DRIVING MISS DAISY: Blu-ray (Warner Bros./Zanuck Co. 1989) Warner Home Video
Our present pop culture is so disastrously mired in a
simpleton’s saturation of youth-oriented fast-paced/effects-laden crass
commercialism, I had quite forgotten how refreshingly original and startlingly
true-to-life, director, Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy (1989) is
and has, in fact, remained in the intervening decades. For here is a movie that
dares, with ample humor, and, more than a modicum of verisimilitude, to create
a snapshot from time that yields to an earthy genuineness almost by accident, aimed
directly at our hearts and with a clear-eyed reflection, anchored in a reality
from which the South has yet, arguably, to emerge. There is a distinction to be
made – a huge one, in fact – between employing the camera to tell the truth and
merely using it to effectively recreate ‘period’, bedecked in the vintage trappings
from another era. Driving Miss Daisy just feels ‘real’ as opposed to ‘reel’
– the tender machinations outlined in Alfred Uhry’s screenplay (based on his
play) proving so much more than just the creative ‘connective tissue’ on which
to hang dialogue-heavy exchanges between two very potent personalities, embodies
on the screen by the eloquently understated, Morgan Freeman and beautifully
brittle, Jessica Tandy. Something about Peter James’ cinematography too,
gingerly basking in the afterglow of that perpetually warm and enveloping
Vermeer lit canvas, just rings with an inspired sense of being there – the picture,
alive in the moment and in perfect complement to the performances.
Driving Miss Daisy hails from an entirely different
epoch in the picture-making biz that, alas, is no more, the mid-budgeted class ‘A’
drama, to derive its stature and success from a finely wrought script and
situated squarely on the strengths of its actors’ talents to sustain scene upon
scene in which no car chases, sexually explicit encounters, or other lurid or
otherwise ‘shocking’ outbursts occur for the duration of its run time. Yet,
even from the ‘then’ fast-fading eon of eighties American cinema, Driving
Miss Daisy stands head and shoulders above virtually all other like-minded
dramas presented throughout the decade, and this in a decade to have produced
such eventful entertainments steeped in the past imperfect of racial inequity
as Places in the Heart (1984) and Mississippi Burning (1988). Tolerance
is the order of the day here, the quietly anxious, but still well-ensconced
social acceptance of a caste system based on skin color, and, in which non-Caucasian
domestics and chauffeurs are expected to ‘know their place’, overseen by well-intended
and, if fortunate enough, benevolent whites who continued to reign from their
vantage of smug superiority. Times, as they used to say, however, were ‘a-changin’,
and Driving Miss Daisy addresses this unease, if mostly from a quiet
place of contemplation. The brewing of the Civil Rights Movement – in which
these inklings from another time are stirred, to leave the status quo, totally
unaccustomed and, arguably, incapable of mending its ways peaceably on their
own, even moreover, unprepared to rise to the socially progressive challenges
of tomorrow, are represented in the delicate softening over time of the inelastic
character of Miss Daisy Werthan.
Jessica Tandy’s finest hour on the screen tells the tale
of an intractable wealthy widow who positively refuses to accept the slow, but
steady erosion of that principled world from her youth, dwindled in both its
character and resiliency to the point where her only refuge from the outside is
her stately mansion, hermetically sealed in the memories from this fast-evaporating
past. Into this perfect place from a decidedly (im)perfect past, intrudes the
unsuspecting, but mindful ‘hired help’ – Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman), begrudgingly
tolerated as the ‘necessary evil’ put upon Daisy’s good graces by her
well-intended son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) after she damn-near injures herself in
a terrifically clumsy automobile accident that all but totals her car. Daisy is
accustomed to blacks of the servant class, her unobtrusive domestic, Idella
(Esther Rolle), having been with the family for years. However, Hoke’s arrival
is met with a most unwelcomed and critical acrimony, perhaps only as his presence
represents – at least for Miss Daisy – another crucial step in depriving her of
her freedom. Indeed, Daisy looks upon Hoke with more than a modicum of disdain
for the ostentatiousness having a chauffeur represents in this close-knit
community of jaundice and myopic views, also, to embarrassingly infer a
perceived incapacity to do for herself on her own terms. And thus, the clash of
wills – on the road to a most unlikely, enduring, and, wholly unique friendship
– begins.
