Deep Breaths: “Cold Turkey” (1971)

   “Cold Turkey”, Norman Lear’s satirical swipe at the American Heartland, shows the intended imprint of its bite in the very opening moments with a collection of welcome signs to the tiny hamlet of Eagle Rock, Iowa that undercut the original intended greetings with sarcastic graffiti which mirrors a community on the skids; a promising omen that the writer/director (in his feature film directorial debut) will bring a refreshing a layer of bitter reality to the proceedings; that within a period of evolutionary economic prosperity, there are pockets of America that have fallen into a depressive decline.

    Though Lear’s film often settles too easily in the relaxed comfort of cartoon caricature, it consistently finds a sharp observance with which to spring the narrative away from a collapse into permanent buffoonery. If comparison to a similar studio era effort such as “Magic Town”, which portrayed small town America as endearing but irretrievable yokels, Lear’s portrait of Americana is barbed without undo cynicism (the filmmakers seems to appreciate the decency of their townspeople), a rarity in social satire, though it is laced with biting irony which demonstrates an intentional deflation of the best of intentions, especially when those efforts are not accompanied by the purest of motivations.

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