Tuesday, April 10, 2012

 

Untold Stories of Robert Altman's The Player
or Who the Hell is Thereza Ellis?


"When you really get down to who made the difference, who made this thing better instead of just ordinary, I don't think we'll ever find out." — Robert Altman on collaboration in making The Player on its DVD commentary

By Edward Copeland
Not everyone does great commentary tracks for DVDs (or laserdiscs or Blu-rays), but one man you could depend on to provide candid and informative listening experiences was the late great and much-missed Robert Altman. When it came to The Player, Altman either did the exercise twice or the version on the DVD of The Player was edited down to allow room for the comments of producer/screenwriter Michael Tolkin, who also wrote the novel upon which the film was based. I know I recall things from the long-gone Criterion laserdisc edition, I just can't be certain if the DVD commentary contains Altman anecdotes that weren't there before. Damn these ever-changing formats. Ironically, The Player DVD, now a New Line Platinum Series edition, recalls those Paleozoic days of laserdisc players: You have to flip the disc to access the special features. I knew going into the tribute to the 20th anniversary of The Player, that one post wouldn't do, that's why I set aside this one for those extra details about the film.

One instance that I know for certain Altman mentioned on the Criterion laserdisc that can't be found anywhere on the New Line DVD concerns the screenwriter that stalks studio executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) — even after Mill unintentionally kills the wrong writer, David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), that he believes to be responsible. I remember at the time when I heard it on the laserdisc, it provided another laugh because unless you happened to be a voice recognition expert with a tremendous memory, you likely wouldn't have gleaned this from the movie itself. Kahane's failed screenwriter buddy Phil (Brian Brophy) eulogizes his dead friend at a graveside service and turns it into a tirade about Hollywood, which he pronounces guilty of "assault with intent to kill" though he blames society for Kahane's actual murder. "And the next time we sell a million dollar script and nail some shitbag producer, we'll say that's another one for David Kahane." At the end of the film, as Griffin drives home, fellow exec Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) tells him he just has to hear this movie pitch. Another voice gets on the speakerphone and reminds Griffin that he used to be in the postcard business. He then pitches the events in Griffin's life (and the movie you've just watched to him) and it's Brian Brophy's voice again as Phil, though the name Phil never comes up. Without Altman mentioning it on that Criterion laserdisc, I wouldn't know that. Since it's not on New Line's version, fewer people will. During Tolkin's portion of the commentary on the New Line DVD, he regrets that "Altman lost the sense of the writer and the police stalking Griffin. You really lost the sense of the writer stalking Griffin. I tried to maintain that in the script, but Altman lost it completely. I think that's a loss because it takes away something that was right about the book." While I agree in the sense that you'd never get that connection on your own, Altman never drops either strand completely. Griffin still gets postcards while attending the benefit dinner and the Lyle Lovett character literally stalks him and you don't know immediately that he's a police detective and the investigation keeps coming back right until the final scene where the witness bungles the lineup and clears him.

While The Player remains as good as it ever was, perhaps deeper even than I remember, watching the non-Criterion DVD of it made me mournful for the laserdisc collection I once owned. Sure, it could be a pain to have to get up a turn a disc over every half-hour or hour in the middle of a movie and purchase prices ran obscenely high, but when DVD came around, studios didn't let Criterion keep all the titles it had on laserdisc. Laserdisc players also had a function that DVD players don't (not having a Blu-ray, I can't speak for that device). Criterion has been able to release another Altman film, Short Cuts on DVD, but it lacks a feature that the laserdisc had that made for interesting viewing experiments. Since you could program the chapters you wanted to play on the laserdisc player, the Criterion Short Cuts laserdisc listed which chapter numbers went with which Raymond Carver story so you could set the machine up to watch a single one straight through. It also included a section of reviews of the film that you could read, including one by a young critic out of Dallas named Matt Zoller Seitz. This didn't just apply to Altman's films either. The Criterion laserdiscs for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Raging Bull both contained superior extras and full Scorsese commentaries. I don't think any of the zillion DVD and Blu-ray versions of Casablanca have yet included the fun Criterion laserdisc treasure of the story treatment for Brazzaville, the proposed sequel.

The major weakness of the New Line DVD of The Player versus the Criterion laserdisc (RIP) resides with their guides to the film's numerous cameo appearances. First, the New Line DVD omits some names listed on the Criterion laserdisc while it includes names that could have been on Criterion's but I have no clue concerning their identities now so they might have been on the laserdisc and I didn't know them almost two decades ago either. Of course, if you attempt to find the answer online, ha! The Inaccurate Movie Database contains a list of people playing themselves that matches neither list, including Patrick Swayze who filmed a cameo but was cut and appears in deleted scenes on both the DVD and the laserdisc alongside David Brown, Seymour Cassel, John Considine, Tim Curry, Joe Dallesandro, Jeff Daniels, Richard Edson, Franco Nero, Martha Plimpton and Lori Singer. Wikipedia provides a list as well, but it doesn't correspond with any of the three lists we have going so far. I decided that the only fair way to count the cameos is to go by the credits on the film itself — those listed as playing themselves. However, the movie actually sort of screws us on that one too because it counts Annie Ross (who plays the boozy torch singer in Short Cuts) as a cameo though when she appears in the opening unbroken shot, she's clearly playing the part of a studio executive discussing the studio's situation with fictional exec Frank Murphy, played by Frank Barhydt, co-screenwriter of Altman's Quintet, HealtH, Short Cuts and Kansas City and an actor in Tanner '88. Altman even says on the commentary that Ross plays an executive, yet the movie's credits call her a cameo. Using that logic, every single person in the film makes a cameo. Admittedly, my memory could be fuzzy on the mechanics of the cameo guide on the laserdisc, but it seemed to me that if you clicked on a name, it took you directly to the scene and pointed them out somehow, since some of the cameos can be particularly difficult to find. On the New Line version, good luck. You click on the name and it takes you to the scene, but just lets the sequence run. Trying to locate the late Brad Davis would become the DVD equivalent of Where's Waldo? — if New Line had remembered to include him as Criterion and the credits did. Lord help you when you get to the Habeas Corpus climax (the film-within-a-film) trying to sort out the guards. Don't blink or you'll miss Dennis Franz's mustache. In the spirit of helping, I'm going to try to guide readers to the film's officially sanctioned cameos where I can. I've taken care of Annie Ross (though I don't think she should count) so let's try to take care of the other 64 guest appearances. Before I delve into the cameo genealogy, I thought I'd share other details from the DVD commentary.

