Garp's world according to us

Curious to learn more about The World According to Garp? If you enjoyed yesterday's CineVerse meeting, or if you missed it, here are some insights shared on Garp that may help better understand the film:

WHAT ARE SOME OF THIS FILM’S GREATEST STRENGTHS?

• Strong source material: an acclaimed novel on which it’s based, and to which it stays true and faithful
• An example of its faithfulness to the novel is the unrelenting sad and tragic last half hour, which wasn’t softened by Hollywood
• Quirky characters, including a transsexual who becomes Garp’s best friend
• Strong ensemble casting, including John Lithgow, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, Swoosie Kurtz and others
• It comes full circle with bookended images: Garp floating in the air first as a baby, later as an adult
• The film is loaded with ironic situations: man bites dog; mom is more successful a writer than her writer son; mom is a feminist, yet she “rapes” a soldier; mom doesn’t want Garp to write about her in his stories, but she goes ahead and writes about her son in her book; Garp despises the Ellen Jamesians who cut their tongues off and cannot speak, yet later he suffers an accident that prevents him from speaking; Garp always wanted to fly, but isn’t shown airborne until the last scene, which could be his last flight of them all

THEMES EXAMINED IN THIS MOVIE:

• The decay of middle-class and family values and in direct proportion to an increase in sudden violence in our culture
• Sexual confusion and the repercussions of lust and sex
• How art (Garp’s writing) imitates life
• The deep-rooted fears of many human beings, including an obsession with death
• The irony that life can be filled with unexpected joys as well as unexpected pain and uncertainty—uncertainties about love, sex, violence and death
• The pros and cons of feminism
• Impending doom: The film is replete with foreshadowing: the undertow, the dangling piano, the crazy truck driver, the Grim Reaper Halloween costume, Garp’s “very sad” short story, Roberta’s “female intuition” for trouble, the first sniper, etc.

RECURRING THEMES AND MOTIFS IN JOHN IRVING’S STORIES, INCLUDING GARP:

• New England
• Prostitutes
• Wrestling
• Vienna
• Bears
• deadly accidents
• absent parents
• writers
• Sexual differences and deviancy: rape, asexuality, transsexuals, pedophilia, adultery

OTHER FILMS BY DIRECTOR GEORGE ROY HILL

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• The Sting
• Slap Shot
• The Great Waldo Pepper
• Funny Farm

OTHER NOVELS BY JOHN IRVING

• The Hotel New Hampshire
• The Cider House Rules
• A Prayer for Owen Meany (adapted into the film Simon Birch)
• A Widow of One Year