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His foil is Judy Garland, who plays Jean Hanson, a Julliard graduate with an uncertain past, who applies to be a music teacher at the hospital. Hanson disagrees with Clark’s methods and feels that emotion does have a place in teaching her students. She becomes very attached to 12 year old Reuben, a boy who appears to have high-functioning autism (although diagnoses of the children in the film is never stated, and remembering this was the 1960’s before “people first” language, the word “retarded” is often used as a medical descriptor). Reuben’s father hears of the incident at decides to enroll Reuben in a private school. When he arrives to pick him up, he attends the Thanksgiving rehearsal and is touched as his son recites a poem, with some help from the other students. Reuben’s father decides his child is doing well and should stay at Crawthorne under Jean’s care. The film began with Dr. Clark coaxing Reuben from his father’s car to go into the facility. It ends with Jean assuming this role and coaxing a new student to enter Crawthorne. To me, the stars of this film are the students, who with the exception of the actor who plays Reuben, are children with special needs from Pacific State Hospital in California. The Thanksgiving pageant will touch the heart of any special needs parent who has watched their child participate in a holiday production. The movie is worth watching, in my opinion, for that scene alone. If you are a Cassavetes fan, as I am, this movie will surprise you. It is not, in my opinion, representative of his work. Nevertheless, it is fascinating. Apparently Cassavetes and Kramer fought over the interpretation of the film. Cassavetes said “"The difference in the two versions is that Stanley's picture said that retarded children belong in institutions and the picture I shot said retarded children are better in their own way than supposedly healthy adults. The philosophy of his film was that retarded children are separate and alone and therefore should be in institutions with others of their kind. My film said that retarded children could be anywhere, any time, and that the problem is that we're a bunch of dopes, that it's our problem more than the kids'. The point of the original picture that we made was that there was no fault, that there was nothing wrong with these children except that their mentality was lower." (From Cassavetes on Cassavetes, Ray Carney, editor). This film shows the conflict between Kramer and Cassavetes, as it alternates between both perspectives. Although the movie is not the one that Cassavetes was hoping to make, the conflict between him and Kramer is the same one prevalent in society at the time and seeing those two perspectives presented is revealing. I think the film is actually more powerful to have both opinions represented. I wonder how special needs parents viewed this movie when it was originally released? As an autism parent living in the 21st century, however, all you have to do is look in the faces of the beautiful children in the film, all of whom have special needs, to see that Cassavetes, not Kramer, was right. |
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