mmallon4 There is no over arching plot in Sometimes a Great Notion yet I was still engaged with the life of this family with their ongoing effort to try and make a living and their own family dilemmas all occurring among the beautiful forest scenery of Oregon. This is a man's movie reminiscent of the male bonding films from Howard Hawks such as Only Angels Have Wings and Tiger Shark.Henry Fonda plays a character called Henry so I like to imagine his interactions on set with Paul Newman occur just like they do in the movie. I've also often championed Henry Fonda's unsung abilities as a comedic actor and here he provides the film with some great moments of comic relief. Michael Sarrazin gives the most interesting performance though as the girly man Leeland Stamper who doesn't fit in with the rest of the men largely due to his long hair. There's a quiet confidence to his character though as he is unbothered by the remarks of the other men and eventfully wins their respect, by how? Winning a game of the ever manly sport of football.The logging scenes themselves are actually quite suspenseful, seeing men who are putting their lives in danger in order to make a living, you're expecting someone to get injured or killed at any time and that beings me to scene in the film which left the greatest impression on me. There are two death scenes towards the end of the film. First there's Henry Fonda's death which is sad, itself but that is but nothing compared to the death of Richard Jaeckel; I was thinking about this scene for days after watching the film and it's even more powerful watching it a second time as I'm waiting in dread for the scene to arrive. For starters the character is trapped under a log while the tide is slowly rising and he spends the whole time joking about it and when he is eventually submerged in water he can only stay alive thorough constant mouth to mouth resuscitation until help shows up to move the giant log. I can't imagine a more terrifying situation a person could be in; you can possibly get rescued and live but in order to do so you must remain completely calm; one mistake and you're a goner. This one of the most harrowing things I've ever seen in a film. I doubt I will ever see a more intense death scene or one so difficult to watch.

tieman64 Ken Kesey wrote "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1962, a novel which would later be adapted into a memorable film. Kesey's second novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion", would be published in 1964. Today some regard it as the quintessential Great American Novel. Paul Newman would direct an adaptation in 1971.Titled "Never Give An Inch" in some countries, Newman's adaptation starred Henry Fonda and Newman himself as heads of the Stamper family, a clan of wealthy Oregon loggers. They're rugged individualists, hard workers, deeply conservative and dislike hippies, communists, long haired big-city-folk and homosexuals. They also want to keep logging, much to the chagrin of other striking, unionising workers.Kesey's tale offered a perspective seldom found in art. Whilst most tales of its ilk focus on poor union workers who are persecuted by big, mean capitalists, "Sometimes a Great Notion" does the opposite. We're positioned inside the Stamper gang, who are habitually hounded by the unionists. Of course Kesey and Newman don't romanticise the Stampers – they're mockingly portrayed – but such a perspective nevertheless forces us to accept a certain logic. The Stampers are perfectly "rational" in acting in their own self-interests and in ignoring how their actions affect their wider community. Within the narrow confines of capitalist logic, their actions are wholly sound. What Kesey then does, though, is slowly question this logic and then outright advocate its rejection. By his tale's end, the Stamper family is thus violently torn apart precisely by its individualism, its rejection of the communal and its pursuit of individual gain. With no one to help them, various Stamper members then die in various absurd scenarios. Those who do survive, however, become even more entrenched in their views. We see this at the end of Newman's film, his character shrugging off the loss of his brother and father and becoming, instead, a kind of militant, super capitalist.Newman's film is much smaller than Kesey's novel, and ignores most of the novel's complexities and nuances. Newman is also a weak visualist, though the film's many logging sequences are excellent, perhaps because they were filled by a second unit crew. The film features an audacious, ten-or-so minute long "drowning" sequence.7.9/10 – Very interesting material, simplistically handled. Worth one viewing.

bananacabana-1 Leadbelly, Goodnight Irene. Learn something new every day.I agree with another comment posted here that the book is in the top 10 reads of classic American literature. Right up there with Steinbeck. I loved the book and the movie. Haunting, incredible story. Gives me chills just thinking about how good it is."Rise & Shine Stampers", "We're gonna whup her". Beautiful.I lived near Kesey's place 15 years ago.I recently returned to the area and it still is a special place.Dripping ferns, 200 foot tall Doug Fir giants.Golden eagles, piliated woodpeckers, cougars, bears, lions... OK, well not lions but lots of other wildlife not seen elsewhere.

Paul Wegner Unfortunately, as much as I love Paul Newman as an actor, the movie version of Ken Kesey's incredible book could have used a more seasoned director for its translation to the big screen. The perfect cast (the book even mentions Hank Stamper as looking like a muscular Paul Newman!), and some great performances (Fonda, Jaeckel, Remick), but the story just doesn't come across on film the way it should. I remember the first time I saw this movie was in the late 70's on TV (Portland's KPTV-12). It was so chopped-up for television that the story, character motivations, and ending made no sense at all to me. I loved Kesey's book "Cookoo's Nest" so read the novel of "Sometimes" to try to make some sense of what the story was all about. The book was an amazingly nuanced work of fiction with a great deal of depth and under-story (reading between the lines); none of which I saw on the TV screening. I later rented the video but even with the unedited version of the film, I found the story very lacking and barely comprehensive. I've recently watched the rental again (2005) and found more in the film than I had remembered, but I still feel that unless you've read the book, you can't truly understand what this movie and the character motivations are all about. They're just barely eluded to in the film version. In spite of all that, it's still a worthwhile movie to watch. If nothing else, it chronicles some great, authentic-looking logging footage. If you can, however, read the novel first and then catch the film. Also, if you ever make it to Newport, Oregon, visit the harbor bar "Bay Haven" where the scenes for the "Snag" were filmed. Tell them the old bartender from the "Embarcadero" sent you. ;-)