The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 14

14A THE CHARI OTTE ORSFRVFR Wed Dec 19 1979 Carolina Living Dustin Latest Movie Mirrors Own Life tween Ted and his son and the custody fight that ensues when Joanna wants the child back When he began working on the film last year Hoffman was a newly separated father himself had not done a film where my life circumstances matched what I was doing he says I enjoyed He laughs before adding: perverse But I enjoyed it because what I always wanted to do It's what any actor wants to Hoffman and Anne Byrne a former dancer who By INGRID GROLLER Parent Mihum NEW YORK Whether talking about his new movie vs his children or even why people ask for autographs Dustin Hoffman has carefully thought-out opinions In the film Hoffman plays the role of Ted Kramer whose wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) leaves him and their young son early in the story The movie focuses on the relationship that develops be recently appeared In Woody have been separated for more than a year now Married in 1969 they have two daughters: Jenna 8 and from first marriage Karina 13 he comments your first marriage is a long But he wonders: it ever any different? When marriage was originally conceived we married at the age of 15 and died at 30 Today talking about being married for 40 or 50 years Now is it not difficult to live with someone for 50 years and interact in a way that fulfills both of Hoffman divides his time between New York and Los Angeles while the children live with his wife in New York He sees them as much as possible kid yourself if you think being separated does not have a traumatic effect on the he says are going to feel that it is somehow expected that they favor one parent over the other and that causes conflict It is important for them to know that they can love both that they can talk to Daddy about Mommy in positive terms and to Mommy about Daddy in positive In some ways his situation all that different from before since his wife and children have always been based in New York while he has had to travel If in the movies today a Hoffman says that aspect of it is tte! 'I jk' Meryl Slreep Is The Mother she leaves her family zff 1 v' Vs Aj tfl I 'Witl I ft lW 1 1 llflPfe enry's Fallicr In Vs Henry's Father In Vs High Standards As a parent Hoffman sets high standards for himself know that a fantasy but I wish that I could be the kind of parent who is like the ideal director That is someone who guides you without kyour even knowing it without imposing himself" best thing I can say about being a parent is that you do the best you can and you fail a lot 42 been acting since I was 17 and I can still say I know how All I know are certain things that learned The biggest thing is that when it feel right a reason for it So you go until it does feel right the same thing with being a parent You learn from your mistakes If you keep your eyes and ears open you can tell what work with your According to Hoffman: it just comes down to making sure they know that you love them that the house is not the same without them that special Too often we say things like just going through a But what makes life so interesting is that going through that stage and that there with fascinated by the paradox of children their own a mystery look at them and think my personality my smile my this my that but a nice bag of other elements there too And I enjoy not knowing Be- sides you never know how going to turn out know what I want though And I guess whether you like it or not you may influence them like them to like hugging for instance to be physical to want to express themselves in that way And I like them to be reflective love it when they talk about boys in front of me My 8-year-old said to me sent me a ring in the mail I know 15 I said I bet he likes She said the kind of thing I like a Since Hoffman has starred in a variety of films: Cowboy" Big and to name a few His stage appearances include Noon and and The projects chosen as well as the roles played are as diverse as they are topical in the luxurious position of choosing what you want to do without just having to take a Volkswagen commercial then the idea is to have a role you want to he says In the case of vs he says: wanted to see how courageous I could be I think Mark Twain said you can only tell the truth when dead because the whole truth and nothing but the truth is very difficult one of the reasons we artists do it behind the mask of a character But even difficult to do it behind a mask sometimes Dustin Hoffman Plays Justin Catherine Chapin Reviews: Ys man comments if there are children in effect leaving the children too This is not only understood but sanctioned Yet we think horrific if a woman leaves Chastising her for that is one of the things this film In portraying Ted Kramer Hoffman worked to make his own interpretation within the set of givens dictated by the story For starters Kramer is an ambitious Madison Avenue advertising man wants to get to the top before the curtain goes Hoffman says tried to equate that with my profession It is unfortunate but you cannot be in show business or movies or advertising or public' relations without sacrificing something Either you sacrifice your work or your Ted Kramer sacrificed his home but until his wife walks out really not aware of that his point of view he was a good husband and from my point of view in playing him when I got myself into a certain kind of mood he Hoffman explains paid the bills he worked hard he wanted to better his life he wanted to better his life At one point he says guess I thought that if I was happy that meant she was happy you think about what happens in many marriages very painful A husband and wife are supposed to be equal yet not really that way made the money usually and there is the tendency to give him the edge If they both want to buy a car the tendency is to let him have the final choice because his money even though they both agree their money woman whether she likes it or not is going into a different kind of paternal structure when she goes into marriage the breadwinner the child the undercurrent And whether the husband likes it or not he tends to feel knocked myself out all day why is this dinner think a woman finds herself in a difficult position in that sense But it right and it make anything He thinks that men too lose in this situation reminded of a dinner conversation he once had with his wife before their separation Talking about one of the girls she asked him if ever noticed a particular birth mark said he recalls that stuck with me it bothered me remember looking at Anne and saying 1 bet you know every mark on those kids every single There is something we miss as Hoffman says trying to change (c) Parents Magazine December 1979 Reprinted with permission an endearing character in Kramer His first breakfast is a disaster bread for French toast folded in half to fit into an egg-filled coffee cup Hoffman tells Henry that not only does Daddy home the bacon but he has