For some reason, don’t ask me why, but for some reason every other semester or so, film students in my department were forced to recreate a scene from this movie.
I finally got around to watching it. Now my professors probably had a reason for pulling this movie out repeatedly and asking us to painstakingly recreate shots to the T. There was probably a reason but after doing the coursework, passing the classes, and eventually graduating from said program, I still have NO IDEA what that reason is.
It’s a silly movie, and it has charming points, if that. H. I. McDunnough (played by none other than our favorite treasure hunter Nic Cage) and Edwina “Ed” (Holly Hunter) are a childless couple who decide to liberate a rich family of one of their quintuplets.
Kidnapping. There’s some kidnapping, a bit of jailbreak, and a good pouring of robbery in the shenanigans of this story.
Everything is over-the-top, caricatures of people in their base needs and wants and I would just love to claim this as a comedy movie from 1987 that had great moments and overall was not my cup of tea, BUT I’M HERE TO CAUSE DRAMA IN A MOVIE THAT CAME OUT OVER 30 YEARS AGO HAHAHAHA
The Duality of Man
Can’t believe I actually want to analyze this comedic bandwagon of nonsense and it’s not that I really want to, but I was looking up images for this newsletter and came across an interesting blog where I learned more than I wanted to.
Honestly the beauty of art or anything that is strictly labeled as ‘comedy’ is its ability to rise above the low, low limbo bar we have set and create allegories and symbols and tragic characters with just a setup and a joke.
For the most part, this is a silly movie about an ex-con and an ex-cop trying to make a family together. What is good and what is bad is clearly defined with the idea of jail and freedom, but is blurred when HI uses violence to protect his family or steals for the very same reason.
Good and bad is easily represented in a black-or-white, yes-or-no kind of binary but we see HI struggling with this as he desperately tries to turn over a new leaf and blurs his existence on that spectrum.
He was a bad man, trying to become a good one, but going about it all wrong and in the only way that he knows how.
HI’s prison friends (who of course break out and who HI graciously entertains out of past camaraderie) tell him “You ain’t being true to your own true nature” and that brings out the question:
Is being good a choice? Or is it something inherent, that cannot be taught?
Honestly, watching this movie in 2022 did not make me overanalyze the depth of this movie as I should have because I wasn’t cinematically impressed with the story, the dialogue, or camera movements.
But taking a step off my high horse made of green-screens and CGI and mind-numbing streaming services, Raising Arizona is a well-done movie with its practical effects and honest to goodness comedy.
And if you can learn something from it? Even better.
Family
Family is a big thing in this movie. The creation of one, the desperation of another, the overall American dream of what a fulfilled nuclear family is.
The entire inciting incident comes from Ed and HI’s inability to have kids or adopt and their desperation to be the perfect ideal of an American family. HI is a renounced criminal and Ed is an ex-cop, but those parental figures already make for a shaky parental helm.
The dream of having offspring is as much a desire to fit in with their friends and neighbors, to be “normal,” but it’s also their overwhelming belief of a second-chance in their newborn.
With this child, they can prove that they aren’t screw ups. If they can raise this baby boy to be a good man, that means that they are good people and, at the very least, with all the things they’ve ruined or mucked up, at least they’ve done right by him.
They are desperate for proof that their efforts to be good people will payoff somehow and while they want a family for family’s sake, we can’t ignore that this entire premise came about through a crime.
Nicolas Cage
I loved this man in National Treasure. Like, you don’t see too many people horny for history and captivating people the way Nic Cage did as Benjamin Gates. It was interesting, suave, Indiana Jones if he actually knew anything about the ancient, historic sites he was looting.
He’s had an illustrious career and is still going strong. It’s the sharp jawline and the crisp beard for me. It could also just be the raw talent and amazing acting chops he has consistently been bringing to the screen.
He’s actually got this new movie called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and I can’t wait to see it because it looks stupid and satirical and if I’ve learned anything from looking up facts on Raising Arizona, it’s that comedy can lend you words you never knew you needed help saying.
Never judge a book by it’s cover.
And never laugh at a joke too long, or else you’ll become one.
"This here's the TV. Two hours a day, maximum, either... either educational or football, so's, y'know, you don't ruin your appreciation of the finer things."
- H.I. McDonnough, Raising Arizona