It's not a fashionable thing to say, but here goes: I don't mind that Robert Redford's Ordinary People beat out Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull for Best Picture at the 1981 Academy Awards. I was irate when Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves trumped Scorsese's Goodfellas at the 1991 ceremony (and to have twice lost Best Director to actors turned first-time helmers is an especially salty twist of fate for Scorsese), but cinephiles (yes, I consider myself one) tend to be a little stubborn about Raging Bull, which is in grave danger of becoming a designated classic, a default selection on Top 10 lists everywhere. Although Ordinary People went home with Oscar, history has swapped its place with Raging Bull as the black sheep of that infamous race. (Coal Miner's Daughter, The Elephant Man, and Tess also ran; those films' respective directors were each nominated save Coal Miner's Daughter's Michael Apted, whose spot went to The Stunt Man's Richard Rush. I personally would've denied both Redford and Scorsese the statuette and given it to David Lynch for The Elephant Man.)

Perhaps above all else, Ordinary People should be recognized for overcoming its stigmatic ensemble. As aggro Italian-Americans, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are essentially playing to type in Raging Bull. For Ordinary People, a heavy drama, Redford sought out sitcom regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch, wholly subverting her we're-gonna-make-it-after-all image and his deceptively straight-arrow "Taxi" persona. Moore is frighteningly convincing as a homemaker who has begrudged suicidal son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) of affection since the accidental death of his brother Buck, her firstborn. Conrad is, in no uncertain terms, messed-up good by this, and makes an appointment, at his sensitive but clueless father's (Donald Sutherland) urging, to see touchy-feely psychiatrist Dr. Berger (Hirsch).

Ordinary People is not very cinematic, even if John Bailey's cinematography evokes autumnal afterschool nippiness. Why I prefer it, in some respects, to the two hours of film school that is Raging Bull, wherein Scorsese's artistic indulgences finally gave way to mastery of the medium, has to do with location, location, location. Raging Bull unfolds on the mean streets of New York, in tenement buildings and boxing rings. It's the milieu in which Scorsese grew up, and the details, from the sound design to a dribbling cup of coffee, seem precise. But Redford's Ordinary People takes place on my turf, the white picket façade known as suburbia; while I'm not so provincial that movies set outside my familiar world fail to speak to me, there are fewer scenes alien to me in Ordinary People than there are in Raging Bull, and it packs a cleaner emotional wallop.

Besides being observant (Beth's mother asks, with pitch-perfect suburban tactlessness, "Dr. Berger; a Jewish shrink?"; an uneventful choir performance is one of Conrad's sweatier nightmares, presumably because it reflects the reality without a shred of dream logic), Ordinary People, by way of Alvin Sargent's screenplay (based on the same-named novel by Judith Guest), is structured in the manner of a whodunit (with nods to the detective work of Oedipus Rex): Berger's keen bystander is asking questions that trigger Big Revelations in Conrad. If these answers are clear to us from the outset, the film was made twenty-one years ago, during the infancy of pop psychology, well before Jerry Springer and his "Final Thoughts" came along. I guess its age has become one of the film's fundamental weaknesses, for the reason I just mentioned and because it is not immune to the now-comical stylistic idiosyncrasies of the era, such as hazy filters on the lens to suggest idyllic times and a reverb effect added to reused snatches of dialogue. I can also fathom how some might resent the classification of white, upper-middle-class suburbanites as "ordinary."

Conrad's journey, though, the unravelling, is exceptionally told--his increasingly charged exchanges with those around him are sharp and uncloying. There is a spontaneous streak in Conrad's dialogue that Hutton pulls off with grace; it's an unsentimental feature debut that won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ordinary People has one of the few casts that support the implementation of a Group Oscar category. Heck, a Pulitzer would've only just begun to suggest how fine the quartet of Moore-Sutherland-Hutton-Hirsch is. Sutherland's shattering final monologue has gone criminally uncelebrated for too long, and Moore had the fleeting presence of a female Brando. Her sceptre looms over every shot. A powerful, bittersweet closing scene is icing on the cake. Redford became a slicker filmmaker hereafter (The Legend of Bagger Vance looks every penny its $60m budget), but Ordinary People remains his sole effort that suggests he's a "natural" behind the camera.

If Paramount's bare bones Ordinary People DVD is disappointing, that's because it was originally to have included commentary from Redford. (More accurately, its announced release date was pushed to accommodate the track.) Given the studio's track record, don't count on Paramount revisiting the title until a new video format replaces DVD. In the meantime, what we have is a 1.85:1, 16x9-enhanced widescreen transfer that's about as nice as the LaserDisc's, which is to say, acceptable, not great. Blacks range deep and the palette of fall colours looks more dynamic than ever before, but shadow detail wavers and there is mild print damage. The sound is ordinary 2.0 mono, and the only extra is the powerful theatrical trailer.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening