Since the sad and untimely death of Whitney Houston, it has been difficult to turn on the television and not hear a few seconds of her mighty and majestic rendition of “I Will Always Love You”. It’s considered her signature song for reasons obvious even to a distracted listener, and reasons well scrutinized by the wall-to-wall coverage of her life that followed her death. With the a cappella opening, Houston demonstrated the subtlety of her phrasing, the soulfulness of her delivery, and the emotive power contained in even the slightest suggestion of her voice. The song’s stirring conclusion allowed Whitney to demonstrate the other side of her voice – a power so overwhelming that it is nearly impossible to find peer or precedent.
During the beautiful eulogy given by her Bodyguard costar, Kevin Costner, the actor explained that “I Will Always Love You”, almost wasn’t. The original choice, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”, became unworkable when Paul Young scored a big hit with it during the pre-production of the film. Costner suggested the Dolly Parton country song, and everyone, from the studio executives at Warner Brothers to the soundtrack producer, David Foster, fought him. They were convinced that a country song, especially one that began so slowly, would never do well on radio.
Then Whitney Houston sang it and destroyed all doubt. The song that became the film’s most enduring part represents the fight to keep the project alive.
Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, and Grand Canyon, wrote The Bodyguard in the 1970s and originally sold it to a studio that planned to cast Steve McQueen and Diana Ross. McQueen’s death halted the project, and Kasdan couldn’t sell the screenplay throughout the ’80s. Costner befriended Kasdan, read the script, and in the early ’90s, at the peak of his powers, got The Bodyguard the backing it deserved. He also served as executive producer.
The bell rang for the next round of fighting when Costner insisted that Houston play the role of Rachael Marron – the diva who hires bodyguard Frank Farmer to protect her. Warner Brothers immediately raised two objections. Houston had never acted before, and she was black. What if she couldn’t deliver, and what if audiences reacted bitterly to an interracial romance?
Costner and Kasdan won the argument, and when Houston swept the studio executives off their feet during her screen test, the fighting seemed to end. Anxiety and antagonism returned, however, when the studio executives, still nervous and reticent about casting Houston, suggested that The Bodyguard include scenes that directly address the black-white dynamic of the relationship. Both the screenwriter and leading man thought the idea ridiculous. Costner later explained in an ABC News interview, “I said ‘absolutely not.’ This is not race. This is a man and a woman. This is chemistry, romance. That’s what that kiss (the kiss that takes place in the final scene of the film) was all about. It was two people thanking each other. I kissed her once for all of America, and I kissed her once for myself.”
All of America fell in love with Whitney Houston long before the release of The Bodyguard, and they fell again in the darkness of the theater, as her beauty melted the big screen. Although she didn’t have the acting ability and range that Diana Ross showed in Mahogany and Lady Sings the Blues, or that Cher showed in Moonstruck and Mask, Houston did possess a natural charm and charisma to accompany her gorgeousness that was delightful to watch and perfect for a romance, like The Bodyguard, in which the female lead seduces the male lead. She was wonderful in the feel-good Christmas movie, The Preacher’s Wife, and gave a solid performance in Waiting to Exhale. Both of those films scored soundtrack hits, most especially The Preacher’s Wife – the soundtrack is still the highest-selling Gospel record of all time.
However, fans and followers will most remember her role in The Bodyguard when they think of Houston as an actress. The film endures not only because of its stunning soundtrack, but because it represents a style of blockbuster entertainment that’s different from what is currently fashionable. Twenty years after its theatrical release, it still offers an alternative to teenage idiocy (the Twilight series, Valentine’s Day), macho ignorance (the Hangover series, Hall Pass, The Expendables), and special-effects silliness (the Transformer series, seemingly endless superhero sequels).
The Bodyguard had thrills and action, but it was not an action movie. It had great music, but it didn’t overshadow the story. It was a romance of adulthood. It had the maturity and sophistication that gives adult romance the contradiction of cross-pollinated pain and joy. It’s the cross-pollination of pain and joy that gives the film its lasting life, and gives “I Will Always Love You,” its steadfast power.
“If I should stay I will only be in your way” is how the highest-selling single of all time begins, and that line later leads into the promise and conviction that gives the song its memorable title. Frank Farmer and Rachel Marron are two strong, smart, and self-confident individuals, secure in their identities and dedicated to their seemingly opposite vocations. They enter each other’s lives under the auspices of a business arrangement but soon find that the protection they can give each other extends far beyond Farmer’s ability to detect and vanquish physical threats. She protected him from the loneliness and isolation that threatened to overwhelm him after the loss of his wife, and he protected her from the threat that fame and image-obsessed branding posed to her true self. Their protection became affection, and he gave her the gift of seeing her and loving her as Rachel Marron, not the superstar, but the human being. She gave him the gift of intimacy, reminding him of its importance and its inspiration.
