Endless Love

The only time the movie even resembled the book was in the second half and the stupid ending invalidated the message inevitably. What's surprising was I felt the cast Zeffirelli chose was mostly spot-on, visually. Despite the flack he got, Martin Hewitt did a great job playing David Axelrod. David is a nice Jewish boy who's absolutely pathetic, whiny, cries all the time and has no personality of his own. Hewitt captured that. The scene where David is gazing at the Butterfields from the staircase encapsulates his obsession and admiration of this WASPy blonde seemingly happy family. Don Murphy captured open-minded but violently protective Hugh, Shirley Knight captured the sophisticated yet eccentric cougar Ann and James Spader captured the sarcasm of Keith (though he looked very preppy not a stoned hippy). Shirley Knight especially gets Ann's sexual obsession with David. I think she read the book.

The only miscast was Brooke Shields and she was likely the reason the movie ended up the way it did. Jade is supposed to be plain and dull. She's not meant to be this embodiment of beauty. She's also sarcastic, manipulative, spoiled rotten and a total slut. Brooke plays Jade as an ingenue who's so pure and naive that she sees nothing wrong with anything. In the book Jade manipulates David, often insults and criticizes him and gets off on his obsession with her because it pisses her daddy off. Who she has this Electra complex towards. The point of the book is David realizes Jade never loved him, was never faithful and was using him the whole time for her selfish purposes. She's unhappy with her family who she feels is too liberal and easygoing and wanted to test their patience with fucking David in her room.

Anyway likely due to casting Brooke the film capitalized on her beauty and popularity with teen girls. They couldn't make Jade, a passive aggressive bitch or explore the deeper themes. They made it an idealized love story. The first half of the film is basically a Romeo and Juliet ripoff with choreographed love scenes, ten minutes of Jade and David riding a bike through Chicago and the tensions that lead up to David deciding to start a fire in the Butterfields house to put it out to impress them. In the beginning of the book this already happened and David is telling the story after he got released from the mental hospital and decides to track down the Butterfields. Jade doesn't even appear until halfway through the book.

Also the movie skipped David's struggle to go back into society after being arrested and his strained relationship with his parents. His parental issues are the major reason he becomes obsessed with Jade and her family. It's only implied in the film. David's parents are Jewish communists, his dad is a hardworking lawyer who devotes his time to social justice. His mom is very strict and unemotional towards him. David was indoctrinated into their communist mantras, they never treated him like a child but always an adult and they lived in dogmatic life of frugality and minimalism. David's neuroticism is from his militant upbringing where he was repeated mantras over and over and he has difficulty seeing things in any nuance or living in the moment. So seeing the carefree bohemian lifestyle of the Butterfields became intensely fascinating to him.

The movie ending was the worst thing because the book ended with David learning to let go of Jade and the Butterfields for good and try to move on with his life and treat his mental illness. And he realized how foolish he was to ruin his entire life for this family that simply used him for amusement and saw him as novelty at best and nuisance at worst. Adding to the bitter commentary of social class.

The movie had some redeeming qualities like the good cinematography and the Lionel Richie and Diana Ross duet is pretty but doesn't fit the story. Also Martin Hewitt and James Spader, both so sexy. Brooke was pretty but was the worst actress ever and didn't portray Jade right. Shirley Knight stole this movie. Tom Cruise was just there.

I can't be the only who's read the book. Let's discuss.

I agree it's a great book and a stupid movie.

But it needs to be said that Martin Hewitt was hot nonetheless.

All I ever remember from the movie now is the theme song. (I thought Diana Ross was beautiful here.)

[quote] The point of the book is David realizes Jade never loved him, was never faithful and was using him the whole time for her selfish purposes.

Wut? When was she unfaithful? She did love him, both as a teen and then when they’re reunited in Vermont. David is the manipulative one, first burning down her house so he can look like a hero and then later never telling her he caused her father’s death!

The book is great. I don’t share all of your impressions, though.

R5 She liked his obsession over her and the power it gave her. She is the one who told her father to prevent him from seeing her because she wanted her father to man up and be disciplinary. Jade also didn't like her mother and knew her mother was sexually attracted to David. She used him just as much as he did her. She did not love him. He was way more into her than vice versa. Jade's ex-girlfriend even said to Jade that she was using him to boost her fragile ego. Jade did what she did to push her parents' buttons.

Also David didn't cause her father's death. Her father ran after him in the streets of NYC after spotting him and got hit by a car. David blamed himself for it. Jade found this out from her father's girlfriend Ingrid and turned on him despite knowing it was an accident. Then she writes a letter telling him she loves him like she didn't call the cops on him. Then got married to a French man. The whole thing seemed one-sided.

