Great Character: Sam Wheat (“Ghost”)
With Halloween approaching, our theme this month is Supernatural Characters. Today in his regular weekly guest post, Jason Cuthbert looks at Sam Wheat from the 1990 movie Ghost, written by Bruce Joel Rubin.
The biggest blockbuster and highest grossing movie of 1990 (over $500 million on a $22 million budget) was a fantasy drama that took director Jerry Zucker outside of his comfort zone of comedy parodies like Airplane!, Top Secret! and The Naked Gun. The male lead Patrick Swayze, who played the paranormal lover Sam Wheat in Ghost, also took a cinematic leap of faith away from coming-of-age 1980’s flicks like The Outsiders, Red Dawn and Dirty Dancing. Ironically, Zucker wasn’t interested at first in Patrick Swayze for the lead, until Swayze’s audition rocked the room and claimed his supernatural slot in the film. Also, Bruce Joel Rubin wasn’t initially pleased about Jerry Zucker directing his Ghost script due to Zucker’s screwball comedy roots. But his conversion towards this directorial choice evolved after Rubin and Zucker bonded as individuals, not just as filmmakers, over dinner.
The Cortland Review brought forth “Meditations on Story with Bruce Joel Rubin,” with the deeply inspired screenwriter discussing life after death, storytelling, Ghost the movie and Ghost the Musical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLbie6COBk
Ghost from IMDB:
After being killed during a botched mugging, a man’s love for his partner enables him to remain on earth as a ghost.
This grandiose gamble of acting and directing personnel rose up from the grave of uncertainty as Ghost went on to haunt award ceremonies, scaring up five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and a pair of wins, one for the wonderfully witty Whoopi Goldberg (Best Actress in a Supporting Role) and the other handed to poignant screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen). The supernatural love story Ghost also floated through the Golden Globes garnering another win for Whoopi, nominations for Best Motion Picture — Comedy/Musical, as well as nomination acknowledgements for actress Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze himself.
What exactly do we know about Sam Wheat before he travels onto his solitary road towards the afterlife? Sam is a professional banker, but not much of a pottery aficionado. He shares his work and playtime with his pal Carl (Tony Goldwyn) and the bed in his New York City apartment with his significant other Molly (Demi Moore). Sam may be afraid of losing Molly but not afraid to confront an armed robber to protect her. Sam may also be in love, but has a minor difficulty verbalizing it. Sam is trying to remain balanced on two sides of an emotional scale, one leg firmly planted on love and the other foot resting on fear — afraid to lose who he loves.
MOLLY JENSEN: I love you. I really love you.
SAM WHEAT: Ditto.
Maybe Sam believes that by keeping the word “love” out of his vocabulary and by not upgrading the context of his relationship with Molly into marriage it would make it easier to cope with the possibility of Molly and him suddenly disappearing out of each other’s lives.
SAM WHEAT: I just don’t want the bubble to burst. Seems like…whenever anything good in my life happens I’m just afraid I’m going to lose it.
Oh my…how loss has quite a way of teasing us about what we once had. But it is that fear of loss that aches inside of Sam Wheat, rumbling within him while defending Molly and himself from being mugged at gun point, facing fear right up until the moment his last breath is swallowed by the selfish appetite of a bullet.
The triggerman Willie proves to have a premeditated involvement in Sam’s death that can be traced back up the vicious ladder that leads to Sam’s own publicly loyal but privately jealous “frenemy” Carl. Wicked Willie and corrupt Carl are not the only ones who will stick around and pay Molly a visit or two; so will Sam’s spirit, spurred on by both his love and fear for Molly’s life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpvlS6uBduQ
As Sam remains on Earth, albeit on a spiritual plane of existence, his longing for love opens up into a full-blown mystery movie. Why was Sam killed? What is the reason that Carl and Willie are in cahoots with each other? How will Sam warn Molly of her impending danger? Will Sam ever be able to finally replace his “ditto” response with “I Love you Molly?”
In order for Sam Wheat to answer these post-death dilemmas he will need to make a committed effort to throw fear to the wind and focus on influencing Molly’s world of the living before those white beams from the heavens above invite him back to destiny. This effort includes building a necessary bond with an enterprising physic and understandably reluctant Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg). Sam must make Oda Mae believe in his plight to save Molly so that Molly can believe in Sam’s everlasting love for her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fLlgS6aO9k
Although Sam appears to take pleasure in his acts of vengeance against his death chaperones, when irrevocable harm occurs, Sam’s pained facial expressions provide the real truth — he knows taking life won’t bring his own life back.
The movie Ghost is an enchanting testimony that the power of love is more than a catchy “Back to the Future” theme song by Huey Lewis and The News. Love kept Sam on Earth. Love made Molly believe in Sam’s spirit. Love made Oda Mae Brown join the invisible Sam’s journey. But let’s also not forget; love conquered Sam’s fear of losing Molly.
SAM WHEAT: It’s amazing, Molly. The love inside, you take it with you. See ya.
MOLLY JENSEN: See ya. Bye.
For his commitment to love, whether alive or deceased, and his deep desire to overcome his fear of losing love so he could finally express it — Sam Wheat is one GREAT CHARACTER in the flesh and in spirit.
Having been in the business since the late 80s, I know the phenomenon that was Ghost and cannot overstate how big this movie was. To wit: The movie grossed $506M worldwide.
$506M!
In large part, those remarkable numbers are due to the Protagonist-Attractor relationship between Molly (Demi Moore) and Sam (Patrick Swayze), the power of pure unrequited love.
Join us in comments for a discussion of this hit movie. And thanks once again to Jason! You may follow him on Twitter: @A2Jason.