The Big Chill
The Big Chill features one of my favourite screen funerals. The assembled guests are gathered in an old fashioned small town church. There’s crying; Glenn Close consoles the mother of Alex, the deceased, as the minister intones the order of service, where the burial will happen, where the reception is going to be held. He’s almost comically sombre. Cut to JoBeth Williams making her way to the organ at the front of the church as the Minister continues: “And now, Karen Bowers, an old college friend of Alex’s, will play one of Alex’s favourite songs…”
She sits at the keyboard, sighs, open up the rests and then – in monotone – the opening bars of The Rolling Stones’s ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ incongruously pulses out. Cut back to the congregation, to his friends, and they’re smiling, William Hurt giggles and suddenly you know everything you need to know about them, their friendship and their connection to Alex. The music continues as we watch the coffin being loaded into the back of the hearse. Then, as the guests leave to attend the wake, the organ gives way to the original track, the lyrics in this setting are laced with irony: “I saw her today at a reception…”
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