The movie studio system was in trouble by the late 1960s. Big budget spectacles were in decline, and smaller, intimate stories were not only more successful, but much cheaper to produce. Plus a tide was coming over the culture. An entire generation was turning on, and even those who did not experiment with mind-altering substances were influenced by their effects.
The Swimmer is a film that was nearly forgotten for a long time. It's a weird story, even for the weird time of 1968 in which it was released. Based on a piece of short fiction by celebrated author John Cheever, The Swimmer is a challenging story that will bring discomfort to some. Others will find it exhilarating.
People began to talk about The Swimmer by the late 90s, and that's when I first saw it on VHS. Grindhouse Releasing, an excellent company generally known for distributing explicit horror movies, put out The Swimmer in 2014.
The bare bones plot of The Swimmer is unusual, to say the least. Burt Lancaster plays a man who shows up in the backyard of a suburban neighborhood in his swim suit. He is strong, confident, virile, and he has a bizarre plan. He decides that he can swim across the suburb, from pool to pool, until he reaches his own house.
He embarks on his quixotic quest, but soon his confidence begins to erode. It doesn't take a particularly astute viewer to see that something is wrong, very wrong, with the situation, and with Lancaster's life.
The Swimmer is a biting indictment of hollow upper middle class values and rampant indulgences, casual affairs, and symbols of status. Swimming pools represent success, yet while every home seems to have them, no one even appears to use them. Yet when the swimmer comes to a public pool, every foot of the water is packed with revelers.
By the time the swimmer reaches his goal, he arrives at the place he wants to be least of all. Face to face with the empty residue of his existence, and the horrifying realization that he has been cast out of the pool of privileged affluence.
The Swimmer was adapted from the Cheever story by Eleanor Perry. In the following year, 1969, Perry wrote another searing movie called Last Summer, from an Evan Hunter novel. Last Summer is difficult to find, probably because it is even darker and more shocking than The Swimmer.
Written by Mark Sieber
The Swimmer is a film that was nearly forgotten for a long time. It's a weird story, even for the weird time of 1968 in which it was released. Based on a piece of short fiction by celebrated author John Cheever, The Swimmer is a challenging story that will bring discomfort to some. Others will find it exhilarating.
People began to talk about The Swimmer by the late 90s, and that's when I first saw it on VHS. Grindhouse Releasing, an excellent company generally known for distributing explicit horror movies, put out The Swimmer in 2014.The bare bones plot of The Swimmer is unusual, to say the least. Burt Lancaster plays a man who shows up in the backyard of a suburban neighborhood in his swim suit. He is strong, confident, virile, and he has a bizarre plan. He decides that he can swim across the suburb, from pool to pool, until he reaches his own house.
He embarks on his quixotic quest, but soon his confidence begins to erode. It doesn't take a particularly astute viewer to see that something is wrong, very wrong, with the situation, and with Lancaster's life.
The Swimmer is a biting indictment of hollow upper middle class values and rampant indulgences, casual affairs, and symbols of status. Swimming pools represent success, yet while every home seems to have them, no one even appears to use them. Yet when the swimmer comes to a public pool, every foot of the water is packed with revelers.
By the time the swimmer reaches his goal, he arrives at the place he wants to be least of all. Face to face with the empty residue of his existence, and the horrifying realization that he has been cast out of the pool of privileged affluence.
The Swimmer was adapted from the Cheever story by Eleanor Perry. In the following year, 1969, Perry wrote another searing movie called Last Summer, from an Evan Hunter novel. Last Summer is difficult to find, probably because it is even darker and more shocking than The Swimmer.
Written by Mark Sieber
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