).
Not really that much more to it.
Exactly. The Stampers were independent, not partisan. The same cannot be said about these boards.
shareThe Stampers were independent, but also obviously had conservitve world views, Do you think they care about womens lib? or gay marriage? or hippie lifestlye? Come on!
Hell they were sh** kicking hard working, hard drinking good ol' boys who have definite soild views on how the world worked.
And nobody has answered my question to movies like this post 1970. Hollywood just does not make them.
Nor did they care about the estate tax, family values or school vouchers because, once again, they were apolitical.
And no one's answered your question because you asked it on the wrong board.
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OP, why are you projecting your own politics into a movie that really has zero to do with politics? The Stampers are independent, and therefore disregard the issues involving the loggers union. They run their own lives independent of others who happen to be in the same profession. That hardly makes them right-leaning or anti-union. And I'm not sure how you construed that anti-intellectual= conservative. That also has nothing to do with this movie.
share'The Stampers are independent, and therefore disregard the issuses involving the loggers union..... That hardly makes them right leaning or anti-union.'
Do you see the conflict in your sentence? Being independent is the very definition of being anti-union.
There's no conflict at all. They are independent- they don't profess (nor does the movie) to be pro-union or anti-union. They carry on their lives with utter disregard as to what the loggers' union is doing. They have no agenda with them. You can keep your "definition."
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I am angry at Hollywood for not producing more films like this, not the world.
Again, nobody has given an example of a movie for my original post.A hard working rural family that owns their own business made post 1970. Or ANY movie that praises a hard work ethic or ambition or is pro-business.
Hollywood used to make these kind of movies that praised ambition, hard work and the entrepuneurial spirit, but since 1970 producers in Hollywood tend to make movies that bash them(Facebook, There Will Be Blood).
America should be a place that encourages these type of people, but hollywood seems to play on the envy they cause by putting them in a unfavorable light or by bashing business in general.
OK. At the risk of being redundant, I'll answer the OP's question. There have been no movies made since the 1960's that were anti-union, pro-business, anti-intellectual/big-city-types, conservative and right-leaning. And neither was "Sometimes a Great Notion". Are you happy now?
You are projecting your own political leanings, based upon your perception of one, possibly two characters (Henry and Hank). If I were an evangelical Christian, I could project my leanings on Joe-Ben, trying to show his heathen relatives the light. Or a hippie projecting my leanings on Leland, pointing out the hypocrisy in the Stamper family. Or a feminist, siding with Viv over leaving the family for their mysogynist and anti-community attitudes. The movie wasn't about politics, it was about a family at a particular place and time.
I'm reminded of my late father (an Oregonian ex-logger thank you) watching "All in the Family" in the 1970's and laughing at Archie Bunker, because he agreed with everything Archie said. Dad thought the show was promoting Archie's right-wing, racist, conservative view because that was the piece of the show he agreed with, ignoring the rest. He didn't get it that the show was about a family, pointing out the passions and foibles of both right and left.
The movies you wish Hollywood made have already been done.....about 70 years ago by guys like Capra and Ford. Go watch them, they are great films. Hollywood is driven by dollars and the world is a much more jaded and cynical place. So those films just don't sell anymore, that's why they aren't made.
Want to be a crusader? Go to the Tea Party, get some money and make a film crafted around your politics. Then go sell it. Let us know how that turns out.
And I can't imagine anyone being envious of the Stampers.
You are speculating on my political leanings without even knowing me. You don't know me, haven't met me, but professs to know my political leanings based on a few posts. That is a mistake.
My own political leanings are economically conservative (small government,low taxes, free trade,pro business) but socially liberal (for gay marriage, pro enviornment, abortion for first two tri-mesters).
I know that this is not a political movie, I never professed that it was. I am simply saying that it does have elements that appeal to a conservative viewpoint that is not seen in movies today.
I disagree with you as to why these movies are not made. I believe that those actors/writers/producers with convservative views can be ostracized or cowed in Hollywood, 'Group think' tends to happen and opposing world viewpoints
are never heard.
Just look at the anger directed at me to my original posts when people assumed that I was a member of the Tea party.
Now just imagine that anger X 10,000 in Hollywood, I would never get work.
_
Hmm. Because the characters have certain viewpoints and attitudes, the filmmakers themself do not necessarily have to share those viewpoints. I don't know if that's what you mean? The less a filmmaker expresses his opinion in a drama, the better it mostly gets. Let the story speak for itself.
But I'm happy for you if watching these characters made you feel relieved. My viewpoints are leftish, but I can value a happy viewer any time.
I liked watching this tall tale about the Stampers, I even could feel for them, even though I have a different view on the world. Paul Newman made a good drama for his characters (based on the Kesey book), which sticks in my memory for decades of years now since I first saw 'Sometimes A Great Notion'.
"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film."
My personal political leanings are similar to yours.....economically conservative and socially liberal....so we have something in common!
You said, and I quote..."Incredible! A movie that was AGAINST unions, pro work ethic, anti- intellectual/big city types, conservative in most of its views. If you think about it, the right leaning viewpoint expressed in ths film is a very rare one, not seen much after around 1960."
So now you are saying that you did not profess that this was a political movie? I smell some major back-pedaling. If you knew ANYTHING about Ken Kesey you would not be ascribing a right-leaning tack to this movie (but I appaud you for watching this film.)
OK, I'll cut you some slack. I can see that this film could appeal to some conservatives in that it has an independant attitude and is appealing to them (also appealing to me).
I disagree with you that "conservative" movies are not made.....have you seen any of Mel Gibson's movies from the last 15 years?....Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ, We were Soldiers or Apocalyto? I think that a conservative viewpoint could be ascribed to any of these movies, and certainly to Mel Gibson personally
(whatever one's political leanings, I think he has made some fantastic movies).
