Sunday Matinee #28 Mother (1996)

Albert Brooks, you are a national treasure.

Good morning, everyone, and I hope you’re doing well. Time for another R-Rated Movie Club entry and thank you for being a subscriber. Today, we have a new poll for you and remember, it’s only open for one week. Poll results come in two weeks, so we’ll see you then. All right, here we go…

Audience Reaction Poll

There are many wonderful R-rated movies out there. I’ve written about only a handful of them. But one of the reasons I’m writing about them in the first place is because I know they’re not for everybody. Or at least, some people decide it isn’t for them even if they haven’t seen it because of what the R-rating represents.

Still, even “R” can mean a lot of things. This summer’s upcoming surefire hit Oppenheimer is rated R for some sexuality, nudity, and lanuage. One would think a wartime movie about developing a bomb might be rated R for violence, but that isn’t part of its MPA listing. Then there’s The King’s Speech which received its R rating for some language. This caused such a stir in 2010 that the studio released a PG-13 version with some “some language” cut out to help built an audience for its Oscar buzz. It won Best Picture that year. The R-rated version, that is.

How about you? As a general rule, is there something that if it’s going to be in a movie, it’s likely a turn-off? This 5-option poll attemps to capture the big ones:

The poll closes in one week, so vote today!

We’ll talk about the poll results right here in two weeks, and thank you.

Quotes with Notes

Genesis 28:16
Full Text: Genesis 28:10-19a (Revised Common Lectionary)
8th Sunday after Pentecost (July 23, 2023)
Sign up for a free course at EnterTheBible.org to learn more.
Context: For the lead-up to this part of the story, check out the R-Rated Movie Club post, “Rack Focus: Switching to the Old Testament.” Jacob has stolen his older brother Esau’s birthright and blessing and now he’s on the run from Esau and his armies. While camped out, deciding what to do and whether there is a way home to Esau and survive, Jacob falls asleep and dreams of a ladder to heaven. He hears the voice of God making covenant with him that he will have descendants as his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham had before him.

16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”

Mother | 1996 Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions | IMDB
Starring Albert Brooks, Debbie Reynolds, Rob Morrow, John C. McGinley, Lisa Kudrow
Written and directed by Albert Brooks (co-written with Monica Mcgowan Johnson)
Context: John Henderson (Albert Brooks) is on his second divorce, his book has stalled, and his life is at a crossroads. He decides, against the wishes of his brother Jeff (Rob Morrow), to move back into his childhood room with his overbearing mother, Beatrice (Debbie Reynolds), hoping to gain insight into why he is the way he is. While looking for other items in the home, John stumbles across creative writing pages by his mother from years ago. He asks her about it but she doesn’t want to discuss it.

John: Did you ever get anything published?
Beatrice: No, I never published. Your father talked me out of it.
John: Why would he do that?!
Beatrice: Well, you know dear, in those days, a woman didn't have a career. You know, she just--
John: Raised children who she hated for ruining her life and killing her chances at doing the one thing she loved.
Beatrice: ...Well, my goodness. I never heard it put exactly like that but... Yes. I'm afraid that's true. 

Again, I don’t always have videos to go with quotes, but this one appears to be from a fairly “official” source and will likely last a while, so it’s worth posting:

Commentary:

I don’t have a scorecard, but I wonder if there are more dreams or more epiphanies in the Bible. It has to be close, especially since so many Biblical dreams lead to Biblical epiphanies. Joseph follows the instructions given to him in several dreams in the Nativity story of Matthew 1:18-2:23. Simon Peter has an epiphany of what the new church will look like after a dream of a sheet filled with foods once forbidden in Acts of the Apostles 10. And I’m a fan of Isaiah realizing he can be God’s servant from his dream in Isaiah 6:1-13. 

Yes, some of those dreams sound really weird. If you think they were weird, imagine being the people who had them! And yes, I know a few of these dreams are called “visions,” but the principal is the same. Someone has an out-of-the-ordinary experience that gives them greater clarity about themselves and/or the world around them. This happens for Jacob, as well.

Wrestling with his next move - and how to survive it - Jacob puts himself in isolation. He sleeps, and dreams of a ladder going up to the sky. You’ve seen a Jacob’s Ladder at a science fair? This is where it gets the name. When he hears that he isn’t destined to be destroyed, that not all hope is lost, that there shall be descendants from him just as God promised to his father, Isaac, and his grandfather, Abraham, Jacob is put at ease. He realizes - or has an epiphany - that this space is no ordinary space. It is sacred ground. And this dream is no ordinary dream. It is a sacred vision, filled with covenant. 

When he puts this together, he articulates it this way: surely God was here and I didn’t even know it. You can practically hear the “A-ha!” and a *snap* of his fingers.

I can’t quite tell you what attracts me to the sense of humor Albert Brooks has in his work, but it just plain tickles my funny bone. Mother is perhaps my favorite of his projects (though Defending Your Life is wonderful). His back and forth with Debbie Reynolds as a son/mother pair who love - and seemingly hate - each other is too adorable, too insightful, and if a few of us relax a bit, too close to home. John spends a majority of the movie searching for insight into why he is who he is. His marriages don’t work. His writing doesn’t work. His confidence in basically anything doesn’t work. He apparently has the resources to do what many of us might dream to do: move back into his old childhood room.

Yes, for some that is no dream but a nightmare.

When he learns his mother is also a “failed” writer, he connects with her at a level he’s never been able to before. He sees her in a new way, and wonders if she’ll see him in a new way now, too. They have mutual insight into why they’ve treated each other terribly. The looks on their faces as they have their dual epiphanies is striking. When they put it together, John almost jumps up and down: surely, we had repressed psychosis and we did not know it.  

We don’t always get the epiphany we need and not in the timing we wish we had it. When we do, our job is to be open to it, to truly wrestle with it, and consider how we can take action on it. Maybe your epiphany is to start something, or to stop something. Maybe it’s for a change of attitude, or a new understanding of a current one. God is putting epiphanies before us all the time. It may take work, but hopefully we are open and ready.

What was an epiphany you had about your younger years now that you look back? What was a new insight for how you act or why you are the way you are? What was hard and what was assuring? When has God been present in your life, that you felt the holy? Who can you tell this story to because they will believe you and encourage you on your journey?

This bonus video features the song “Mrs. Robinson” with new lyrics for the song. So the story goes, Albert Brooks co-stars with Debbie Reynolds, and was good friends with her daughter, Carrie Fisher, who was once married to Paul Simon, who wrote “Mrs. Robinson.” Albert convinced Carrie to convince Paul to let Albert use the song with new lyrics and for the first time ever, Simon and Garfunkel let this kind of thing happen with one of their songs! Here it is, as John drives out to live with Beatrice:

A Word of Encouragement

Be kind to yourself and watch out for each other. May what you seek be found, and may what is found have an abundance of love at its center. And to today’s preachers, may the sermon you crafted and the prayers you lift reveal the everlasting presence of the Holy Spirit. God’s peace and good movies to you!

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