Does The Big Chill Capture the Baby Boomer Generation?
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- “The film is like a home birth movie, in which a group of insufferable Baby Boomers midwife a neoliberal fever-dream about the moral sacrifices that adulthood should entail.”
Scott Beauchamp of online political magazine The Baffler doesn’t pull any punches in his disdainful assessment of Lawrence Kasdan’s 1980s Baby Boomer ensemble. And, for a film that won more than its fair share of plaudits at the time, Beauchamp’s 2015 article is an extreme but not unrepresentative look back at The Big Chill’s artistic and cultural legacy some thirty-plus-years on. There’s nothing less hip or woke than admitting to admiring The Big Chill. That the film’s modern defenders include Lena Dunham (her essay “These Are Your Parents” appeared alongside the film’s Criterion Blu-ray release), an initially acclaimed but increasingly divisive cultural figure accused of naïve white privilege, arguably only adds fuel to the bonfire of Kasdan’s supposed vanities.
The judges, juries, and executioners of today’s polarized social media are rarely interested in nuance. You’re either for a public figure, trend, or cause, or you’re against it. A film, book, record, or comedy stand-up routine is either the greatest thing ever, or a risible, retrograde disaster. I loved The Big Chill when I saw it as a teenager (years after it released, I hasten to add). As I eventually caught up to the age of its protagonists I continued to admire its writing, its cast, and its ideas. I gradually noticed the backlash (thanks, High Fidelity) though, to be fair, even at the time some critics panned it. And as I got older I began to understand some of the criticism. All of this seems to make it, as the film itself hits the rough age of its characters, wheezing into a quarter-life crisis as it hits its 35th anniversary today, it's the ideal candidate for in-depth deep dive!
A big part of "The Big Chill" is its soundtrack. Here at Fandor, we celebrate the people who make some of our favorite soundtracks in our Score Auteur series. Watch our videos on Hans Zimmer, the late great Jóhann Jóhannson, and Trent Reznor. Finally, seal the deal with our video “The Art of the Needle Drop.” Your ears will thank us.
I think it kind of does capture what most adults in their late 30s and early 40s feel. This sense of selling out, settling on having a family, and complacency
I saw this film in 83, just after college, not long after my older brother's shocking suicide, at age 33. My brother was well liked, loved by many friends and family. His funeral and subsequent gathering, was weirdly similar to certain events, characters in the film. The tragic irony fucked with my head, to say the least. Maybe even more bizarre has been my decades long, almost annual, ritualistic return viewing of TBC. Like watching some 8mm bizzaro' world home movie of long ago, over and over. ''Was it live or was it Memorex''?
I'm sorry for your loss.
Man, sorry buddy.
Just went through something very similar to this a half year ago. Minus the sex and drugs. One of our friends committed suicide and a number of us went to the out-of-town funeral and we stayed in town and caught up for a day or two afterwards. We're in our fifties and early 60s. Some of us had some setbacks. One of us was in the beginning stages of a degenerative disease and we had to help him walk. One had a spouse die, and I think they were looking to reconnect. Some of us became very successful and were happy to help others out. And some were disillusioned and starting over. The stories were different, but the sentiment was the same. Big Chill was a good movie.
“We’re never leaving”. The Boomers really took this as their motto now didn’t they?
I think its brilliant! And those 2 characters don't hook up. No one acknowledged Chloe's grief. Nick and Chloe share a specific grief. Nick sees himself ending up like Alex and Chloe sees Alex in Nick. Which would really drive home everything She lost. The Jeff Goldblum speech really nails the true about people.
Here’s the thing, some of us really did grow up inside a suburban bubble. We had expectations and dreams. We thought we could do anything we wanted to do, and some did.. and some couldn’t …. And some died tragically. Many of us were not prepared to deal with the realities of the outside world. This could easily have been a group of my friends.
I saw The Big Chill in 1984 (films took a whole year after theatrical release to come on HBO), and it reminded me so much of my family. Mom was from California. We lived upper middle class in Mississippi where dad was from. The 'Green Acres effect' as i called it. We were drenched in culture, luckily, being raised by two progressive parents. All of their friends were successful.
I still see them in these characters. But I also see myself and my friends in a way now. I agree...It is a generational thing.
You say progressive like it’s a badge of honor! Ha ha. Your progressivism is just pagan worship of Molech as you vote to make taxpayers pay to kill majority black babies. You put bill gates and Fauchi on a pedestal.
Of course there was a long period of preprodution for "The Big Chill". And during that time, did no one in Hollywood say to Kasdan, "You mean like 'The Return of the Secaucus Seven?'"
I adore this film and I just watched it for the 6th time.I did see it in 1983 in the theater and I was 23,and didn't really appreciate it.It is a comedy but also with some serious subjects like suicide and feeling lost and unloved .The actors are all so effectiv e,and you believe them .No one is really cruel, mean or nasty .It is not that kind of movie .I think Lawrence Kasdan did an excellent job with the writing and directing.
