1971 American film by Miloš Forman
Taking Off is a 1971 American comedy film, directed by Miloš Forman.[1] It tells a story of an average couple in the suburbs of New York City, who, when their teenage daughter runs away from home, connect with other parents of vanished children and learn something of youth culture.
Plot
Larry Tyne and his wife Lynn return home one evening to find that their teenage daughter Jeannie is not there. (Viewers know she is attending an audition, clips from which, with future star performers like Carly Simon and Kathy Bates, recur throughout the film). The Tynes ring the Divitos, with whose daughter Jeannie is supposed to be, but the Divitos' daughter claims she doesn't know where Jeannie is. Enlisting their friends Tony and Margot, the two men search the neighbourhood bars while the women stay by the phone and gossip about sex. When the men return home drunk, Jeannie reappears, only to vanish again. Next day, Larry goes into the city to search for her. In the street, he meets Ann Lockston, a parent who's also searching for a missing daughter, and Ann tells Larry about a self-help group for parents in their predicament.
The police from upstate call the Tynes to say their daughter's been arrested 300 miles away for stealing. The two rush to see her, only to find that it is the Divitos' girl in custody, having given the police a false name. On the trip back home, they stop at a hotel, where Ike & Tina Turner are performing. A drunk Lynn is followed to their room by an amorous stranger, unaware that Larry is asleep in the bed. After the stranger disappears, Lynn tries out some of the tips Margot had confided to her earlier.
Later, back in the city, Larry and Lynn attend a formal dinner for the self-help group. Afterwards, marijuana joints are handed round, and a young man named Schiavelli instructs the parents on how to smoke them. Happily high, Larry and Lynn take Ann and her husband Ben back to their home for more drinks and a game of strip poker. As the group gets more inebriated, a naked Larry jumps on top of the table to sing "Libiamo ne' lieti calici". At this point, Jeannie reappears, and the guests hastily leave.
When Jeannie admits to having been with a boy, Larry suggests she brings him home for dinner soon. When he appears, he proves to be an intelligent and wealthy musician. However, he declines to play for them, upon which Larry entertains the four with "Stranger in Paradise".
Production
In 1968 Forman obtained a visa to plan a US film. Forman and Ivan Passer arranged a "house on Leroy Street in Greenwich Village"[2] and studied the counterculture there.[3]
The plot of Taking Off was inspired, by a girl found murdered in an apartment not far from that of Forman's residence. A newspaper story reported about "a girl who would leave her affluent family in Connecticut every Monday to spend the week living on the street in New York City, all the while telling her folks that she was in school".[4]
Taking Off is also a partial remake of Forman's Audition (1964) where Forman staged and filmed a singing competition.[4]
Cast as Jeannie, in her only film role,[5] Linnea Heacock, was "discovered", with friends, in Washington Square Park.[4]
The performers "were encouraged to improvise based on Forman's descriptions of the overall shape of a scene".[4]
Awards
The film shared the Grand Prix (ex aequo)(second prize)[6] with Johnny Got His Gun at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.[7] The film received six nominations, without a win at the 1972 BAFTA awards: Best Direction (for Forman), Best Film, Best Film Editing (for Carter), Best Screenplay (for Forman, Guare, Carrière, and Klein), Best Actress (for Carlin), and Best Supporting Actress (for Engel).[8]
Reception
Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby declared that "Taking Off is not a major movie experience, but it is — a good deal of the time — a charming one."[1] Variety called it "a very compassionate, very amusing contemporary comedy."[9] However, John Simon wrote- 'I declare Taking Off an antihuman film: mean, arrogant, and thoroughly destructive'.[10]
Novelization
Forman, Miloš; Guare, John; Carrière, Jean-Claude; Klein, John (1971). Taking Off. New York: Signet.
- A novelization, with new "scene settings" written by Forman and Nancy Hardin (by 1977, vice president of Paramount Pictures[13][14]), and an essay by Forman about his life in America and making Taking Off.
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