Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Screening-discussion of the most decorated of all the Screen Gems Made in Nebraska:

“Terms of Endearment” (1983)

The James L. Brooks film became a critical and box office smash. It brought legendary stars Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine to the state along with then-newcomer stars Debra Winger and Jeff Daniels. Nearly two decades later, Nicholson would return to Nebraska to star in Alexander Payne’s Omaha-shot “About Schmidt.”

“Terms of Endearment” shot extensively in and around Lincoln, Nebraska.

Wednesday, October 24, 5:45 p.m.

Metro North Express at the Highlander

Non-credit Continuing Ed class

Part of fall Nebraska Screen Gems film class series

Register for the class at:

https://coned.mccneb.edu/wconnect/ace/ShowSchedule.awp?&Criteria…

This class in my fall Nebraska Screen Gems series will screen and discuss a film that established James L. Brooks as a feature writer-director to be reckoned with following his success in television.

Brooks stamped himself a modern movie comedy master with his 1983 adaptation of the Larry McMurtry novel “Terms of Endearment.” This feature film directorial debut by Brooks came after he wrote the movie “Starting Over,” which Alan J. Pakula directed, and after he conquered television by creating “Room 222,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi.” For his first film as writer-director, Brooks wonderfully modulates the comedy and drama in a story about a young wife-mother whose marriage is falling apart and her widowed mother who unexpectedly finds new romance. Infidelity and terminal cancer get added to the high stakes. In what could have been a maudlin soap opera in lesser heads plays instead as a raw, raucous slice of life look at well-meaning people stymied by their own flaws and desires and by events outside their own control.

The film was partially shot in Nebraska. The exteriors intended to be in Des Moines, Iowa, Kearney, Nebraska, and Lincoln, Nebraska, were all filmed in Lincoln. Many scenes were filmed on or near the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, During filming in Lincoln, Debra Winger met the then-governor of Nebraska, Bob Kerrey, and wound up dating him for two years.

To a man and woman, the principal characters are unapolegetically their own strong-willed people. MacLaine is the vain, severe Aurora Greenway, whose fierce love and criticism of her daughter Emma (Winger) drives a wedge between them that their devotion to each other overcomes. Daniels plays Emma’s unfaithful professor husband Flap. Nicholson plays Garrett Breedlove, the carousing ex-astronaut neighbor of Aurora who, unusual for him, finds himself falling for a woman his own age when he discovers that his neighbor is not the brittle bitch he thought.

During the period “Terms” was in production, MacLaine and Nicholson were the two big names in the cast, but the lead, Winger, had only just become a star by virtue of her performance in “An Officer and a Gentleman” (1982). DeVito was a TV star from “Taxi.” Lithgow was still better known for his stage work than his screen work. Daniels was a newcomer.

The strong ensemble cast is headed by Nicholson and MacLaine, who inhabit their roles so fully that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in them.

Veteran Omaha stage actor Tom Wees has a speaking part as a doctor and ably holds his own with the heavyweight stars.

Of all the films ever made in Nebraska, “Terms” is by far the most honored. It was nominated for 11 Oscars and won five (for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and MacLaine as Best Actress and Nicholson as Best Supporting Actor.) The picture also won four Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actress in a Drama (MacLaine), Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson) and Best Screenplay (Brooks).

Brooks followed this film with two more instant comedy classics: “Broadcast News” and “As Good as It Gets” and added to his TV legend by creating “The Simpsons.”

Here is a link to register for the class:

https://coned.mccneb.edu/wconnect/ace/ShowSchedule.awp?&Criteria…