Taking Off
Milos Forman
New-York in the 1970s. One day Jeannie, 15, goes to a music audition and her absence triggers off an exaggeratedly frenetic concern in her parents. They try to understand her and to assimilate "youth" culture, sex and drugs, convinced that their daughter is suffering from the evils of this generation...
With : Lynn Carlin, Buck Henry, Georgia Engel, Tony Harvey, Audra Lindley, Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli
Screenplay : Jean-Claude Carrière, Milos Forman, John Guare, Jon Klein
Image : Miroslav Ondrícek
Sound : Sanford Rackow, David Blumgart
Music : Bobo Bates, Catherine Heriza
Editing : John Carter
Screenplay : Jean-Claude Carrière, Milos Forman, John Guare, Jon Klein
Image : Miroslav Ondrícek
Sound : Sanford Rackow, David Blumgart
Music : Bobo Bates, Catherine Heriza
Editing : John Carter
Production : Alfred W. Crown, Universal Pictures
Distribution: Universal
Distribution: Universal
For his first American film, shot entirely in New York, Milos Forman looks into the problem of generations. However, the film does not claim to provide an analysis. It is more an implicit commentary on the socio-economic context of the period, the 1970s, the decade that shook America. In this sense, Taking Off is not just a film on the lack of communication between generations, but also the rejection of a way of life. "Milos Forman does not tell us a story: he observes these American petits-bourgeois living and paints a pointillist portrait of their children breaking away from the family", wrote one critic on the film. Milos Forman therefore remains loyal to himself, and the America seen by the European loses nothing of the flavour of his previous films. Full of caustic irony and gentleness, the humour of the film provides a new view on parent/children relationships, far from the classic images of the genre.