NORTH DALLAS FORTY

US, 1979, 118 minutes, Colour.
Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, Charles Durning, Dayle Haddon, Bo Svenson, John Matuszak, Steve Forrest, G. D. Spradlin, Dabney Coleman, Savannah Smith.
Directed by Ted Kotcheff.

North Dallas Forty links with director Ted Kotcheff's version of Kenneth Cook's Wake In Fright: a predominantly male world where comradeship, drinking, macho self-assertion (cloaking fear) and toughness determine behaviour and self-image. It is the U.S. world of professional football where individuals conform to popular expectations, moneyed management and authoritarian coaches even to enjoy sport and their skills and talents. Nick Nolte is persuasive as the hero who is pushed out of the system and whose story offers a critique of it. The case may look overstated, but local headlines frequently enough show that professionalism and its organisation is one of the abuses of our day. A tough but thoughtful film.

1. The overall impact of the film? The appeal of sport, the playing of sport, talents and skills? The abuses behind sport and the expose? American sport ? players and spectators, management? American football? The audience knowledge of the game, or lack of it?

2. How authentic the world presented? How contrived,, overstated? The professional football team as a symbol of American sport? The abuses?

3. The use of Panavision, colour photography, the look at Dallas? The games, the practice sequences? The contrast with the atmosphere of the men in the team, close-ups, the groups? The insertion of flashbacks?

4. Nick Nolte's physical presence and interpretation of Phil Elliott? The ordinary footballer, the representative of the men on the team? His participation in the game, his not being a star, his particular talent and its exercise? His having to wait on the bench? His submitting to the rules? His friendship with the men in the team? With Seth Maxwell? The introduction to him, experiencing his crisis? His relationships, the relationship with Charlotte and its changing his attitude? His being taken for granted, used by the coach? Questions of attitude and maturity? The confrontation at the end, his freedom after the crisis? Symbolising the man who is a victim of the system, who can break free? The potential for a new and fuller life?

5. How well drawn the character of Phil Elliott? The long opening sequence and the physical pain that he experienced, the comment on footballers and the game by showing him getting up? The transition to the hunting party - the drinking,, the shooting, the reference to guns and sexuality? The macho atmosphere and bravado? The irresponsibility of the shooting and the driving? The transition to the party and the length of the film devoted to the party sequence? Enjoyment, drinking, sex? The boorish attitudes? Jo Bob and his attitudes and bullying? The confrontation with Charlotte? Phil's saving her? The contrast with the other women at the Party? Charlotte and Phil as observers? Their conversation, her hostility, his comment on being the funny man of the team? The effect of the meting with Charlotte and the follow up? The contrast with the meetings and the coaching? The coach and the discussion about computer information, St. Paul and the attitudes towards childhood and adulthood? Computer information? Phil and his friendship with Seth? The bath and sauna sequences? The smoking of marijuana, the taking of pills from the infirmary? The encounter with one of the hunters and the irony of Phil's liaison with Joanne? Their lovemaking, familiarity, his saying that he loved her? sort of? The comradeship with the men in the team, the training programmes, their toughness? The coaches and their pressure? the sequence with the poem? The build-up to the game, the coach using him., the needle and his knee, beginning of the game and the prayer? His waiting on the benches? The incidents revealing Phil as a character?

6. How did he change throughout the film? His love of the game, his age, his giving to the game, his pride in his skill, memories of it? His fears? Questions of maturity and insight? His love for Charlotte and the transforming of him by their relationship? As symbolised by the training of the horses, the house that he was building? The realisation of his being used at the end of the game? The long speech at the tribunal and his freeing himself? The final clash with Seth? His final gesture of freedom?

7. The contrast of Seth Maxwell: captaining the team, shrewdness, driving the car at the hunt, his ability to observe people, his behaviour at the party? Training? The sauna and the baths? The pills? His fears and wanting his name kept out of things? His knowing all the time how Phil was being treated? His skill in passing the ball during the games? The final throw and Phil's rejection? What type of sportsman did he represent?

8. Jo Bob and his ignorant boorishness, the drinking, the hunt, his swearing, his brute force, the behaviour at the party with the girls, attitudes towards Charlotte, his discussions about the restaurants and their slogan, his easy resentment, his hating the black man, the comments on people playing up to him because he was a baby? The coach using his hostility to stir up aggressive attitudes? The final vengeance in the game in breaking the opponent's leg? The comment on sports and sportsmen, made through the character of Jo Bob? The various members of the team and their personalities, Davis and his youth and being picked on, the black members of the team, the various assistants? Stalling and his failure and the reshowing of the film? A men's world and yet the authoritarian treatment and their being humiliated like boys?

9. The film's presentation of the men's world, tough, physical, brutal, bashings, sports and skills? The presentation of the game, the discussion of tactics? The physical pain? Needles and pills? Behaviour at parties ? and the attempt at corruption of the Bible man? And his later remorse? (And his failure to win the game and his grief at the end?) The hunt, guns? The discussions about bravado cloaking fear? The coaches and their use of this, exploiting it? The sentimentality with the poem? Crude language and behaviour and questions of maturity?

10. The emphasis on the team, as a job, as a sport? Phil's comment that the owners were the team and the players mere tools? The coaches and their characterisation? Their bullying, authoritarian manner, the severity of their attitudes? The hunters and their wealth, business interests, sentiment towards the team? Conrad hunter and his boy at the practice? The brother and his relationship with Joanne and his later vengeance? The irony and the ugliness of their approving the surveillance? The detailed enquiries? The photos, the observation, the character description, the raiding and searching of Phil's hone? The tribunal and the final judgments on Phil?

11. Coach Johnson and his aggressiveness? The poem? B.A. and his computer, discussion of tactics, emphasis on St. Paul, his manipulation of people and talking down at them, watching films of the play, the stirring up of the fight between Jo Bob and the black? His attitude at the match and its loss? His presence on the tribunal?

12. The place of women in this men's world? the women at the party stirring up the men, their availability? Joanne and the human touches in Phil's life - yet his inability to love her except 'sort of'’? Charlotte and her detachment, Phil's arrival and sleeping on the sofa, the beginning of the affair, her supporting him, the house and the horses, watching the match, her urging him to free himself and look to the future? The contrast between the men's world and the women's world?

13. The picturing of sport - the sports sequences, the dramatics of the match and the presentation of the final minutes with the tactics, Phil's presence? The loss of the match?

14. Themes of authority and structures, especially in the training sequences and the talks?

15. The exploration of human values in this world? ability, skills, freedom, systems and team, conformity? Love? Final freedom? How successful a sports film and an exploration of human nature?