The series A posteriori le cinéma is intended to be an opportunity to celebrate the 7the art by revisiting flagship titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
When we discuss the resurgence of American independent cinema in 1989, three directors are generally attributed the paternity of it: Steven Soderbergh, with Sex, Lies and Videotape (Sex, lies and video), Gus Van Sant, with Drugstore Cowboyand Spike Lee, with Do the Right Thing. However, there is a director who has her share of “motherhood” in the affair, but whom history – and historians – seems to have endeavored to forget: Nancy Savoca, with True Love. After winning the Grand Prix at the Sundance festival, the mecca of independent cinema, this feminist anti-romance hit the screens in June 1989.
Camped in the Italian-American community of the Bronx, where Nancy Savoca is from, True Love tale with a perfect mix of harshness and humor the colorful preparations for the wedding between Donna (Annabella Sciorra) and Michael (Ron Eldard), two young people who appear very much in love, but who, deep down, bend to family pressures and social issues that go beyond them.
This is especially true for Donna, whose point of view the film follows. In his essay Nancy Savoca Made a Movie That Changed Hollywood — and Didn’t Get Credit for Itpublished in 2019 by The Cherry Picks, Kate Blair writes: “The film’s female perspective remains relevant today. Sciorra’s eyes overflow with sadness and confusion behind her plastered smile, as Donna navigates conflicting messages about love, sex, and marriage on sight. »
And in fact, 35 years after its release, True Love has not aged. Reflection on gender-related expectations, whether woman or man, remains enlightening. And there is the almost anthropological authenticity of the painting of the environment, that is, this working-class Italian-American neighborhood devoid of mafia clichés…
Nancy Savoca and her partner, Richard Guay, wrote the first draft of the script in 1982, in a motel in Ontario, where the second had family. Back in New York, the couple failed to interest any producer. Solution ? Self-produce.
In solidarity, filmmaker friends John Sayles (Passion Fish), Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs / Thesilenceofthelambs) and Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan / Desperately looking for Susan) invested in the film. An assortment of New York dentists and doctors imitated them, for a total budget of $750,000. The team worked largely on a voluntary basis.
Not a fairy tale
Why does this first feature film by Nancy Savoca deserve to be placed on the same footing as her most illustrious contemporaries? Particularly because at the time, True Love schooled by a host of aspiring filmmakers.
Indeed, in the wake of its plebiscite at Sundance, True Love found itself at the center of a bidding war between major Hollywood studios. Conclusion: yes, it was possible to shoot with few resources, outside the system, a personal, specific story, then to be noticed and see your career launched.
The problem is that the studios in question wanted to impose changes ranging from the addition of subtitles, under the pretext of too strong an accent, to the filming of a new, happy ending. Believing that this would distort the film, Savoca and Guay accepted MGM’s offer, which guaranteed them to release True Love as is.
You should know that the previous year, MGM had been a hit at the box office and at the Oscars with the romantic comedy Moonstruck (Moonlight), by Norman Jewison, also set against the backdrop of the Italian-American community in New York. Gold, True Love had nothing to do with this modern fairy tale (as great as it was), and was more of an…anti-romantic comedy.
Obviously not knowing how to promote the film, MGM only released it in a handful of theaters, nipping any chance of success in the bud. In short, after the enthusiastic hubbub of Sundance, time for silence.
In this regard, on the festival website, the timeline presenting the flagship films launched at Sundance is revealing. Thus, for the year 1989, we highlight Sex, Lies and Videotapewinner of the Audience Award, and we only mention in passing True Loveyet winner of the highest distinction that year (anecdote: pregnant during filming, Nancy Savoca was giving birth while her film was being rewarded).
In her essay, Kate Blair discusses the different treatments reserved for the two films: “The 1989 Sundance Film Festival […] is seen as a decisive turning point for independent cinema. Since then, many critics have attributed Sex, Lies and Videotape the revival of the movement, relegating Savoca to a mere footnote in a larger story. In truth, much of the meteoric success of Sex, Lies and Videotape is attributable to Miramax. Founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein have been characteristically aggressive in their promotion and distribution of the film. »
The opposite of MGM’s confidential approach, in short.
Incandescent Annabella Sciorra
Speaking of Harvey Weinstein, it is impossible not to return to the allegations of rape, and professional retaliation, that Annabella Sciorra made against him in 2017. In 2020, the actress gave powerful testimony at the trial of the fallen producer.
In this case, the courage, determination and dignity of Annabella Sciorra on this occasion recall her comments about her character as True Loveheld in a 1989 interview with New York Times : “Over the course of the film, Donna learns about herself, and she finally has the courage to say, “This is not what I want.” »
In what was her very first film, Sciorra is incandescent. After True Lovehis star shone, too briefly, in Jungle Feverby Spike Lee, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (The hand that rocks the child), by Curtis Hanson… Then, Hollywood turned away from her.
On the independent circuit, well, his friend Abel Ferrara gave him beautiful scores, notably in The Funeral (Our funeral), an intimate mafia drama which led to Annabella Sciorra joining the cast of the television series The Sopranos.
In short, erasure of the film of a female director, and erasure of an actress, by an industry dominated by men… Ironically, that’s a bit the subject of True Love. In that the protagonist, Donna, is the target of patriarchal diktats so insidiously internalized that she cannot even name them.
Like a revolt
However, the nuance is there. As Christina Newland summarizes in an essay for Criterion: “By focusing on the possibility of a happy marriage between two increasingly uncertain people, True Love examines the damage inflicted on women’s lives by traditional patriarchy. Savoca […] never fails to imbue his male characters with psychological light and shadow. »
In an interview produced for the Blu-ray of Dogfight (Parade), her next magnificent film, the director explains: “I am Latin: my father was Sicilian and my mother, Argentinian, and in these two cultures, it is as if the roles assigned to each gender were in high relief. I grew up with very rigid models […] These roles didn’t suit my father or my mother, but they played them as much as they could, because that’s what was expected. »
And this is what Donna becomes aware of, and what she rebels against, slowly, but surely. Just like Nancy Savoca, who, faced with Hollywood proposals tirelessly repeating not “contradictory” but traditionalist messages on “love, sex and marriage”, decreed, like her heroine: “This That’s not what I want. »
Consequently, True Love is not a “traditional” film; a film distorted by a happy ending imposed by formula-loving studios where the heroine falls into line. And it is also for this, for its identity jealously preserved by Nancy Savoca and Richard Guay, that True Love must be celebrated.
The film True Love is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.