Feb 27: Out of Africa (1985--Sydney Pollack)

★★★★★
Met David and Andy at Emory’s Theater Trois to watch this last night -- it’s just the big image/big sound movie to see there. Settled into one of Emory’s comfy leather chairs with a big bourbon and an orange, put my feet up, and went back to the clean-and-kind, early colonial days in Kenya. For all the faults of big budget Hollywood productions, when the system gets it right, it’s hard to beat. And Out of Africa is as fabulous as I remember it. In fact, better.
The first time I saw this movie, I responded exactly like Denys did to East Africa: there was so much great, open space and so much wildlife, I just had to get there to experience it first-hand. I should be embarrassed to say that this, but I think Out of Africa was a big part of the reason I went to East Africa the first time. What’s not to love in the images of the rift valley, the mixed herds of wildlife and the exotic acacia silhouettes?

But first time around, I think I missed what was going on in the movie because it’s not really a romantic praise of nature and its beauty. It goes lots further and, though set in East Africa, develops the very American theme of the loss of the frontier. Denys reminds me of Daniel Boone as Robert Morgan describes him in Boone. Morgan’s Boone as a frontiersman who loves being on the leading edge of the frontier, hunting independently or with a bud, making some money by his hunting or by using the knowledge he has gained from his leading-edge position. But he mostly likes being out there because he is more comfortable there than with his family or the society that he left behind. And that’s Denys in Out of Africa. He even admits to Karen that he sometimes goes out into the bush just because he likes it.

And the American frontier at the end of the 18th century was losing its wildlife and pristine character in Boone as fast as Kenya was in the early 20th century in Out of Africa. Daniel Boone saw farms and settlements and declines in beaver and buffalo; Denys saw litter along the railroad track and car tracks in game lands. By the end of the movie, in fact, the land no longer belongs to the native Kykuyu and Masai. It’s the king’s and ready to be surveyed and sold, the indigenous populations being pushed to the side. Just like in Kentucky. I completely missed this deep, American theme the first time I saw the movie, probably because the setting was so exotic.

Out of Africa ties the loss of the frontier theme to another American theme – working out the relationship between a man and his society. This theme got a poignant treatment recently in Into the Wild. The boy in that movie, Chris, takes his Tolstoy and goes on a road trip to Alaska where he hopes to experience connectedness. He reads Tolstoy as emphasizing a natural connection, so he ignores the opportunities for human, social connection he has along the way, opportunities with buddy Vince, girlfriend Kristen and surrogate dad Hal. But the nature connection doesn’t work out for Chris, and even his understanding of Tolstoy shifts from an emphasis on the link between an individual and nature to an emphasis on human connectedness. This insight comes late for Chris, though.

Denys goes on the same trip as Chris, though Out of Africa is a romance and not a road movie. Denys is a strong individual, too, and he generally prefers his connections to be with nature rather than with people. He’s disdainful of society, having only one real friend, and prefers his time in the bush to being in the city. Like Chris, though, Denys comes to see the importance of being connected with people. He’s clearly surprised when he discovers his friend, Berkeley, has an African mistress; Berkeley hadn’t told Denys about the woman because he didn’t think they knew each other well enough, and that insight makes Denys aware of is lack of connection. However, Denys is attracted by independence, and he’s attracted to Karen because he thinks he sees his own independence in her. However, as their relationship grows, it turns out that she’s more connected to people and society than he is despite her refusal to play a conventional role in her society. In their arguments, Denys comes to see the give-and-take and place of responsibility in a relationship, and he even acknowledges how he’s been wrong about things. But though Denys and Karen have some happiness (more than Chris in Into the Wild), it’s ultimately cut short by the fire on Karen’s estate and Denys’ accident. Denys is a little too slow to understand the importance of others in a life.

Works that deal with human connections always resonate with me, but there are a lot of other things in the film I connect with, too. I think the movie has some of the greatest music ever, and that’s not hyperbole. The grandeur and the minor key of the theme, along with its orchestration, create a sense of lift but also of nostalgia for something lost. It’s easy for me to dial it up from memory at about any time. And I like the spacious, inclusive framing of so many images. And the low angle exterior lighting and the soft interior. Also, the 1910s through 30s setting of the film is one of my favorite design periods, so I like the clothes and décor as much as the nature scenes.

I also connect with many of the locations and with the expat-in-Africa elements. I’ve been on that train from Nairobi to Mombassa twice, and the first trip (the 80s) reminded me of the movie. I slept on the train that time and went for breakfast as we were passing through Tsavo. Eating on silver and china, I sat in the dining car and watched antelope and giraffe as we headed to the coast. A great memory. Also, I’ve been to the Karen Blixen house a couple of times, and I remember the gardens and the period furnishings well. And the scene of the Africans watching for the cuckoo clock to chime reminded me of living in the bush in Mali when our house was the main source of amusement for the village lids, who would come to the house and look in the windows just to see what weird things the tubobs were doing when they had free time.

And how could anyone not like the romance in the movie? The appeal here is the earnest quest for love that both Karen and Denys are undertaking in their respective ways. Karen is independent, determined but warm; Denys has an almost childlike need for love despite the wisdom he’s developed in the bush. There’s no question of the spark between them. And that’s helped by their acting skills. The script is generally good, but both Streep and Redford have some godawful lines to deliver though they both do it so convincingly that I only realized the lines were bad in retrospect.

I could go on and on about the things I like in this movie. Not sure what the extended scenes are here, but perhaps the scene at the beach would be in that number….and perhaps some scenes were added to the trip Denys invites Karen on. I also liked the Karen character as having a quality I associate with Scandinavians and Germans: direct, very warm, lacking sweetness. Karen is all of that. Lastly, I guess I forgot the discussion of STDs in the film: Karen getting infected with syphilis, having to discuss it with Bror and then with Denys.….in Out of Africa? I totally blanked that in my first viewing of the film. Fairly progressive mainstream cinema for today, not to mention 1985.

I think this film is an extraordinary classic. How wonderful.