Comments for Midwestern Literature

Comment on Film by elaine

elaine — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:47:30 +0000

Three Clues in the Movie Hoosiers
— love, friendship, and family’s affection
By Yijun Ding
I was moved when the moment coach Norman Dale and the school teacher Myra walking together hand in hand under the golden setting sun in the beautiful cornfield, looking at each other with a deep loving kiss at the end of the movie; I was moved when all the basketball players were riveted in the picture celebreting the wonderful moment of triumph at the end of the movie, and my mind was always hunted by the words that Norman told his basketball players: “I love you guys!” I was also moved by the moment when the basketball-loving town drunkard and his son finally understand each other and hug together so tight in the hospital, and the words from his son that “I love you Dad” just like the best thing in his life that he never experienced. But all in all, it is the power of the basketball, and it is the miracle made by the basketball.
It is a great movie which inspired by a true story of Milan Miracle in the 1950s about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. It is a typical and successful American Midwest movie, not only because it characterized with large farm land and the common story with ordinary people, but also because it is the conbination of “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” as the Library of Congress said. But how does the basketball have the power to put people together? I think it works through these three Clues in the Movie: the romantic love, the friendship, and family’s affection.
The romantic love between the new basketball coach Norman Dale and the school teacher Myra is the only interesting thing for me that can catch my attention at the beginning of the movie, before I am not the sports lover, no mantion to the basketball, because I don’t like it at all. But the basketball achieves their love, as their love achieves the champion of the basketball game as well. The movie starts a former successful college coach Norman Dale, who takes a last chance job coaching small Hickory High in basketball-crazed Indiana. Their love can’t be so strong if everything is well with the new coach. Actually, the controversy from local people surrounding the coach and his new and bold practicing methods, and it didn’t lead them to the champion. After the team suffers a losing streak, the folks are on the verge of sending Dale home, the school teacher Myra comes to encourage him and give a speech with tears to support him to stay for teaching the Huskers longer. That was a great moment that their love began to sprout. Every time, when the Dale in on the stage in game, Myra always gives him a sweet simle. They talk about the basketball, talk about Jimmy—a troubled boy who doesn’t say much, but the basketball star in that school, and they also talk about their own life. Their love makes the movie not only about the sport, not boring, but actually romantic. They didn’t say “I love you” or “I miss you” like this, but their love is so ture, so pure, and so beautiful just like the peaceful field in the Midwest in autumn. Maybe we are all moved by the love story in the movie between Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) and teacher Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey). In real life, Coach Marvin Wood was married with two children. He was not romantically involved with a teacher from the school. Coach Wood’s wife, Mary Lou, often worried aloud, “If a basketball and I were placed at half-court, which one would he choose?” Rick Paridaen, a friend of the family, believes the answer would easily have been Mary Lou, the real love of Marvin”s life. The film”s romance was an element of fiction added by screenwriter Angelo Pizzo. But finally, they are together, because of the power of the basketball.
The friendship between the coach Dale and his team players is also moved me a lot. At the begnnining of the practice, the Huskers six players seem to don’t like him, the the players just run and run and run, but never take a shot. The friendship between Jimmy and him is the one touched thing for me. Jimmy doesn’t like Dale at first, but after the team suffers a losing streak, the folks are on the verge of sending Dale home, until Jimmy steps in. He decides it’s time to play, but on one condition: the coach stays. Then the winning begins, and it doesn’t stop. If there is no such a good coach, Jimmy probably would not start his basketball career. Likewise, if Jimmy didn’t attend the team, there is no miracle of champion. When the team got the last shoot, it is a perfect moment to show their friendship. At the end of the movie, Norman told his basketball players: “I love you guys!” I can see the passion in every player’s eyes, and they all doing their best to get their honor, to win the game and let the coach stay. At that time, even they didn’t get the champion, I still thought every player is the champion.
In the movie, the main character coach Norman Dale is middle-aged man, but in the real story the coach is a young man who was only 26 when Milan won the title. The real Coach of the championship team named Coach Marvin Wood, born in Morristown, Indiana, and died in 1999. In the movie Hoosiers, coach Norman Dale, was played by Gene Hackman who was 55 when the movie was being filmed. Screenwriter Angelo Pizzo said the following about keeping the Coach in the movie the same age as his real life counterpart, “I wrote it that way and the movie didn”t work. If he had failed, he still had the rest of his life. I went back and made the character older, a guy with a last chance.” At the time of the actual championship, Coach Marvin Wood had been a recent graduate of Butler University, where he played both baseball and basketball. At Butler, Marvin played on two Hoosier Classic championship teams (1947-48 and 1948-49) when Butler defeated both Indiana and Purdue in the same tournament. He put the coach Dale with a last chance, that makes the movie much more intensive, full of contradiction.
I still think the family’s affection between the basketball-loving town drunkard and his son is the most touching thing for me in the movie. The problem between them caused by basketball, but it also solved by the basketball. Maybe he is not a decent man, he has no job, and even beg money from Dale. Maybe he is not a good father, not a good coach, but he changed his attitude of life after Dale talked to him. When Dale leave the team, he became the associate coach, and he really did a good job in his position. His son is the player of these six, and he became to understand his father, and finally said to his father: “I love you Dad.”
We all know it is based on the ture story of Milan, but these three clues in the movie make the movie so successful and different from the other sports movie, even can say it is much more outstanding than other sports movie. It is a conbinition of romantic love, the relationship between father and son, and the friendship. I just want to know why the basketball or should I say why the sport has the power to get people together, to let people love each othe more and more, to get the world warmer and warmer. All of these resulted from the love of sports, the passion of basketball. I was not a basketball lover, but now I think it is the time for me to love the basketball, to love the sports, why not?