With the popular rise of the conservative viewpoint (Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc.) I think that there is plenty of bandwith and appreciation for an alternative view.
Viewpoint expressed by the head 'Stampers' was all I was talking about. If the word 'movie'in my orginal post caused some raised hackles becaused it was written by Mr. Kesey, I am sorry for not being more clear.
While the OP was a tad inelegant, and even a bit celebratory of the poster's perceived right-leaningness of Sometimes a Great Notion...
The OP isn't wrong. At least, not completely.
Just because left-leaners want to say there is no political agenda in this movie, --because the movie is about a logging family and does not discuss politics -- is reductionist to the point of inaccuracy.
The story, after all, doesn't paint the Stampers to be simply right, or better than the antagonistic forces, exactly.
Yet the antagonistic forces are union-related (which would align then and now with the political left, whether that aspect of the story are included onscreen or not -- they were not.) And the protagonistic forces are both individualistic and old-school. By definition, than and now, particularly in the hotbed of 1970 -- those were the previous right-leaning more conservative folks who bristled at the notions of the hippies (mostly voiced by Sarrazin's character).
To argue that SAGN is apolitical as a story is to omit vast swathes of the story's underpinnings.
To argue that Kesey, because he wasn't a republican or particularly right wing -- therefore the story doesn't offer of a fairly rightwing-friendly solution to this particular story's conflict -- is to misrepresent the story.
Doesn't matter what you think of Kesey or what else he wrote or did, nor even how the novel differs from the movie. We're talking about the point of the movie.
The movie ultimate shows, big warts and all, the reason to value and maybe even, in a bitersweet way, celebrate, old-school hardassery in the face of progressive changing times. Even though, to do so, causes additional new stresses and problems.
Basically -- instead of condemning the Stampers for not being politically correct this movie affirms that they had a valuable, honorable point, too, even if they were harsh and difficult and backwards and doomed in certain ways. So, please, audience: go along with the Stampers and be moved by them.
As such SAGN really is a movie that resonates with conservatives of any party (don't get hung up on partisan party affiliations, please) and rubs progressively politically correct smugness types the wrong way, strongly.
As the knee jerky defensiveness of this thread shows. The OP has a point.
And there really aren't a lot of movies that go this route, making SAGN a bit of treasure, to some. Whether others dislike it or not. It's vastly easier to find entertainment product that celebrates a liberal basis of behaviour rather than a conservative basis.
Though there are other significcant movies that resonate with the right-leaning: Forrest Gump, The Dark Knight, and Braveheart come to mind in years more recent than SAGN. I expect someone to counter that is nonsense, because clearly Batman and William Wallace were not "republican" or whatever -- but that's not my point. My point is simply there are stories that conservatives can find that contain elements of celebration of conservative values...sometimes its a bit of a cherry-pick or a needle-in-the-haystack exercise but there you go. SAGN is one of these stories.
To p-king2;
You make several good points and I thank you for your comments. As a native of Oregon and son of an Oregon logger who worked in the the Oregon forests in the 1930's, I grew up in a very similar environment shown in this movie, so it resonated with me. Certainly, there are complexities within the book and film that can be argued....but that is not my point. I think that this is an under-valued film that captured a point in time in America. One can take away many threads from this film, so I would encourage everyone to see this film and see what you make of it. Enjoy!
I too was raised nearby SAGN in rural Oregon surrounded by loggers, and by a family of a different generation (father born in 37 -- not a hippy.
So...I too get where its coming from and the folks celebrated (and also, criticized) by Sometimes a Great Notion. They are my father and brother and me, to some degree.
Actually, I'm a little more like the Sarrazin character...but basically...SAGN resonates with a set of conservatives like few other movies. SAGN may not be overtly political, but there's some stuff in there that matters to folks that is related to philosophy. (That, then tends to manifest itself in politics about individualism vs. unionization, self sufficiency vs. self pity and so on...)
Maybe you just had to be there, eh?
Yeah, good thoughts pking-2! I guess I see this film representing individual freedom rather than the politics of 40 years later. I could relate to Sarrazin's character because I was similar in age to him at the time. Now, 40 years on I have a better appreciation of Hank and Henry (and my father too!). As I tell my 87 year-old Mom "now I understand Dad 40 years ago". Hopefully I can relate all of this to my 32 year-old son. Anyway, I think this is an under-appreciated film and wish more people would watch it....wonderful performances from a stellar cast. Everbody watch this film!
shareI don't care what the author of the source material intended or what the filmmakers thought they were making. This film is definitely a testament to Conservative principles. Individualism, self-reliance, a strong worth ethic, along with a disdain for unions.
You people must have missed Hank Sr. ranting about pinkos, socialists and the like. When Hank Jr. went to the union office and cut the guy's desk in half, did you think it was because he had ambiguous views about unions?
The themes in this film are not subtle in any way. The union are the bad guys, the Stampers are the good guys. The transformation of Lee is great too. He shows up at the house as sort of a hippie dippy type guy and by the end he is as hard core as the old man. Don't be delusional about the message of the film.
Cuckoos Nest was a pro-freedom film as well. I think people are confused by the 60's. The counterculture movement started as a anti-government, pro-freedom movement. Over the years many the ex radicals got jobs working for big brother, the media and the academy. They BECAME the establishment they once despised.
Big government machine politics that Liberals embrace today is the antithesis of what they claimed they were for in the 60's.
"I don't care what the author of the source material intended or what the filmmakers thought they were making."
That's right, damn it! Don't confuse me with facts. They were prescient, looking forward +40 years to support your political ideals. Crazy old Ken Kesey didn't know what he was doing. Too bad you were not there at the time to help straighten the pinko out! Thanks for the laugh!
This is one of the few movies that has that kind of message.
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