to cook it Daddy also has to learn what grade his son is in what laundry detergent to buy one with the orange and more importantly how to say no is such an embarrassment of riches hard to stop writing Hoffman is a heartache as Kramer who evolves from selfish nit to a man not afraid to cry and not afraid to change Streep continues to take the breath away infusing Joanna with a pathetic vulnerability and putting something incandescent into a role that could easily have been heartless and cruel is as right as a movie can be Vs Is not for the newly and bloodily divorced It will hurt you It will make you cry the first movie in a long while to cause real tears (as opposed to the sentimental ones forced out by movies like Vs is an emotional and complicated movie about a new kind of divorce in which men take the brunt and re- sponsibility of a failed marriage Dustin Hoffman plays a man of the who unlike his counterpart in the is forced to compromise with the changing role of women When trouble erupts in his marriage his wife takes the walk leaving their 5-year-old son behind Director Robert Benton on only his third film does a spectacular job of piling powerful scene upon powerful scene The result is a succession of one-two punchs that repeatedly knock the wind out of us for all of two hours Hoffman is the myopic careerist Ted Kramer who thinks landing a new account for his ad agency amounts to "one of the five best days of my His unhappy wife Joanna played by Meryl Streep ruins his fun when she plunks down her credit card and exits Married and a too young Joanna get attention long enough to tell him she was unhappy Even when she announces leaving she has to speak over phone call to the office Two adults having rocky times is merely a selfish all your exercise But when the third wheel is an innocent child who thinks Mommy left because been bad well something else Little Justin Henry who plays Billy Kramer is a plucked out of a New York elementary school and unaffected by the child-as-adult school of acting He cries with a familiar childish whine not like a faucet He feels real embarrassment (as in a scene where he walks down the Kramer apartment hall in his underwear chin resolutely pushed to chest and arms stiff at his side) Pushing to the limit in every scene takes Ted and Billy from strangers stranded on the same island to soulmates who form an attachment so strong that when Joanna surfaces 18 months later to sue for custody of Billy we wish disappear down a sewer By then Ted has learned that real success is contained not in resumes but in the heart In keeping up all the other mothers" Hoffman builds Part Of always trying to break through so that what getting is going on in me trying to show you that part of me that wants to love that wants to kill that wants to find my way out that feels there is no way The fiaal version of vs was still being worked on when we met and Hoffman pointed out that when he talked about the film he was talking about the last version he saw What he likes best about the movie is that it refuses to present a simple solution It would have been obvious to make Joanna Kramer the wife-mother who walks out on not only her husband but also on her child the bad guy But that was exactly what Hoffman producer Stanley Jaffe and director-writer Robert Benton want to do live in a society where a marital split-up usually means that the man leaves the Hoff- If Going ia playing at Park Tarraca and Eaatland Tickata at Park Tarraca ara $2 matlnaaa and $375 thara-aftar Tickata at Eaatland ara $150 matl-naaa $250 until 6 pm and $375 tharaaf-tar GUIDE: Ratad Va containa profanity famala nudity and ona acana of violanca Tha rating ia mainly lor tha aubjact'a 4Tfie Have A Spirit That Be Kept Down Dot Jackson even get together and tie our Marion said laughing husband died when he was 48 had raised four children of my own and one adopted child and 57 foster she said I had brain surgery and the doctors said if I lived never speak If I lived I'd never hear Never walk be blind be a Marion I-Iipp was in a wreck in 1948 in his senior year in college think live They just sewed up his Gertrude said they said if he did live be a Well both were in a nursing home and they were the youngest people there ran after me four and a half months and I speak with Finally a friend cornered Gertrude and brought Marion forth and properly introduced them And then they were left alone together by matchmakers by a candle-lighted pool in their wheelchairs And there was nothing to do but to look upon each other with fresh eyes have been friends In Christ for 12 years Gertrude said squeezing his hand Will they get married? No Marion said there is too much red tape involved But they are both at Green Acres Rest Home and they have the devoted companionship of each other The Briarhoppers are just like any other famous band of stage radio and wind-up Vic-trola Wherever they go the groupies follow Don White called the other day to say the Briarhoppers were getting together to play for the Venturers Christmas party Nothing would do then (for a groupie) but to join the Venturers for the evening The Briarhoppers like to brag about being old They were in their heyday on WBT back in the and when radio ruled many a household us all together and we are 340 years Don said Understand that is divided by five: Hank Warren Shannon Grayson Whitey Grant Arval Hogan and Don Still picking the banjo and the mandolin and guitar still fiddling and whatever you call bowing melancholy melodies upon the saw A lot of their playing now is for parties like this one It was at Redeemer Lutheran Church and not one of the honored guests was able to come under hisher own power The Venturers is a club for-people who can get a big kick out of social gatherings but just get to any on their own A lot of them are in wheelchairs They have palsy or paralysis or afflictions that waste muscles and nerves and cripple all but spirits Some are in nursing homes Some like Made Benton who is a 3-foot-9 tower of willpower do part of their own housekeeping Made Is a dwarf half her life of 48 years has been spent in a wheelchair She is a pretty little widow with a son named Mike who is 16 and picks sometimes and very well with the Briarhoppers The day of that party started out pretty rough Macie and Mike live with her mother and her mother was sick A helpful neighbor the mother of seven children was killed crossing Independence Boulevard Macie was devastated But she had pulled together and made three cakes for the party and played mistress of ceremonies with unflappable charm Friends brought in great platters of food Ex-councilman Jim Whittington the old dar-lin came and poured the coffee a rule to talk nice about undertakers They always lay down the last card) And the Briarhoppers played Gertrude Robinson and Marion Ilipp sat in their wheelchairs holding hands They were holding right hands they are both paralyzed on the left side Observer Photo By DOT JACKSON Gertrude Robinson And Marion Ilipp at Venturers Christmas party.