University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

'Taking Off' Explodes With Comedy

By PAUL CHAPLIN

As with other films by
Czechoslovakian director Milos
Forman, "Taking Off" is hard
to type as a comedy or as a
dramatic piece with tragic
undercurrents. Forman himself
tells us enough about his film
when he says, "I like to take a
situation that is inherently sad
and present its other side,
showing that it also can be
humorous. I always try to
catch my people as they are
through the lens of the camera
as I try to do in this story."
That Forman can achieve a
mixture of comedy and drama
is what makes "Taking Off"
remarkable.

The plot concerns a young
girl, Jeannie, who has
mysteriously disappeared, and
is assumed by her parents to
have run away. With the help
of an exceptionally strong cast,
Forman takes this sad situation
and develops it into a film
which explodes with comedy.
The film opens with Larry
Tyne, deftly played by Buck
Henry, visiting a hypnotist to
try to break his smoking habit.
It's a small scene, and is
visually funny, but Forman
keeps this little bit and dangles
it before us throughout the
film, so that each time we see
Tyne go through his exercises
to ward off the temptation of
tobacco, they become funnier.
We come to understand that
for Tyne, smoking is an
effective way of tuning out
those around him, and
ironically, his exercises are a
means of escaping the madness
around him.

"Escape"

The word "escape" might
be the one word which
adequately describes the
atmosphere throughout the
film. Jeannie's running away is
an obvious example, but
alcohol and marijuana are
also methods of escape, as
Forman later shows. Jeannie
has actually gone to an
audition for a rock musical,
and throughout it and during
the songs the girls sing, there is
the feeling of getting away,
taking off into another world.
We feel that every person at
the audition is running from
something.

When Jeannie is gone for a
length of time, Tyne's wife
goes into hysterics and enlists
her neighbors to help search
for the daughter and comfort
her. Lynn Carlin's portrayal of
Mrs. Tyne is a small
masterpiece in acting. She
easily shifts from being a
concerned mother to a prying
voyeur, enjoying the details of
her neighbor's sex life. ("You
did it in the kitchen?"). In
fact, Miss Carlin's best scenes
are those in which she is
motivated by sex, whether
listening to her neighbor, or
drunkenly stripping while
trying to excite her husband
with a stirring rendition of
"Camptown Races."

Vulgar Song

As I look over what I have
written, I realize that I may be
spoiling some of the film's
jokes, but Forman has an
abundance of humorous scenes
throughout the film, which are
enhanced by this clever use of
sounds, especially
asynchronous sound, and the
bizarre editing of the audition
song "Let's Get a Little
Sentimental." Forman's
funniest disruption of sound
occurs during the song "Ode to
a Screw," a song which is sick
and vulgar, but constantly
funny in the manner Forman
has it coming from the lips of
an innocent young girl.

All the characters in the
film are treated like that young
girl, in that Forman never gets
disgusted with his characters.
He likes every person that's on
the screen, and they all have
something humorous about
them. I think that this love of
his characters is what makes
"Taking Off" work. Another
director might have ended the
film with the embarrassing
scene where Jeannie discovers
her parents drunk and stoned
in the living room, playing
cards with some acquaintances.

Forman, however, goes on
and includes a dinner scene,
which would seem to be a coda
to what has happened before.
Then in the middle of it, the
cigarette joke comes back, and,
in a sense, the drama of the
film has been shattered. Rather
than leave the theatre feeling
down, there's a feeling of
exhilaration about the people
in the film. The characters
aren't especially deep, but we
feel that we know them, and
accept their actions at the close
of the film.

When talking to a friend
about the film, I described it as
a warm comedy. "Like a
Thirties comedy?" Well, no;
something more along the lines
of Mel Brooks' "Twelve
Chairs," parts of "The
Landlord" and "The Owl and
the Pussycat." We should take
the problems the film presents
seriously, not panicking about
them, but calmly observing and
thinking about them. Forman's
"Taking Off" is not only one
of the best comedies this year,
but in its own quiet way is one
of the most moving films that
has entertained us in years.

(Now at the Cinema)

Engel, Heacock, Carlin, Henry: Something Humorous