Each year before the bird gets brined, baked and basted, I pause to give thanks for the movies that celebrate the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving, inspired by the end-of-harvest feasts celebrated by Native Americans and European settlers and depicted in Squanto and The New World.
The most affectionate portrait of the nation's diversity and inclusivity is What's Cooking?, Gurinder Chadha's vivid American mosaic of four families -- African-American, Asian, Latino and Jewish -- each putting a distinctive touch on the traditional feast, (Pictured are the film's stars, Alfre Woodard, Julianna Margulies, Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick and Joan Chen.)
I'd have to agree with Roger Ebert that the most depressing Thanksgiving movie of all time is Ang Lee's The Ice Storm , in which an estranged family of four gather around the table looking as though they'd like to carve each other and not the turkey. (Nearly matching its DQ -- Depression Quotient -- is the Thanksgiving dinner in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain in which the whine of an electric knife breaks the tense silence at the table.)
Happy Thanksgiving movies? John Hughes' Planes, Trains & Automobiles is a perennial, as much about the horrors of the travelas the about family reunion and food. Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, like Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher, are bracketed by Thanksgiving banquets with much sturm and drang before the well-deserved happy endings.
Oliver Stone's The Doors -- in which, if memory serves, rocker Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) throws a turkey at wife Patti (Meg Ryan) -- may be the definitive hippie Thanksgiving film.
Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays, with newly unemployed Holly Hunter, is the definitive Gen X dysfunctional-family Thanksgiving reunion, though some prefer Bart Freundlich's The Myth of Fingerprints. Peter Hedges' Pieces of April , with Katie Holmes as the punkette whose oven is on the fritz, the ultimate alt.Turkey Day experience.
The Norman Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving is summed up in By the Light of the Silvery Moon , a charming 1953 Doris Day/Gordon MacRae musical based on a Booth Tarkington.
Avalon, Driving Miss Daisy, Raising Arizona and Rocky all have key scenes set at Thanksgiving, as does Across the Universe, currently in release.
Of all these films, the one that most evocatively shows Thanksgiving's origins has to be Terrence Malick's The New World, where Pocahontas and her tribe bring their harvrst bounty to the men starving at the Jamestown settlement. And the one that most tastily serves the variety of the Thanksgiving experience would have to be What's Cooking?, with its menu of meals.
Finally, Thanksgiving films are not really about the food but about the narrative convention they provide. As marriage is the event that reconciles conflict in romantic comedies, Thanksgiving is the event that allows characters to simultaneously show their differences, and also their togetherness.
Your thoughts on Thanksgiving films? Most treasured movie? Scene?
Comments (11)
Avalon. "You carved the turkey without me?" Isn't this echoed in every family by the time-challenged relative?
Posted by Anonymous | November 20, 2007 7:39 PM
Posted on November 20, 2007 19:39
My memory of that line is slightly different. In my memory Lou Jacobi says, "Vy didja cut the toikey?" But the meaning is the same.
Posted by Carrie | November 20, 2007 7:43 PM
Posted on November 20, 2007 19:43
About half of Pauly Shore's "Son-in-Law" takes place over Thanksgiving break. In an unrealistically sunny and warm South Dakota.
Posted by bill | November 21, 2007 8:43 AM
Posted on November 21, 2007 08:43
I like when Paulie throws the turkey out of the house to make Adrian go out with Rocky.
Posted by Anon | November 21, 2007 10:51 AM
Posted on November 21, 2007 10:51
So, with "The Doors" and "Rocky" we have two instances of the turkey used as projectile weapon, a fantasy of many holiday cooks and disgruntled family members.
Posted by Carrie | November 21, 2007 11:19 AM
Posted on November 21, 2007 11:19
What about Alice's Restaurant? The movie, based on the Arlo Guthrie song, takes place on and after a hippie Thanksgiving meal at Alice's place.
Posted by Jim | November 21, 2007 12:23 PM
Posted on November 21, 2007 12:23
Greg Mottola's 1996 film, "The Daytrippers," in which Hope Davis discovers that her husband Stanley Tucci has been having an affair with a man, takes place during an impomptu family excursion to New York, just after the family has had Thanksgiving dinner. Quite atypical.
Posted by Joe | November 21, 2007 4:02 PM
Posted on November 21, 2007 16:02
I wondered if "Dan in Real Life" was intended to take place at Thanksgiving, although maybe it was supposed to be spring break? Good movie.
Posted by Bob E | November 21, 2007 8:19 PM
Posted on November 21, 2007 20:19
Because everything in the garden seemed to be in bud, I think it was shot in March. Since there were no gifts or Easter eggs, I'm guessing Spring break.
Peter Hedges, who did "Pieces of April," aldo did "Dan in Real Life."
Posted by Carrie | November 21, 2007 8:25 PM
Posted on November 21, 2007 20:25
Sad? Try an old movie named 'All Mine To Give'. View it Xmas eve & sprinkle some artificial snow. Sad? Wow!
Posted by Bruce | November 23, 2007 9:12 AM
Posted on November 23, 2007 09:12
It's not a movie, but the famous Thanksgiving episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" takes the gold in this relatively small field. "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly": as apt an epitaph for many a Thanksgiving as any.
Posted by wwolfe | November 29, 2007 3:48 PM
Posted on November 29, 2007 15:48