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Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams

Mar 7, 2008
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Last week I screened the 1973 film, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, starring Joanne Woodward (nominated for an Oscar) and Martin Balsam.

Balsam’s (Harry Walden) & Woodward’s character (Rita Walden) are living an unfulfilled marriage and decide to visit Europe -- Britain and France -- after the Rita's mother (Sylvia Sidney) dies.

This is a little film, character driven, with two things to recommend it to the viewer.

First, Martin Balsam (here) provides a powerful presence. I have always appreciated his ability to take small, supporting roles and turn them into important subtle moments (i.e. 12 Angry Men, Seven Days in May, Tora! Tora! Tora!). Here he steals every scene from Woodward, who pushes it a bit.

The second reason to view this film, and the reason for this review, is the subtext that occurs as we see the marriage fall from stale neglect into crisis. The couple are very well off, he’s an eye doctor, but materialism has left them empty. Estranged from their children (the son is 1973 gay and the daughter has an opinion other than her mother’s), life has become petty and empty.

In a remarkable scene, set underground in a London subway (a sort of burial place), Rita has just ex-perienced a sever panic attack. Now, alone on the platform, Harry comes to take her back to their hotel, having been called to her rescue by a caring Londoner. Sitting down beside her, he attempts to reassure Rita, but she will have none of it:

Rita: “I’m an old woman...Life goes by like a weekend. Someday I’m going to be gone and it’s

not going to leave a ripple.:

Harry: “They give you a cup full of time -- you drink it or you spill it on the floor. You think time cares

what you do?”

Rita: “The worst part of the whole thing is that if I had it to do all over again I’d still miss everything

I’ve missed. I’d still do all the things I hated.”

Harry: “You only talk about what you missed -- think about what you’ve got. When it’s all said and

done how many people are so lucky?”

Rita: “You don’t have to be me.”

I share this dialogue because it opens to us the dilemma of post-modern life: The choice between regret and gratitude. Many, if not most people live lives filled with regret, but who can live a life of authentic gratitude? Isn’t Rita correct in rejecting gratitude for material things when her personal angst is so strong that it overpowers? And isn’t Harry correct for asking Rita to see the world from the eyes the present and not just the past?

Two ideas flow from this:

It may be that the only person who can consistently live in gratitude is the person who can live

in the moment...

And it may be that the only way a person can live with gratitude in the moment is to do so in a

community where perspective for life is offered daily, or sometimes even moment by moment...