The point I got from the book is both David and Jade were victims of bad parenting. David had parents who were too strict and Jade parents who were too liberal. Jade liked David because he was so disciplined, narrow-minded and orderly. It was a toxic relationship and David's father and Jade's parents especially her crazy mother helped enable it out of selfish reasons. David's father and Jade's mother both envied their romance. David's father even admits he let David track down Jade by making it easy for him to break into his office to find the letters. And David was fucked up by his narcissistic mother further who even admitted she did not love his father as much as she loved her first husband.

I read the book and your synopsis is ridiculous. The book is about obsession, eros and the power of adolescent sexuality. Your dismissal of Jade as a manipulative bitch is insane. Jade was 15 years old, younger than Axelrod. Everyone manipulated everyone in the novel. Jade's family was not simply a benign liberal influence--her mother watched them have sex. Her parents took drugs openly and offered little guidance to their children. David thought they were wonderful because he was in the throes of projection and obsession.

You completely miss the power of the novel by reducing it to some straightforward plot of crude freudianism alongside female promiscuity and betrayal.

"There are few novelists alive who use the English language as Scott Spencer does ... Every ache of feeling, every failed effort at restraint, every attempt at self-deception is captured in precise, beautifully cadenced prose"

Your sophomore English teacher will love this book report, OP! A B+ or better for sure!

I just reserved a copy at the library. I haven't read it in years, but I remember loving it, and Scott Spencer as a writer.

The thing I never forgot was David's observation about Jade's mother thinking life was sweet as long as she had her magazine subscriptions paid for. That was important to me, too.

R7 I do get it. Both were victims. And Jade being 15 is no less immature than David at 17. Their parents screwed them up. But the novel is from David's perspective and I felt he saw Jade as this perfect angel when she was just as selfish as the rest of the Butterfields. They were spoiled, lazy, indulgent upper middle-class WASPs. The dying establishment. I can't help but see this lower class Jewish boy with mental issues and a rigid joyless life being exploited by these people for amusement. Jade started out innocent but she came back into David's life willingly in her early 20s when Keith and Sammy clearly didn't want anything to do with him. At that point, she could have known to not mix with him again. It seemed she turned into Ann and got excitement from being with him but you tell in their time in Vermont that she was not really into him but was turned on by his passion. He was pushy but she was not fighting it. It's not a betrayal because she never intended any serious relationship. He was just mentally ill, foolish and obsessed and didn't listen to anyone else but the thoughts in his head. He did get what he deserved. Multiple times I wanted to go into the book and smack him.

I’ve read that Zeffirelli’s first choice for the role of Jade was the young Sharon Stone. If the film, like the novel, had concentrated on erotic obsession, she would have been good.

Sharon Stone was 23. And she did NOT come off as 15.

Since Stone was of age. We'd probably get the period blood sex scene.

[quote]R12 Sharon Stone was 23. And she did NOT come off as 15.

Brooke Shields didn’t seem like a 15 year old, exactly, either. She was so tall.

Sure she did. The fact that she actually WAS 15 probably helped, but she definitely came off as her age.

If the film was faithful and spanned from 1967 to 1976. There would not need to be a concern for casting actual teens.

Tom Cruise's first movie role. He more than likely had to give up his ass to Zeffirelli.

God, she was stunning. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful woman (from modern Hollywood) other than Diane Lane.

Brooke can't act. And Jade is supposed to be plain with a flat chest. David doesn't even call her "beautiful" or "pretty" once in the book. But I think it be harder to sell the movie.

And if they had cast Maureen Teefy to play Jade, everyone would have been questioning why David was so obsessed with such a meeskite. You need to have a shorthand in film when you cannot convey what you in books.

I don’t remember Jade as being plain in the book. Certainly she has no trouble attracting others to her.

Do you see her as Mindy Cohn??

^^ what you're able to in books. Sorry.

She was sexually liberated. That's why she had so many lovers. She was open to everyone and everything. Keith is described as sorta average as well. The only Butterfield described as beautiful was Sammy.

[quote] Franco Zeffirelli, who is a master director and cinematographer,

No.

Not a cinematographer. He chose projects by good writers (such as Shakespeare) and used quality English actors and pretty young people. And he hired excellent lavish Italian costumiers and scene dressers.

But his movies aren't cinematic.

Stale old shit

Does the guy show his arse in this schmaltz-fest?

That was amazing to see again…

Thanks for the reminder r4.

Boy Brooke was at the height of her beauty then, just stunning.

The movie poster proclaimed “The love every parent fears.”

A bit over-the-top, if you ask me.

I recall at the time that Lucie Arnaz was the original choice to portray Jade but chose The Jazz Singer instead. She would have provided a depth to the characterization that Shields was incapable of.

