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The Bridges of Madison County
(1995)
In actor/director Clint Eastwood's tearjerking romantic
melodrama, based on Robert James Waller's best-seller, and similar
in plot to The Rose Tattoo (1955):
- the opening sequence of two adult siblings, Michael
and Carolyn Johnson (Victor Slezak and Annie Corley) going through
the safe-deposit box possessions of their deceased Iowa farmhouse
mother Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep), including her contradictory
instructions - her decision to be cremated with her ashes thrown
off the Roseman covered bridge; they also were shocked to see photos
and discover a letter (one of a series of letters) sent to her
by National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid (Clint
Eastwood): "I struggIe to .put it together in a way that aIIows
me to continue knowing that we're on separate roads. But then,
I Iook through the Iens of my camera and you're there. I start
to write an articIe and I find myseIf writing it to you. It's cIear
to me now that we have been moving towards each other towards those
four days, aII of our Iives"
- the various flashbacked scenes in the idyllic four-day
love affair in the mid-1960s in Winterset (Madison County), Iowa
between middle-aged, 45 year-old, married Italian war bride Francesca
Johnson and lean and lanky, rugged-faced, visiting globe-traveling
Robert Kincaid who was photographing bridges in the area
Idyllic Four Day Affair in Iowa: Francesca with
Robert
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Dancing
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Kissing
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Bathing
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- the last sequence - the lingering glance between
married Iowa farmwife Francesca, seated in her husband's truck,
and Robert Kincaid as he stood in the street a short distance away
on a rainy afternoon: (Francesca in voice-over: "For a moment,
I didn't know where I was. And for a split second, the thought
crossed my mind that he really didn't want me. That it was easy
to walk away")
- at a red stoplight behind Robert's truck (from Washington
State), she noticed that Robert leaned over in his truck's cab
and retrieved something from his glove-box: (she remembered, in
voice-over: "8 days ago, he'd done that, and his arm had brushed
across my leg. A week ago I'd been in Des Moines, buying a new
dress")
- the sequence of Francesca's heartbreaking, pivotal,
and fateful, cross-roads decision to remain with her husband in their
truck instead of jumping out (although she partially turned the truck's
doorknob), and her thoughts after watching Robert's truck turn left
and drive away forever: ("Oh, no. The words were inside of me.
I was wrong, Robert, I was wrong to stay, but I can't go. Let me
tell you again why I can't go. Tell me again why I should go. I heard
his voice coming back to me: 'This kind of certainty comes but once
in a lifetime'")
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Opening Sequence: Francesca's Safe Deposit Box
Flashbacks
Francesca's Pivotal Decision: Remain in Husband's Truck
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