One piece of information I don't remember hearing or reading about Robert Altman and The Player (unless my steel-trap memory finally shows signs of metal fatigue following decades of overloading it) concerns how Altman became involved in the first place. Altman and co-writer Frank Barhydt had completed the screenplay for Short Cuts, Altman's planned movie that would interweave several tales based on short stories by the great Raymond Carver, but financing for the film remained elusive. In a video interview on the reverse side of the New Line DVD, Altman admits that some of the pointed barbs aimed at anxious writers and directors in The Player applied to him. "You can't do a satire unless it's mostly about yourself, unless you recognize all those things that you hate in yourself," Altman says. "When I was trying to sell Short Cuts, I sounded very much like one of those guys pitching. 'This is very much like Nashville but you've got to think it's more like blah blah blah.'" As Altman waited for money to come his way, someone showed him Tolkin's screenplay for The Player and offered Altman the chance to direct the movie — and Altman grabbed the job. The director's casting for Short Cuts largely had been completed so that explains why so many of that film's performers also appear in The Player. He'd hired Robbins for the other movie first before the character of Griffin Mill entered both of their lives. He'd locked in Annie Ross as well. Altman also had settled on singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett, an acting novice, to play the baker in Short Cuts' take on Carver's story "A Small, Good Thing." In order to give Lovett some on-the-job-training ahead of that film's shoot, Altman created the character of Detective DeLongpre for him. Altman also claims on the commentary track that Vincent D'Onofrio already had secured a part in Short Cuts before selecting him to be doomed writer David Kahane in The Player, but I find no evidence to back that up though I know Altman cut at least one story from Short Cuts.

In a film such as The Player filled with so many memorable scenes, one of its standouts exemplifies the brilliance that could result when Robert Altman's preferred way of working came together and flourished. It involved chance, luck, casting and the director's willingness to let his actors collaborate. Altman received a phone call from Whoopi Goldberg, begging to be in the movie. At the time, Altman didn't see any roles for her and told her she could appear as herself but Goldberg thought differently, She wanted to play Susan Avery, the Pasadena police detective who suspects Griffin of murder. Altman originally sought Joan Cusack for the role, but the actress was unavailable so Goldberg got the part. The film ran into a problem when everyone realized it lacked a scene where a completely paranoid Griffin had to travel to the Pasadena police station where the detectives toy with him. They had a set, but not a scene. Goldberg, Robbins and the other actors spent a day bouncing ideas off each other and then came up with this gem involving a fly swatter, off-color personal jokes, cracks about Rodney King, the infamous tampon talk and use as a prop and discussion of the horror classic Freaks. On the DVD commentary, Altman says that in reality, you could say that Goldberg wrote and directed this scene, showed in the YouTube clip below.


We're almost ready to leap into the cameo appearance search, but first I thought we'd stop for a good chuckle. A really good chuckle. I realize that the YouTube clip of the Pasadena police station scene provided quite a few, but this starts with the film and then gets its big laugh from the real world, which once again proves how truly clueless it can be. As you know, since we're celebrating The Player today, the movie got its release on April 10, 1992. The main character works at a fictional yet unnamed Hollywood movie studio. During filming, director Robert Altman asked his son Stephen, who served as the film's production designer, to try to come up with a slogan for the studio, preferably something as dumb and banal as he could. Stephen Altman came through, branding Griffin Mill's studio with the meaningless phrase "Movies — now more than ever!" Needless to say, he pleased his father, who admits on the DVD that The Player "has more contrivance in it than probably any film I've ever made." Now comes the funny part. Leap forward four years in the future to 1996. It's a presidential election year. NBC News, looking to rebrand itself and apparently having never seen The Player, chooses the slogan — yes, you guessed it — NBC News Now More Than Ever. We're not done. This slogan isn't new either. Click here to see who used that same slogan for a political campaign in 1972. I wouldn't put it past Altman for having known the connection and liking the link, but what the hell was NBC News' excuse, especially in a presidential campaign year?


First, some sympathy for poor Guy Remsen. "Who is Guy Remsen?" you might ask. His late older brother was the Altman regular repertory player Bert Remsen (I know — Bert Remsen probably isn't ringing bells for many of you either. How about Jack Riley? If the name doesn't cut, his face would or perhaps the name of his most famous character — Mr. Carlin on The Bob Newhart Show. When they get to end and show the climax of the movie within The Player, Habeas Corpus, all three actors make cameo appearances. If you read closely (here's one helpful item the DVD players have that laserdisc players didn't: zooms), you see that in Habeas Corpus, Riley plays "Hap" Harlow, one of the reporters covering the execution; Bert Remsen's name gets listed as executioner, since he's the guard who starts the gas pellets dropping into the chamber; and Guy Remsen portrays The Attorney General. On both the Criterion laserdisc version and the New Line DVD version, they managed to misidentify Guy Remsen in their respective cameo guides. In the Criterion, they just got the Remsen brothers confused. Bad, but I guess we could call that an understandable mistake. In the New Line edition, somehow they swapped Guy Remsen and Jack Riley. So I've included photos of all three to avoid confusion. Bert Remsen throws open the blinds, Guy Remsen stands behind Peter Falk (who has the role of Harry Levin in Habeas Corpus) and Jack Riley takes notes at the very edge of the chamber window (if the full picture were there, you would see Susan Sarandon to Riley's left in the part of another reporter, Ellen Walsh. I suppose this serves as good as a place as any to point out the three credited cameos I couldn't locate (for certain). The first actor I know very well. He's Richard Anderson, a character since the 1940s whose best-known role probably would be Oscar Goldman on both The Six-Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Where Anderson has hidden in The Player remains a mystery to me. He's not on the New Line DVD and I don't recall him on the Criterion laserdisc either. The mystery actress, whom I couldn't even find a photo for to try to search out her location, is named Maxine John-James. The Inaccurate Movie Database lists three features and one episode of the television series Acapulco H.E.A.T. Personally, I must track down her dual role in the 1997 film Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills. The third incognito cameo belongs to an actress named Jennifer Nash. Unlike Ms. John-James, she cites an extensive list of credits, mostly on television, and photographic proof of her existence can be obtained. In The Player, I couldn't find her unless that's her holding a dog and accompanying Malcolm McDowell in the lobby of The St. James Club. However, no matter how I tried to play with her image, I never succeeded in making it discernible enough to match against other photos of Nash.