(!!!!!)

OP, thanks for sharing your book to screen dissertation with us, have you handed it in or are you still ABD?

My endless diarrhea

Perhaps this is why the movie (and Brooke Shields) have been all but forgotten

The song would have to be renamed Endless Bitch had they followed the novel. All we wanted was a dry docked Blue Lagoon.

The Endless Love theme song was the third biggest hit song of the 1980s, after Bette Davis eyes at #2 and Physical at #1.

Is this the kindergarten teacher?

My pretty baby!

[quote]r81 Boy Brooke was at the height of her beauty then, just stunning.

Shields in the year of the film’s release. I think the poor reception “Endless Love” got basically stalled that early phase of her success. Then she went off to college and started taking piecemeal film and TV work around the edges of her academics. By the time she graduated her star had dimmed.

End, Act I

Martin Hewitt was hot tho. Even just seeing him kissing Brooke in the poster is enough to get me excited, as it reminds me of 13 year old me being a romantic sissy lusting after him

Endlesschlove!

He must have really disliked the acting business, as I think he just did one follow up project (?)

If nothing else, he could have done a soap opera for years, if he wanted.

^^ oh, I’m sorry. I just looked at IMDb. He did do TV work after Endless Love. He didn’t just disappear.

Well, the remake is supposed to be even worse.

This nubile flesh was Zeffirelli's raison d'etre.

Oh, I'm sorry it didn't change your life, OP. Zefferelli wanted a risque' teen box office smash with a hit song. And he nailed it:

"The film premiere for Endless Love took place on July 16, 1981, at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City. The film was released the next day. Despite the poor critical reception, the film was a box office success. It made $4,163,623 on its opening weekend and went on to gross $31,184,024 in total, becoming the twenty-second highest earning film domestically in 1981. Internationally, the film took in a further $1,308,650 bringing its total worldwide gross to $32,492,674."

I think I read between the lines of Brooke's autobiography in that she regrets not capitalizing on the success of Endless Love: doing good movies with good directors and learning her craft. Bur her mom called the shots and she wanted Brooke to emulate Jodie Foster.

Brooke was miserable at college, lost career momentum and never regained it.

50 posts and nobody posts about Tom Cruise's hot ass and how he had t give it up to Franco?

Bunch of fraus on DL and no more faggots.

OP, are you MateoDaGambler on Reddit?

This movie pissed me off, mostly because of the ending. David was a total psychopath. But the remake was bland as hell. Don't know why they bothered.

It actually sounds like a complicated drama, based on the descriptions of the book, with six great parts.

The mother watching her daughter having sex from the staircase while she diddled her pussy was creepy.

This is ripe for a proper, book-focused mini-series, HBO type thing, this book is 40 years old and covers events from at least 50 years ago, an incredible showcase for actors and would be a fascinating thing to see in the me-too era, considering David is obviously obsessive and dangerous/self-destructive and Jade is a wannabe free spirit who probably ends up being a born-again Christian conservative in her 40's. I could totally see Timothee killing the David role -- he's got the look and religious heritage and can definitely go deep. For Jade...harder to think of someone who can play a wide age range -- maybe Anya-Taylor Joy. I'd love to see for the parents: Cate Blanchett as Ann, Brad Pitt as Hugh. Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller as David's parents. Throw a bone to Barry Keoghan as Jade's brother.

[quote]r55 Jade is a wannabe free spirit who probably ends up being a born-again Christian conservative in her 40's.

Jade is focused and grounded in the second half of the book, doing well in graduate school studying psychology and animal behaviorism. She drops David when she learns he’s dishonestly withheld his role in her father’s death from her. She marries a Frenchman and moves to France.

What about any of that makes you think she’d become a delusional religious fanatic??

—————————

[italic] “The women, on the other hand, seem in a strange reversal to survive the ravages of love that have traditionally been fatal to them. David's mother Rose, unhappy in marriage, bereft of her son, widowed, still struggles on, survives to take David back. Ann, Jade's mother, and a crucial protagonist in their saga, also loses her husband, first to divorce and then to death, but she continues on and visits David in prison while touring as the author of a successful book. Jade herself is given tangible life after love. But for David's father Arthur there is a heart attack, for Hugh death in the path of a speeding taxi, and for David himself only life without a mainspring.”

I remember Bette Midler introducing the song at an awards show by saying "From the endless movie Endless Love."

r56 I think she's still fairly young. The Frenchman doesn't last, she returns to America and joins Phillys Schlafly's anti-feminist group. Just thinking (I've known several women who went from being potheads, fuck ups, to overachieving students to ultra conservative born agains, the pendulum swings hard).

Martin was so pretty

Zach is equally as pretty.

