A Trip to the Big Chill

Jerzy Szyłak

Abstract

American radicals of the late 1960s demanded profound political, social and moral changes. They found support for their ideals in the mass media which were eager to present colourful counter-culture figures. They, however, did not attain much. Lawrence Kasdan’s film The Big Chill (1983) brings a summary of the achievements of these radicals and an evaluation of what happened to their old ideals. The film may be (and has often been) interpreted as an accusation of the heroes of betraying their ideals and plans. Kasdan managed to show the people who lived in Baudrillard’s world of the utopia realized, that is the world in which the goals the heroes had sought to accomplish were achieved. But they are disappointed with the world because the reality they live in radically differs from their conceptions on how it should look like. Kasdan stops short of condemning his heroes although he is far from idealising them. He shows them as embroiled in everyday life and protecting reality within their reach. Kasdan does it to show that it is impossible or improper to hold them accountable for the betrayal of the ideals.77î<? Big Chill is one of the films which raises the problem of the inappropriateness of judgment views on reality, which affirms in a peculiar way everyday life, man’s perseverance in the world and the world the way it is. These films are in opposition to the catastrophic diagnoses proclaiming the exhaustion of culture and the decline of all values, which are also present in cinematic art.