Comment on Things I Learned from Midwestern Literature by violingal

violingal — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:21:56 +0000

Well said! What a pleasurable experience to have so many experts share with us. Meeting a poet, an author, a playwright, an historian, a French professor, a musician, an artist, and the man who knows them all, helped me understand how we all work together, bringing our knowledge, values, and traditions, to define and develop the land we know as the midwest.

Comment on Easter Morning by mdenotto

mdenotto — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:59:39 +0000

I really like this Zach. Good stuff man. I know what you mean, about being unsure if you want your poetry to be so very exposed here, perhaps your efforts will inspire others . . .

Comment on Green Shutters by cliffyj7

cliffyj7 — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:20:04 +0000

I have a typo here…Oscar Mayer not Meyer

Comment on The Familial Bond in “Another Way Home” by mdenotto

mdenotto — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:50:14 +0000

My grandmother made it a point to write the history of her family. Though the book is not very literary, it is still an invaluable asset to our family. Through it is a record that her and my ancestors can follow along with and be proud of. Through researching she was able to trace her ancestors back to the Mayflower along to one of the first state’s governor. Also, I was surprised to learn that she could trace our family back to members of the notorious Donner party whose turn to cannabalism while trapped in the snowy mountains in the west. Nonetheless, a family hisotry is definitely a treasure.

Comment on Living in Limestone Country by mdenotto

mdenotto — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Between you and ol’ Scott Russell, I feel like I am greatly missing out on not having spent much time in the Bloomington area. Though, I did go to a two week long IU soccer camp when I was maybe 13 or 14, it was a fairly big deal for young Illinoisian like myself. The descriptions remind me somewhat of the southern Illinois area around Carbondale, which I personally refer to as Carbontucky, as I feel its pretty much more like Kentucky than Illinois, in a number of ways, and I shall here be polite and not go into great specificity on this matter other than pointing out the similarity in great wooded areas and unique geographic and geological features along with, a shall we say slower lifestyle. Anyway, it sounds like beautiful land, and I’d like to explore some of it. I think it’d have been fun to be around there back then, especially during Peter’s wild years.

Comment on Bigger Thomas: A Quest for Identity in a World of Self Limitation by mdenotto

mdenotto — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:35:06 +0000

I think this is a very interesting look at Bigger and Native Son, I think that along with the issue of race, one could also look at class distinctions and problems playing a role in Bigger’s isolation and inability to live in a truly productive life through the various economic and social opportunities and advancements that would be purposefully and often spitefully withheld from him. In addition, I feel that Wright’s novel is also about Bigger and the modernist idea of alienation in an increasingly modern world. This a topic of many great modern works from authors of such repute and fame as Bertolt Brecht, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, and Albert Camus. All of which Wright would have either admired or personally had some sort of interaction with whether in Europe or in Chicago while meeting and conversing with fellow artists.

This issue of feeling excluded and alone, in an increasingly modern world where communications, technologies, and the ability to travel with relative ease have only increased in number and level, still persists and afflicts us. Yet, despite these and other conveniences that are designed to bring the world closer together, human beings still cannot escape great feelings of isolation and often experience an utter lack of profundity and meaning in their lives for which the modern day world and its constant stream of new and improved products and gadgets holds no sort of panacea to end the interminable suffering and feelings of alienation that still plague human society.

I also wanted to add to your point about Bigger escaping reality by seeing the movie. Bigger not only is forced to watch a movie to escape from his life, he is forced to watch a movie that comes with adds that show Africans dancing or a bunch of rich white people partying on the beach. Bigger is being assaulted on all sides of his life, including the media.

Also, Bigger is not only alienated by his race, when he is being hunted down by the police, he begins to feel alienated from everyone. He feels that he is no safer with people of his own color than he would be with the whites.

There really has been a great deal of literary criticism written that focuses on Native Son, and especially Bigger.

Comment on Sanders’ Purpose by lynettebw

lynettebw — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:25:33 +0000

I love it!! Yes!! this is midwestern humor, at its best!!
bravo.

Comment on Sanders’ Purpose by fulbrighterammar

fulbrighterammar — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:04:24 +0000

Hahahah! That’s too funny!

Comment on Day and Carrie: Different Responses to Similar Situations by whisper

whisper — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:07:29 +0000

No doubt, Day’s strong personality and family ties, which given her a sense of confidence and security, had helped in easing her experience in the city. Unlike Wright, whose extreme poverty had driven him to move from one place to another, Day moved to the city in order to achieve her dream of independence. She always knew that her family would back her up in case she faced troubles. While Wright’s father left for another woman, leaving his family to the hardship of poverty, Day’s family stood by her side, especially during the hard days of depression. However, those were not the only factors behind Day’s good experience in the city. We must also admit that Day’s fair skin color must have helped in widening her choices of jobs. At work no one bothered to ask her about her race, and she did not volunteer to tell. While Wright/Bigger’s dark skin complexion had limited his chances of finding the kind of job he wanted, Day did not have trouble finding a decent work. Wright’s poverty and sense of alienation within the city’s borders, had driven him to join the communist party aiming for equal opportunities to all human beings regardless of skin color.