We don't really get to understand the meaning of the title until the very last scene or two. It is a reference to doing something different, perhaps spontaneous, perhaps even 'naughty' instead of always doing the safe thing. As in when someone might say 'don't get carried away'. He did get 'carried away.'This is a love story between two people who are 30 years apart in age, in the 1960s. But it is also a love story about two same-aged teachers who have been friends for life, and have come to take each other for granted.Dennis Hopper, who was closer to 60, is 47-year-old teacher Joseph Svenden, living on a spread with his house and a barn and a small amount of land. He is 'dating' Amy Irving as Rosealee Henson, a fellow teacher and widow in this small rural community. They have a very safe relationship, they never 'get carried away.'Things get more interesting and more complicated when Amy Locane, who was probably 23 during filming, as 17-year-old Catherine Wheeler moves into the area to attend school and also ends up boarding her horse with Svenden. She is smart and experimental and quickly sizes up Svenden as an easy mark. One day soon after her horse arrives, he finds Catherine in the hay loft of the barn. They chat a bit, then she takes off her top to reveal a really nicely sculpted physique without a bra. What is a man, a schoolteacher, to do, since she is 17 and she is a student of his?The movie never delves into the deep moral or legal aspects of the situation. Instead it is a study of a man who is living out life with no excitement whatever and wondering how it would be to get 'carried away' before he dies.Gary Busey is good as Major Nathan Wheeler, Catherine's dad. Also good is veteran Hal Holbrook as the local physician, Doctor Evans, who sees just about everything that goes on in the community but does not judge too harshly. He understands what human nature is all about.SPOILERS: That first day when she takes off her top, Svenden is at first very surprised, then leaves the barn, but outside sees his elderly mother through the screen, weak and frail, then turns around and goes back to the, saying "I believe we should make love." Later we hear him tell that is was because he wanted to get 'carried away' for once. There is another scene, where he gets undressed in Rosealee's house, and encourages her to do so also, in spite of her reluctance. They had made love many times, in the dark, but this time he wanted them to 'get carried away' and do something daring. In the end everyone learned about the ongoing affair he was having with the student, even her dad understood, and in the very end Svenden and Rosealee appear to be headed for a life together, getting 'carried away' by romping into the sea surf in their street clothes.

From time to time I come upon a film that is revolting, but that I am sure that could be recut from existing footage and made into a fine project. This is such a film. Changing just the score might tip it into tolerable. What's there now is a syrupy Hallmark violin jelly that swells when the composer thinks we should be following expected emotional urges.Superficially, this is a simple redemption story: an "old" man (at 47!) is tied to his mother and is reluctant to marry the long time love of his life. She is the war widow of his best friend. The crisis that makes things end happily (in that artificial cinematic notion of happiness) is his affair with a damaged 17 year old. She is a seductive student of his. He gets "carried away" with the girl, repents and then teaches his real love to do the same with him.At this level, we have little material on which to build a successful narrative. But it has Dennis Hopper in one of his strong acting periods. I watched this because he recently died, and I miss him.There is one device here that could never be made to work, and it seems to have come from the inept director. Hopper's character is a teacher in a one-room rural school, to be imminently closed. He is an uneducated man himself; but is a teacher because his long-time love is one and he has a bad leg leaving him unfit for farming.But he is a poetry enthusiast, knows the passion of a possible life and tries to pass it on to his students. This is crudely represented by his desire to play on the beach. He has a painting of a beach which the filmmaker uses as a visual representation of poetry and the urges it stirs. Being "carried away" in this sophomoric sense means being taken by passion to the beach, which (no fooling) happens at the end. Midway in the movie, the girl drops and breaks the painting. This never could have worked. It and the immature score work against the thing.But there are some powerful, key scenes. If the filmmaker (or his producers) wasn't working against himself these three scenes by themselves with Hopper could have made this memorable, penetrating. They all are rooted in the barn.We are introduced to Hopper's character as he awakes before dawn, leaves his bed and the house where his mother is dying. He goes to the barn. There he milks the cow, with whom, we discover, he is more emotionally open than to any person. This is the first of the three anchor barn scenes. It sticks because it is so early in the narrative and because Hopper makes it so.Later, the teen girl places her horse in that barn and the rutting begins. He naively believes it will stay in the barn, but of course it "gets out." We have some nudity from this lovely young girl, enough for it to register as a token of her openness. This is linked to the horse, which she rides for sexual pleasure. We see her nude on the horse. It is clumsily done, but we get the message that her sex in his world is her horse in