Sayles deserves a salute as a pioneer of the American indiefilm movement that I spent the ‘80s and after writing about.
— From Spectator Magazine, February 12, 1981
Return of the Secaucus 7
Your attention, please. This is a movie alert for the age group that’s too young to recall the Korean War and too old to forget Vietnam, especially those with memories of college peace marches, white armbands, and strikes rather than exams or frat parties. Remember Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming / We’re finally on our own? Ever felt that the “we” in Neil Young’s lyric stood for something— a sense of community or shared ideals, perhaps—that evaporated during the last decade without anyone ever explaining why or how or what would come next? If so, drop everything, pile into the Honda or minibus, and make tracks for John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus 7. And I should add that this alert also applies to folks of other ages and backgrounds—to anyone, in fact, who wants to see the brightest, most spirited and humane American comedy of last year.
However, those who share John Sayles’ place on the generational map are bound to discover in his film greater pleasures, flashes of recognition and personal delight that few movies ever offer any constituency. I must admit my bias in this regard. At an age identical to the film’s characters—29, going traumatically on 30—and with a similar store of experiences and acquaintances, I’m not entirely capable of judging Secaucus 7 with objectivity and detachment. On the other hand, I can verify that, in addition to the wit and formal excellence applauded by the nation’s senior critics, the film also has the bite of truth.
It’s a complex truth, and Sayles doesn’t stint by trying to sum up the varied fortunes of his generation in two or three figures. He gives us seven survivors of the Seventies as well as a handful of friends and neighbors, a feat of dramaturgy noteworthy in itself (try to think of the last film you saw with more than a half-dozen fully-realized central characters). They jokingly call themselves the Secaucus 7, a reference to an incident eight years before when, as college students, they were arrested for accidentally hitting a deer on the road to an anti-war demonstration in Washington. Yet “Free the Secaucus 7” has its ironic overtones, too. Were they not freer in spirit then—absurdly jailed, but united in conviction and comradeship and the exhilaration of the times—than they are now, separated into lives and careers that are less inspiring than they might have imagined? This and other questions arise as the seven old friends are reunited for a weekend in the country.
A weekend of volleyball and music, of skinny-dipping and beer drinking, is also an occasion for the kind of self-scrutiny prompted by shared reminiscences. They can’t look back without looking at what they’ve become. Most seem vaguely disappointed and uneasy despite—or perhaps because of—their outward security: this, after all, is the generation that never had to worry about necessities. Mike and Katie, who host the gathering, worry that their happiness as high school teachers and long-standing lovers is turning into a rigid complacency. Frances, who pursued a career in medicine, begins the weekend looking to J.T. for the warmth she missed during her single-minded devotion to school. But J.T., an amiable songwriter who has as yet not proved his talent, has his eyes on Maura, who has just left Jeff and what had seemed the group’s most enduring relationship. Jeff arrives on Saturday, more than a little unhappy over both Maura and his frustrations as a social worker. And Irene, an aide to a liberal Senator, joins the party defensive about the compromises of her work and about bringing along her new boyfriend Chip, an outsider.
From all these complications, emotional and circumstantial, emerges a fine, richly detailed group portrait of people haunted by a feeling of letdown, of missed possibilities. Is it just regret over a fading youth, or was there really some once-in-a-millennium magic about the Vietnam/Woodstock era, the passing of which left the world darker, more constricted? I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with those—generations older and younger and, especially, my contemporaries who went to Vietnam instead of college or Canada—who see the campus longhairs and radicals of a decade ago as the spoiled, neurotic children of a society prosperous and secure enough to be uniquely permissive. John Sayles wouldn’t disagree either, I think. But he is also able to see and argue the other side of the question: i.e., that this generation’s ideals of peace, equality, and social responsibility were espoused sincerely and, at times, nobly. None of the Secaucus 7, it should be noted, has aban- doned these ideals for fame or lucre; they all still struggle to live out their convictions. Yet their attempt to do so has left them on the periphery of society, left them to wonder alone and amongst them- selves if their vaulting collective values haven’t, in fact, betrayed their individual chances for stability and happiness. That Sayles is able to examine this question without reducing it to bromides is one of many remarkable facets of Return of the Secaucus 7.
I don’t mean to imply that such ponderous concerns loom over the film when, actually, they percolate up through a comedy that’s as warm, genuine, and deviously funny as any I’ve seen in years. Sayles has a keen ear for the way people josh, probe and humor each other, and he devises situations that naturally overflow with comic possibilities. There are moments of perfect observation, of unavoidable hilarity: pale weekend athletes huffing and puffing up a basketball court; women debating babies versus independence over a game of Clue (“Col. Mustard in the conservatory with the wrench”); an offhanded discussion of recreational inebriants (beer has replaced pot, which is regarded almost as the relic of a lost ritual); a comparative commentary, by two women observing the skinny-dipping, on the males’ anatomies (“I understand now what she sees in him”); creaking beds in a house of thin walls; the bleary eyes of a Sunday morning hangover. And, most brilliantly, the film’s dialogue captures the in-jokes, shared prejudices, and common lingo that define a friendship and make one set of friends different from another. In one scene, one of the seven “puts on” an earnest, unsuspecting college student with a mock-serious discussion of rock music, creating a moment that sums up the gulf in sensibility separating the students of the Sixties and those of the Seventies.
If Secaucus 7 is a celebration of friendship, it is also a product of the same. The film was made for the unheard-of low budget of $60,000—which wouldn’t pay for an Alpo commercial or Darth Vader’s pinkie ring—because a group of friends donated their time, skills and equipment. Sayles used friends as actors; only one had previous experience in film. And the performances are marvelous. (Brian Johnston of Raleigh is one of the featured non-professionals, playing a drunk in the town jail.) Shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm, the film was a shoestring, labor-of-love operation, obviously. Its success at the box office is an auspicious landmark for independent filmmaking in this country.
It’s also an auspicious debut for John Sayles, writer, director and editor of Return of the Secaucus 7. At 30, Sayles already has two critically-lauded books (Pride of the Bimbos and Union Dues) to his credit. Like Coppola, Scorsese, Bogdanovich, and others, he entered the movies as a scriptwriter for B-movie king Roger Corman; last year his credits included the screenplay for Alli- gator, an unusually droll and satiric horror cheapie. With Secaucus 7, he joins the ranks of America’s most promising young direc- tors—even though the film’s visual style is simple and functional, a far cry from the flashy debuts of Lucas, Spielberg, et al. Sayles’ main talent is literary, and I hope it stays that way. After a decade of camera-oriented whiz-kid directors, having a writer join the crowd is an unexpected boon. Like a bluejeaned Renoir, his touch is subtle and compassionate, and we’ll surely need that delicacy in the future, especially when—horror of horrors—the hippies and radicals of yesteryear turn 40.
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