He still loves Jade above all things, but has accepted the prospect of a life without her, who is married to someone else and wants nothing to do with him.

"I hope this day finds you well. You don’t have to read a word of this, you know. I don’t want to make your husband nervous, or to embarrass you, or to make you remember things you’ve decided are best forgotten. I’ve come to the end, finally. Not of love. But of my power to say another word. I’ve no more need. My life is taking shape. I’m living with a woman and maybe someday we will marry, though I doubt it. She paints, too, by the way. Even better than you used to. She teaches at a university and is a full inch taller than I am. I won’t bother to tell you where I’m living now; it makes a more perfect sense for you not to know. I don’t want to say it, I truly don’t, but if you’ve gone this far I suppose it’s obvious that what was ignited when I loved you continues to burn. But that’s of small importance to you now, and that’s how it should be. Everything is in its place. The past rests, breathing faintly in the darkness. It no longer holds me as it used to; now I must reach back to touch it. It is night and I am alone and there is still time, a moment more. I am standing on a long black stage, with a circle of light on me, which is my love for you, enduring. I have escaped—or have been expelled — from eternity and am back in time. But I step out once more to sing this aria, this confession, this testament without end. My arms open wide, not to embrace you but to embrace the world, the mystery we are caught in. There is no orchestra, no audience; it is an empty theater in the middle of the night and all the clocks in the world are ticking. And now for this last time, Jade, I don’t mind, or even ask if it is madness: I see your face, I see you, you; I see you in every seat."

My favorite novel from the 70s.

Martin Hewitt and James Spader played step brothers in the short lived The Family Tree two years later. Melora Hardin from The Office played the sister.

The film may be reviled but let's face it, Martin Hewitt was wank material for many closeted guys throughout the '80s, '90s and even up to today. He really was gorgeous. It's too bad the film wasn't better because he is good in it, the cast is strong.

Diane Lane might have been good as Jade. Though she would have been too young to do the nudity.

Martin sitting by the fireplace in his underwear waiting for Brooke to sneak downstairs was extremely hot. Though I could have done without Shirley Knight watching them.

And then there is a sex scene about 45 minutes in where Martin gives one of the best orgasm faces ever captured in a Hollywood film. 😮 💦

(Yes, I used to jerk off a lot to this one in the 80s. Thank god you could fast forward VHS!)

[quote]creepy

Well, the story has reached its fulfillment. Endless love.

It's a fantastic book and one of those books where the last paragraph stays with you forever.

Ebert's review from 1981.

I sincerely hope Hewitt hasn't turned into the big obnoxious troll Spader turned into.

Maybe there can be a sequel (“Endless Love: The End”) in which David and Jade are reunited.

Hilarity ensues.

If any of you live in the Central Valley and need a home inspection, Martin Hewitt is your man! After he left showbiz behind many years ago, he started a very successful home inspection company and by all accounts he and his firm are great.

Martin has zero vanity now if that’s the photo he selected for himself on his website! Good for him, though.

He still looks good

Does Brooke talk about this film and Zeffirelli in the documentary?

[quote]r76 Does Brooke talk about this film and Zeffirelli in the documentary?

Not much, except to say Zeffirelli didn’t really direct her in a way that helped her to act, or create a characterization.

I think he said elsewhere that Shields wasn’t inherently an actress, though he found her beauty “hypnotic, like a drug.”

It's one of the best American novels ever written about the madness of erotic love.

I never knew this was a book. I was a baby when the film came out but have seen it. The book is totally different as described by OP than the film. The film was a straight up teen boy obsessed with a gorgeous teen girl and her weird family. There wasn’t a lot of nuance.

R74, I wish I didn’t look. That is kind of depressing, it sucks getting old. However, I really commend actors who know when to hang it up in Hollywood and move onto regular lives. Michael Schoeffling is another one who comes to mind.

[quote]r79 I never knew this was a book. I was a baby when the film came out but have seen it.

A rare thing about the novel is it seems to have only received critical RAVES. That doesn’t happen very often.

Another novel that got that same kind of hands down praise was THE WHITE HOTEL by D. M. Thomas. It’s never been filmed, though various artists have been attached to it across the decades.

———————-

[bold] “To describe THE WHITE HOTEL as spine-tingling in its indescribable poetic effect would be to trivialize its profoundly tragic theme. Say then that it is heart-stunning.”— [/bold] The New York Times

[italic]It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud. It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a searing vision of the wounds of the twentieth century, and an attempt to heal them. Interweaving poetry and case history, fantasy and historical truth-telling, The White Hotel is a modern classic of enduring emotional power that attempts nothing less than to reconcile the notion of individual destiny with that of historical fate.