his barn.The next anchor scene makes my heart ache. We have learned that the girl's father is a rough military type, at home killing things. We have seen the two men together, competitively hunting and we have had the pecking order established. We learn as Hopper's character does that the father is coming to get him for screwing his daughter.Now what happens works because of Hopper. He gets the hunting rifle that has been a treasured gift just received from the doctor who cared for the man's just deceased (a few days) mother. It is by way of a bereavement token. He goes to the barn, by now the well established space for his internal being. In the same loft where he lost himself in the girl's body, he takes up a sniper's position, intent on killing the Colonel by surprise. The emotion Hopper conveys is built on an entire life and we get it all.He spies a wolf, already discussed as impossible in that area — a noble animal, free. The man has a clean shot and chooses not to take it. Again, Hopper makes the soul fly. Then the scene is abruptly defused with deliberate, punctuating skill.The final anchor scene... the young girl shows up at the man's house. He has already conquered his passions and gently rejects her advances. She knows this and admits that she has set the barn on fire. Her horse runs from the barn ablaze and dies (thankfully offscreen, but the concept is revolting). The next morning we see Hopper walk out to the now smoldering barn just as his cow comes in from the field to be milked. The two ponder needs, the future and the ruins.Making a powerful narrative is in part an understanding of these key images and when to invest. Hopper did.The filmmaker is not so clean. He works in three other scenes associated with the women. Hopper's mature love (Amy Irving) in a nude coming out, the girl in a scene where she rewins him after a rough car ride and the dying mother coming clean about her desires for her son. Each of these had juice. But none of them really work because they had not had a place built for them in the narrative.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Sometimes it's completely incomprehensible to understand how "Carried Away", the excellent film by Brazilian director Bruno Barreto, is perceived by some of the contributors to this forum. "Carried Away" is a movie based on a novella by Jim Harrison with a fine screenplay by Ed Jones, who does a fine job in adapting it for the viewer. Mr. Barreto is not a timid man, as he has shown in his other films. While most people object to the graphic nudity, it is never in one's face, or something that is done for shock value, like some other directors tend to do whenever they don't have anything better to say.The story about a sensitive man who has been left somewhat crippled after a childhood accident in the farm where he lives, presents us a man in turmoil. His life, while not completely shattered, is in total disarray as one meets him, years after he suffered the foot injury. Joseph Svenden is basically a decent man. We watch him in the rural school where he teaches, and later on, working in the farm where he lives with his older mother. Joseph is clearly a man whose life has passed him by because since he never married, he has stayed behind with the mother, while his siblings are all settled and living away.Joseph is seeing Rosalee, another teacher from his school. They have a cozy arrangement. Neither of them is in a rush to formalize their relationship. At this point of his life, Joseph falls for one of his students, Catherine, who obviously is way ahead of him in being sexually active. She seduces the quiet man, who falls head over heels with this young woman, who comes from an unhappy home. In fact, we have no clue until almost the end, when Catherine's parents come to confront Joseph, what's wrong with the young woman.The kind Rosalee finds out in the worst way about Joseph's infidelity, sending her into despair because she loves the man. Joseph confronts Rosalee and owns up to his transgression. Joseph's feelings for Rosale make him finally see where his priorities ought to be. The last sequence of Joseph and Rosalee at the beach has to be one of the loveliest moments in the film.Dennis Hopper plays Joseph to perfection. Mr. Hopper is believable in his low key approach to the role. He is an actor who works well with any director, and it seems to us he is responding well to Mr. Barreto's guidance. Amy Irving, an actress of great beauty and inner power, shows a Rosalee that shows no emotion at all, but we know all is well under control inside her, until the explosion at the end when she feels betrayed by the man she loves. Ms. Irving does excellent work in the film. Amy Locane, plays Catherine as a brat who wants to get what she wants, when she wants it. Mr. Locane is a beautiful sight on the screen. The rest of the cast, Hal Halbrook, Julie Harris, Gary Busey, and the rest, are seen at their best.Thanks to Bruno Barreto for bringing this lovely character study to the screen.

Often-volatile Dennis Hopper really gets a chance at a thoughtful dramatic performance here playing a Texas farmer and schoolteacher, semi-engaged to a fellow instructor, who is seduced by a teenage temptress. Low-keyed picture doesn't aim for shocking revelations or melodrama; it's exceedingly straightforward and just a bit dull. Good acting by Hopper, Amy Irving, Amy Locane (from "Cry Baby"), and Priscilla Pointer, though the movie could really use some adrenaline. Some nude scenes, filmed without a hint of titillation, are remarkable only for the fact that no one, including director Bruno Barreto, is energized by the sex--it's all kept very mundane. ** from ****