Wusa [Blu-ray]

Rush to judgment
A few comments on the film (the DVD isn't out as of this writing) for those who haven't heard of it, which may be many since it has kept a low profile over its 40 year existence. As I recall, the film was largely dismissed at the time of its release, and there were many negative reviews. Some of the criticisms, e.g. pretentious and wide-of-the-mark, were not entirely wrong, but, in retrospect, the film's virtues were dismissed as well. Paul Newman may seem miscast as an amoral drifter who, indifferent to the consequences, becomes a rising star at a right-wing (actually, proto-Fascist) radio station in New Orleans that not only reports the news with a hard slant, but works secretly to manufacture news that will inflame its listeners, but I thought he did an excellent job. Anthony Perkins is the somewhat unbalanced voice of conscience who can't get through to him and, in an odd choice, essentially plays Norman Bates. Newman has a relationship with another drifter, Joanne Woodward, which...

WUSA Overlooked gem
40 years ago, Paul Newman made a most prophetic film about the future of talk radio and America. The film and its characters were so exactly on target, the public overlooked the film because it lacked the normal cheerleader mentality of our films. Newman and Woodward are up to their standard performances, meaning excellent. Joanne Woodward is one of the most talented and beautuful women ever in American films. Too few films allowed her to showcase her sexuality and beauty, WUSA and The Stripper were two exceptions. Newman is perfect as the cynical intellectual who knows he is telling lies but like all of America is doing what is necessary to survive. The last scene in the movie is especially forward looking, when he says "Don't worry about me, I am a survivor. Ain't I lucky?" For those of us who lived through the era of JFK and RFK we know how the films portrays a drop in our nation's expectations from Camelot to survival. It is the perfect political film.

A Downbeat Film That Was Ahead Of It's Time..
WUSA was Paul Newman's follow-up to the highly successful BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and was a complete 180 compared to that film. It was also one of his biggest flops and today it's easy to see why. The film was way ahead of its time not only in its portrayal of the nature of right wing radio but in it's use of unsympathetic, self-centered, and amoral characters led by Newman who emerge unscathed while the inherently good characters played by Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins suffer for their goodness. The script by Robert Stone of DOG SOLDIERS fame (made into the movie WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN? a few years later) brilliantly captures the apathy and the disillusionment of the country after the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy two years earlier. Unlike M*A*S*H which came out the same year, there is not an ounce of comedy in WUSA and that's what makes it so difficult to accept. It's cynical look at the effects of looking the other way was just too much for...

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