DVD Review: John Sayles Collection (1980 - 1984)

The true spirit of independent American cinema has always been alive and kicking in the shape of director John Sayles. He moonlights as a screenwriter for big Hollywood projects in order to finance his own pictures, churning out schlock like Piranha for Joe Dante, and next year’s Jurassic Park IV (honestly, how many dinosaurs did they leave on that island?)

   This collection captures three of Sayles’ better-known projects, spearheaded by the critically-acclaimed Return of the Secaucus Seven. Ostensibly set around a yearly reunion of seven friends and former political activists that got busted in the town of the same name, Sayles raised the $30,000 budget himself, filled the cast with unknowns and like most of his other projects did the writing and editing as well as directing.

A small New Hampshire town plays host to the group; loser musician JT (Adam LeFevre), teachers Mike (Bruce MacDonald) and Katie (Maggie Renzi), doctor Frances (Maggie Cousineau), political aide Irene (Jean Passanante) and her new boyfriend Chip (Gordon Clapp), and recently-separated couple Maura and Jeff (Karen Trott & Mark Arnott), who are a frustrated actress and drug counsellor respectively. Over the course of one long weekend we’re let into the lives of people who are trying to keep alive a spirit even as they're trailing off in different directions. The film explores the reasons why people bound by one moment stay together despite distance and time.

   Return of the Secaucus Seven deserves its plaudits, especially as the tight budget meant that Sayles was working mainly with dialogue for his mood. The script shines with some smart lines; occasionally it can get insular and smart-alecky (which is always a danger with dialogue-driven cinema), but the pictures Sayles creates with his location shooting and cast mean you're always on side. It’s a superb ensemble piece, echoed by such reunion pieces as The Big Chill and more than worthy of its place in the canon of American film.

   The independent approach meant Sayles could write and film anything that took his fancy, and Lianna found him on unexpected territory. Lianna is the wife of a bitter academic who, as convention has it, is an obsequious cad who shags his students. Desperate for affection, Lianna falls for her night-school teacher, who happens to be a woman. An experienced one, at that.

   Soon enough, Lianna finds herself in the bed of her tutor, freeing her Sapphic tendencies once and for all. This plays hell with her personal life, of course, with her husband convinced she’s got some kind of illness, and forcing her to move out and find her own way in the world. The subject matter was daring for 1983, and almost twenty-five years later nothing has changed. As an audience, we still find the reality of homosexuality mysterious and intriguing, and sometimes threatening. Sayles knew this, of course, and that's why his direction and writing goes to great lengths to be as realistic as possible.

   The lead performance from Linda Griffiths is utterly convincing, by turns touching and engaging, and there’s strong support from Sayles himself and John DeVries as her husband. The real acid test for a film with this subject matter is the sex, and Sayles handles those scenes competently. While there are touches of cliché about them, he avoids billowing curtains and close-ups of lilies, making them some of the most realistic scenes of lesbian sex committed to celluloid. It’s a more absorbing treatment of the subject than the nauseating Kissing Jessica Stein, for example.

   But the collection is rather weighted down by the inclusion of The Brother From Another Planet, which was made after Sayles’ only studio picture, Baby It’s You. You can tell the budget has been increased by now, but Sayles sacrifices smart dialogue and economic direction for smirking agitprop.

   Joe Morton plays an unnamed alien who happens to crash land in New York. He is mute but has a knack for repairing electricals, and finds his 'true' home amongst the forgotten population of Harlem. It’s a low-budget cross between Cathy Come Home and The Matrix, and consequently can’t decide whether it’s a farce, an allegory or a sci-fi epic.

   As a comment on the way immigrants to America are treated it’s so obvious as to be insulting. Morton washes up on Ellis Island, can’t speak the language, doesn’t know the value of money, gets easily into hard drugs and wanders the streets with wide-eyed wonder. There are even two intergalactic immigration officers after him, played by Sayles and long-time collaborator David Strathairn.

   It’s as if Sayles has spent a night drinking with Spike Lee, and compared to the other pictures it makes little sense. It’s interesting to see how much of a seedy place New York used to look before 9/11 and Rudolph Giuliani (indeed, Morton fits right in as a limping black man in rags), but as such is merely a curio – a one-watch disposable. It's frustrating to see the strong Afro-American cast wasted on it.

   The first two films in the John Sayles Collection have common threads and also stand on their own as interesting pieces of independent cinema. Although burdened by the later film, the collection is worth a late-night look for true cinasthetes. As Meat Loaf once sang, two out of three ain’t bad.

DVD Extras - None.

More about The John Sayles Collection at Amazon.co.uk

Chris Stanley