Garden State is a 2004 film written by, directed by, and starring Zach Braff, with Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Sir Ian Holm. The film centers on Andrew Largeman (Braff), a 26-year-old actor/waiter who returns to his hometown in New Jersey after his mother dies. The title alludes both to the nickname for New Jersey, and to lines from Andrew Marvell's poem "The Garden" ("Such was that happy garden-state,/ While man there walked without a mate").
It was filmed over 25 days in April and May 2003 and released on July 28, 2004. The main setting and primary shooting location was New Jersey. Garden State production notes It was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival. The film won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film contains many allusions to the similar coming-of-age film The Graduate (1967), most notably the opening airplane scene that both pictures share.
Garden State was well-received, and is considered a major success for Scrubs actor Zach Braff, as it was his feature film debut as a director. Lacking the publicity machine of most mainstream Hollywood films, it generated a devoted fan base from people who read and responded to Braff's blog on the film's official site. Many fans drove hours to see the film and saw it repeatedly in theaters. The film also spawned a popular soundtrack for which Braff, who picked the music himself, won a Grammy award.
Plot
Andrew Largeman (Braff) wakes up from a dream - in which he apathetically sits on a crashing plane - to a telephone message from his father (Holm), telling Andrew that he needs to return home because his mother has died.
Andrew leaves Los Angeles and returns home to New Jersey to attend the funeral. He recognizes the grave-diggers as old friends Mark (Sarsgaard) and Dave (Alex Burns), who invite him to a party that night at the house of an old friend of theirs, Jesse (Armando Riesco). After smoking marijuana, he takes ecstasy at the party but remains detached. At home, Andrew has his father book a doctor's appointment for headaches he's been having.
The morning after the party, Andrew proceeds to the appointment. In the waiting room, he meets a girl named Sam (Portman), who is a pathological liar. She later explains that most times she doesn't know why she lies and will always admit to them afterward. In Andrew's meeting with his doctor (Ron Leibman), it is revealed that Andrew has been on lithium and other mood stabilizers, as well as antidepressants, for his entire adult life, but has recently stopped taking them. He also says that his father, who is his psychiatrist, put him on the medication. Andrew finds Sam outside the office and offers her a ride home. Sam invites him into her house, and he meets her mother, who inadvertently reveals that Sam is an epileptic. Andrew tells Sam of his mother's death, and Sam tearfully eulogizes her hamster. After returning home, Andrew's father confronts him and is insistent that they have a talk before Andrew leaves.
Later, Andrew and Jesse sit in the cemetery as Mark digs another grave. Andrew observes Mark stealing jewelry from the corpse he is burying. Andrew then returns to Sam's house, and the two spend the rest of the day together, joining his friends later. Andrew tells her that when he was nine years old he pushed his mother in frustration, knocking her over a broken dishwasher in an accident that left her paraplegic; he says that his father blames him for his wife's paralysis and put him on his medications to "protect him" from the anger he supposedly harbors. Sam listens and Andrew then admits his feelings for her.
The next day, Mark tells Andrew that he needs help "tracking down" a going-away present for him. Sam, Andrew, and Mark spend the day together, ending it in a quarry in Newark where Mark talks to a man named Albert (Denis O'Hare), who is employed in keeping intruders out of the quarry. The three visitors discuss the reasons for which Albert and his wife choose to live in the quarry. Albert explains that living there and exploring the quarry is "doing something that's completely unique, that's never been done before," mirroring an earlier speech by Sam. Finally, Albert explains that what actually matters is his family. Andrew is inspired by the conversation, and outside in the rain, he climbs atop a derelict crane and screams into the quarry, joined by Sam and Mark. He and Sam then share their first kiss.
When Mark and Andrew look at the gift later on, it turns out to be Andrew's mother's favorite pendant, one of the items Mark stole from her grave, sold, and subsequently located. Andrew eventually talks with his father, and states that he was not to blame for his mother's accident and that he will live his life without medication. He forgives his father and says he wants to build a better relationship with him.
The morning after, Andrew says his goodbyes to Sam at the airport, while she begs him not to leave. He acknowledges that she has changed his life but that he still has to fix his personal problems before continuing the relationship. Andrew boards the flight, and Sam is left crying in a telephone booth. Andrew then returns, saying that he doesn't want to waste any more of his life without Sam. He wonders what to do next, and the two share a kiss.
Themes
#0|560414|The Petrified Forest|Archie Mayo|Hal B. Wallis (executive producer uncredited)|Robert E. Sherwood (play) Charles Kenyon Delmer Daves|Leslie Howard Bette Davis Humphrey Bogart Genevieve Tobin Dick Foran||Sol Polito|||Warner Bros.|February 6, 1936 (U.S. release)|83 min||English|||The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest is a 1936 American film. A precursor to film noir, it is adapted from Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 play of the same name., Internet Broadway Database, undated. Accessed May 21, 2009. The screenplay is by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon; it stars Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart in his career breakthrough role as Duke Mantee. The script has been performed numerous times, including on stage, radio, and television.
