The Big Chill, Lawrence Kasdan’s second directorial effort, is his most personal movie. Like the characters in his film, he attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the late sixties. After spending a few years as an advertising copywriter, Kasdan broke into film, writing scripts for the highly commercial Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Then with the critical success of his first directorial outing, Body Heat, the time seemed right for him to write the story he had wanted to film for years—the story of his generation.
The sixties were a time of collective rebellion. Inspired by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, college students embraced the Civil Rights movement, the antiwar movement, drugs, sexual freedom and women’s liberation. The times were a-changin’. Somewhere along the line, however, much of the Woodstock generation slipped away from its utopian quest and joined the establishment. People cut their hair, traded public sector jobs for the more lucrative private sector, got married, had families.
What did it all mean? Was all this youthful idealism just fashion? These were some of the issues Lawrence Kasdan addressed in his screenplay for The Big Chill.
Despite warm responses to the script Kasdan wrote with his lawyer’s wife, Barbara Benedek, plus a commitment from Body Heat star William Hurt to play a major role, the story was turned down as uncommercial. The Ladd Company, producers of Body Heat, passed on the project as did top executives at Paramount, Universal, MGM, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. It was Marcia Nasatir, then president of Carson Films, who finally persuaded Columbia chairman Frank Price and president Guy McElwaine to back the project. Chosen to open the prestigious New York Film Festival in 1983, The Big Chill went on to earn Oscar nominations for Glenn Close (Best Actress), for Best Original Screenplay, and for Best Picture.
The Big Chill is not the first film to contrast the past and present lives of a group of school friends. Sidney Lumet’s The Group did it for eight Vassar graduates. In American Graffiti, a closely-knit coterie of high school graduates ponders the future during one long night in 1962. John Sayles’ The Return of the Secaucus 7 most closely resembles The Big Chill, dealing as it does with aging veterans of the sixties. But no previous film so cleverly captured the tenor of the times, intertwining melancholy nostalgia with contemporary concerns ranging from ticking biological clocks to fears of selling out.
The title refers to the cold world of adult reality, as well as, of course, to the Chill of mortality. Seven college friends: a doctor; her husband, a wealthy manufacturer of running shoes; a wounded drugtaking Vietnam vet; a corporate lawyer; a bored housewife; a writer for People magazine; and a television actor gather one weekend in the early eighties for the funeral of the eighth member of their group, a suicide. During the weekend, the friends, joined by the dead man’s much younger girlfriend, reminisce about their past and sort through their present lives.
Kasdan and Benedek drew upon memories of their own college friends to create the characters. The ensemble of Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, JoBeth Williams, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Jeff Goldblum and Meg Tilly work together with the familiarity of old friends. In order to create this intimacy, Kasdan brought his cast to South Carolina, the setting of the movie, for a month’s rehearsal in a house outfitted with sixties memorabilia.
In addition to the easy comradery of the excellent, attractive cast, the funny-poignant episodes and the bright dialogue, The Big Chill has a terrific soundtrack brimming over with Motown and other sixties hits. Meg Kasdan, the wife of the director, and also a performer in the film, put together music by the Rolling Stones, Three Dog Night, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson and others which functions as a kind of Proustian shorthand to set the mood, comment on the action and spark private memories in the viewer. John Bailey’s photography and Ida Random’s production design add to the pleasures of this companionable film.
One of the first films to crystallize the dilemmas of baby boomers, The Big Chill’s influence can be seen in everything from the prevalent use of Greatest Hits soundtracks to the ensemble cast of television’s thirtysomething and L.A. Law. Although ostensibly about sixties survivors, the film’s exploration of the deeper issues of friendship, loss and changing values ensure The Big Chill’s continuing appeal to all generations.
Largest Selection of Your Favorite Movie & TV Scripts. Script City Reel Hollywood Home; All Scripts. Latest Additions. Back to: moviescripts. Free 24 - 48 Hour Delivery For PDF by Email $14.99. BY LAWRENCE KASADAN & BARBARA BENEDEK. DRAFT: 7/16/82 1ST. There are yet no reviews for this. Snow and ice with big chill winds hit the streets but it doesn’t slow down the throngs of New Yorkers heading toward the Long Island Railroad entrance of PENN STATION. The Camera settles on ONE MAN walking alone fighting the crowds and the weather. We meet JACKIE BURKE. 2 INT: ESCALATOR - LIR - PENN STATION - DUSK 2. Thank you for this invaluable information! I have my script, “March” — a #MeToo-era Girls Trip meets The Big Chill — under consideration with two execs right now, but would rather work with a literary manager. It’s a timely script, perfect for our political climate today: LOGLINE –.
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The Big Chill, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek, is a recurring subject for Dramatica questions, particularly in the areas of multiple main characters and audience reception.
To paraphrase a recent Chris Huntley missive:
The Big Chill's ideal interpretation falls outside of the current description of a Dramatica grand argument story. That said, it is perfectly consistent with the GAS, but one would use the Dramatica software somewhat differently to analyze. The 'principle' characters actually fall into the objective story throughline; eight semi-archetypal characters if you include Alex (influence character). [KMH note: The character of Chloe, Alex's girlfriend, also represents an aspect of Alex's worldview.] The main character is a collective of the seven living friends and the audience, and Alex is the steadfast (ic resolve) character (and not because he's dead). Objectively, each character represents the same approach to problem solving as he or she did at the beginning of the film. Their viewpoint, however, has shifted to coincide with that of Alex's -- we understand this because of what is said about his worldview. (RE: Main Characters, Dramatica e-mail, Oct. 15 1999).
The action (story driver) of Alex committing suicide reunites the college friends. The funeral recession music underscores Alex's problem: 'You can't always get what you want (desire) . . . but if you try some time, you might find, you get what you need.' Like his unfinished house, Alex's unfulfilled life 'sometimes it's hard to believe the Good Lord has a plan' (ic concern-conceptualizing) has tremendous impact on the main character: 'I don't know why this happened' (mc concern-understanding). The objective story goal is the characters coming to terms with an idealized past. Gathered in mourning, sharing memories (relationship story concern), the superficial set is compelled to make sense (mc thematic issue) of individual life choices to reach a new understanding of who they are now (os benchmark-present).
As far as reception -- how the audience interprets a finished story and how a story's impact is changed because of the personality of the audience -- Chris Huntley maintains:
I believe that in constructing the film this way, the author(s) propagandize the audience to see things differently as well. As a piece of propaganda, it necessarily works better (is more effective) on its target audience which, I suspect, was supposed to be the baby boomers. It would be interesting to see what effect it might have (or reaction it might cause) on the Gen X or Gen Y generations. (RE: Main Characters, Dramatica e-mail, Oct. 15 1999).
As one character comments: 'I'd hate to think it was all just fashion.'
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An Entertainment Weekly feature article on The Big Chill credits the film for soundtrack albums, dialogue intensive dramas, and even Bill Clinton (November 6, 1998). Re-released in 1998 -- fifteen years later -- The Big Chill has proven to be a trendsetter, not just a passing trend.