This Boy’s Life is one of the most quotable films in my lifetime; I’ve seen it a bunch of times. Haven’t seen it for ages. Due another watch anytime soon. I love that film.
It was the first to feature Leonard DiCarprio in a starring role, an immediate showcase of his talent. It was one of the last films to really show Robert De Niro’s talent.
Released in 1993, based on Tobias Wolff’s memoir of the same name This Boy’s Life has been swimming in my head for years. It’s an amazing film – filled with incredible performances, great music and smart decisions in terms of the movie’s casting and direction, but at the heart of it is a very nasty storyline; the revolting and brutal and sad and cowardly figure that Robert De Niro portrays.
Oh I loved all his “great” film roles, Godfather II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Cape Fear, Mean Streets, New York New York – so many. But there’s something about how frightening, illogical, mean-spirited, stubborn and laughably cruel he is as Dwight Hansen.
“You shut your pie-hole”.
That was a phrase that was said around our house a lot after I returned home from university to show the film to my parents. By then I’d seen it a bunch of times. A firm favourite. We all loved the Dwight character. He was revolting but you couldn’t not laugh. You’re laughing at the incredulity, or out of incredulity; you’re laughing too at the astonishing and totally believable performance. My favourite scene – or moment – that sums up the stubbornness and sadness of Dwight is when he’s trying to listen to a record and bothered by the noise all around him he crosses the room to his record player and drags the needle back and forth across his record, ruining the platter. He does this until there is silence. To prove his point he sabotages the thing he was trying to listen to; he destroys his own calm – or what was supposed to be the soundtrack to his calm.
I had some times looking after my son when he was young where, for a fleeting second, I possibly wanted to scratch the record. Or to tell him to shut his pie-hole.
My dad no doubt had plenty of those times with me.
I reckon it’s okay to feel that as a parent, to feel like that. It’s human. To act on it – to do it – that’s what separates the good guys from the bad.
This Boy’s Life is one of those films that taught me a whole heap of lessons, right from first viewing. They’re with me always. And it’s only in those short little stolen moments – when I think about the film for a second or two – that I realise its impact. Huge fan of Ellen Barkin too, who has been in so many great movies – always doing great things. She’s crucial here.
I often think about how one day I need to show This Boy’s Life to the boy in my life, a movie-lover and a button-pusher. (Check out his movie reviews over at his own site). I think he’d like it – and we’d learn something new from it together.
But, until then I’ll just do my best to give him most of what he wants and certainly everything he needs.