Driving Miss Daisy remains one of the most unvarnished
and intelligent meditations on race relations and unquestionably, one of the
finest ‘screen’ achievements from the 1980's – a decade, oft criticized for its
whack-tacular, pre-processed gunk, mass-marketed as ‘art’. Having lived through
the 1980's, I will simply preface the bulk of my praise herein by stating ‘you
just had to be there!’ No scant summary in review, nor even an in-depth
retrospective, will suffice to bottle the breadth of its pie-eyed optimism. And,
were it possible to time travel, I would not hesitate for a moment to make the
journey back to that time where I can now acknowledge I was most readily
content. It was a grand time to be young and alive and to feel both
young and alive, even at 72 – the same age as this film’s protagonist. Driving
Miss Daisy rectifies Hollywood’s long-standing aversion to explore, much
less celebrate, the richness and rewards that only time itself can bring to a
life. If the elderly are represented at all in movies today, then it is mostly
as bitterly reclusive, angry and careworn hermits, exiled from and by the world
at large, or, laughably put up as doddering old fools, idiotically to turn back
these yellowed pages with some thoroughly misguided behaviors and mannerisms
that make them even more piteously pathetic for their hard-earned wrinkles and
well-seasoned life experiences. Indeed, when Richard and Lily Zanuck began
shopping Driving Miss Daisy around town, they quickly discovered the
biases of youth-centric film culture. As
Zanuck would later recount, “Everybody would say, ‘we know you’re going to
make a good picture – but nobody is going to want to see it!’” One of life’s ironies, the inevitability of those
advancing golden years coming to us all, generally never gets discussed – the
natural progression from youth to middle-age, and finally, the emeritus years,
hardly fit for topical debate – especially in the movies. And yet, this is
precisely were Alfred Uhry’s off-Broadway play lives. The other great
revelation in its stagecraft and the resultant movie, deals with that
unflattering ‘separate but equal’ segregation to have gripped the South
long after the American Civil War; Uhry, drawing upon his own upbringing in
creating these meaningful parallels between prejudices faced by both blacks and
Jews.
The reticence in Hollywood to produce Driving Miss
Daisy may also have had something to do with Tinsel Town’s then, more
recent ageism, as it could come off as too ‘highbrow’. As is often the case,
what works theatrically readily proves problematic when a show is ‘opened up’
for the more expansive demands of the motion picture. If anything, the
overwhelming consensus, that no one would want to see a ‘kitchen melodrama’
about old people, made the Zanucks even more resolved to get the necessary
funding to make Driving Miss Daisy a reality. Paying for preliminary
location scouting from their own savings, and, on nothing more than a blind
promise from Warner Bros. to ‘probably’ write them a blank reimbursement,
Richard Zanuck hired Australian-born, Bruce Beresford to direct; also, the
stage’s Morgan Freeman, who had expressed a desire to reprise as Miss Daisy’s
devoted chauffeur. In retrospect, the casting of Freeman proves the picture’s first
stroke of genius, further advanced when Zanuck also called upon Alfred Uhry to
adapt his own material. Both men concurred, the age of the actress to play
Daisy Werthan needed to be true to the character with minimal makeup trickery;
a decision, effectively to narrow the Zanucks’ search for viable actresses still
working in the biz.
Driving Miss Daisy offers an unaffected and
unapologetic snapshot of old age: not as ‘a condition’ to be quaintly pitied or
casually set aside. Rather, the film’s authenticity is all in accepting these
latter stages in the circle of life, to appreciate and simply define them as
truth itself – neither openly revered nor dramatically acknowledged, through
laughter and pathos, cued by this eloquent mixture with a modicum of dignity.
In Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy’s gifted hands, Driving Miss Daisy
becomes the very valediction of this stubbornly human valor to resist the
corruption of youth. Moreover, the picture remains a benediction made by two
individuals from diametrically disparate social backgrounds who, nevertheless,
discover an unlikely common ground where each can more clearly witness the
similarities that bind to their seemingly irreconcilable principles – resulting
in an admirable richness set to unfold in the sunset of their lives. The sheer
joy in this exercise is its subtlest ripening of that unmistakable coming together,
parceled in nuggets of wisdom that celebrate the inevitable acceptance of
humanity as a singular entity, unencumbered by these artificially conceived
barriers of race. Uhry based Daisy Werthan on his grandmother/her chauffeur, on
the family’s hired man, Will Coleman. And in Tandy and Freeman, we are given
the forever cherished strengths from that inimitable reality, untainted by the ‘then’
contemporary strain in which the picture itself was conceived, rather uncannily
to adhere instead to the fidelity of those social mores from that ‘other’
particular period in which the movie’s faux reality exists. Freeman came to the
movie well-versed, having performed Hoke for nearly three years on the stage. Tandy
was the movie’s fresh face, possessing an impeccable pedigree of theatrical
experiences that had not always translated well to the screen. Indeed, Tandy’s
tenure in the movies was spotty at best. Yet, in hindsight, her stage training
affords Beresford to rehearse Tandy in the part until he was perfectly
satisfied with the form and content of her alter-ego’s character.
