via bluedharma @ flickr
“Miss Amelia Earhart, why do you want to fly?”
“I want to be free.”
So began the trailer for the film Amelia, which was released late last month to an almost universal critical drubbing. When I saw the trailer over the summer, I had a bit of hope that the film might be worth the price of admission. Not because I’m a huge Hilary Swank fan (I’m pretty neutral on her) or a Richard Gere fan (meh), or even because it has Ewan McGregor (although I’ll see anything he’s in, as evidenced by the fact that I went to see this the night it opened with one of our dear readers). It was because, as someone who loves history, I’m always anxious to see if films about real people deliver the goods. Most of the time they don’t (see: A Beautiful Mind), but sometimes they hit the mark (see: Frost/Nixon, The Last King of Scotland). And if a filmmaker chooses to structure a biopic as a love story, it tends to work better when both parties are supposed to be the subject of the biography (see: Reds, Walk the Line). The fact that Amelia was presented as a love story would have been fine — if it was about Amelia and her passionate love for flying. Instead, we got a movie about her passion for . . . Richard Gere?
Director Mira Nair and screenwriter Ronald Bass seemed all too happy to keep the focus on the domestic front and not the cockpit. This movie is about a woman who was a pioneer for women in aviation, someone who dared to cut her hair short and wear pants at a time when that was considered completely outrageous. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. And we never see the development of that passion for flying. The film opens with her meeting George Putnam (Gere), who she will go on to marry after what appears to be the most anemic courtship in biopic history. There’s a bit of did-they-or-didn’t-they business when Earhart meets the suave aeronautics instructor Gene Vidal (McGregor), whose son Gore (yes, Gore Vidal) asks Earhart to marry his father. Never mind that there’s no actual evidence of an affair with Vidal; it’s more a device to throw tension into the Earhart-Putnam romance, which doesn’t work because the audience never feels invested in that marriage. And since the audience doesn’t care much about the marriage, it sucks the air out of the interest in Amelia herself. She’s presented as half of a partnership more than she is as an independent woman, and that’s the tragedy of Amelia.
By the way: Putnam was only ten years Earhart’s senior; Gere is twenty-five years older than Swank. But that much older man/younger woman pairing is a proud Hollywood tradition, as is completely missing the point of the subject of a biographical film.
You’ve come a long way, baby…?
So I was obsessed with Amelia Earhart for at time as a ten year-old, and even my ten year old self seemed to understand that her relationship was really secondary to her love of flying. Which is to say, being an overly romantical child, I searched for a sense of romance in the dozen or so books I read, and instead came away with her commitment to flying. What I guess I am trying to say is, I would have thought the marriage secondary to the main story in the film.
Fortunately, I care for neither Hilary nor Richard, and with this, will gladly miss seeing it.
It’s sad to see one of the greatest aviators of all time reduced to a housewife who “liked to fly.” Amelia Earhart was so much more than a woman pilot — she was a person who, like Charles Lindbergh, wanted to feel the sky against her face and to blaze new trails across the sky. Plenty have demeaned her flying skills and her personal life over the decades, but it takes Hollywood to reduce the iconic aviator to the flying equivalent of backseat driver. I actually preferred her portrayal in Night At The Museum 2, even though it, too, took liberties with her character, though those tended to be closer to her true persona.
Ugh. As soon as I heard Richard Gere was in this movie, I knew it wouldn’t be any good. I am sorry to hear this, but I am not surprised.
@Nefarious: The really sad part is that, early in the film, Amelia expresses dismay at being just a passenger. And then the film turns her into just that — her own accomplishments taking a back seat to a romance. Go figure.
From everything I read and heard about Earhart (some from women who actually met her), she married Putnam mainly because he had the funds to bankroll her flying. She really didn’t want to marry him — she didn’t seem to want to marry anyone. And yes, there were the usual rumors about her being a lesbian because “proper” women were housewives, not pilots. Sigh.
I always believed she just loved to fly.
As for her aviation skills, yeah, there are women pilots who thought she was more skilled at self-promotion than piloting. They were also mad that the world’s most recognized aviatrix got lost over the Pacific, which led to the patriarchy snickering over women not having the ability to fly.
Thanks for reviewing this. I had thought of seeing it, since I’m a pilot and all, but I think Swank is overrated and Gere irritating. Now I will save my money for something else.
I don’t know about her sexuality, but I read somewhere or other that she apparently consented to marry Putnam after repeated requests, on the condition that he didn’t get in the way of her flying or having lovers.
@JetGirl and PhD: Yeah, the movie at least made it clear that she “extracted a cruel promise” (as Putnam put it) that she wouldn’t have to be held to “a medieval code of fidelity”. And I think that’s another reason they threw Gene Vidal in there, the problem being that it seemed to paint Putnam as some long-suffering lovelorn husband, when it was not like that at all. The flying details of the film were great and accurate. The problem was that the movie didn’t center on that!
I liked that at least she was direct about insisting she would live her life, and marry Putnam if he really wanted to. And I kind of thought it was cool that she was never expecting Putnam to be in to her but was perfectly capable of moving things along when he was. I just wish some of the dialogue hadn’t been heavy enough to crash a biplane.
(My review of it: http://mkp-hearts-nyc.livejournal.com/256511.html)
Did anyone see “Coco Avant Chanel”? If so, what did you think of it?
Hold the phone… Last King of Scotland “hit the mark”?!?
Well, bummer. I hate that “let’s insert a romance where it totally doesn’t belong” biopic trope. Iron Jawed Angels pulled that. I’m not so up on that period of feminism, but even so I was going, “Wait, who is this guy again? If he’s historic, they can’t be doin’ it right.” And he wasn’t, of course. What’s the mindset there? The incredible lives of the embattled feminists aren’t interesting enough without a big romance? Bah.
At least Iron Jawed Angels was a pretty good film otherwise, which it doesn’t sound like Amelia is, alas. But I would have cast Tilda Swinton or someone like that as Amelia anyhow. I can’t remember if Earhart actually was tall, but she always felt tall to me. And if they can cast Ingrid Bergman as Gladys Aylward (ANOTHER biopic with a stupid added romance…).
Sorry. Here from a Shapely Prose link, and enjoying the blog. Didn’t mean to rant, and do appreciate the review.
Every time that Hollywood takes on an eclective and/or highly self-sufficient, independent woman the sh*t always hits the FANS. As an out bi woman I don’t believe that Amelia Earhart was straight – not at all. I think this movie is an attempt to rewrite HIStory in order to cover over a real woman’s real life, to fit the extremely misogynist and HOMOPHOBIC Inquisition going on in this f*cking country. And, thanks rainy_day – I agree: Richard Gere being in a film is a sign of bad politics and even worse acting!
I wouldn’t consider going to any film about anyone like Amelia Earhart unless the film were an Independent film, or a foreign film. Mainstream Hollywood is all about destroying the truth, especially where women of bravery and iconoclasm are concerned. Readers: check out more of the independent/LGBT movies and you will see more movies about women that are worth seeing. To HELL with Hollywood!
@Ciji: I was wondering about that. I was under the impression they made three of Amin’s doctors into McAvoy’s character. And there was the affair he had with Amin’s wife which made him flee. So, yeah, while it was a powerful performance and an exhilarating movie, to claim it got ‘history right’ is a bit off.
Not many films every get it close to right, which is a shame, as history is far more engrossing than most historical fiction.
It’s a shame to hear Ron Bass made one of the most independent and enigmatic women in American history a bit of a passenger. As far as I can recall, Ron Bass has a great history of making strong female characters, even if they’re not feminist by any definition.