Plot
Title from The Petrified Forest film trailer.jpgleftthumb200pxTitle from the film's trailer
This 1930s drama is set in the Petrified Forest area in northern Arizona. Hitchhiker Alan Squier, who sees himself as a failed writer, wanders into a roadside diner. The diner is run by Jason Maple (Porter Hall), his daughter Gabrielle (Gabby), and her grandfather (Charley Grapewin), "an old man who was missed by Billy the Kid."
Gabby's mother was a French war bride who fell in love with Gabby's father when he was a young, handsome, uniformed American serviceman. They married and moved to the remote Petrified Forest. Gabby's mother found her husband a "dull defeated man" and moved back to France when Gabby was a young child. She now sends Gabby poetry. Gabby dreams about visiting Bourges to study art. Gabby shows Alan her paintings and reads him a favorite Villon poem. Alan finds Gabby's eagerness and optimism touching and refreshing.
Duke Mantee, "world famous killer" and his gang appear, and hold everyone hostage. When Gabby is out of the room, Alan signs over an insurance policy on his life to Gabby. He asks Duke to shoot him. "It couldn't make any difference to you, Duke. After all, if they catch you, they can hang you only once..." And to another character, he explains: "Living, I'm worth nothing to her. Dead — I can buy her the tallest cathedrals, and golden vineyards, and dancing in the streets."
Cast
*Leslie Howard ... Alan Squier
*Bette Davis ... Gabrielle Maple
*Humphrey Bogart ... Duke Mantee
*Genevieve Tobin ... Mrs. Chisholm
*Dick Foran ... Boze Hertzlinger
*Joe Sawyer ... Jackie (billed as Joseph Sawyer)
*Porter Hall ... Jason Maple
*Charley Grapewin ... Gramp Maple
*Paul Harvey ... Mr. Chisholm
*Eddie Acuff ... Lineman
*Adrian Morris ... Ruby
*Nina Campana ... Paula
*Slim Thompson ... Slim
*John Alexander ... Joseph
Though Bogart was successful in the Broadway role of Mantee, he was not originally cast in the film version. Warner Brothers planned to use Edward G. Robinson, who was under contract to Warners. Legend has it that Leslie Howard lobbied Jack Warner to hire Bogart after the struggling actor called him from New York to remind him that he had said that he would not appear in a movie version without Bogart as Mantee. According to Robert Sklar, studio politics and Robinson's reluctance to take another gangster role resulted in Bogart being cast (Sklar, 1992, pp. 60–62). The film brought Bogart much recognition for which he remained grateful to Howard throughout his life — eventually naming his daughter after Howard.
Bogart's portrayal of Mantee mimicked the notorious and recently deceased bank robber John Dillinger, whom Bogart resembled.
A dozen years afterward, Robinson played a remarkably similar role in Key Largo (1948) — a noted gangster momentarily holding a disparate group of people in a Floridian hotel hostage - while the hero of that movie was played by Bogart.
The movie set includes saguaro cacti, which do not grow in the Petrified Forest Desert.
Adaptations
In addition to its Broadway and film productions, The Petrified Forest was performed on live television in 1955 with Bogart, Henry Fonda, and Lauren Bacall, and CBS's radio Lux Radio Theater also in 1937 with (Herbert Marshall, Margaret Sullivan, Donald Meek)
and 1945 with (Ronald Coleman, Susan Hayward, Lawrence Tierney).
1940 radio version
The Petrified Forest was adapted as a radio play on the January 7, 1940 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Joan Bennett, Tyrone Power and Humphrey Bogart.
1955 live televised version
Bacall,Bogart,Fonda.jpgthumbrightBacall, Bogart and Fonda in the 1955 live televised versionThe Petrified Forest was remade in 1955 on live television as an installment of Producer's Showcase, a weekly dramatic anthology, featuring a now top-billed Bogart as Mantee, Henry Fonda in Leslie Howard's role, and Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall playing Bette Davis' part. Jack Klugman, Richard Jaeckel, and Jack Warden had supporting roles. Unlike many live television dramas of the 1950s, this one still exists and remains archived for viewing at The Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
The cast list was as follows:
Humphrey Bogart ... Duke Mantee
Henry Fonda ... Alan Squier
Lauren Bacall ... Gaby
Dick Elliott ... Commander
Richard Gaines ... Mr. Chisholm
Paul Hartman ... Jason Maple
Richard Jaeckel ... Ruby
Jack Klugman ... Jackie
Steven Ritch ... Lineman (billed as Steve Ritch)
Natalie Schafer ... Mrs. Chisholm
Joseph Sweeney ... Gramps
Jack Warden ... Boze
Legacy
* Bogart also played a strikingly similar part himself even later in The Desperate Hours (1955), in which his gangster holds a suburban family hostage; at the time, Bogart referred to this character as "Duke Mantee grown up."
* The interplay between Leslie Howard and Bette Davis is parodied in the 1937 Merrie Melodies cartoon She Was an Acrobat's Daughter.
* The hitchhiking scene with Leslie Howard was parodied by comedian Chris Elliott in The Traveling Poet, a short film produced by Brad Hall for television's Late Night with David Letterman.
* The novel Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates opens with a 1955 amateur-theater production of The Petrified Forest, which is the same year as the live TV performance.
References
*
This text has been derived from Garden State (film) on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