Because Driving Miss Daisy was shot on a
shoestring (the studio repeatedly slashing its budget during preliminary
preparations), Beresford and the Zanucks improvised practically everything on
location. A small rural town just outside of Atlanta became the Atlanta of the
1940’s, 50’s and 60’s with just a little window-dressing and fresh paint. The
Werthan house was an actual Atlanta residence rented inside and out for the
shoot; cinematographer, Peter James employing diffused lighting to light the
interiors through its actual windows.
The last bit of verisimilitude visited upon the film was Hans Zimmer’s
memorable ‘Driving Theme’, extemporized with intermittent techno
influences while observing a rough cut of the scene where Jessica Tandy’s
caustic widow is pursued by Morgan Freeman’s mildly perturbed chauffeur,
trailing her every step in a brand-new Hudson automobile. Above all else, Driving
Miss Daisy remains a testament to the renaissance of the South, awkwardly,
clumsily, but valiantly blundering beyond its argumentative uncertainties into
the modern-day progressivism that has since, regrettably, turned much of its
passionate history asunder. Uhry’s lyrical dialogue is, at times, just this
side of edgy, as he illustrates the societal constraints meant to keep
time-honored conventions firmly affixed.
Our story begins on a typically humid summer’s morn, Daisy
Werthan announcing to her housemaid, Idella (Esther Rolle) she is off to
market. Alas, this trip is cut short when Miss Daisy manages to back her car
off her elevated driveway and over the edge of the neighbor’s sunken patio
wall. The insurance company promptly cancels her policy, forcing Daisy’s son,
Boolie to hire his mother a chauffeur. This decision, like another made
previous – to marry the frivolous, Florine (Patti Lupone) does not meet with Daisy’s
approval. Indeed, during his first week’s employ, Hoke Colburn is all but
ignored and frequently admonished for making any and all attempts to be useful
around the house. Instead, he is ordered to refrain from speaking to Idella, or
dust lamp bulbs on the chandelier in the dining room, even frowned upon to
quietly linger, casually observing the various family portraits in the hall.
However, when Miss Daisy sets her mind to take the trolley to market, Hoke
decides he has had quite enough of her prudery and follows his employer down
the street at a snail’s pace in her newly purchased Hudson, thus attracting nosey
glances from the neighbors. To quell their curiosity and save herself some
embarrassment, Miss Daisy gets into the car, forcing Hoke to abide by her rules
as he drives her to the Piggly Wiggly for some groceries. While she shops, Hoke
hurries to a nearby phone booth, declaring to Boolie “Yes sir, I just drove
yo’ mama to the store. Only took six days…same time it took the Lord to create
the whole world!”
For some time thereafter, Miss Daisy’s brittle
contempt does not abate. She continues to regard Hoke as one of ‘those
people’ and forces Boolie to drive out to the house after she suspects Hoke
of stealing a can of smoked salmon from her pantry. But when Hoke arrives with
a newly purchased can of salmon to replace the one eaten, Miss Daisy is quietly
chagrined. From here on, her relationship with Hoke begins to soften. Hence,
when Miss Daisy announces her intentions to travel to Mobile, Alabama for her
brother, Walter’s 90th birthday, she employs Hoke to drive her this
considerable distance. Along their journey, they are confronted by a pair of
racist state troopers (Ray McKinnon and Ashley Josey) who momentarily question
Hoke and Miss Daisy about the ownership of their expensive vehicle. Narrowly averting a scene, a slightly
flustered Miss Daisy accidentally encourages Hoke to make a wrong turn, the two
losing their way along a dark and lonely road. When Hoke admits he must pull
over to the side to relieve himself, Miss Daisy orders him to wait until they
reach Mobile. “I’m not just some back of the neck you look at while you get
to where you’re goin’,” Hoke explains, “I’m a man.” To prove his
point, Hoke takes the keys with him as he disappears into the darkness. A few
disquieting moments pass. Miss Daisy becomes frightened and calls for Hoke. A
short while later, they arrive safely at Walter’s house to celebrate his
birthday.
Driving Miss Daisy is, among its many other fine
attributes, a skillful ‘opening up’ of the stage-bound original. Beresford and
Uhry sparsely use montage and the changing seasons to cleverly advance both the
timeline and friendship burgeoning between Hoke and Miss Daisy as it ripens. A
trip to the graveyard proves unexpectedly poignant when Miss Daisy asks Hoke to
place flowers on her sister’s grave. Hoke confides he never learned to read and
thus cannot decipher names on the tombstones. Instead, Miss Daisy refutes
Hoke’s claim, phonetically sounding out the letters to bolster his confidence.