Since they count Ross and she appears in the opening eight-minute shot, I'm going to attempt to get through the remainder of the cameos in the order that they appear in the film. Writer-director Adam Simon steps up first, pitching to Griffin as soon as Mill gets out of his Range Rover at the unnamed studio. Griffin pushes Simon off on his D-Girl (and girlfriend) Bonnie Sherow (Cynthia Stevenson) while he has his secretary Jan (Angela Hall) call security to figure out who let Simon on the lot. His first official pitch comes from Buck Henry who tries to sell him the idea of a sequel to The Graduate. Henry reappears later at a benefit dinner for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's film program. Griffin meets next with two women screenwriters: Patricia Resnick and Joan Tewksbury. Resnick co-wrote Altman's A Wedding and Quintet. Tewksbury wrote Altman's Nashville and co-wrote Thieves Like Us. Alan Rudolph throws out the final pitch of the unbroken shot (after first being mistaken as Martin Scorsese by Jimmy the bike messenger, played by Paul Hewitt) and serves as the segment's final cameo. The writer-director's long relationship Altman includes Altman producing five of the feature films that Rudolph directed. On the DVD, Altman says, "I'm as interested in getting Alan Rudolph's new films going as I am my own."

Most of the film's cameos occur in group situations. I hadn't thought of this before but, in its own way, it mirrors the various settings that keep uniting all the characters in Altman's Nashville, which I still consider his greatest work. Only in The Player, the same characters do not cross paths but instead enter a location stocked with a new group of celebrities. This scene even gets a nice aural to visual segue. Griffin hovers over Claire (Dina Merrill), the studio president's powerful all-knowing executive secretary, trying to learn what she knows about rival movie executive Larry Levy. Claire ducks his queries long enough until the phone rings and she tells whoever is on the line, "No, we couldn't sign Anjelica Huston for that. She's booked for two years." Her utterance cuts immediately to Huston's face eating lunch on the patio of an outside restaurant with John Cusack and Levy. Soon, we see Griffin walking up the path to the restaurant where he bumps into Joel Grey on the steps. Mill introduces himself and says he knows his daughter Jennifer and is a big fan. Grey notes that the two have similar ties and moves on. Griffin joins the large table across Levy, Cusack and Huston where Bonnie and others who work at the studio await (including Jeremy Piven, who has a small role in the film). At a table for two next to the studio contingent's large round table sits Martin Mull. The remaining cameo in this scene happens to be the hardest to spot as well as the saddest. Actor Brad Davis, best known for the lead role in Midnight Express, eats at a table on the patio on the other side of the eatery's entryway. You don't get a good look at him, but what you can see gives an indication of his illness. Davis was dying of AIDS and succumbed on Sept. 8, 1991, seven months before the movie's release. I've cropped a larger frame so you can see where he sat and then enlarged Davis from that screenshot to give you an idea.

ABOVE: (from left) Jayne Meadows, Steve Allen, Sally Kellerman, Jack Lemmon and Felicia Farr at Dick Mellon's pool party.

The mixture of celebrities mingling at the pool party of Griffin's attorney, noted entertainment lawyer Dick Mellon (Sydney Pollack), proves quite eclectic, to say the least. When Griffin and Bonnie arrive at Dick's place, they first encounter Marlee Matlin and Bonnie — through Matlin's interpreter — discusses a script that she read and thinks would be great for Matlin. Dick spots Griffin's arrival and excuses himself from a conversation with Harry Belafonte and his daughter Shari concerning network news figures. Griffin and Mellon's conversation offered more evidence that Pollack might be a better actor than director, this time playing it straight. Griffin starts to tell Mellon about the threatening postcards when his white whale — Larry Levy — crashes the party, arriving as a guest of Jeff Goldblum. Mill complains to Dick that Levy keeps getting in his face. "He's a comer. That's what comers do — they get in your face. You're a comer, too. You can handle it," Mellon reassures him. "So, the rumors are true," Griffin replies. "Rumors are always true. You know that," Mellon tells him. "I'm always the last to hear about them," Griffin sighs. "No, you're always the last one to believe them," Dick corrects his client. Today, seeing Sydney Pollack play a character in a scene surrounded by celebrity cameos throws you off-kilter, the way some actors do when they appear on Curb Your Enthusiasm and it takes a few minutes to realize that they aren't playing themselves, but Pollack's role in The Player was the director's first acting job since 1982's Tootsie. Later in 1992, he took another part, this time in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, but Pollack didn't start acting regularly until 1998. In fact, in that final decade of his life (he died in 2008), Pollack only directed two films and mostly acted and produced. Pollack's relative anonymity to audiences in 1992 prompted Altman to cast him in the first place, though Altman originally pursued director Blake Edwards for the part of Dick Mellon. In addition to those named so far and the two couples and Sally Kellerman (who appears again later at a gala benefit) pictured in the photograph above, the remaining attendees included Kathy Ireland, Jill St. John and Robert Wagner and last, but certainly not least, Rod Steiger, saying not a word as he holds a plate of food and stares at what appears to be a vertical fish tank, though it might just be bubbling water as I see no fish.

