Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 7, 1992 TAG: 9202070266
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Chris Gladden
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HOLLYWOOD SERVES IT UP SOUTHERN-FRIED
The South is rising again - at least in the movie business.Movies chock-full of Southerness are covering movie theaters these days like the dew covers Dixie.
These aren't the typical movies shot in the right-to-work South to avoid union scale and take advantage of cheap labor. There are a lot of those out there.
These are movies that have more of a Southern dimension than pure scenery and low wages.
No doubt, one of the reasons that filmmakers are responding to Southern material is the success of "Driving Miss Daisy."
It was that perfect thing to movie producers: a high-minded, modestly budgeted picture that gained Oscars and critical respect and became a box office monster as well. In other words, a prestige picture that nobody had to feel guilty making a truck load of money off of.
Everyone in Hollywood hopes to land another "Driving Miss Daisy." Thus we have "Fried Green Tomatoes," a movie that blends sentiment and humor. Set in Alabama and based on Fannie Flagg's novel, it tells two stories about friendship. As much as anything else, it's about the Southern art of yarn spinning.
"The Prince of Tides" is based on Pat Conroy's best-selling, extravagantly plotted novel. At its core is the notion that being born Southern is a combined blessing and curse. Its hero says geography is his wound.
Nick Nolte plays Tom Wingo, a football coach dealing with all kinds of past and present traumas. But he prefers the South Carolina low country, in which he suffered most of his misery, to New York City. In New York, he is an oddity and is indeed treated like a sub-human species because of his birthplace.
"Rambling Rose" is one of the best of the recent Southern movies. Based on Calder Willingham's novel and set in a Depression-era Georgia town, it focuses on the mischief caused by a promiscuous servant girl in one middle-class family.
"Cape Fear" is a thriller based on a John D. MacDonald novel that takes its title from North Carolina's Cape Fear River. Nick Nolte again plays a Southerner - give him the good ol' boy of the year award - whose family is terrorized by a vengeful ex-convict. Robert De Niro is the cracker from hell.
"Love Crimes," set in Georgia, is another psychological thriller with a Southern ambience, though it's less about the South than the other movies. "JFK," it should be noted, is set largely in New Orleans and is populated by a cast of Southern characters. But it's a big-issue movie and not one so much about the character and people of a particular patch of geography.
What audiences seem to embrace in movies like "Tides," "Tomatoes," "Daisy" and "Rose" are colorful characters in simpler times who live in places that don't exist anymore.
Fast-food chains have closed the Whistle Stop Cafe. Tom Wingo's beloved island is now the site of a nuclear power plant. Shopping malls have killed the little town Rose visited. And Miss Daisy stays glued to the TV down at the nursing home.
Before long, the only place you'll be able to hear a Southern accent is on a movie screen.