Conrack (1974, Martin Ritt)

Since his hard turn to the right, Jon Voight has characterized his role in anti-Vietnam War protests and other progressive political movements of the '60s and '70s as youthful indiscretions, the result of "Marxist propaganda." One hopes he doesn't feel that way about Martin Ritt's fine 1974 drama Conrack, in which Voight gives what I consider his greatest performance--and in which his character is accused of being a Communist, amongst other "dirty" things, by hardliner Hume Cronyn.  This is one of a few films that I've really enjoyed recently, including Ritt's Norma Rae, which feature an outsider who briefly enters a community and shakes things up for the overall good.  It's also the rare film to explore Gullah people and culture.

In the prime of his acting career, Voight was a champion of underdogs, anti-establishment figures, the poor, and other assorted societal rejects.  Voight's role as Pat "Conrack" Conroy fits right in with this tradition.  He's an idealistic, young teacher who comes to "Yamacraw Island," a fictionalized Sea Island, off the coast of South Carolina, to teach the impoverished, largely illiterate Black schoolchildren there. Voight's unorthdox, but ultimately effective methods draw the ire of principal Madge Sinclair and Beaufort schools superintendent Cronyn; Cronyn is a good foil as the old timer who dishes out his intolerance and hatred with smiles and Southern hospitality.  Conrack leaves his mark on the children before he goes, but the filmmakers do not pretend that his good work will lead to drastically better lives for them.  We know from the start his time on the island will be short, but Ritt and his frequent co-scenarists Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch, who adapted Conroy's memoir The Water is Wide, avoid predicability and false sentimentality. Conrack is at its heart a progressive, anti-establishment (that adjective again) picture, the kind that was in full bloom in the early '70s; Voight was one of the leading faces of these films that gave voice to the disenfranchised and youthfully rebellious, and which advocated for change in the social and political hierarchies.

Conrack has many inspiring "teaching moments," scenes that could verge into hokum--Conrack teaches the kids to swim, Conrack takes the kids trick or treating, etc.--but it remains rooted in reality and is distinct from the uplifting Rocky and the many "feel good" movies that would follow in the latter part of the decade and into the '80s; these later films films often shed the realism and political content of films like Conrack and Norma Rae, gradually displacing the liberal outrage of the earlier pictures with some combination of patriotism, apoliticism, or conservatism.  It's difficult not to think of Voight's own personal political trajectory in this instance.  Still, I resist this irresistible impulse and think of Voight as the perpetually smiling, energetic, and often mischievous "longhair" who enthusiastically and passionately teaches his kids, trying any and all methods to reach them, eventually opening their eyes a little bit to the world outside their isolated existence.  Pauline Kael's quote about Voight (reprinted on the back cover of the Blu-ray), says it best: "...just about the lustiest, most joyful presence in current films."  As Conrack, Voight is an absolute joy to behold.

Twilight Time's limited edition Blu-ray--the film has surprisingly and sadly completely bypassed the DVD format--superbly reproduces John Alonzo's scope cinematography (which nicely showcases the rarely-filmed Lowcountry) and John Williams' score (which is beautifully spare, though still unmistakably "Williams-esque"). Twilight Time's reps have indicated that the film has not been one of its biggest sellers, which is not surprising given its status as a drama from 1974 about a teacher.  Yet, it's still disappointing because Conrack is an extremely satisfying, full-bodied portrait of a true iconoclast and I don't think there can ever be too many such characters or stories. Lovers of early '70s American cinema, in which oddball characters and environments flourished like they did at no other time on film, should find themselves quite at home with Conrack.

Here's a small sample of Williams' music, appropriately quiet and mysterious and then rollicking and joyous, all of which can be heard on Twilight Time's isolated score and effects track.  The guitar solos are by famed Wrecking Crew player Tommy Tedesco:

The Revolutionary (1970, Paul Williams)

U.S. One-Sheet

Italian Insert

Voight concedes that he will never look as badass as Cassel.

"Get your hands off me, Pig!"

