One of this year’s most original, absorbing American films is The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn. Set in Nebraska in the sixties, it tells the story of two brothers of contrasting personalities.
Joe is calm. Frank is wild. Joe gets a job with the local police after losing the family farm to creditors. Frank loses jobs as easily as he gets them. Joe struggles with the world and gets by. Frank just struggles with himself.
Apparently inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s hauntingly spare acoustic number, “The Highway Patrolman,” the film deals with how far Joe will go to rescue Frank. Even with his patience stretched to the limit, the point is constantly made that as family, Joe feels an overriding sense of responsibility for his younger brother.
It’s a compelling drama which draws fine performances from Viggo Mortensen as Frank and David Morse as Joe. Supporting roles feature Dennis Hopper, Valeria Golino, Patricia Arquette, Sandy Dennis and Charles Bronson in an unusually reclusive role as father to the boys. But despite its originality and freshness, critical reaction to the movie has been lukewarm. Bearing in mind that Penn has never tried to curry favor with the media or film critics, for that matter – the watery reception to his first self-made film is hardly surprising. In view of the quality of his work, one would sense that the knives were out for The Indian Runner long before it entered the cutting room.
Sean Penn, now 31, has already seen more than his share of tabloid flashbulbs.
His relationship with Madonna is well-documented- if well-documented means saturation coverage, innuendo and fabrication. When Penn and Madonna married in California, reporters flew over the ceremony in helicopters, thirsting for the first unofficial photograph. The bridegroom, incensed by his uninvited airborne guests overhead, allegedly took to scattering the helicopters with a handgun.
Sean Penn was the second of three sons to film director, Leo Penn and actress, Eileen Ryan.
Sean’s older brother Michael went on to lead a successful recording career. Younger brother Christopher was drawn to the stage. Eileen gave up acting when Sean was born. The family lived in the San Femando Valley outside Los Angeles, moving to Malibu when Sean was ten. After graduating high school he did two years production work with the L.A. Repertory Group Theater. Moving into performance, he studied under Peggy Feury [as did Anjelica Huston] and made his TV debut in an episode of Barnaby Jones, the Buddy Epsom detective series.
Penn soon dropped out of TV work, moving east to New York where his stage performances earned him a role in Taps with fellow newcomers, Timothy Hutton and Tom Cruise. Fast Times at Ridgemont High then set him apart from the field.
After taking the role of tough Mick O’ Brien in the juvenile prison drama Bad Boys, he returned to the Broadway stage to play another troubled, restless character in John Durne’s Slab Boys.
With his screen career in rapid ascent, he appeared in Louis Malle’s Crackers, Richard Benjamin’s Racing with the Moon and teamed up again with Hutton for John Schlesinger’s acclaimed The Falcon and the Snowman.
However, the popular perception of Sean Penn as a troublemaker was already taking root. Having moved on with his next project, he declined effectively refusing to do interviews for Racing with the Moon. Elizabeth McGovern, his co-star and girlfriend at the time, also opted out of publicity engagements for it.
Penn maintains he was busy on his next film. In truth, he didn’t like the way Racing with the Moon ended up “one of the most boring melodramas of the eighties,” he told Playboy.
“But the people involved in that movie didn’t respect my answer when I said no, and then they did something I don’t believe has been done any other time. They spoke in public against the actor who was in their movie.”
The producers also felt that Penn pressured others in the cast against promoting the movie, a charge he rejects as “totally bogus.”
His brother Christopher joined him for At Close Range with Christopher Walken and then Leo Penn cast Sean in Judgement in Berlin.
When he and Madonna appeared together in the lamentable Shanghai Surprise, (1986) the film flopped to such an extent that it is not even mentioned on Penn’s career history. It’s the only role he says he took just for the money.
His prestige returned with a strong performance in Dennis Hopper’s controversial hit, Colors. And his screen career since has continued respectably with Brian de Palma’s Casualties of War, Neil Jordan’s We’re No Angels and Phil Joanou’s State of Grace.
In the midst of an increasingly wayward and brutalized lifestyle, largely pulled out of control by a relentless and unforgiving media, but also partly by himself, Penn declared he had enough of acting. His drinking and brawling kept him in the headlines and the tabloids loved him for it.
The portrayal of the actor reached farcical extremes, although it is always questionable just how much his ex-wife revelled in the attention. Prior to the couple’s divorce, Madonna said she was in danger inside the house with him. A SWAT team crashed through every door of the house to find Sean Penn eating cereal.
My understanding of the direction Madonna was choosing was a misunderstanding. It was a big surprise,” he said in a recent Playboy interview. When asked if he thought their marriage could possibly have survived. “Under the circumstances of what happened with her? No way,” he replied.
The break-up was inevitable. But does Penn feel anything for his ex-wife?
“Yeah,” he told Playboy, “I just don’t want her living at my house.”
But even after the split, Penn continued to drink and get tangled with the law.
When he broke probation on an assault-and-battery charge, he served 32 days in Los Angeles County Jail in the high-priority wing.
Following the State of Grace production, Penn began anew with his on-screen girlfriend, actress Robin Wright. Three months ago the couple bore a daughter, Dylan Frances – “a happy accident,” says the father proudly.
The couple and child were recently in Ireland as Wright joined Aidan Quinn in County Cavan for the filming of Shane Connaughton’s screenplay, The Playboys.
Although Penn has publicly renounced any desire to return to acting, he is strongly linked with Peter Sheridan’s planned film on the life of Brendan Behan. Should the project go ahead, Penn is tipped above all contenders to play the lead.
In the meantime, the writer/director is actively promoting The Indian Runner.
The themes in this movie are the themes that I’m wrestling with in my own life,” he says, prompting many critics to suggest that the wild and violent Frank is Penn’s retrospective view of himself.
As a result, the media who were eager to vilify are now tripping over the question: Is Sean Penn a changed man? Is the wild youth now a family man? Has the anger of the notable but troubled performer subsided, yielding to a relaxed but serious 31-year-old filmmaker? For Penn, the answer is as irrelevant as the question.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the November 1991 issue of Irish America. ♦
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