Our next stop on the virtual bus tour of Player cameos takes us another patio restaurant, this time for breakfast the next morning. Larry Levy just completed his meeting with studio head Joel Levison (Brion James), who can be spotted eating alone near the railing between the foreground figures of Burt Reynolds and entertainment columnist and critic Charles Champlin. Altman says he cast James as the studio head specifically because he'd been typecast as a villain in so many films such as Blade Runner, Tango & Cash and Another 48 Hrs. While looking over Brion James' filmography, I may have solved part of the Maxine John-James cameo mystery. Brion James also appeared in Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills and served as an associate producer of this Troma release. Looking further, Brion and Maxine John-James were married at the time of The Player. I still can't find a photo of her, but there you go. Levy makes a point of apologizing to Reynolds on the way out, hoping there are no hard feelings over some incident that Reynolds apparently doesn't recall since he has to ask Champlin who Levy was. Reynolds' cameo turns out to be one of the funniest once Griffin drops by. He remembers him. After Mill exits, Reynolds mutters to Champlin, "Asshole." The columnist responds, "One of a breed" which launches Reynolds into a monologue that we only hear the start of before they cut away. "No, actually they are a breed, In fact, they're breeding them" Reynolds begins but the sound fades out as we move to Levison's table. Reynolds' bit scored because, like all who appeared for Altman (accepting scale payment or no payment at all), they had no scripted dialogue. In Altman's way of thinking, if the celebrities show up to play themselves, he couldn't very well tell them what they would do in real life. As a result, every line or use of prop by a cameo artist came from that person. They also could choose to say nothing at all, but Altman and his editor Geraldine Peroni got to pick the best ones to use. (Peroni received the film's third Oscar nomination along with Altman's direction and Tolkin's adapted screenplay.) When Griffin threatens to quit over Levy coming to the studio, Levison tells him that he's under contract and he'd sue. Then, the third cameo becomes easier to see as Cathy Lee Crosby sits right behind him. In the wide picture above, Crosby appears as the blonde across from Levison.


That night, Griffin had his fatal encounter with David Kahane in Pasadena, but first the two went to a Japanese karaoke bar where actor Brian Tochi, perhaps best known as Takashi in Revenge of the Nerds or as the voice of Leonardo in the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, performed. The next day at work, Griffin and others watched the dailies from a noirish detective film called The Lonely Room starring Scott Glenn and Lily Tomlin. The purposeful flubs induce enough laughs, but the deleted scenes comes off as being even funnier as Tomlin complains about having to smoke so much when she doesn't and expresses concern about the message being sent. Then, in another cut take, Glenn asks that someone make sure that he gets his per diem when the day's shooting ends. Tomlin whines that she gets penalized because she lives in Los Angeles while Glenn lives in another state, flies in and stays at the Chateau Marmont and receives extra pay for it.

Now comes the moment we've been waiting for since the headline of this post: Who the hell is Thereza Ellis? Thanks to the New Line cameo guide, I know what she looks like and where she appears, but that answers no questions whatsoever. It's later that night when Griffin's stalker, who has surprised Griffin by not being dead, had told him to meet him alone at The St. James Club. In the hotel lobby, Griffin first encounters Malcolm McDowell (who is accompanied by a young blonde woman with a dog that might be that Jennifer Nash. Who knows?) McDowell smiles as he shakes Mill's hand and then tells the studio executive, "The next time you want to badmouth me, have the courage to do it to my face. You guys are all the same." Griffin looks stunned as the actor leaves (though he'll pop up again at that gala benefit). In a lounge area, Andie MacDowell has been cornered by the film's two most over-the-top characters: screenwriter Tom Oakley (Richard E. Grant) and Andy Civella (Dean Stockwell). Geena Davis originally was going to do this cameo, but some emergency happened so MacDowell flew in from her home in Montana at the last minute to pitch hit. That makes the conversation all the funnier since Oakley and Civella are trying to convince the actress the Montana always ends up being bad luck for people in the movie business, citing as their only evidence Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. When the hyper pair spot Griffin, they start trying to pitch a movie idea at him and MacDowell takes the opportunity to escape, being led off by *(drumroll please)* THEREZA ELLIS. My search for information on Ellis has taken me to the far corners of the World Wide Web but the only sign that seems to point to the existence of a Thereza Ellis comes from universal agreement that she played herself in The Player. I could find no other credits, no other photographs, no other lines of work. Someone must track down Andie MacDowell. She could be the only person who knows the truth!

When the studio holds a black-and-white gala benefit for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the scene overflows with cameos both famous and curious. Buck Henry, Sally Kellerman and Malcolm McDowell put in repeat appearances, though the first cameo exists only as a voice as Leeza Gibbons narrates the arrivals at the event for Entertainment Tonight. Griffin uses the occasion to take the late David Kahane's girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi) out on their first public date after having sent Bonnie to New York to check out the new Tom Wolfe novel. Mostly, it's a sea of face in quick glances with the exception of Cher, who comes wearing red at Altman's behest. Later, he learned that Cher never wears red. The remaining attendees in alphabetical order: Karen Black, Gary Busey, James Coburn, Kasia Figura (who apparently has a huge career in Europe), Teri Garr, Elliott Gould, Sally Kirkland, Nick Nolte, Alexandra Powers (who appears to have been stuck sitting next to Fred Ward's Walter Stuckle), Mimi Rogers and Marvin Young, known better by his recording name Young MC of "Bust a Move" fame. Finally, we come to cameo payoff — the star-studded cast of the movie-within-the-movie Habeas Corpus. I already named some earlier, but I'll point them out again as art alone places these actors in order.












ABOVE LEFT: Guard No. 6 (Michael Bowen) stands in the hallway leading to the gas chamber in Habeas Corpus. ABOVE RIGHT: Reporters and other witnesses await the execution in the viewing room outside the gas chamber. (Front row, left to right) Reporters "Hap" Harlow (Jack Riley), Ellen Walsh (Susan Sarandon) and Harry Levin (Peter Falk) take notes for their stories. Standing directly behind Levin wearing a gray suit is The Attorney General (Guy Remsen). BELOW LEFT: Warden Lowe (Paul Dooley) appears at the witness window and taps his watch, indicating the execution should proceed. BELOW RIGHT: Following the warden's orders, Guard No. 3 (Robert Carradine, left) and Guard No. 4 (Steve James) head toward the cell to retrieve the condemned prisoner.
























