The following piece was translated into German as part of The Real Eighties, a book published by the Austrian Film Museum.
The 1980s saw Robert Mulligan direct only two feature films, decidedly minor entries into a career already deemed minor by the powers that be. An unfashionable filmmaker, Mulligan stubbornly stuck to his classical roots after 1962’s canonized To Kill a Mockingbird, following old school principles of storytelling as American cinema was becoming increasingly modern and incorporating elements of documentary and moving towards unconventional approaches to technique. At odds with the revolutionary spirit of the 60s, he nevertheless had a prolific decade of moviemaking, partnered with fellow Bronxite Alan J. Pakula, but by the time Mulligan entered the 1980s, he slowed down almost to a halt, willingly, but also as a consequence of his supposedly dated sensibility. Thematic consistencies run through his entire oeuvre: dramas deeply rooted in place (often the South), portraits of social outsiders as well as pubescent children whose innocence clashes with the realities of life, racial prejudice and social tension, and above all else a devout empathy towards his characters, usually expressed through subjective uses of the camera.
1982’s Kiss Me Goodbye admittedly contains very few traces of Mulligan’s typical subject matter, resembling the type of screwball comedy we might have seen Howard Hawks make in the 30s and 40s. A remake of the Brazilian smash hit Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, the film is about an unusual love triangle between Sally Field’s Kay, her fiancé Rupert (Jeff Bridges), and her deceased husband Jolly (James Caan). In spite of the outlandish material, Mulligan keeps things as characteristically grounded as possible, finding a light tone if not exactly a naturally comedic one. Bridges is especially fun here as the straight man, and Mulligan puts all three characters into uncomfortable situations beginning with a hilarious bedroom scene that might not work with a heavier hand behind the camera. Like many of Mulligan’s films, Kiss Me Goodbye is ultimately about moving through life with loss, but the pleasure of the film comes from its loose (almost pre-code like) attitude towards marriage, and Kay’s outwardly manic behavior. Mulligan has an uncanny ability to fit in uncomfortable ideas into seemingly conventional and inoffensive movies. Here we discover that Kay has idealized her dead husband (who, it needs to be said, dies from falling down the staircase, a recurring motif in Mulligan’s cinema!), a charismatic Broadway performer displayed in a painting above the fireplace. In reality, he slept around, and may not have been the right man for her after all, and in death frees her from him—but not before hanging around for a while for a laugh or two.
Mulligan wouldn’t make another film until 1988 when he adapted Clara’s Heart, a novel by Joseph Olshan. More in line with his usual themes, Whoopi Goldberg stars as a Jamaican nanny hired by a rich family in Baltimore who have just lost a new child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Acquired like a trinket at a flea market, Clara is brought back to their home after a vacation in Jamaica after the mother, Leona, finds her to be a comforting presence. Their first son, David (Neil Patrick Harris in his first big screen role), is a spoiled brat who at first doesn’t take too well to Goldberg’s Clara. Meanwhile, his parents’ marriage falls apart as they deal with their grief, neglecting David in the process. Clara sees right through the family’s privileged lifestyle and David’s behavior. She bluntly asserts herself as the matriarch of their decadent household, even as she commutes back and forth from her small apartment in the ghetto—some of the film’s best scenes involve David spending time with Clara in her neighborhood where he hangs out at a Jamaican barbershop. Mulligan and DP Freddie Francis film the family’s house with rigid compositions, capturing the inherently sterile lifestyle of the modern upper class, which acts almost as a prison for the burgeoning boyhood of David, whereas Clara’s neighborhood for lack of a better word is “real”, and in contrast makes David’s home feel like an island of artifice, disconnected from the world.
Clara’s Heart at times feels like Mulligan’s most conventional work, and yet it takes a subversive look at parenthood and wealth. As the film progresses and the two main characters bond, David’s parents feel less and less integral to his life. Looking back from 2016, the formal choices of Clara’s Heart are refreshingly uncluttered with close-ups and obvious setups. Both it and Kiss Me Goodbye find Mulligan subtly deploying long takes and medium shots to let his actors and characters express themselves. Again, Mulligan weaves in harsh details into what otherwise seems like Lifetime-movie-fare, as we find out Clara has been recovering from her own trauma from having been sexually abused by her son back home, a story that she tells the young David in a shockingly frank sequence in her apartment as a storm rumbles outside. It’s a dynamic that Mulligan would perfect in his 1991 masterpiece and final film The Man in the Moon, where these qualities would harmonize with his penchant for portraying pastoral life—but his two works of the 80s affirm Robert Mulligan’s sensitive touch and subtle formal virtues.