THREE WOMEN AND A LONE RANGER

cerebral writing on art, cinema and culture, Feature Essay 4 Minutes

MYSTIC PIZZA (1988)

On the beloved MGM channel on which I watched films that became a foundational block for me as a cinephile, there was one title I missed: MYSTIC PIZZA. So as the classic title made its recent passage to Amazon Prime here, I made it a part of my always evolving watchlist.

As is so often the case with the best dramas from the ’80s and ’90s era, it was suffused with simplicity, the verisimilitude of lives in a small coastal Connecticut town and the universality to the ethos uniting young men and women attempting to grasp their futures.

Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor( now iconic as the mother from The Conjuring), Vincent D’ Onofrio, the eternally gorgeous Adam Storke, even a very young Matt Damon are present in this impressive ensemble cast. Each gets individual beats within this collective delineation of humble lives never cracking under the mundanity of their environment. But each has a vision for something better even if it’s hard to figure out. Circumstances and limited resources are held as the cards close to their chest. A beautiful sense of community and camaraderie, with soulful background music, plays to the script’s realistic understanding of this place and these people.

Annabeth Gish is the responsible, hard working younger sister off to Yale on a scholarship who finds the world of astronomy just as fascinating as her awakening to attraction towards her employer. Julia Roberts is her free-willed sister whose physical beauty and unencumbered expressions of sensuality and truth mark her well as a formidable presence. On the other hand, Lili Taylor is the comic foil, the loudmouth who grapples with the existential questions of her limited choices as a young woman.

Watch as both sisters share a heated moment where inner frustrations on the part of the younger one especially come to the surface. They get together when emotions get the better of them, just as siblings do so often despite their differences. Watch Lili play her vulnerable moments beautifully as also pin down her lover with a feminist “it’s the ’80s” refrain. Watch as Julia shows her vulnerable side when with them by the dock, being transparent about her limited choices because she’s not ambitious or bright as her sister or has someone to fall back on like their best friend.



The men have their moments too, one( Storke) battling class conventions and the other( D’ Onofrio )trying to overcome the physical part of his relationship with the woman he wants to love emotionally.

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Two older prefects, in the form of the sisters’ mother( Joanna Merlin, the legendary Judge Lena on Law and Order: S.V.U.) and the titular pizzeria’s owner and head cook( Conchata Ferrell, iconic as Berta in Two And A Half Men and for her turn in Erin Brokovich) bring a grounded nature to this excellent screenplay. Their experience guides the young girls, with the former’s disappointment with her older daughter and her relaying of life choices stirring in one particular scene while the latter actually constitutes a familial unit for the three and also serves as the town’s culinary and communal glue.

Mystic Pizza is a character in its own right here as is the town of Mystic. Here most of the youth may not make it past high school as far as their education goes, may literally live on the other side of the railway tracks, grow up faster than most others and work as waitresses and fishing company employees. But they are all well-rounded individuals. Humble lives sustain each other without pity or prolonged judgements. Multiple scenes of empathy make this a true classic.



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JILL, UNCREDITED(2022)

There she is, amid the scores of faces marking a formation on the iconic video of Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush. In the classic series Poirot.

There she is in a crowd as Julie Andrews can be seen from a distance in Victor/Victoria, as one among many people in the background as Miranda Richardson and Willem Defoe walk together outdoors in Tom & Viv.

She’s also part of a dance in Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton classic Reds,
sharing cheer and apprehension in Fiddler on the Roof and portraying a nurse flanking Sir Anthony Hopkins in the operating room in The Elephant Man, a feat she reiterates in the TV feature film Florence Nightingale ( with Charlie’s Angels star Jaclyn Smith as the titular subject)

She is Jill Goldston, a prolific ‘extra’ in the cinematic annals, a face among many whose extraordinary commitment to her parts ensured Anthony Ing gave her a much-needed tribute in this documentary short. He captures her in the background in most of the frames then freezes them. The similitude of themes as with her turn as nurses, party scenes and dancing parts in myriad films give it an editorial touch that celebrates the sheer collaborative nature of filmmaking.



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As such, this is a sociological feat, a reclamation of a narrative where those ‘in the shadows’ come into the open, displaying their craft and commitment to a legacy of creating images that endure. We tend to count them out. For this cinephile, it’s an authentic manner of representing Ms. Goldston and her body of work. Not everybody can be the center of attention. Ms. Goldston proves that in multitudes, we find the strength to foreground actions and words.

The silent ones can be the most expressive. On that count, many solo frames featuring the film’s subject show her versatility.

An editing standout here is how in a scene from Plenty(with Meryl Streep in the lead), a man asks her to identify the person she was looking for. Meryl looks. The scene is cut in such a way that it’s as if Jill Goldston is the subject she is looking at intently. It’s a powerful moment of ‘looking’ at a life, in a non-fiction work brimming with positive acknowledgement of a true artist. Anthony Ing gives her multiple victory laps.

A person is hardly inconsequential when hard work is the cornerstone of her life. JILL, UNCREDITED reclaims that narrative, giving one of cinema’s unsung figures a lovely tribute, beginning with silence and then brimming with empathetic musical cues.

Jill has found her place in the pantheon now. She was putting in the work to reach this stage.

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NOTE: the clips are courtesy YouTube.

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I launch myself, with a searing, soaring passion for all domains verging on the writerly and creative with a beginner's appetite here and that's how I believe in adding meaning to each day. A lucky mascot of literature, cinema and culture, I come riding on spirited wings from the emblematic city of Lucknow where all those reside and thrive. My breeding ground and my mindscape all are committed to these three life forces. Cinema. Culture. Literature. But the biggest and all consuming parent to these is life that breeds them . There is the discovery that comes from expressing yourself, clear eyed and even mystical, when you come from a city like this. I am here to expand my worldviews, share my earliest inspirations and evolutions and go with the flow through the most accessible outlet there is : writing. Conventionally, my biography is that of a degree holder in English literature encompassing Undergraduate, Postgraduate and M Phil years and every possible experience of learning finer points of knowledge . I have already taken the plunge of creating a solid base for my works by publishing my poems and articles on the renowned worldwide community/ writing sanctuary Wattpad since 2015, a platform which is a miracle for anyone pursuing so much as a flash of wordplay and thoughts to spare. It has redefined my life and allows me to go strong. You can read my works there under the username MadMenWearingFedora / Prithvijeet. That is the springboard that catapulted me to a confident vocational revival. So here I am. Both originality and novelty are the key words to define this eternal student of life. So with the tip of the pen blessing my head and a new vigor, I welcome you all to my realm. AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA beckons.

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