ABOVE LEFT: Condemned murderer Marsha Kent (Julia Roberts) sits on her cot listening to Father Pratt (Ray Walston) read from The Bible. Matron Cole (Louise Fletcher) stands speaking with Dr. Besh (Rene Auberjonois) by the cell door. Marsha gets removed and taken to the gas chamber where they strap her in the chair and drop the gas pellets. (not pictured) ABOVE RIGHT: Assistant D.A. Dave Williams (Bruce Willis) bursts into the unit preparing to execute Marsha, the woman he convicted for murdering her husband and whom he loves, upon learning that Marsha's husband faked his death. Williams passes Guard No. 4 (David Alan Grier) on his way. BELOW LEFT: Williams (Bruce Willis) grabs a shotgun from Guard No. 1 (Dennis Franz). Williams blasts the glass of the gas chamber, releasing fumes everywhere.(not pictured) BELOW RIGHT: Williams (Bruce Willis) carries Marsha (Julia Roberts) to safety while inside the gas chamber (from left to right) Guard No. 4 (Steve James), the Executioner (Bert Remsen) and Guard No. 3 (Robert Carradine) shield their faces from the fumes.













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# posted by Edward Copeland @ 9:00 AM 3 comments

Friday, February 03, 2012

 

Ben Gazzara (1930-2012)



We've lost yet another of the unofficial John Cassavetes repertory company with the news that the great Ben Gazzara lost his battle with pancreatic cancer Friday at the age of 81. Gazzara left his mark on stage, screen and television throughout his long career and never abandoned his taste for taking risks beyond the works of Cassavetes, who directed Gazzara in three films and co-starred with him in two movies directed by others, eventually appearing in films by directors such as David Mamet, Vincent Gallo, the Coen brothers, Todd Solondz, Spike Lee, Lars von Trier and Gérard Depardieu.

A native Manhattanite from a working class family, once the acting bug bit Gazzara, he studied under Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in Calder Willingham's adaptation of his own novel End as a Man which earned Gazzara a 1954 Theater World Award. In March 1955, he created the role of Brick in the original production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof under Elia Kazan's direction. Barbara Bel Geddes had the role of the original Maggie and Burl Ives put his mark on Big Daddy. Only Ives and Madeleine Sherwood as sister woman Mae made the leap to the 1958 movie version. Though the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a huge hit, Gazzara departed it later in 1955 to take the lead role of Johnny Pope in A Hatful or Rain written by Michael V. Gazzo, who movie buffs undoubtedly know better as Frankie Pentageli in The Godfather Part II. The play concerned a Korean War veteran who came home addicted to morphine and how it tore his family apart, It earned Gazzara his first Tony nomination as lead actor and co-star Anthony Franciosa a nomination as featured actor as his younger brother. When it was made into a film in 1957, Don Murray got to play Johnny though Franciosa kept his part and earned an Oscar nomination in the lead category. Gazzara's final Broadway appearance in the 1950s was a gigantic flop. The Night Circus also was written by Gazzo, but it closed after seven performances. It did co-star Janice Rule, who Gazzara would wed in 1961. For the remainder of his New York stage career, he would receive two more Tony nominations (but never a win). One for playing George to Colleen Dewhurst's Martha in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the other for an evening of paired one acts: Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and David Scott Milton's Duet. In 2004, he received a Drama Desk nomination for solo performance for his off-Broadway play Nobody Don't Like Yogi about baseball legend Yogi Berra, which he took on tour. He received a 2006 Drama Desk Award as part of the winning ensemble for the Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, his last stage appearance.

Concurrent to his stage work in the 1950s, Gazzara appeared frequently on television, almost exclusively on the many live theater programs that originated from New York, though some episodic appearances pre-date his Broadway debut and stretch back to 1952 on series such as Treasury Men in Action, Danger and Justice. He didn't make his film debut until 1957 in The Strange One, which is the title they gave to a reworked version of the play End as a Man with many of the original Broadway cast repeating roles along with Gazzara including Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (not using the Peter yet), Paul E. Richards and Arthur Storch. His second film in 1959 though is one of his works that will keep his memory alive as the defendant in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart. The film still plays well today, though it's hardly as daring now as it was in its original release. While Gazzara always bounced between the three mediums, his only regular roles on series took place in the 1960s. First, as Det. Sgt. Nick Anderson on the 30 episodes of Arrest and Trial from 1963-1964, then as Paul Bryan in the far-more-successful Run for Your Life which aired from 1965=1968 and earned him two Emmy nominations as outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He also was nominated in 1986 for the lead actor in the TV movie An Early Frost and won as supporting actor in a TV movie for the 2002 HBO film Hysterical Blindness.

Gazzara never stopped working and if I attempted to be comprehensive, I'd never finish this. It would be impossible to have seen everything he has made — I imagine even he never saw all of his films. I never realized how many movies he made in Italy. In The New York Times obit, it quotes a 1994 interview he gave to Cigar Aficionado magazine about those movies where he said, “You go where they love you.” So, forgive any omissions, because I'm finishing this fast.

You always want to start with the Cassavetes trilogy: Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night and how those working friendships spread to other projects such as Gazzara directing Husbands co-star Peter Falk in two episodes of Columbo and, many decades later Cassavetes' widow Gena Rowlands wrote a short film for her and Gazzara to star in that Gérard Depardieu directed as part of Paris, je t'aime . There was the incredibly goofy Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House where Gazzara played the bad guy, but he portrayed Brad Wesley in such a damn entertaining way you kept forgetting that he was the one you were supposed to be rooting against. His mysterious Mr. Klein, one of the many puzzling characters in David Mamet's puzzle picture The Spanish Prisoner. The magnificent duet of dysfunction that he and Anjelica Huston performed in Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66. The neighborhood boss trying to play peacekeeper and vigilante at the same time in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Then he was part of the quirky ensembles that made up Todd Solondz's Happiness and the Coens' Big Lebowski.