Later, Daisy gives Hoke a child’s reader she used while a teacher in the public
schools, reiterating the point that “It’s not a Christmas present. Jews have
no business giving Christmas presents.” Nevertheless, Hoke sets himself to
learn. As in the play, the first and second acts of Driving Miss Daisy
are almost exclusively focused on the subtle enrichment of this unlikely
friendship, peppered in poignantly understated ‘little’ moments of
self-discovery that sparkle and resonate as quiet truths. But the latter third
of our story is devoted almost exclusively to the inevitable passage of time.
The first lesson to be learned is loss. Idella suffers a fatal heart attack and
dies while preparing dinner. Her funeral is a distinct reminder of the
ephemeral quality of human life. As we enter the turbulent sixties, Miss Daisy
is exposed to bigotry of a different sort when an unknown assailant bombs the
synagogue on her way to prayer. This was an incident culled from Uhry’s remembrances
of an actual event – the movie’s timeline suggesting 1966, when in reality the
bombing occurred in 1958. To ease Miss Daisy’s concerns, Hoke relays a story
from childhood about his best friend’s father lynched by an angry mob. Despite
her repeated insistence about not being prejudiced, Miss Daisy is unable to see
the parallel in Hoke’s parable, the plight of antisemitism and racial
inequality, more than a moment of disclosure and self-discovery for these
characters.
Miss Daisy receives an invitation to a gala where
Martin Luther King will speak. Offering two tickets to Boolie and Florine,
Boolie accepts, but later bows out, citing his attendance might ‘color’ the
opinions of his contemporaries in the business and professional community,
alliances he has worked too long and hard to forge and cultivate. Amused by his
mother’s sudden interest in Dr. King, Boolie suggests she invite Hoke as her
guest. Miss Daisy denies Hoke the same opportunity to partake. Instead, she has
him drive her to the gala and wait outside, surrounded by a congregation of
affluent blacks and whites, while Hoke patiently listens to the same speech
being broadcast on the radio from the car. Dr. King’s words resonate a
fundamental truth about race relations in America. It is an eloquent address
for a more enduring understanding between blacks and whites in which “history
will have to record, that the greatest tragedy of this period of social
transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling
silence of the good people.”
Driving Miss Daisy’s last act remains a bittersweet
epitaph. Daisy, now in her nineties, begins to suffer from the onset of dementia,
frantically meandering through her house, believing she has somehow regressed
to an undisclosed time when she was still a school teacher. Hoke arrives to
discover her overwrought and extremely confused, ranting about misplaced
papers. He telephones Boolie to report the incident, but then, gingerly tries
to comfort and console his employer. Struck in a moment of clarity, Miss Daisy
declares, “Hoke, you’re my best friend”, loosely clutching his hand. The
two regard one another in a moment of sustained silence. We fast track a few
years ahead. Miss Daisy’s stately manor has been sold. Boolie, meets an aged
Hoke in the empty parlor before taking him to the retirement home for
Thanksgiving where Daisy is spending her final years. At first, unclear whether
she even knows they have come to see her, the fog suddenly lifts as Daisy
orders Boolie to ‘go and charm the nurses.’ Hoke takes his seat beside her, offering Daisy
a piece of pumpkin pie, their silent assignation translated into an affecting
farewell. Likely, this will be is the last time they ever see one another. Director,
Beresford’s subtle superimposition of Miss Daisy’s Hudson driving into the
distance is an eloquent visual euphemism, not only for the many adventures Hoke
and Daisy have shared, but also, perhaps, a foreshadowing of the final journey
she has made from this life into the next; a very tender reminiscence on the
transient quality of life itself, and a gentle nod to that once vital and
remarkable friendship.
Driving Miss Daisy’s reflection on the emeritus years
that swift approach and unexpectedly creep up to envelope us all remains a
beautifully ‘imperfect’ snapshot of the unlikeliest amity blossoming between
two people who might otherwise have never met. The irony is, of course, that
under any other circumstance in any other wrinkle in time prior to it, these
two would not have been allowed to meet. In the final rot of the ‘old South’,
those lingering racial stringencies have elapsed just enough to draw Miss Daisy
and Hoke together, awkwardly ‘separate’ and yet to be considered truly as ‘equals’
in the new South. Driving Miss Daisy went on from its respectable
opening weekend to steadily build in stature and box office, the escalation of
its financial success capped off by 9 Oscar nominations and 4 wins, including
Best Picture and Best Actress – Jessica Tandy; then, the oldest recipient to
receive the honor. In accepting her statuette, the ever-gracious Tandy could
not help but exuberantly declare, “I am on cloud nine!”