Before he was stumping for McCain and calling the Vietnam-era anti-war movement "Marxist propaganda," Jon Voight was starring as the eponymous hero of Paul Williams' The Revolutionary. Made just after Voight's break-out film Midnight Cowboy, The Revolutionary is set in an unnamed Facist-like state (shot in a cold and anonymous London). Voight, a member of a radical student organization akin to SDS, becomes disillusioned with the group's ineffective, non-violent attempts to enact change.  He leaves his young cronies behind and becomes allied with labor leader Robert Duvall and Weatherman-type extremist Seymour Cassel, who in today's climate, would in no uncertain terms be labeled a terrorist.  The film is perhaps too rigidly composed and structured and I have mixed feelings about its ambiguous ending, which Williams designed as a way to "throw the choice back to the audience."  Even in its attempts to relocate the film out of the then-current and familiar environs, The Revolutionary is a striking document of the times in which it was made.  Towards its later stages, the film reminds of the much more recent Day Night Day Night, a film that explores the motives of a would-be young terrorist in post-9/11 New York.  

Jay Cocks called the film "a subtle, intelligent" film that "charts the course of radicalization with cool precision."  Of Voight, he said the actor's "fine performance" was his "best to date."  It was young director Williams whom Cocks singled out for the most effusive praise: "It is with filmmakers like Paul Williams that the future of the industry lies.  Williams has talent and insights far beyond his 26 years.  [The Revolutionary] marks Williams as a filmmaker not only worth watching, but also worth waiting for."  As we will see, Williams was at the forefront of the New Hollywood, but it would be others who would gain fame and direct the most important films of the era.

Williams would direct three very interesting and promising features (Out of It, The Revolutionary, Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues) in quick succession in the late 1960s and 70s before leaving Hollywood for the Arica Cult.  He would return to direct Nunzio in 1978, Miss Right in '82, and a few other films in the '90s and early '00s, but he never recaptured the momentum he'd had early on or deliver on the promise seen by critics like Cocks. 

Before leaving the industry, Williams formed a production company with Ed Pressman (Pressman-Williams), which would produce Brian DePalma's Sisters and Terrence Malick's Badlands.  Pressman continues to be a prominent producer, even having a retrospective of his work several years ago at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  While most of Williams' peers have gone onto become lionized figures, he has drifted into obscurity and been confused with the other Paul Williams.  

Not surprisingly, none of the early Williams pictures has appeared on DVD preventing a wider reconsideration of his work.  Dealing is a Warner title while Out of It (also starring Voight) and The Revolutionary are both controlled by MGM.  WB has not previously partnered with Criterion on DVD while MGM has on the rare occasion, but should that situation change, the above three titles would be ideal for an Eclipse box-set.

When I programmed The Revolutionary a few years ago (along with Electra Glide in Blue, another United Artists title of the era), I was very happily surprised to see both in pristine, new 35mm prints.  I'm told that this was thanks to the efforts of esteemed MGM/UA archivist John Kirk and that these and other scarcely seen UA titles were part of a cable package on Flix several years ago.  Clearly, the elements are ready, but MGM/Fox has not shown interest in releasing DVDs of these films--MGM did, thankfully, release Electra Glide in Blue several years ago before the Sony buyout.  [On a much sadder note, in its monthly newsletter, the Film Noir Foundation reports that John Kirk is gravely ill with a brain virus and does not have much longer to live.]

Voight must, deep down, feel some relief that The Revolutionary, a cinematic reminder of his youthful political leanings remains in the vaults.  However, for admirers of the American cinema of the late 1960s and 70s, it and the other films of the Paul Williams oeuvre are vital pieces of that puzzle and should be more readily available for viewing.

As for the poster design, it's always struck me that Voight is made to appear like a puppet on a string.  His character has a limp in the film, which, I think, accounts for the his bowlegged, wobbly appearance in the poster.  We will also, of course, get the impression of a man beaten down (the limp comes at the expense of the police) by an oppressive higher power (the police above and behind him).  All the more reason for star Voight to sneer at the film, one he must consider a youthful folly at best.