I first saw Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man at the tender age of 16. Like the hero, Nick Adams, I too burned to escape a stifling home life with a weak father and a domineering, cold mother. This was my story and the joy of travelling with Nick as he encountered the world and its myriad inhabitants was liberating for me.
Helping the narrative flow was the gorgeous cinematography and DeLuxe Color, vibrantly displaying the Autumn colors of the Michigan woods (filmed in Wisconsin) where the film begins and ends, and Franz Waxman's haunting and evocative score (similar in its beauty, longing and tenderness to his own work in Peyton Place and Elmer Bernstein's scores for Summer And Smoke and To Kill A Mockingbird). I bought the lp and both it and the tape and cd made from it have always been with me - for 56 years.
Re-viewing the film after all this time has put it in perspective. My love for it was tied to its place in my own history. It has not continued to the present day. The score continues to be for me one of the 30 or so greatest scores ever to come out of Hollywood. (Neither this nor Waxman's score for Peyton Place were recognized by the Academy).
The film is over-long, yes, and episodic, yes. There is a problem engaging with Nick as played by Beymer, simply because Nick re-acts to what happens to him in life, never really acts on his own. He therefore becomes a passive observer, not a participant in the life Hemingway would later record in his Nick Adams short stories. We are instead drawn to the parade of cameo performances from some truly great character players, who shape Nick's world.
Arthur Kennedy and Jessica Tandy as his parents, Ricardo Montalban and Eli Wallach as his war buddies, Juano Hernandez as a most gentlemanly squire for a fallen comrade, and most especially Dan Dailey as a drunken huckster and Paul Newman's extraordinary turn as a punch drunk ex-boxer (the latter unrecognizable under make-up and a hoarse throaty vocal incarnation of the nearly insane pugilist) -are stand-out acting performances, truly a parade of some of our great thespians and for Newman probably his best performance.
The dvd is said to be "restored," but I doubt this to be true. It is pale and washed out, the vibrant DeLuxe color faded. Since almost all interior backgrounds in the film are likewise dull, washed out and grey, the film itself "looks" depressing from beginning to end.
To the score - the main title holds a flute motif, ever floating over the sumptuous main theme, this motif resembling a bird trying to fly free of its cage, an apt image for the film's main character. The main theme is full of longing, sadness and delicacy. Waxman's orchestral scoring is as ever stellar. The Goodbye Father theme is likewise tragic and throat-tightening. It is sadly truncated in the actual film, but played out on the soundtrack recording. Rosanna's theme is as lush romantically as the main theme, but also full of longing and sadness. The use here of a mandolin underscores the Italian nature of this love theme. The return home revives the original main theme and weaves into it all the remorse, loss and sadness inherent in the film to that point, weaving that theme with the Rosanna theme, as the film ultimately promises a new beginning for Nick.
It is a film that works and is quite enjoyable, but no longer as treasured for its own sake as it is still in my memory. The musical score is much finer than the film that it was composed for. It is this music that captures my 16-year-old self, reflected at the time in the film's content, and it is the music, not the film itself, that will continue to travel with me, constantly at my side.
Helping the narrative flow was the gorgeous cinematography and DeLuxe Color, vibrantly displaying the Autumn colors of the Michigan woods (filmed in Wisconsin) where the film begins and ends, and Franz Waxman's haunting and evocative score (similar in its beauty, longing and tenderness to his own work in Peyton Place and Elmer Bernstein's scores for Summer And Smoke and To Kill A Mockingbird). I bought the lp and both it and the tape and cd made from it have always been with me - for 56 years.
Re-viewing the film after all this time has put it in perspective. My love for it was tied to its place in my own history. It has not continued to the present day. The score continues to be for me one of the 30 or so greatest scores ever to come out of Hollywood. (Neither this nor Waxman's score for Peyton Place were recognized by the Academy).
The film is over-long, yes, and episodic, yes. There is a problem engaging with Nick as played by Beymer, simply because Nick re-acts to what happens to him in life, never really acts on his own. He therefore becomes a passive observer, not a participant in the life Hemingway would later record in his Nick Adams short stories. We are instead drawn to the parade of cameo performances from some truly great character players, who shape Nick's world.
Arthur Kennedy and Jessica Tandy as his parents, Ricardo Montalban and Eli Wallach as his war buddies, Juano Hernandez as a most gentlemanly squire for a fallen comrade, and most especially Dan Dailey as a drunken huckster and Paul Newman's extraordinary turn as a punch drunk ex-boxer (the latter unrecognizable under make-up and a hoarse throaty vocal incarnation of the nearly insane pugilist) -are stand-out acting performances, truly a parade of some of our great thespians and for Newman probably his best performance.
The dvd is said to be "restored," but I doubt this to be true. It is pale and washed out, the vibrant DeLuxe color faded. Since almost all interior backgrounds in the film are likewise dull, washed out and grey, the film itself "looks" depressing from beginning to end.
To the score - the main title holds a flute motif, ever floating over the sumptuous main theme, this motif resembling a bird trying to fly free of its cage, an apt image for the film's main character. The main theme is full of longing, sadness and delicacy. Waxman's orchestral scoring is as ever stellar. The Goodbye Father theme is likewise tragic and throat-tightening. It is sadly truncated in the actual film, but played out on the soundtrack recording. Rosanna's theme is as lush romantically as the main theme, but also full of longing and sadness. The use here of a mandolin underscores the Italian nature of this love theme. The return home revives the original main theme and weaves into it all the remorse, loss and sadness inherent in the film to that point, weaving that theme with the Rosanna theme, as the film ultimately promises a new beginning for Nick.
It is a film that works and is quite enjoyable, but no longer as treasured for its own sake as it is still in my memory. The musical score is much finer than the film that it was composed for. It is this music that captures my 16-year-old self, reflected at the time in the film's content, and it is the music, not the film itself, that will continue to travel with me, constantly at my side.