The personalities of the characters, as emotively and effectively delineated by Houston and Costner, showcased exactly what they needed and what they were able to provide. She was spontaneous, improvisational, and deferent to the artist’s wild spirit. He was thorough, assiduously detailed, and reliant upon a complicated system of internal checks and balances. Her passion was the perfect counterpoint to his caution, while his discipline was the perfect formula for the chaos of her life.
Lawrence Kasdan is a suave, sophisticated, but also sincere screenwriter. He has a particular gift for symbolism. Symbolism is a difficult tightrope to balance upon. If the writer leans too far to the left, the symbol is too subtle to have any meaning. Tilt too far right, and the symbol becomes laughably obvious, forever castigated as camp. In Body Heat, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner murder the Turner character’s husband. The disappearance of the victim’s glasses becomes a pivotal part of the plot, ruining both Hurt’s fortunes and securing Turner’s place in the gallery of film’s femme fatales. The inability to find the eyeglasses also comes to represent the deceptive, seductive woman’s power to blind the men in her life. Grand Canyon, perhaps Kasdan’s best work, uses the natural wonder as a symbol, in ways both obvious and surprising, to present a challenging narrative of discovery and inquiry into race, social division, and the mysterious encounters that can change lives.
The first kiss in The Bodyguard follows the screen smoldering under Houston’s deep stare and Costner’s intense concentration. She waves a model of a samurai sword that Farmer keeps on his wall. He stands up, and with the blade pressed against his chest, establishing a dangerous barrier between lovers, he grabs Rachel’s silk scarf, tosses it into the air without shifting focus from her face, and lets it fall onto the sword. They watch it softly slice in half. Farmer grabs the sword by the handle, removing the barrier, and kisses her. Romance is risky. It invites pain, but it also invites passion, promise, and potential for joy, love, and growth.
The next morning, the barrier is back. A fatal blade might as well be pressed against Farmer’s chest as he stands over Rachel while she lies in bed. He tells her that the previous night was a mistake because he “cannot protect her like this.” She tells him he is good at making people “feel like shit”, and treats him with contempt at a benefit show that night.
Rachel and Frank kiss again in the film. They flirt, hold hands, and steal smiling glances from across the room. Their bodies, however, are never pressed against each other. Even when they kiss the night after the death of Rachel’s sister, they remain distant. Farmer sits at Rachel’s side and leans toward her mouth. She meets him halfway, but they’ve barricaded their bodies. They can no longer give of themselves. They cannot surrender to their passion because they realize that their lives, and their personalities and priorities, are irreconcilably different. They cannot bypass the blade of doubt because, due to the conditions and circumstances of their lives, doubt has decimated faith.
Their romance is destined for a quick and painful ending. Its short lifespan does not limit its transformative power. As Bob Dylan sang, “There’s some people that you can’t forget even if you’ve only seen them one time or two.” At the end of The Bodyguard, the viewers understand that Rachel and Frank will never forget each other. They will always love each other. It all comes down to that kiss – that act of passion, drama, and intimacy that Costner explained as a gesture of gratitude. The film ends not happily, not depressingly, but with the full conflict of the bittersweet sweep of unrealized love.
The Bodyguard is not a masterpiece. A couple of scenes push the limits of believability, and the climactic action sequence near the film’s conclusion feels underwhelming. As a blockbuster, its strength, both commercially and artistically, comes from its romance, and the songs are products and servants of that romance. Whitney Houston, with whom it was impossible not to fall in love, and Kevin Costner, who, because of late ’90s flops, is underrated as an actor and leading man, were its perfect conduits.
The legacy of the blockbuster, beyond Whitney Houston’s greatness, Lawrence Kasdan’s vision, and KevinCostner’s wisdom, is that you can please the public and turn a massive profit by intelligently presenting the complexities of adult love. The Bodyguard was written and performed by serious adults, and it was intended for serious adults. It was also socially sophisticated and racially progressive, depicting a romance between a white man and a black woman as natural and normal, rather than as pathological or peculiar.
If any good can come out of the tragic loss of Houston, perhaps it can be a revisit of The Bodyguard and a return to blockbusters of mature filmmaking and storytelling.