Thoughts on Driving Miss Daisy

via Gfycat

"You know your letters, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I know my ABCs pretty good. I just can't read."

"Stop saying that. You're making me mad. If you know your letters than you can read. You just don't know you can read."

"Ma'am?" 

"I taught some of the stupidest children God ever put on the face of the earth and all of them could read enough to find a name on a tombstone."

*Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) proceeds to help Hoke (Morgan Freeman) figure out the beginning and ending letters in "Bauer." He finds the tombstone. She's proud of him.*

I wonder how many people who write off Driving Miss Daisy have ever seen this scene. It's my favorite one in the whole movie. Hoke gains a tool that we know will aid in his eventual literacy. Miss Daisy briefly regains the ability to teach. For most of a 25-year stretch, it's she who learns.

The reading lesson in the cemetery is similar to a lot of scenes in Driving Miss Daisy, adapted by Alfred Uhry from his play and directed by Bruce Beresford. Just enough happens and when just enough happens just enough times, it's quite possible that the characters finally realizing that plenty of just enough happened. Driving Miss Daisy might be the first pointillist Pulitzer and Oscar winner. 

"Now, what you think I am, Miss Daisy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Invitations to this here dinner come in the mail a month ago. Now, it be you wanted me to go with you, how come you wait until we're in the car and on the way 'fore you ask me?"

"What? All I said was, Boolie said you wanted to go."

"Well, next time you want me to go somewhere, ask directly."

"You don't have to carry on so much."

"Well, let's just leave it alone."

"Honestly."

"Talk about thing change. They ain't change all that much."

*The dinner includes a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., which hits Miss Daisy where she lives, namely the point about "the appalling silence and indifference of the good people"

Freeman and Tandy are marvelous together. I thrilled at every victory Hoke won, whether it was getting Miss Daisy to accept his services or negotiating a $75-per-week salary from Boolie (Dan Aykroyd). Tandy has the showier role, once which could have easily been spoiled if she played it too broad or too knowing. Happily, she didn't do that. The main cast includes Esther Rolle as Idella (an unfortunately underwritten character), Patti LuPone as Florine (and we all know a woman like her) and Aykroyd, who was the revelation in this latest viewing. It's one of the funniest, most natural supporting performances I've ever seen.

"When Driving Miss Motherfucking Daisy won Best Picture, that hurt."

-- Spike Lee, 2008

Academy Awards were given to mass-appealing movies long before Driving Miss Daisy. They've been given to them long after Driving Miss Daisy. For all I know, the movie still ranks high among the "Least-Deserving Oscar Winners." It might hang onto those ironic honors for a long time. But here's the thing about movies. Like tires down a Georgia road, they just keep traveling.

"*Hoke follows Miss Daisy in the Hudson as she's walking to the Piggly Wiggly*

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to drive you to the store."

*He won't let up*

"How much (Boolie) pay you?"

"Now, Miss Daisy, that's between him and me."

"Anything over $7 a week is robbery. Highway robbery."

"Yes, and you sure right about that. 'Specially since I don't do nothin' but sit in your kitchen on a stool all day."

"Alright. Piggly Wiggly, then home. Nowhere else."

*She gets in*

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $107 million on a $7.5 million budget, this opened in limited release, scored the No. 1 spot when it was went wide the following month and came in at No. 8 for 1989.

-- Awards Watch: Nominated for 10 Oscars, not including Beresford's direction, this won for its makeup, Uhry's screenplay, Tandy's performance and the film itself. The film, Tandy and Freeman were nominated for and won Golden Globes, too. Daisy apparently opened too late to qualify for the NAACP Image Awards honoring 1989, which included Freeman's win for Lean on Me. He won the following year for Daisy. Finally, Tandy, Freeman and Aykroyd were all nominated for American Comedy Awards.

-- Hans Zimmer's score wasn't Oscar nominated, and it lost the Grammy to James Horner's work for Glory. Still, "Driving" is a favorite of mine. To me, it's music to play when I'm passionately writing.

-- Critic's Corner: "After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart," Roger Ebert wrote. Freeman and Tandy are "extraordinary in tandem," wrote Rita Kempsey. "Theirs is an actor's pas de deux, a cotillion in which even the lifting of a spoon reveals something of character." Freeman gave a tough performance, according to Vincent Canby. "It is laid-back and graceful, the work of an actor who has gone through all of the possibilities, stripped away all of the extraneous details and arrived at an essence." Tandy's "graceful, unfussy style" was contrasted with Steel Magniolas by Peter Travers. "The elegant simplicity of this Daisy leaves no doubt about which is the flower of choice."

-- Alfred Uhry is still with us, albeit in his '80s. If he wanted to continue writing about Atlanta's history, I'd be curious to see his take on the CNN story. Speaking of theater, in about 10 more years, we could end up with a revival of Driving Miss Daisy starring LuPone herself.

-- This one was parodied often in the early '90s. Saturday Night Live started with a sketch where Miss Daisy's new chauffeur is Toonces, The Cat Who Could Drive a Car. Then there was In Living Color, which had "Ridin' Miss Daisy" and a few years later, "Driving Miss Schott." It's Garry Shandling's Show ended with "Driving Miss Garry" (with Aykroyd reprising his role) and the movie Stay Tuned had "Driving Over Miss Daisy." Of course, we can't forget "Burn Hollywood Burn" by Public Enemy.

-- "How are you?" "Oh ... I'm doin' the best I can." "*finding this funny* Me too." "I reckon that's about all there is to it, then."

-- Next: Glory. On deck: Born on the Fourth of July.