The THing Called Love | Through the Shattered Lens

First released in 1993 and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, The Thing Called Love takes place in Nashville, the city that, for many people, has come to define Americana.

Of course, for those who actually love movies, it’s difficult to watch any film about Nashville and the country music scene without being reminded of Robert Altman’s American epic, Nashville. Much like Nashville, The Thing Called Love follows a group of wannabes, stars, writers, and performers. However, whereas Robert Altman used the city and its residents as a way to paint an acidic portrait of a nation struggling to find its way in an uncertain new world, The Thing Called Love is far less ambitious.

The Thing Called Love centers around Miranda Presley (Samantha Mathis). Miranda is from New York but she loves country music. She comes to Nashville to try to sell her songs and become a star. Instead, she ends up working as a waitress at the “legendary” Bluebird Cafe. While she waits for her big break, she meets two other aspiring writer/performers, Linda Lu (Sandra Bullock) and Kyle Davidson (Dermot Mulroney). Kyle falls in love with Miranda but Miranda falls in love with and marries James Wright (River Phoenix, brother of Joaquin). Unfortunately, while James is talented, he’s also a bit of a jerk.

The Thing Called Love aired on TCM last year and I can still remember checking out the #TCMParty hashtag on twitter while the film was airing. The majority of the comments were from people who loved TCM and who couldn’t understand why the channel was showing this rather forgettable movie. The answer, of course, is that the film was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and Bogdanovich was one of the patron saints of TCM. Along with being responsible for some genuinely good films (Targets, The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, Saint Jack, Mask, The Cat’s Meow), Bogdanovich was also a very serious student of the history of film. Up until he passed away in January, Bogdanovich was a familiar and welcome sight on TCM. Listening to him talk about John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and especially Orson Welles was always a delight.

Unfortunately, as Bogdanovich himself often admitted, the majority of his later films failed to reach the heights of his earlier work and that’s certainly the case of The Thing Called Love. It’s not so much that The Thing Called Love is bad as it’s just really forgettable. There’s very little about the film that suggests that it was directed by cineaste who was responsible for The Last Picture Show. Samantha Mathis is likable but a bit bland in the role of Miranda while River Phoenix plays James as being such a jerk that you really don’t care about whether or not he finds success. From what I’ve read, Phoenix based his performance on watching Bob Dylan in the documentary Don’t Look Back. Dylan is notably mercurial in that documentary but, it should be noted, that Dylan eventually abandoned that persona once he realized that it was a creative dead end.

To be honest, I think the film would have worked better if Samantha Mathis had switched roles with Sandra Bullock. This was one of Bullock’s first films and she steals every scene in which she appears, giving an energetic and likable performance as someone who never allows herself a single moment of doubt or despair. As opposed to the self-loathing Phoenix and the bland Mathis and Mulroney, Sandra Bullock represents the hope and optimism that Nashville is meant to symbolize. In the end, her performance is the best thing about The Thing Called Love.

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

I just read that director Peter Bogdonavich passed away earlier today. He was 82 years old.

Bogdanovich’s directorial career serves as both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. He achieved the dream of many a film journalist by making the jump from writing about films to actually making them. He went from interviewing Orson Welles to being declared the next Orson Welles. His first film, Targets, allowed him to give Boris Karloff one final, great role. His second film, The Last Picture Show, was nominated for Best Picture. With his next film, Paper Moon, he directed Tatum O’Neal to an Oscar. At a time when the so-called “movie brats” were rejecting the old ways of making films, Bogdonavich paid homage to the classic films of the past. At his height, he made films that were both entertaining and, if you got all the references, educational.

Unfortunately, Bogdanovich’s later films were not as successful with critics or audiences. Bogdanovich himself would later say that he underestimated just how much some of his former colleagues resented both his early success and his very public relationship with actress Cybil Shepherd. In short, the critics were waiting for him to slip up and they attacked films like Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love like sharks in a feeding frenzy. By the end of the 70s, he often found himself struggling to raise the money to make the movies that he wanted to make. So determined was he to see that his film They All Laughed was released that he distributed it himself, at great financial cost.

Regardless of his later career struggles, Bogdanovich remained a tireless advocate for watching and appreciating the films that were produced during the the Golden Age of Hollywood and he was a regular fixture on TCM, where he would discuss the films of Welles, John Ford, John Huston, Howard Hawks, and others. He oversaw the release of Orson Welles’s long-delayed The Other Side of the Wind, a film in which he co-starred with John Huston. Along with directing, Bogdanovich was a reliable character actor and those who don’t know him as a director might know him as Dr. Melfi’s therapist on The Sopranos.

Finally, a lot of the Bogdanovich films that were initially dismissed have subsequently been positively reappraised. Bogdanovich was correct when he said that many of his later films were unfairly criticized or dismissed. If nothing else, Bogdanovich’s love of the movies came through in everything that he did. He will be missed for film historians everywhere.

Here are….

4 Shots From 4 Peter Bogdanovich Films