Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

Director:

Fred Schepisi

Writers (WGA):

John Guare (play)
John Guare (screenplay)

Release Date:

8 December 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Mystery

Tagline:

For Paul, every person is a new door to a new world.

Plot:

Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, rich NYC art dealers, are called on one night by a young man, Paul, who professes to be a friend of their kids' from Harvard...

Plot Keywords:

Art Dealer | Art | Rich | New York | Business

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Stockard Channing	...	Louisa ('Ouisa') Kittredge
Will Smith	...	Paul
Donald Sutherland	...	John Flanders ('Flan') Kittredge
Ian McKellen	...	Geoffrey Miller
Mary Beth Hurt	...	Kitty
Bruce Davison	...	Larkin
Richard Masur	...	Dr. Fine
Anthony Michael Hall	...	Trent Conway
Heather Graham	...	Elizabeth
Eric Thal	...	Rick
Anthony Rapp	...	Ben
Oz Perkins	...	Woodrow ('Woody') Kittredge (as Osgood Perkins)
Catherine Kellner	...	Talbot ('Tess') Kittredge
J.J. Abrams	...	Doug (as Jeffrey Abrams)
Joe Pentangelo	...	Police officer

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some sexuality.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:18A (Ontario) | Canada:G (Québec) | Germany:6 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Bronxville, New York, USA

Company:

Maiden Movies

Trivia:

J.J. Abrams, who played Doug, went on to become a writer and producer of several television shows, including one called "Six Degrees" (2006) (a reference to the same "small world" theory that is discussed in Six Degrees of Separation (1993).

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Flan is pretending to pray next to Ouisa, the boom mic and operator are reflected in the large window behind them.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Flan: My God!
Ouisa: Is anything gone?
Flan: How can I look, I'm shaking!
Ouisa: I want to know if anything's gone!
Flan: Calm down.
Ouisa: We could have been killed! Oh, my God! The Kandinsky!
Flan: The Kandinsky!
Ouisa: It's gone, oh my God! Call the police!
Flan: Oh, no, there it is. Oh! The silver Victorian inkwell!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The O'Reilly Factor: (2008-09-16)" (2008)

Soundtrack:

THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU

the longing of the social classes for each other

Puzzling offhanded moody film. I was struck by what seemed the underlying assertion: the deep if unconscious longing of the divided social classes in the country -- the wealthy and the disenfranchised -- for each other. The deep longing to heal the rift of "separation" that the whole class system perpetuates through how people behave, who they associate with, who is considered desirable.

The rich couple and especially Stockard Channing's character of Louisa is caught up in an affluent world of witty pretentious empty existence -- one they are exceedingly skilled at, and are able to milk to good profit. When they meet Paul (Will Smith's character), they are drawn to his directness, his charm -- he is skilled at being relaxed and conversant in their cultured world, yet he lacks the pretense of the elder members or the (satirically exaggerated) spoiled disaffection of the younger members, their children. They both relish telling the story – and their friends seem undyingly riveted by it -- and Loisa especially tastes of a richness, a directness, a spark to life that she does not have.

Will Smith's character of Paul also longs for a life he does not have, their Upper East Side life. For the wealth, certainly, but also for the very real values of education, ideas, and that spark of art that is separate from the worldly commercial side of art's buying and selling. The slap that Louisa joyously gives to the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel.

Both sides are profoundly hurt by the rift, the gulf, that exists almost never to be crossed between Paul's ghetto and the Kittridges' beautiful penthouse. There may be a "mere" six degrees of separation between them – but as Louisa meditates, how to broach them? How to find the people that came connect you?

(In "Six Degrees" it is interesting and telling that it is the gay member of the set that serves as the crossover person, the means by which Paul can make his more profound crossover. Somehow, those who are owning-class gay stand with a foot in both worlds – they have a large degree of entree into the worldly affluent classes, yet they are also outcasts.)

As a comment outside the movie, it's my opinion that the class system is kept inexorably in place so that the wealthy might never have human relationships as equals with those whose labor they exploit, so as to avoid the pangs of conscience about benefiting unjustly from their labor. (One of Gandhi's seven root causes of injustice is: Wealth Without Work. In a just world, every person reaps the product of her or his own work; while to be wealthy, one generally must have people working for you from whom you derive some percentage profit of their work.)

But while this may sound radical, my further belief is that not only does this system hurt the poor, it also hurts the wealthy in profound ways. They get the wonderful apartments and private access to the Kandinsky, but their lives are empty and they don't see a way out, they must keep going to the obligatory mannered dinner parties at the price of a life that feels rich and alive with imagination.