Gazzara lived to take chances and loved to work and he did both about as well as anyone. RIP Mr. Gazzara.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

 

That's how you fictionalize your life


By Edward Copeland
While watching 50/50, screenwriter Will Reiser's fictionalized account of being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when he was in his late 20s, I thought of Godard's famous quote about the best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie. Now, I don't think that Reiser and director Jonathan Levine set out to do this, but 50/50 displays an exceptional example of how not to get so locked in by one's life that your movie can't breathe as was the case with Beginners.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Adam Learner, an NPR employee who has been complaining of back pain for quite some time. When he finally gets it checked out, it turns out to be a malignant tumor on his spine. Doing the modern research technique — Adam turns to the Internet to learn what he can and finds that if the cancer hasn't metastasized, the online information gives the person with his type of cancer a 50 percent chance of surviving. When he shares that information with his best friend and NPR co-worker Kyle (Seth Rogen), Kyle likes the odds, telling Adam they are better than he'd get in a casino.

Adam's overbearing mom Diane (Anjelica Huston, in her best role in a long time) eagerly offers to take over and care for Adam despite the fact that she's already dealing with his father Richard (Serge Houde), who has Alzheimer's disease. However, Adam's live-in girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) steps up and says she'll stand by Adam through his treatment. Given the turn his young life takes, Learner understandably sinks into depression, prompting his doctor (Andrew Airlie) to refer Adam to a therapist (Anna Kendrick), only she still has her training wheels on, so to speak, as she hasn't completed her doctorate and Adam is only her third patient.

50/50 contains a lot of laughs, but it's more dramatic than I was expecting. In fact, given that Rogen basically plays a fictionalized version of himself (and when isn't Seth Rogen playing a fictionalized version of himself. Keep in mind, I never saw The Green Hornet.), I can't help but wonder if Will Reiser's story inspired Judd Apatow when he came up with Funny People where Rogen becomes best friends with Adam Sandler's comic character with cancer. Of course, 50/50 contains many major differences from Funny People, the most important being that we care what happens to Gordon-Levitt's character while I suffered some disappointment that they didn't kill Sandler off.

Gordon-Levitt continues to have one of the most amazing careers for actors who began plying their craft at an early age, dating back to TV sitcom work on the short-lived The Powers That Be from Norman Lear when he was 11 and a recurring role on Roseanne a year later. At 14 or 15, he gave the best performance in the wretched film The Juror starring Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin and James Gandolfini. Then he more than held his own as part of the comic ensemble of 3rd Rock From the Sun for six seasons.

Since he's grown into adulthood, he's completely missed the curse that often afflicts child actors, giving good to great performances in films such as Mysterious Skin, Brick, The Lookout, (500) Days of Summer, Inception and now 50/50. Reiser's screenplay delicately blends comedy and pathos and Gordon-Levitt has shown that he's adept at both forms with his previous choices, but 50/50 may be his first vehicle that allows him to display his range realistically within the same film.

Rogen, with the exception of the creepy and defiantly unfunny Observe and Report always plays himself more or less. The Rogen you see in Knocked Up simply is an R-rated version of Seth Rogen the talk show guest or Seth Rogen, award show presenter. In most circumstances, an actor like this would drive me up the wall, but I never hold it against Rogen because from the moment I first saw him on the great TV show Freaks and Geeks, he so strongly reminded me of a friend of mine from high school that each time I see him it's like seeing that friend again.

Huston, as you'd expect, turns in a great performance, even if you don't get that much of her. Howard also does the best job I've seen her do, though she never seems to look the same from one film to the next.

The other real bright spot of 50/50 belongs to Kendrick. She was so good (and Oscar-nominated) in Up in the Air. She also popped up in the fun Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World ss Scott's sister and I first noticed her in her film debut, the underrated and underseen musical Camp.

From all the praise that 50/50 received, it didn't turn out to be quite the movie I was expecting. It's good, but not in the ways it had been sold to me.

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Friday, January 21, 2011

 

Second in line to a family's imaginary throne


By Edward Copeland
Micky Ward has spent his entire life as the youngest member of a large, brash, blended Lowell, Mass., family, hearing tales of how his older half-brother Dickie Eklund became "the pride" of their working class Irish town during his heyday as a prize fighter when he met Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring. Never mind that Dickie lost or that his life since has been a mess of drug addiction and crime, his family still awaits his inevitable boxing comeback despite the fact he's getting older and older and more addled.

Of course, Micky also is aging and has developed into a promising boxer in his own right, though he keeps missing chances at better bouts and possible title shots because he's managed by his mom who still thinks he should wait until after Dickie gets another chance, however unlikely. The true story The Fighter tells marks a real change of pace for director David O. Russell and provides yet another example of a 2010 film with a remarkable ensemble of actors.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Micky and also serves as a producer on The Fighter. (Wahlberg has practically become a producing machine, mainly on HBO where he's one of the producers of Entourage, How to Make It in America, In Treatment and Boardwalk Empire. He has really grown as an actor, beginning by being one of the weaker performers in good films before becoming the best aspects of lesser films until his talents equaled the quality of many of his movies.

In The Fighter, even though he's the lead, either Wahlberg's instincts or that of director Russell realized that Micky Ward lives in a universe populated with so many colorful characters that gives other actors the chance to be showy, he wisely pulls back, letting Micky be the subtle center of the story. It could very well be Russell's influence since this is their third collaboration (with rumors of a fourth to come) after Three Kings and the strange mess called I ♥ Huckabees, where Wahlberg gave the best performance.

When I say the ensemble supporting Wahlberg truly works overtime strutting their stuff, that is not an exaggeration. In fact, in some cases (mainly the smaller roles of Micky's seemingly endless array of trashy half-sisters) the performers go beyond over the top. Then again, the extended family Micky Ward belongs to makes for such a crowded canvas, they probably had to stomp and scream constantly to get anyone's attention. For the larger roles, the well-known actors may face charges of criminal overacting as well, but it's winning two of them a lot of awards, so I'm sure they have no regrets.

