As if winning a Pulitzer prize and getting a MacArthur fellowship following the publication of his novel Ironweed in 1983 weren’t enough, William Kennedy continued his lucky streak with a film deal. Brazilian director Héctor Babenco fell for Ironweed and told Kennedy: “This book is talking to me and saying, ‘I want to be a movie.’ I am going to make a movie of you.”
It was a hot-ticket team. Babenco’s previous film was Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson were persuaded to star, while Tom Waits agreed to make an extended cameo. Babenco, known for sensitively filming life on the streets, seemed like the ideal fit. Kennedy, also an excellent film critic, wrote the screenplay. The film studio dug deep into its coffers and spent $27m to ensure the setting looked authentic and impressive. What could possibly go wrong?
The good news: Nicholson and Streep received Oscar nominations for their portrayals of the down-and-out William Phelan and his ailing partner, Helen, who struggle to make it through the cold and danger of life on the streets in 1930s Albany.
The bad news: just about everything else. In 1988, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote: “Watching Ironweed is like having a large, metal object lodged in your brain for two-and-a-half hours. It hurts.” He even resented the acting: “It’s the kind of film that has no reason to exist other than to win Academy Awards,” he wrote. “Less than a movie, Ironweed emerges as a collection of resumes.”
Janet Maslin in the New York Times was similarly damning: “Ironweed is skeletal, a mere outline of Mr Kennedy’s far more resonant book. That Mr Kennedy himself adapted the novel to the screen is only further evidence of how much more greatly film and literature diverge than those on either side of the fence often imagine.”
The film recouped roughly $7m from the $27m budget and has since shuffled into the shadows. I could only find it on a special Korean region 0 disc.
I’d love to tell you the critics had it wrong. But it’s not that simple.
Ironweed makes for a bleak two-and-half hours. As Maslin noted, a lot is missing from the film, notably the moments of shining light in Kennedy’s prose and a sense of optimism despite everything. The film also has trouble with the ghosts that haunt Francis. On the page, they are ambiguous. Sometimes apparently real, sometimes figments of Francis’s imagination, sometimes existing in memory. In the film, they’re clumsily rendered in white costumes.
But if you can set aside cynicism about Streep and Nicholson gunning for Oscars, you’ll appreciate their performances. By 1987, Nicholson was deep into the unrestrained stage of his career, whacking out performances in films such as The Witches of Eastwick with sledgehammer subtlety. Here he remains quiet, thoughtful and even meek. Every so often there’s a sly eyebrow lift and a glint in the eyes, otherwise he plays against type. It works. Streep is even better. She looks and sounds sick – faltering in her speech and carriage and her eyes red-rimmed, she is compelling and frightened. There’s a scene where she overcomes her dissolution to blast out He’s My Pal that is triumphant and heartbreaking.
The film has plenty of impressive and touching moments, and I’d recommend it to fans of the novel. Kennedy may have struggled to translate his luminous prose to screen, but there are moments that cast an interesting light on the book. If you want an interpretation of the book’s mysterious ending and more clarity about whether Jack ships out of town, returns home, or dies drunk, you won’t get that. But you will get more of an idea about Kennedy’s thought processes. It’s a bit of a slog, but I’m glad I made the effort.
