Mindwalk (1990)
If you know me, you know that I was a political science major in college. You also know that I usually hate long discussions about issues that can’t really be fixed. So, since the movie Mindwalk was basically two hours’ worth of discussions about political issues that can’t really be fixed, there was a fifty-fifty chance I’d like the movie. I’ll cut to the chase: it wasn’t my cup of tea.
Sam Waterston is an American politician visiting his friend, John Heard, a poet while on vacation in France. To me, the best part of the movie was in the beginning when the two friends are reunited and John’s inner monologue criticizes Sam’s demeanor. He uses the word “façade”, and since I’d only ever seen him in My Fellow Americans, in which he famously mispronounced that word, it cracked me up. As Sam and John start talking philosophy, they randomly meet Liv Ullman, a scientist, and their three-way conversation takes up the rest of the screen time.
Liv is the ultra-liberal, whose opinions of global warming, vegetarianism, and education are fantastic on paper but are unrealistic in practice; some might think Floyd Byars and Fritjof Capra wrote her as a typical tree-hugger. Sam is the Republican politician, and his coarse cynicism might feel off-putting to those in the audience who agree with what he’s saying and might suspect Byars and Capra wrote the script to showcase conservatives in a negative light. Use your own judgement to see if you’d be offended or if you’d like watching the debate.
I haven't been able to find Mindwalk available on DVD anywhere, so if you'd like to watch it, click here to watch it on YouTube. And thanks "ECOmantiqueira" for posting!
More Sam Waterston movies here!
Sam Waterston is an American politician visiting his friend, John Heard, a poet while on vacation in France. To me, the best part of the movie was in the beginning when the two friends are reunited and John’s inner monologue criticizes Sam’s demeanor. He uses the word “façade”, and since I’d only ever seen him in My Fellow Americans, in which he famously mispronounced that word, it cracked me up. As Sam and John start talking philosophy, they randomly meet Liv Ullman, a scientist, and their three-way conversation takes up the rest of the screen time.
Liv is the ultra-liberal, whose opinions of global warming, vegetarianism, and education are fantastic on paper but are unrealistic in practice; some might think Floyd Byars and Fritjof Capra wrote her as a typical tree-hugger. Sam is the Republican politician, and his coarse cynicism might feel off-putting to those in the audience who agree with what he’s saying and might suspect Byars and Capra wrote the script to showcase conservatives in a negative light. Use your own judgement to see if you’d be offended or if you’d like watching the debate.
I haven't been able to find Mindwalk available on DVD anywhere, so if you'd like to watch it, click here to watch it on YouTube. And thanks "ECOmantiqueira" for posting!
More Sam Waterston movies here!