Christian Bale may give his best screen performance as Dickie, avoiding the cliches of a drug addict and modulating the different tones and moods of his character's dashed dreams perfectly. To think that Bale has been consistently good since first being noticed as a youngster in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and that he escaped the usual child actor traps to keep his career going and his skills getting better as well.

Melissa Leo does a turn as the matriarch Alice Ward unlike any I've ever seen this favorite of mine play. At times, with her blonde-shock wig and a cigarette dangling from her mouth, she resembles an even lower-class version of Anjelica Huston's Lilly from The Grifters. Coming so soon after Leo's triumph on the big screen in Frozen River and on the small in Treme, it's great to see this wonderful actress finally getting the praise that's been long overdue.

Amy Adams also gets a part that doesn't resemble anything she's portrayed before. She plays Charlene, the barmaid who becomes Micky's girlfriend and who can give back as good as any of Micky's family tries to give her, thinking she's a bad influence because she backs his decision to try to go with a professional manager who might help Micky find success and money in boxing as opposed to the ever-controlling Mama Alice.

Finally, it's really nice to see Jack McGee get a solid role as George, Micky's father, after his unjustified dismissal from the series Rescue Me that led me to stop watching that show.

I didn't realize until I watched the credits (or I had known and forgotten) that Darren Aronofsky served as an executive producer on The Fighter, so with this and his Black Swan, he was involved with two of 2010's most interesting movies.

As I mentioned earlier, The Fighter is quite a change of pace for director David O. Russell, but then again, each film he makes seems that way. It's hard to pin him down, but he's made a good one here. His direction isn't showy, but it doesn't have to be with this cast of characters.


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Monday, December 20, 2010

 

Heaven is far away but hell can be reached in a day


By Edward Copeland
In January 1987, in my senior year of high school, I asked my friend Clay if he was interested in going with me to see a nearly three hour Japanese version of Shakespeare's King Lear. He said sure and we went and were overwhelmed as we experienced Akira Kurosawa's Ran in a commercial theater. It premiered in the United States 25 years ago today, but it took that long for a print to make its way to Oklahoma City — one week before the film made its debut on video as a matter of fact. Thankfully, I did get to see Kurosawa's last masterpiece projected in its proper scope, the way God intended, instead of on a cropped VHS version.

As 2010 draws to a close, it seems appropriate that one of this blog's final anniversary tributes is to Kurosawa's last great film and it takes place in the year that marks the centennial of the master director's birth. I wasn't originally scheduled to write this tribute, but the original writer broke a promise at the last minute. I don't mind that I'm doing it, even though it means it's a rush job while I'm still recovering from an illness, because it means that I've seen Ran twice this year and it's really reinforced how great it is and how secure its place is near the top ranks of the Kurosawa canon. The film earned him his only Oscar nomination as best director and, of course, it's an outrage that he never earned more but at least he got one and it was for a great film. It's also amazing while admiring the great color cinematography by the team of Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô and Shôji Ueda and to realize that though Kurosawa made his first feature film as a director in 1943, Ran was only the fourth movie he made in color. It also was the most expensive film made in Japan up to that time, though with a total of $11 million it seems like chump change compared to costs today. Of course, as you witness the amazing battle sequences, remember that not only was Kurosawa mostly blind when he directed these stunning scenes, he also staged them free of CGI, so there was more skill and ingenuity required than today's computer trickery that makes almost anything possible.

Ran takes Shakespeare's famous play and makes several key changes: It transfers the action to feudal Japan and its Lear equivalent, Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai), divides his estate among his three sons, Taro, Jiro and Saburo (Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu and Daisuke Ryû), instead of three daughters. The biggest change though is the addition of the character of Taro's wife, Lady Kaede (Mieko Harada), who plays somewhat like Lady MacBeth without the sympathetic side, but really is a creation that belongs more to film noir than Shakespeare. She's one of the most dangerous femme fatales in cinematic history. She'd make the legends such as Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson quake in her wake: Kaede is that cunning, ruthless and frightening. Following an outing hunting for a wild boar, Hidetora gathers his sons as well as friendly feudal chieftains Lord Ayabe and Lord Fujimaki (Jun Tazaki, Hitoshi Ueki) to announce that he's giving his eldest son Taro dominion over his lands. He'll retain his title and a small contingent of men, but move into a small tower while the younger sons will be given a second and third castle. He hopes this ends a lifetime of warfare and brings on a period of peace. Well, hope springs eternal and it doesn't even last during the gathering. Hidetora misinterprets the outspoken Saburo, who is eyed as a potential spouse for daughters of both Ayabe and Fujimaki, and banishes him from his kingdom. "When flesh is rotten, even if it is your own, you must cut it away," Hidetora says. His loyal aide Tango (Masayuki Yui) tries to intervene, saying he just took Saburo the wrong way and Tango ends up getting kicked out of the realm as well.

Of course, anyone familiar with Lear knows that Saburo serves as the Cordelia equivalent while Taro and Jiro will turn out to be less than loyal offspring to Hidetora. I saw a production of King Lear once and during an intermission, I heard another audience member say one of the funniest lines I've ever heard about the play. "You know, he wouldn't have all these problems if he just had a good estate planner." Now, I don't know if that's necessarily true and I'm sure there weren't a lot pf estate planners working in feudal Japan, but I thought it was funny nonetheless. Now, Hidetora learns rather quickly what a mistake he's made when he returns and sets up shop in the tower of the first castle that he has ceded to Taro. His loyal fool Kyoami (Pîtâ) joins Hidetora's men in making fun of Taro's inability to make a decision and turns it into a song. One of Taro's guards happens to be there and makes moves toward Kyoami to kill her when an arrow suddenly strikes him down. It turns out to be one fired from a bow held by Hidetora who was watching from a window above. Later, Hidetora receives a message inviting him to a dinner at the castle with Taro and Kaeda, ostensibly to celebrate the transfer of power. However, when Hidetora arrives he's shocked to find that Taro expects him to sit at a lower level than he and his wife, even though part of the deal was that Hidetora would retain his title. Taro tells him that he's letting him get away with killing his guard, but he's deeply offended by the song mocking him, which can still be heard being sung by Hidetora's men, and wants his father to sign a decree making the change in leadership official, marking it in his own blood. A shocked and outraged Hidetora complies, but vows he won't stay there and makes plans to stay with Jiro in the second castle immediately.