But in hindsight, it is the Oscar oversights that are
even more glaring: Morgan Freeman, passed over for Best Actor, and Bruce
Beresford not even nominated for his flawless direction – a bungle marginally
corrected when Richard Zanuck, accepting for the Best Picture statuette, opened
his remarks with, “This only proves that Bruce Beresford is the best
director in the world.” Academy
history is riddled with such inconsistencies. Yet, these stand in relief as a
complete insult to both men. In the final analysis, Driving Miss Daisy
is as good as movies get, true to life, true to its source, and, truer still to
the humanity of its characters. It really does not get any better than this!
Beresford and the Zanuck’s ‘little picture’ superficially trades on the
tattered, if time-honored cliché, ‘the road is for journeys’. But what a
trip it proves to be. Driving Miss Daisy may have driven off with a slew
of well-deserved accolades. But the picture today is hardly buoyed by its
prestige. Awards are nice. But they rarely speak to the intangible hallmarks of
any movie’s greatness – ditto for box office or glowing critical reviews.
Longevity can only be judged with the passage of time, and, the endurance of
memory to support it. Driving Miss Daisy is that kind of movie, once
seen, never forgotten, and to leave a warm afterglow in the minds of those who
have seen it. It remains, perhaps, as
Zanuck attested to back in 1989, “my finest hour and the movie I’m most
proud of.”
Warner Archive’s re-issue of Driving Miss Daisy on
Blu-ray (it was originally a Warner Home Video’s digi-pack Blu-ray) has failed
to rectify the sins committed on that original hi-def release. There are issues
with color density, sharpness and contrast levels. Peter James’ cinematography
was never intended to exhibit a crisp, high key-lit gloss; rather, a softly
diffused glow. That quality has been lovingly preserved herein. But the image
is too dark. Even late-day afterglow from the sun, filtering through the heavy
slats of Miss Daisy’s window treatments is dull rather than diffused. Naturally
lit interiors are extremely dusky even in the full bloom of noonday sun, unable
to be appreciated for their stately character. I understand the point of
subtlety in James’ cinematography. But the image on this disc is so dark it
borders on creating a Gordon Willis-esque eye-strain with one notable
distinction. Willis’ use of immaculate highlights is wholly absent here. Film grain is richly represented. But colors
become muddy and muted rather than nuanced and understated. There is also a
sort of residual blurriness in background details. The image isn’t soft and dewy by design, but
questionably fuzzy and out of focus. Finally, there is some built-in
instability in this image harvest, a curious intermittent strobe, as though viewing
from an old analog TV broadcast with an airplane flying overhead to disturb the
signal. It is virtually unnoticeable on smaller sets, but in projection it
becomes glaringly obvious and utterly distracting.
My thoughts that something is decidedly remiss with
both the film’s color density and contrast derives from clips excised from the
movie for the documentary, ‘Things are Changing’ (included herein) and
originally produced just a few short years ago when the aforementioned digibook
version was released to Blu-ray. These clips exhibit a considerably lighter and
brighter image, looking far more natural and appealing, and, to reveal much more
overall image clarity and crispness. As example: the scene where Hoke convinces
Miss Daisy to allow him to chauffeur her to the store for the very first time.
In the movie, this sequence is so dark every time a shadow from an overhead
tree passes across the reflective surface of the front windshield, it
completely obscures Miss Daisy from our view. In the clip, as excised for the
documentary, this scene retains the aforementioned shadows, but they do not
obscure, rather to subtly pass over and augment the scene, adding visual
texture and emphasis. The 5.1 DTS audio is a vast improvement we can support.
There are subtler nuances to observe, as though listening to Hans Zimmer’s
score for the very first time. Extras are singularly disappointing. We get the
aforementioned featurette ‘Things are Changing’ – that provides an
overview of race relations in America then and now, referencing the movie when
it can. It’s an interesting addendum, but not terribly comprehensive. As for
the rest – everything is a port over from Warner Home Video’s tired ole DVD: a
brief featurette on Jessica Tandy’s prolific stage career and another, even
briefer, on the making of the film, and finally, a vintage promo puff piece,
tacked onto a careworn theatrical trailer. The best of the lot is the audio
commentary from Beresford – informative and engaging. I would like to be the
first to champion Warner to re-remaster this Oscar-winning masterpiece. Because Driving Miss Daisy on Blu-ray
is something of a letdown. It deserves far better.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
3
EXTRAS
2
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