Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 75

Displaced People and the Frailty of Words

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another self-being."(12) The sophisticated semiological tangles of
Ordinary People, On Golden Pond, and Terms of Endearment are not
lost on contemporary film-makers, critics, or viewers. While few of
them will explain the gaps in meaning using terms such as "sign,"
"signifier," or "signified," art still imitates life, and most of us have
felt the fear of losing something or someone because of an inability to
articulate our need clearly. The very tools we choose are flawed.
While this may be true, language also is suggestive and rich and
allows for multiple levels of meaning simultaneously. In "From Work
to Text," Roland Barthes reminds us that the "logic that governs the
Text is not comprehensive (seeking to define ’what the work means')
but metonymic." Making "associations, contiguities, and crossreferences coincides with a liberation of symbolic energy,"(13) he
states. Through a complex interchange between "revelation and
concealment"(14) (terms developed by Wolfgang Iser), symbols come
to life in our discourse. Although Conrad and his mother fail to
understand one another, he and his father express their love for one
another with intensity and vulnerability in the final scene of
Ordinary People. Chelsea and Norman Thayer have their moments
of gold in On Golden Pond, and Emma dies knowing she is adored by
her mother in Terms of Endearment. As an argument for continuing the
effort to talk genuinely with one another, Eberwein writes of the
characters in Ordinary People: "In a world where we seem to be in
the grip of circumstance, where people let us down, and where our
anger prevents us from forgiving, love seems to be all we have."(15)
The only avenue to love is speech.
The titles of the films themselves promise rich undercurrents
of meaning and remind the viewer of the potential magic of language.
In Terms of Endearment, for example, James L. Brooks intends the
viewer to understand both the concept of "terms" as words or messages
and "terms" as conditions. With the latter, the viewer encounters the
insidious, implied, and secret terms on which our love for one another
often is based. The title Ordinary People sets up the ironic
possibility that while the characters may be representative, they
will be unordinary in their interaction. In On Golden Pond, "golden"
signifies Norman Thayer's eightieth birthday, the pond beside
which the family gathers, and the yellow-orange hues of the late
afternoon. Language thereby claims the power to challenge and
reassure, but it reserves the right never to be taken for granted.