Великий Сантини

1979 film by Lewis John Carlino
the film

The Great Santini is a 1979 American drama film written and directed by Lewis John Carlino. It is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Pat Conroy. The film stars Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, and Michael O'Keefe.

A warrior without a war, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum, a pilot known as "the Great Santini" to his fellow Marines, moves his family to the military base town of Beaufort, South Carolina, in peacetime 1962. His wife, Lillian, is loyal and docile, tolerant of Meechum's temper and drinking. Their teenage children, Ben and Mary Anne, are accustomed to his stern discipline and behave accordingly while adapting to their new town and school. Ben's talent at basketball earned him a spot on the school team, and he became a dominant player on the court. During one on one games with Meechum at home, though, Meechum refuses to let Ben win, using unnecessarily rough physical tactics and humiliating insults and criticizing the rest of the family when they try to interfere. When Ben finally wins a game, Meechum unleashes a torrent of verbal abuse while bouncing the ball off his head. Later that night, Ben finds Meechum practising basketball alone in the driveway; Lillian urges Ben not to be angry at him and explains that he is proud of Ben but struggling with losing control over things he used to master so easily. During a school game, Meechum orders Ben to strike back against a rival player who has committed a foul. Ben tackles the player and breaks his arm, getting himself ejected from the game and dismissed from the team. Ben befriends a young black man, Toomer Smalls, who is being bullied by Red Pettus. Toomer uses a beehive to get revenge on Red, but Red accidentally shoots him. Ignoring Meechum's orders, Ben leaves the house to help Toomer, but he arrives too late, and Toomer dies. Meechum is angry about Ben's disobedience, but another Marine tells him that Ben showed courage by choosing to help his friend. Still unable or unwilling to appreciate Ben's sensitive nature, Meechum accepts one last aerial mission from which he does not return. His engines fail, and he chooses to crash his plane into the sea rather than eject and let the aircraft crash into a nearby town. The family leaves Beaufort after his funeral. Ben assumes Meechum's role as the household leader, as Bull had intended.

Lewis John Carlino adapted the script from Conroy's novel. Carlino also directed the film. The title character, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum, aka "The Great Santini", was based on Conroy's father. The story, for the most part, follows the book. The movie's major divergence is the absence of Ben Meechum's Jewish best friend, Sammy. The spelling of the family's surname was also changed from Meecham to Meechum. Also changed is Meechum's aircraft; in the book, he flies and commands a squadron of F 8 Crusaders, while in the film, the fighters shown are F 4 Phantom IIs. Much of the film was shot on location in Beaufort, South Carolina. Tidalholm, the 19th century house used for the Meechum residence, was later used in The Big Chill (1983). The film was shot in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio but was only produced in that ratio in the LaserDisc format. The VHS and DVD releases are in 1.33:1, also known as full screen or pan and scan. To date the film has not had a release in the Blu ray format.

Herman Raucher is often credited as a ghostwriter for the film. However, Raucher did no work on the film; the misconception arises from the fact that, in the 1980s, Raucher was hired to write a television pilot based on the movie; he only wrote "a couple of pieces," he explained. Raucher has stated that, into the 2000s, he continued to receive fan mail for Santini and that the volume of letters he received was surpassed only by those for Summer of '42.

The film was well received by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 95% rating based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times wrote: "Like almost all my favorite films, The Great Santini is about people more than it is about a story. It's a study of several characters, most unforgettably the Great Santini himself, played by Robert Duvall  There are moments so unpredictable and yet so natural they feel just like the spontaneity of life itself." John Simon of National Review wrote that The Great Santini was "an uneven achievement that nevertheless contains enough of value to justify catching it".

Award Category Nominee Result Ref. Academy Awards Best Actor Robert Duvall Best Supporting Actor Michael O'Keefe Golden Globe Awards New Star of the Year – Actor Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Actor Robert Duvall Montreal World Film Festival Best Actor National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films 6th Place National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Actor Robert Duvall 3rd Place New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Actor Writers Guild of America Awards Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium Lewis John Carlino

Movies and television have referred to the one on one basketball game from The Great Santini during which Bull Meechum repeatedly bounces the ball off Ben's head while asking, "You gonna cry?" Parodies of the scene appear in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and in episodes of The Simpsons and Roseanne. This movie was referred to in season 2 of the television series King of the Hill in the 17th episode "Hank's Dirty Laundry", where Hank mentions that he had rented and returned this movie 23 times. The scene is invoked in the father–son tetherball match in Kicking & Screaming, a comedy in which Robert Duvall plays a tough love father reminiscent of Bull Meechum. Another reference appears in Daddy's Home 2 in a scene featuring Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg.