mmmm…..
Kramer Vs. Kramer
Say Anything
I’d also second Bob’s recommendation for John Ford films. A good number of his non-westerns deal directly with American family structures (or Irish).
Well, it’s already been mentioned, but “Meet Me in St. Louis” is one of the most beautifully positive portraits of American family ever committed to film.
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Savages
The Virgin Suicides
Bigger Than Life was the first I thought of.
Definitely Blue Velvet for the destruction of the nuclear family.
I like the Night of The Hunter choice. I was close to picking that myself but it’s non-traditional family structure (widowed wife, step-father, later surrogate mother figure) kept me from recommending it – same goes for Days of Heaven.
TV’s Roseanne. Cannot think of any films off hand.
The more I’ve thought about this, throw in a vote as well for To Kill a Mockingbird. The whole tale is a series of contrasts of several American families on display, and beautifully realized by those portraying them. With all of them living through the depression economy, it shows how poverty binds as well as entraps. The Robinsons and the Ewells, the most wretched of its victims, yet where character merges to the fore; Dill’s story and his Aunt Stephanie, as even remnants of family will remain; The Radleys, alive, but taken now to secrecy; and the Finch family, two children now without the mother, but being raised with the utmost care and decency as possible by that one good man.
I’m sure Sounder works, too.
Fredo
Psycho