One of the guys at IGN called TBC "The Boomers' Breakfast Club"
Technically breakfast club is gen X
_The Breakfast Club_ is a copy of this film as is _St. Elmo's Fire._
Forever classic
One difference The Big Chill seems to say about boomers and later generations is that some boomers at least did have an altruistic selfless sense of wanting to make a better world, and only became narcisstic and materialistic as adults in the rapidly changing Reagan conservatism of the early 1980s.
The difference now is kids are so saturated with self gratification all now culture, they just immediately graduate into wannabe celebrities or bankers.
Yes! Not everyone got married, happy, settled, educated, involved
REMAKE.
Story of my 40 years life right now.
maybe the movie's a metaphor for the hippie death/yuppie birth. analogically, the death of their friend signifies the end of what remained from the flower era and the projection of these guys as successful in early middle age corresponds to 80s yuppie-ism. but it doesnt look like a glorification to me, instead more of a critique. consider the disfunctionalities amongst the group and the flaws the characters have. goldblum dates a young girl he clearly has nothing in common only for the sex (shallow af). one of the characters is impotent as i can recall, which could be metaphorical for the lack of inspiration and innovation the corporate world breeds. tom hurt's character is a drug addict, still plagued by ghosts of his past (not very glorifying). and above all, they've gathered together with the excuse of their dear friend's death. to sum up, i think the light hearted tone of it all bears ironic undertones which satirizes the yuppie culture who feasts on the death of the hippie and celebrates the disjointment of these people's spirits and disillusionment of their lives.
Interesting thoughts.
really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this review!
Well said. This is probably one of my favorite reviews of this movie.
*"William Hurt's damaged Vietnam vet 'hooking up' with his dead best friend's girlfriend within a week of his suicide strains credibility."* Really? If you're assuming that "hooking up" means Nick had sex with Chloe and that "strains credibility" well that's possible as Nick was a damaged, drug-addicted, extremely cynical character who was also the least nostalgic person in the group. He's the one who kept downplaying Alex's death, making jokes about it and cruelly said to Harold, "Wrong, a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time; you don't know anything about me." - But they didn't sleep with each other as Nick was impotent and said to Chloe in the scene you show at 2:34 "You know I don't do anything, right?" to which she nodded yes. Assuming you know all that and didn't mean that they slept together, you believe that Nick and Chloe finding an emotional connection and spending a non-sexual night with each other away from the others doesn't imo strain credibility. It was Michael, who kept trying to pick up on Chloe and flirting with her in front of everyone throughout the movie, yet THAT didn't strain credibility. I'm sure in real life that sort of thing would happen, especially if the girl looks like Meg Tilly.
Nick and Chloe were both damaged. Makes sense that they might pair-up and perhaps comfort one another.
I agree especially about the film but the Hollywood view of typical Baby Boomers lack in content. I like the Big Chill on every level of film development but Hollywood does not speak for my Baby Boomer generation it’s far more complex with direct ties to the “Greatest Generation”... are we really making progress?
The Jeff Goldbloom, (" Waspy ensemble", LOL), is always good for the witty one liners.
Only about 1% of the people reading this will get this :).
@@eddihaskell It has been a year, you were right. :)
Unfortunately we haven’t learned much because we still keep plopping our these kids left right and centre.
Fans of both TBC and S7 seem to forget they weren't the first films to tackle Boomer angst; A Doonesbury Special (1977), anyone?
What is S7?
@@WanderlustmanC Return of the Secaucus 7.
Excellent review! Very insightful.
I was born in '62, and although today I'm classified as a Boomer, I wasn't in 1983 when I was in college. Since then, "someone" has decided that Boomers include people born as late as 1964, but actually we were more like the kid sisters/brothers of Boomers. My friends and I worshiped The Big Chill as some sort of cultural masterpiece-but I dunno, maybe the music drew us in. I need to watch it again, through eyes that are 57 years old instead of 21, but part of me doesn't want to destroy the magic of the memory.
I would put '64 at the earliest of the Gen Xers. I'm not sure when this whole thing of people age 15-25 calling anyone over 40 "boomer" started, but it should stop. It might be worse being on the tail end of Gen X, I don't care much for being lumped in with millennials. Though I do share some general cultural traits with both.
Excellent review! I used to hate this movie but I'm starting to see now that some of its 'flaws' are the entire point of the film, to paraphrase Roger Ebert.
4 years later but I have to ask why you initially hated this movie? I’ve always enjoyed it and thought it was almost perfect
@@brianmeen2158 assuming you mean the big chill, I think it was the dissonance between the radicalism of the character’s youth and their current yuppiness…and the failure to reckon with that at all?
Fantastic! I struggled through these very thoughts as I watched the film. Ultimately, I found that if I watch the Big Chill, within the bubble of when it was made, it's a fun ride.
I'm in my mid 40's. I love older movies much more than newer ones because most of the crap coming out today just can't match the stuff that has already been made in the past. The description of this video is a bunch of claptrap. I missed this film somehow. I feel like it fell through the cracks on my viewing list over the years. I feel like it was probably on cable when I was younger but I probably glanced over it because the subject matter was beyond me at the time.