Unfortunately, before Hidetora can make his way to Jiro, Taro already sends him word that their father is unstable and that he should not allow him to stay. When the old man arrives and is spurned by his son, he is shocked and turns his back on him and ventures into the wilderness with his men. They try to seek food from peasants, but Taro has warned peasants that if they helped Hidetora, they would be killed, so they all fled to the mountains. Hidetora's dreams for a time of peace certainly were not coming to fruition. Meanwhile, the similarly wandering Saburo and Tango run into Lord Fujimaki. Fujimaki tells Saburo that obviously Lord Ayabe isn't interested in taking Saburo as a son-in-law, but Fujimaki is outraged by what Taro and Jiro are doing and he's still open to it and offers to give both Saburo and Tango protection. Tango thanks him for the offer, but he feels he must remain loyal to Hidetora and decides to disguise himself and follow him to try to protect the old man. Hidetora, hearing that another party has taken control of the third castle, decides that they should take it back, so he leads his men to it, unaware that what awaits him is a trap that's been set by Taro and Jiro.

The battle that takes place at the third castle really serves as the the film's premier setpiece and one of the greatest sequences Kurosawa ever put on film. It's very violent and bloody and there's a very good reason it earned an R rating. Once Hidetora and his men realize it's a trap, after they've firmly ensconced themselves in the castle, the melee is long and brutal and instead of the usual sounds of warfare, the scenes of fighting are covered exclusively by its musical score. Bodies pile up, concubines commit mass suicide, all set to music. This continues until a rifle shot stops the music and the sounds of battle return. Hidetora sits cross-legged in what appears to be a catatonic state as arrows whiz past him, sounding like the hissing of an army of snakes, interrupted by the occasional volleys of gunfire. Hidetora loses his entire army in the conflict, but the other side suffers losses as well, including Taro, making Jiro the new leader of the Ichimonji clan. Hidetora, still in a state of shock, marches out of the burning castle through the lines of gathered troops on both sides and just exits the castle grounds with none of the soldiers making any effort to stop him.


Jiro returns to tell Kaeda what you would think would be sad news about the death of her husband, but this is when we really begin to learn what a piece of work she is. Earlier in the film, we find that the real reason for her hatred of Hidetora is that back in his warrior days when he was accumulating his kingdom, he slaughtered her father and brothers and the first castle, where she has returned thanks to her marriage to Taro, was her home and where she witnessed her mother commit suicide. A little while after the news has sunk in, she returns to see Jiro and pulls a knife on him, telling him she's worked too hard to get back into the castle that was rightfully hers and she wasn't going to leave now. She belittles her late husband for not just killing his father, but then she turns her assassination attempt into a seduction. A sexually satisified Jiro promises Kaede that she needn't worry: He won't make her leave and implies that she can be his concubine, but this only sets her off again. She blackmails Jiro, telling him that if he doesn't get rid of his wife, she will tell everyone that he murdered his brother and raped her. Jiro relents. Kaede will be no one's concubine. She then orders Jiro's main warrior Naganuma (Toshiya Ito) to kill Jiro's wife Lady Sue (Yoshiko Miyazaki) and bring her head as proof that it's been done. Naganuma, one of the few brave enough to stand up to this true dragon lady, tells Jiro he'll take orders from him but not her. He then brings her a head, but it's just one off a statue as he has sent Lady Sue off into hiding. Kaede is livid. Harada's performance as Kaede is magnificent. It's funny that it should occur the same year as Anjelica Huston's Oscar-winning turn as Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor, because Kaede's just as manipulative, only deadlier and without Maerose's subtlety.

As Hidetora and Kyoami wander the wilderness, they stumble upon Lady Sue. Hidetora is shocked to find that she doesn't hate him since, like Kaede, he slaughtered her family. Her sad face make Hidetora feels bad and, as the old man says, it's even worse when she smiles. It raises the question though why in the world would a fierce warrior such as Hidetora marry off two of his sons to the surviving daughters of families he massacred. Let's face it, while Ran may be an adaptation of King Lear, it might as well be film noir because most of the male characters are dumb as bricks. Later, when a disguised Tango stumbles upon Kyoami, who has momentarily lost track of Hidetora, they find the lost old man and seek refuge in an isolated cabin. In the cabin, they find Lord Tsurumaru, a surviving brother of Lady Sue who is now blind because Hidetora gouged his eyes out during the battles. Tsurumaru finds solace only in his flute, which was a gift from Sue. Tango decides to lead Hidetora and Kyoami back to Saburo and safety with Lord Fujimaki while Tsurumaru decides he wants to reunite with his sister, who is staying where she can see the ruins of her former family castle.

This all is setting up for the final battle with Jiro amassing his troops to take out his remaining brother and father, but fully aware the Lord Fujimaki and Lord Ayabe are nearby watching the action. I won't go into details of how it all plays out, in case you haven't seen the film, but it turns out to be another great Kurosawa battle sequence. Amidst this chaos (and chaos is one of the English translations for ran), Lady Sue disregards her brother's advice and leaves to make an appeal to her husband Jiro, hoping she can stop this madness. Unfortunately, she runs into someone loyal to Kaede first. During the battle, a head is delivered to Naganuma and he unwraps it to find that Kaede got what she wanted from Lady Sue. A livid Naganuma doesn't even stop. Even though his master Jiro is nearby, he finally gives Kaede the comeuppance she has long deserved. Now, since this film is based on one of Shakespeare's great tragedies, one shouldn't expect a happy ending from Kurosawa's version either, though he does deliver a somewhat sweet, pastoral shot to wrap up all the death and destruction. With as much difficulty as Akira Kurosawa had financing films in his final years, it's a miracle that he was able to make one last, truly brilliant one such as Ran. I'm just grateful that when I saw it the first time, I got to see it on the big screen.



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