Essay: Between the Lines (1977)
Between the Lines (1977)
Directed by Joan Micklin Silver
Another in an occasional series on the films of my youth (1970-80)
In the 1970s, one of the coolest things you could be, if you weren’t in a band, was a journalist. Probably the coolest journalists of all worked for the Village Voice, a weekly tabloid that…
Man, I can’t believe I have to explain what the Village Voice was.
Founded in 1955, it featured the best journalists and critics outside mainstream newspapers and magazines, and it invented many of the institutions or tropes that became the ingredients of alternative culture in the U.S. — investigative reporting; the picky, snobby-in-a-good way music critics and film critics; the sex column; weird comix; LGBTQ-friendly coverage and writers. It was supported by ads for entertainment, and by classified ads. Every city eventually had an alt-weekly that followed this model; and in Austin in the mid-70s, the alt-weekly was the Austin Sun1, for which I wrote during the last months of its existence.
“Between the Lines” is a movie about a fictional alt-weekly, the Mainline. Set in Boston, the film is an ensemble comedy about the choices and compromises faced by the paper’s staff as the 1970s turn into the late 70s. It’s also about how second-wave feminism was changing relationships between men and women.
Disillusion and disappointment with how the ideals of the 1960s were dashed or coopted during the 1970s became a common theme at the time, as the youths of the 1960s turned into adults (1983’s “The Big Chill," directed by Lawrence Kasdan, also examines this theme. Jeff Goldblum appears in both movies playing essentially the same character, except that in the later picture he’s a successful, coopted writer who works for People) and no one was sure anymore what “being a radical” looked like. The cultural revolution that was supposed to topple capitalism had not only not occurred, it seemed farther away than ever. Almost all of the communes and back-to-the-land types had failed or disappeared. No one knew what to do next, and there was much cultural handwringing.
In “Between the Lines,” this angst shows up as a struggle by the paper’s staff to be relevant. They’ve published muckraking investigative journalism in the past, but “nothing changed” as a result. One of the writers has his book accepted by a publisher; another can’t find a meaningful subject; the rock critic (Goldblum) is becalmed, as were many in the mid-70s as disco took over the charts and punk and New Wave hadn’t yet emerged. Worse, the paper is sold to a publisher who’s interested in only two things: profits, and not being called out by the staff, who still cherish a certain up-the-Man attitude. Goldblum, playing the same mouthy, sardonic trickster he played in almost every movie of the era, and Bruno Kirby, as a would-be Carl Bernstein right down to the corduroy jacket, lighten the atmosphere.
Speaking of men, most of the men in this movie are emotionally immature, unable to comprehend that their girlfriends are fed up with the men’s unexamined sexist attitudes. Director Joan Micklin Silver, one of the leading feminist women directors of the decade (and former Village Voice employee), illustrates the women’s situations and uneasiness in moments that were, for the times, subtle. In one such scene, a couple (Harry, played by John Heard, is a features writer, and Abbie, played by Lindsay Crouse, is a photographer) go to a strip club to interview one of the dancers, and when she is able to identify with the dancer and asks her more relevant, sympathetic questions, he feels threatened. Another writer, a handsome blond Ivy league type (Michael Collins), sponges off and negs his girlfriend (Gwen Welles). It’s not enough that he winds up selling a book; he has to insist that she follow him to New York so she can continue telling him how great he is, while at the same time doing all the shopping and chores as well as her own writing.
Silver was particularly good at presenting complex women whose motivations are sometimes conflicting but always sympathetic. In her hands, a character like Crouse’s photographer can bridle against her boyfriend’s sexist behavior while still desiring him. And the character of the Mainline’s receptionist, played by Jill Eikenberry, can be the feminine, hold-it-all-together hub of the newspaper’s wheel with a smile for everyone, and also steely and dedicated enough to be the first to quit when the new money-grubbing publisher comes along.
In a way, it’s fitting that Silver’s independence and her relationship to Hollywood — its male-dominated directors, producers and funders were opposed to her existence, despite the awards her films won and the profits they made — mirrored the position of alt-weeklies in American society. Both institutions died — Hollywood in the sense that the model for funding and releasing movies has entirely changed, and alt-weeklies have either died due to the undercutting of their business model by the internet or been acquired by alternate newspaper chains. (It should be emphasized that the continued illegality of sex work is probably another ingredient of the failure of alt-weeklies, as they would be the natural vehicles for such advertising.)
But fortunately for our democracy, there are still investigative journalists. They might publish in an independent alt-weekly that still exists, like Seattle’s The Stranger, Portland’s Willamette Week, or the successor to the Sun, the Austin Chronicle. In some cases, they’re funded by their own readers and publish online, on platforms like Substack or Medium.
Even I — more than 40 years after my short career in paid journalism, have sought out this platform. In another world, the Sun might not have gone out of business2, I might have had years to burnish my craft and credentials. Still, I’m happy to be able to write like this. I could use an editor, though.
I’m linking to the Wikipedia article because the current Austin Sun site has nothing to do with the tabloid of the 70s, which went out of business in 1978.
It did so in 1978, long before the internet, doomed simply by bad management.