Looking at this film now I can not only understand but relate to many of the feeling and emotions expressed in this movie. I also feel like this movie had a great soundtrack which was kind of different at the time. It more closely resembles more modern movies that try to emulate films from this period. Most films at this time had a more limited soundtrack often only using maybe a couple samples of popular pre-recorded music.
The film is like a home birth movie, in which a group of insufferable Baby Boomers midwife a neoliberal fever-dream about the moral sacrifices that adulthood should entail.” I feel like this whole statement is basically word-salad. Like what where they even saying? Moral sacrifices? It 's about looking back at the roads not taken. Realizing this is what your life IS and not what you envisioned it to be. It's about coming to terms with the realities of adulthood and how they contrast with the ideals and visions of younger adulthood when your just starting out fresh and wild eyed and feeling like the world is your oyster only to grow up and realize your just a small cog in the machine doing your part to keep it moving. A small grain of sand, inside that oyster hoping to become a pearl before you die.
It captures youth of the 60s. Social, attitudinal and personal integrity changes were started then and permeate character to this day.
The Tom Berenger character doesn't make sense. It would have been more poignant for 'Sam' to be a failed actor who only got as far as TV commercials and now works at a TV station. Anyway, who the fuck is 'Scott Beauchamp'?
The only thing The Big Chill captured was the audience Return of the Secaucus Seven deserved.
WASPS? Goldblum, Tilly, Kline... Not. Don't know about the others.
Recently watched it for the first time and found the ending weird as I was trying to understand if Kasdan thought the choices made by his characters at the end were the right ones, even if just the right choices for them(in their circumstances). They were much more likable and realistic before the last night. Two affairs and a strange implication that their dead friends girl just picked up a new guy the weekend of his funeral. Maybe I’m missing something but they were kind of irritating by the end 😅 again first time watching it so perhaps there’s deeper meaning. 🤷♂️
Wait this criticism is just describing why the movie is good
Wrong! This movie is the greatest!
The selfishness, degeneracy and destructive nature of boomers is under represented in the movie. They are a generation born into the most privilege and opportunity ever in all of human existence and once they grew up and came into their own, they borrowed against their children's and grand children's futures and pulled the ladder up behind them, leaving younger generations with far less opportunities than they themselves were afforded. Their Gen X kids largely raised themselves and or faced abuse at the hands of those who was supposed to be their caretakers. Not all boomers are/were bad people but as an aggregate, as a collective they are a bad group of people. And yeah, maybe I am somewhat bitter but it doesn't make me a liar.
Kind of like Million Little thing's that aired on ABC on sept. 26th. I only notice because my dad killed himself and sept 26 was my parents anniversary.
The volume of the movie scenes is too quiet, while your voice is loud, i could not hear what the movie was saying when you cut to it... please increase the volume of the movie parts, same problem last video..
Hey Joe , that's the point . He sounds like he's preparing for a role as a movie critic and he's here to share what he thinks period
I loved this movie and sound tracks
This BBoomer thinks it captures us perfectly, and if you aren't a BB, you probably won't get it.
Y favorite movie!!!!!!! ☮️💟
My parents' generation
Return of the Secaucus Seven came out shortly before TBC and is a much better portrayal of that generation.
Really good critique, Leigh - tight yet nuanced. (By the way, did we play football together for Rovers in the early 2000s, with David Z et Al?)
A film that's hard not to warm to? I guess so; for me, it's hard not to burst out into flames over, or at least blow smoke from my ears. When I watched this movie, in 1983, I immediately had an instinctive feeling in my gut: I REALLY DON'T LIKE THESE PEOPLE.
.
But maybe I misunderstood. Maybe this was the point of the movie. In other words, maybe the characters hugely suck, and that's exactly why the movie doesn't?
No, I think you could've stopped at the end of your first paragraph.
Not at all. Jo Beth is a doll but that's about it. Most of these people would bore you to death in a matter of minutes!!!
I thought it was very flippant to any touchy topic. how they kidded chidded danced around each other almost like a musical almost as a coping mechanism.when someone had actually died. the four seasons Bob Carol Ted and Alice valley of the dolls movies. were a similar generational themed movies thou btca talks about subjectmatter that's a little before the big chills time the bcta are the same age just a little earlier. four seasons is about middle age get togethers cheating and community work problems.big chil reveals more about the underbelly and insencerity of their times.
this essay is spot the fuck on. I have come to many of the same conclusions, but you stated it very cleanly. well done
Ok boomers
great film
❤❤❤
👍👍👍
What is baby boomer
someone born between 1946 - 1964. that is when those who survived WW2 returned home and started families
❤️
Yeah, it does capture them perfectly- bunch of overly self reflective d bags.
I saw this as a teen I went from idolising the boomers and thought they were cool, to absolute hatred
okay boomer...
It's too white
So what?
Most white people hang out with white people; Most black people hang out with black people. Hate the movie, but that was one of the more authentic parts to this trash heap of a movie.