Max's Musings

Thomas Wolfe and Junebug

Coming Home Again in Junebug

My third entry in "The Soundtrack of Your Life" , another catch-up entry.

The title of Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can't Go Home Again, captures a loss that resonates with our modern world. Wolf, a native of North Carolina, doubtless personally experienced this loss since he spent almost all of his adult life away from his native Ashville. Many others, myself included, have departed rural roots for more cosmpolitan and urban settings, only to discover later in life what they've lost. I have no regrets for having departed rural Iowa, but I acknowledge I lost something that I can't recover by doing so.

Junebug is, in part, a movie about this kind of loss. It's the story of George, a North Carolina native, and his sophisticated art collector girlfriend, Madelline, who decides to meet a Southern folk artist from George's hometown. This results in a collision of cultures and memories involving George, his parents, his ne'er-do-well brother, his brother's expectant wife, and, of course, the culture which gave birth to George and his family.

The movie is worth watching for many reasons. The opening scene where Madeline meets the local artist is a gemlike vignette that, all by itself, makes the movie worth watching.

But one scene in particular is pure genius. It captures everything that the movie is about. It's set at a church social, a dinner held in the basement of the local church. It seems that George, played by Alessandro Nivolo, was a well-loved member of the choir, and he's invited to sing. The hymn they choose is "Softly and Tenderly." The lyrics are a perfect match for the conflicts in the movie, with Jesus calling for the dearly departed to "come home." The blending of the promise of redemption, the inevitable loss, and the mix of expectations is what makes this so brilliant a choice. George, of course, ultimately discovers you can't go home again--if only he'd read Thomas Wolfe before he tried!

In any case, as Nivollo sings, the camera pans across the other actors, whose expressions provide deep insight into what's happening to their souls while Nivolo sings about Jesus calling, softly and tenderly.

To start with, there's Madelline, played by Embeth Davidtz, whose face reveals wonder and astonishment at seeing a new and unexpected side of her boyfriend, George. Ben McKenzie, who plays the brother, manages to convey both hostility and agression by barely glancing his brother's way while chewing tobacco. Amy Adams, who plays the pregnant wife in an Oscar-nominated performance, follows the lyrics with a religious rapture. Perhaps my favorite is George's mother, played by the ineffable Carla Weston, who silently mouths the words that her beloved son is singing.

But what brings the whole scene together is Nivolo's crystaline tenor, pure and perfectly on pitch. He sings a cappella, accompanied only by two extras, drawn from the locals who populated the scene.
Their voices, too, are perfection.

The whole scene, the song itself, the singers, the expressions of the actors, and editorial cutting combine to make this one of the most memorable bits of cinema I've experienced in any movie. It's rare for a musical interlude to so perfectly capture the themes and conflicts of a movie.

I replicated at least some of this scene in a novella I wrote many years ago, On the Road. It's in my short story anthology, available on Amazon:

ASIN: 1512274127	What in Dreams Abides: A Collection of Horror Tales Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 12.24 Buy Now!

Here's a link to the scene from Junebug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO6RwS3BBu8
Listen and weep for what we've lost or, just maybe, rejoice for what we've found.