ONE SUMMER LOVE (DRAGONFLY)

US, 1976, 98 minutes, Colour.
Beau Bridges, Susan Sarandon, Mildred Dunnock.
Directed by Gilbert Cates.

One Summer Love (Dragonfly) is a small and modest film from the 1970s. Beau Bridges portrays a young man who is released from a mental hospital and wants to find his family. He has no memory of why he was committed.

During his journey, he encounters a young woman, played by Susan Sarandon. She is understanding and sympathetic, helping him to cope. He also encounters a young Down’s Syndrome boy with whom he can communicate.

In the background is the story of his mother, played by Mildred Dunnock, an artist, with religious symbolism in her paintings, but unable to relate to her children, herself experiencing mental illness.

The film probes an understanding of mental illness and its consequences. It also evokes sympathy for a person suffering from mental illness especially in coping with the reactions of ordinary people who do not understand.

The film was written by N. Richard Nash, a writer of many Hollywood films like Dear Wife, Mara Maru, but who is best known for his play and the film versions of The Rainmaker. The film was directed by Gilbert Cates who began his career in television in the 1960s. During the 1970s he made a number of small but significant films, about emotional issues, I Never Sang For My Father, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, The Affair, The Promise and a television version of Arthur Miller’s After the Fall. In more recent years he is best known as the producer of the Academy Awards ceremonies.

1. Interesting drama? relationships? Religion? Romantic drama? Sanity and madness? Family?

2. The American locations, the country town, the road, homes? The summer atmosphere? Musical score?

3. The title and its focus on Jesse, his release from the asylum, the encounter with Chloe, meeting his family again, the confrontation with his mother? The alternate title, Dragonfly, and its reference to something haunting him from the past? His mother’s painting? Its Christ symbolism? His overcoming his fear?

4. The portrait of Jesse? Beau Bridges sympathetic and his sympathetic style? Life in the asylum? The interview with the doctor and his being released? His being haunted by the memory of his death? On the road, his hesitancy, lifts, arriving in the town, seeking out his family? His awkwardness in the town and people's reaction ? His visit to the cinema and being disturbed by the horror? His being sick and the manager being unsympathetic?

5. Chloe and her selling him the sweets, her concern, taking him home? Her fears his reassurance? His courteous behaviour? moving out, returning?

6. His help on the building job, getting work, enjoying his work? Going in search of his family? Meeting his brother's wife, the Downs Syndrome child and his playing with him, communicating? His sister-in-law's suspicion, sympathetic reaction? Gabriel and his caution? Priorities, filling in the past? The irony of his mother still being alive? His going in search of his mother, her pretending she wasn't his mother, her resistance? The final confrontation? Her disdain of her child, her religious symbolism, the crucifixes? The humiliation? Jesse standing on his own feet? Able to face a future?

7. Chloe and her work? sympathy for Jesse, taking him home, her fears, reassurance? His courtesy towards her? Helping him in his quest? Support?

8. Gabriel and his relationship with Jesse? The visits to the asylum? The fear of madness? His wife and her suspicions? Lonnie and his Downs Syndrome condition? Playing with Jesse? Gabriel's decision to help him find his mother?

9. Jesse's mother, her past, her own madness, dislike of her children, escaping her violence? Her art? Its suffering Christian symbolism? The dragonfly and its terror? Her breaking down in front of her son?

10. The background of the asylum, life and work there, the doctor and his care for Jesse, his coming to meet him, helping him in the reconciliation with his mother?

11. Portrait of characters? Sanity and insanity? Situations of family tension and reconcile and support?