Barry Levinson
Rain Man

I know, you all know it, and you all more or less love it (at least, I think so). I wanted to open a discussion (I'll be brief) about what American cinema was in the Eighties, and what it became in the following decade as a (degenerate) offspring of the previous one. I mean: which films triumphed at the Oscars in the Eighties? I'll cite three examples that seem quite reflective to me: "Ordinary People" (1980); "Terms of Endearment" (1983); and, indeed, "Rain Man" (1988). These are three films directed, in order, by two debut directors (Robert Redford; James L. Brooks, the latter more famous as the producer of "The Simpsons") and Barry Levinson, a mainstream author at his sixth opus after some decent successes ("The Natural", 1984; "Young Sherlock Holmes", 1985) and a triumphant hit ("Good Morning, Vietnam", 1987). The trio of aforementioned works had a common point: the mix, almost unbearable, of laughter, tears, fun, and emotion. As if that hedonistic and extravagant decade was really not frameable: the Sixties were the years of epochal changes; the Seventies those of withdrawal, and the Eighties? An indecipherable mix of styles and feelings.

"Rain Man" was an exaggerated success, one of those films that everyone had to go and see and process. You know, like what did you miss. In fact, no one missed it. It made the notion of autism common knowledge, until then quite obscure. Now, autism is not what you see in the film and autistic people are not all math geniuses capable of breaking a casino, but this is what most people who saw the film thought at the time and for a long time afterwards. Already this doesn't make it very likable to me (I know autistic children, I have worked for, and not with, them and I know what I'm talking about) so despite everything it's a film to which I would never award the medal of a masterpiece. However, it is undoubtedly well-made, well-directed (let's say ordinarily directed, Levinson focuses more on the looks of the two protagonists, afraid of missing even a single, miserable, raised eyebrow), Tom Cruise does well, Dustin Hoffman is brilliant, some sequences are funny and work, and the ending, shot "desperately" since the entire production took place during the biggest writers' strike in the US, is fitting despite, precisely, the film technically not having a written ending.

Spielberg was supposed to shoot it (would it have been better?), and the actors were originally supposed to be Bill Murray as the autistic brother and Dustin Hoffman as the, let's say "healthy", brother. Then, given the success of "Top Gun" two years earlier, Tom Cruise was cast and perhaps the choice was better. The casino scenes, Valeria Golino's unconvincing voice, and the wet kiss (also mentioned years later in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix") went down in history. It won 4 heavy Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay) in the year when Barry Levinson snagged the directing Oscar from Martin Scorsese for "The Last Temptation of Christ" (crazy stuff!).

A pleasant mix, two hours, let's say, not wasted. Box-office cinema, with some nice autoral insights. But was this amorphous cinema of the Eighties, this commercial cinema produced in that period, this cinema that we still esteem today (perhaps also considering the scarcity of what came after), true cinema, or was it just a mix of cleverness and crowd-pleasing?