Sweet Liberty (1986)

Captivating movie !

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It was not too much of a strain for Alan Alda to do Sweet Liberty as his character of Hawkeye Pierce from MASH stepped right from the small screen to the big. Imagine Hawkeye as an American history professor writing a book on the southern theater of the American Revolution and you've got a start to Sweet Liberty.Alda has not only written a book, but it was so good that he got some big bucks from Hollywood for the screen rights. And the company is going to film on location in North Carolina where Alda teaches history at a college and where he participates in the annual recreation of the Battle of Cowpens. But one read of what the Hollywood writers have done to his work and he's ready to sue.Well that's not going to work because they've got the contract and the lawyers to back them up. How to salvage his work, for that he turns to screenwriter Bob Hoskins to help him navigate the ways of the movie business jungle. Hoskins too would like to see his name on something worthwhile and maybe Academy Award winning.This involves Alda wooing in a different way stars of the film Michael Caine and Michelle Pheiffer. Caine is quite a wooer himself and the best performance from the supporting cast is that of Lois Chiles who plays Caine's wife who's decided he's been on too long a leash.But in the scenes he's in Bob Hoskins truly steals Sweet Liberty. He's the quintessential Hollywood man who drags Alan Alda along through the highways and byways of movie speak. Saul Rubinek is also good as a most harassed and egotistical director.I would like to have seen more of Lillian Gish playing Alda's dotty mother who wants to hook up with a bricklayer she had a LONG ago fling with. It's that way with Alzheimer's patients they remember something from ages ago, but not what they had for dinner yesterday. All I can say was the sex must have been fabulous.Sweet Liberty is nice sparkling comedy about the business of making movies.

I had hoped to like this film a bit more than I did, and I certainly expected to laugh more. Sweet Liberty is an Alan Alda project through and through. In it, he plays a history professor whose historical novel is going to be made into a movie during one crazy summer in the little college town. Everyone is excited about the upcoming shoot, but Alda's excitement turns to disgust once the cast and crew arrive. He finally gets a look at the script and finds out that the movie will be sort of a sex comedy with little regard for historical accuracy. Alda then sets out with the screenwriter to try and convince the actors and director to film his own version. While all of this is going on, we sit through several arguments about Alda's relationship status with his girlfriend. We are also treated to the eccentricities of Alda's ancient mother played by legendary actress Lillian Gish. Overall, there is just too much going on, and the film never quite sustains any comedic momentum.The film has some genuine strengths. The cast is an eclectic bunch of old stars, new faces, and genial nobodies. Alda and Michael Caine basically play themselves and do a very good job. Michelle Pfeiffer is not only beautiful as hell, but she also gives a strong early performance as the lead actress. Bob Hoskins' character is well-written, but he plays the man in too shrill of a manner to be taken seriously. His screenwriter character has some wonderful points to make about using flattery to get the attention of the actors and director if you want them to change what they are doing. But he is just so hyper that you cringe whenever you hear his voice. Saul Rubinek is good as the hotshot, pompous young director who is only out to show the audience three things: People defying authority, destruction of property, and people taking off their clothing. That's what industry research shows that younger audiences want, he informs Alda more than once.There are other problems besides the annoying Hoskins character. I'm sure it would seem desirable for an icon like Lillian Gish to be included in just about any film at that time. However, her character and scenes are just not needed and end up being more of a distraction than anything else. Alda and his girlfriend have about the same argument at least half a dozen times. Another scene looks like it will give a huge laugh payoff, but it falls flat. In it, a group of stunt men are in a bar with some of the local re-creators of the Battle of Cowpens who will also be used as extras in the film. The stunt men are trying to tell the amateurs how to fall in the battle scene. One of the stunt men breaks out one of those harnesses that people use to get pulled backwards through doorways in bar fight scenes. And you think you are going to see one of the amateurs get unknowingly hooked up to it and taken for the ride of his life. But alas, they apparently thought it would be funnier for the guy just to fall down on his back like an idiot. Another missed opportunity! 5 of 10 stars.The Hound.

This is one of the funniest movies that utilized the irony between truth and fiction through the eternal clash between history and art, to present an enjoyable comedy which mocks at both !Look at the movie's point of view out of its own cosmos : history is unknown, since nobody reads in the image's age. Cinema is just a lie to make a thrilling time, whether history is damaged or not; to create the artistic "lying" version of it! Movie stars are sick people after that creative lying sneaked into them, from their work to their daily behaviors, to become whether unfaithful to their wives (Michael Caine), or at least schizophrenic (Michelle Pefiffer). The director is a cat's-paw in the hands of giant studio that wants nothing but money and down with the credibility. So, the writer becomes the last man standing, or the last honorable worrier for the truth; which turns him into the enemy. Consequently, he finds that the only heroic solution is to deal randomly and impudently, like all the others, to achieve just one thing he believes in, by the way he exactly wants. To grow eventually – despite all of his pure idealistic principles – into one of the liars, and a shield in the machine of cinema (not history !) as the last shot reveals to us sarcastically; where (Alan Alda) listens to the TV reporter and her question about "the secret of his movie's success" to find no answer but smiling with vanity, or as a ridicule of everything !This movie is hilarious, however so believable. The performance was flawless. In fact, the whole cast was great to an extent where you feel how this is not acting at all ! The comedy is ironic and thoughtful in the same time, because of that top notch script by (Alan Alda) which was genius with some talented details : The short storyline of the old mother and her needing of lying to be happy, the big climax to achieve one victory by "the historical truth" side, and to embody the real conflict of the movie through a wonderful droll battle, not to mention small moments but so rich; like the scene of (Michael Caine) and his story about meeting (Winston Churchill); it could say a lot about the effect of WW2 on a character as disordered as his, however leaving the story as it is (true or false) is one wicked wink to us about the meaning of the movie, and its main irony.Finally, did (Alda) mean that illusion is the (Sweet Liberty) from all the annoying facts that we live in our lives ? Or that truth nowadays is the (Sweet Liberty) from all the lies that we sunk under them ? Whatever the answer is, asking the question proves how (Alda) is an intelligent movie-maker, and how he managed to make profound and entertaining comedy. Actually, it's wholly rare plus interesting for me as a scriptwriter myself and a previous student of history too.

I have seen this film several times and on the most recent viewing, I noticed a continuity goof. Alan Alda's character Michael Burgess reads the Hollywood-ized script that has "not been taken" from his book and is outraged at the changes and historical inaccuracies. He spends the entire movie trying to make things right again, even going so far as to sabotage the filming. But then at the end, Michael accosts the director Bo Hodges and blithely apologizes for what he's done. If Michael Burgess is so outraged all through the film, why does he suddenly recant and apologize for his actions at the very end? He seems to be indecisive.This jolted me a little, but did not diminish my enjoyment of this otherwise fine film and its gentle comedy. It's well worth seeing.