Movie: Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973)
Ryan O'Neal is one of those actors writers euphemistically call 'volatile'. He was addicted to drugs and alcohol for the majority of his life, and emotionally abusive to all who loved him. When his daughter Tatum O'Neal received an Oscar nomination for Paper Moon, he was jealous and didn't attend the ceremony where she became the youngest Oscar winner in history. She plays Addie, a young girl who has lost her mother and now needs to live with her aunt. Ryan O'Neal's Moses, who may or may not be her father, gets himself semi-accidentally recruited to bring her to Missouri. That premise is enough for a fun comedy-drama about two contrasting, strong stubborn personalities who have to grow to trust each other, but the real life circumstances surrounding the O'Neals add a melancholic touch to the easygoing warmth of their relationship here. Bogdanovich helps too by turning Moses into a two-bit grifter. He presents himself as a representative of the Kansas Bible Company convincing widows their recently deceased husbands had ordered a customised 'Holy Book' before their death. Unsurprisingly, Addie turns out to be a great business partner.
It's always fascinating seeing troubled artists convey ideas and emotions in fiction they can't in reality, and it's easy to see why O'Neal experienced his Oscar 'snub' as a crushing disappointment. O'Neal plays Moses as a young guy whose undeniable resourcefulness and charm need to work overtime to mask that he is still a twinge too immature and inexperienced to be either a successful conman or a dependable guardian. It's the middle of the Great Depression and though he is forced to put on a more ruthless front than he is comfortable with, you also get the sense that he isn't hiding an entirely pure heart. For her part, Addie is a chain-smoking tomboy who has never gotten much of a chance to be girly, and now that she has access to her mom's make up she secretly spends her nights in front of bathroom mirrors. Her happiest moments come when she conceives of a plan to get rid of Trixie Delight (Madeline Kahn), a carnival dancer Moses has become smitten with. Together with Trixie's black maid Imogene, she sets a plot in motion to get Trixie to cheat on Moses, leading to a sequence that would come straight out of a screwball comedy if it were played at twice the speed. Bogdanovich slows it down to emphasise the excitement Addie gets out of participating in typical teenage girl pratfalls.
Watching Paper Moon, I was reminded of Alexander Payne's Nebraska and other movies about the goofy eccentricities of small town Americans. What makes Paper Moon stand out is that it takes its Depression setting seriously and doesn't present these eccentricities as inherent to its people, but as a direct consequence of financial troubles. Poverty makes everyone act funny, including the widows who are never presented as naively gullible marks. A majority of the dialogue in the film is essentially counting pennies, and in this context it's not easy to ignore the possibility of your dying husband spending his last money on a Bible.
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