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Terms of Endearment (1983) despite being a comedy for most of the movie -with Shirley MacLaine being courted by astronaut Jack Nicholson- also deals with the terminal illness of her daughter Debra Winger, which recalls memories of Koresky's father's early onset Alzheimers and Leslie's grief over his untimely 2011 death at age 65. It also serves as a fulcrum for Leslie to talk about the traumatic psychological and physical abuse she endured from her mentally ill mother. Mommie Dearest (1981) while treated as the camp cult comedy it has become, also considers how her portrayal of child abuser Joan Crawford unfairly stigmatized actress Faye Dunaway's career. 'Mommy Dearest,' 'Terms of Endearment,' and 'Baby Boom' are among the films discussed in 'Films of Endearment.'
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Nine to Five (1980) with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton battling their chauvinist office boss, deals with Leslie's attempts to balance motherhood and work, as well as discussing mainstreaming feminism in the workplace, influencing her career choices, but also engendering a conversation on Hollywood's disdain for women directors. The first four chapters are the most emotionally intense. The movies they chose may not be my or your favorite films of that decade, but Koresky aptly balances the emotional connection with the analytical/critical side, sharing background information about each movie, the actors, and similar films made that same year, which also could have been chosen or had personal relevance. Cinema acts as a bridge between mother and son, and allowed them to reveal secret aspects of themselves. Koresky is interested in understanding how his own identity developed from what he saw on film and how it helped form the "gradual creation of a refracted queer consciousness," which as he notes "exists in interdependence and conflict with the long-held structures of the heteronormative world - necessarily keeping such a parent-child relationship at a remove."īut as Koresky notes, movies also allow us to connect with the lives of others. What are the hidden parts of the self that a movie can lay bare?" "Watching a film can pull you back to an experience from youth, but it can also beckon you into some- thing inherent or inexplicable inside yourself.
Mommy dearest 1981 professional#
To discover more about their shared movie past, Koresky initiated a project where they would rewatch ten films Leslie first introduced to him as a child, one from every year of the 1980s which had special significance for both of them and all featuring strong women characters in leading roles.ĭuring this process Koresky, happily married to his husband, turned 40, so it compels him to reexamine his personal and professional goals as he approaches mid-life with ruminations on age and mortality. Koresky's passion for cinema started early in his childhood growing up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts during the 1980s when his young parents would watch VHS tapes at home, shared as a family, though both Koresky and Leslie agree the 1940s are the best era for films. And you return to them, because movies change as we change, grow as we grow, friends that reveal new facets with every viewing." When you love movies so desperately, you see the world differently through them and because of them. For Koresky, movies "are a way of life, a totalizing force that informs our experiences and interactions.
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Koresky is editorial director at New York City's Museum of the Moving Image and a freelance programmer at the Criterion Collection. It's a hybrid memoir, with film criticism and cultural history of what was occurring cinematically in the 1980s, skillfully intertwined into the events in his and his mother Leslie's lives. This experience of how movies illuminate our lives is at the center of gay film critic Michael Koresky's innovative and captivating book, Films of Endearment: A Mother, a Son and the '80s Films That Defined Us (Hanover Square Press). It has emblematic significance so that when you recall the movie, the memory of what was happening at that time in your life becomes real again. You remember where you saw it, with whom you saw it, and even why you wanted to see it. You can see a movie at a certain period in your life and it can have a great impact on you. Movies not only reflect our desires but they can create them.