Monday, May 20, 2013
Prison of My Dreams
By Edward Copeland
As I snap the cuffs on Will Smith's wrists, I try to look stern and sympathetic simultaneously. "I take no pleasure in having to do this, Mr. Smith, but it's for your own good as well as the good of the public. Hopefully, your stay will be a short one." I'm taking Smith to serve his sentence in the Copeland Penitentiary for Bad Film Ideas. The actor received a summary conviction with the recent announcement of his interest of remaking Sam Peckinpah's classic Western The Wild Bunch. We had no choice. Trying to do a new version of such a revered film would be bad enough, but when you read the details that explain it would be a modern version involving the DEA and drug cartels, it sounds as if it's only stealing the title. We couldn't risk this debacle-in-development from getting to pre-production. Smith needed to be jailed until he regained his senses.
Now, if Smith breaks quickly, his sentence should be short since this idea didn't originate with him. Warner Bros. has toyed with the idea of a remake for more than a decade with various names such as the late director Tony Scott and stars such as Tom Cruise mentioned. If it were possible to put an entire studio into permanent solitary confinement, I would do it. Johnny Depp, pictured above being taken the prison to serve his time, had a longer time behind bars when he announced his intention to make a new version of The Thin Man and to take on William Powell's trademark role of Nick Charles. Thankfully, that talk disappeared once we locked up Depp for awhile and he hasn't mentioned it since. It's great that Depp loves The Thin Man — but the original remains and people should watch it. (If only the prison existed before Gus Van Sant got his cuckoo idea of doing a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho in color.)
Look at the case of something that happened before the Copeland Penitentiary opened when Russell Brand remade Arthur with Brand in the Dudley Moore role and Helen Mirren taking over for John Gielgud. It sounded like a bad idea on paper, looked more horrendous when commercials and trailers appeared and received mostly bad reviews. (I did enjoy that the original in 1981 grossed more than the remake's budget which flopped badly.) What disturbed me was that the original Arthur never received a DVD release in the proper ratio and when the remake came out, they released a Blu-ray that forced you to get it with its awful sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
Therein lies the dangers of remakes of great films. With technology constantly changing and money always an issue, at some point they'll start leaving us with the fresher versions, assuming that younger audiences won't know or care to see the classics. I'd try to talk them into how much money they'd save if they just re-released older films to theaters without having to spend all that money on new movies, but they won't go for it. Besides, making movies cost WAY too much to make and see today and the best stuff gets made on television anyway.
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Labels: 10s, Cruise, Depp, Gielgud, Hitchcock, Mirren, Peckinpah, Remakes, T. Scott, Television, Van Sant, W. Smith, William Powell
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Less Is More: Minimalism and Vietnam
By David Gaffen
Aristotle's unities were adopted as a rigid form of construction for dramatic arts — theater, and then later film — stipulating that action in a play should take place within one location, with one plot that follows minimal subplots, and within a 24-hour period.
With drama, it is naturally easier to do this than a film, a medium begging to push the envelope of those boundaries, but what's striking about Oliver Stone's Platoon — one of the more deserved winners of the best picture Oscar released 25 years ago today — is that it pretty tightly restricts itself to two of these unities, those of location and of subject. Even if it violates the third, that of time, the swirling, nightmarish reality of war that this takes place in feels like one uninterrupted sequence.
That focused approach does more to reveal the tragedy of America's involvement in the war than other sprawling films that move from location to location, shift from one decade to the next, without maintaining the spotlight on a limited scope. Little events inform big events and, as any good English teacher would tell their students, showing rather than telling straight-out is more effective. By examining the mental development (or deterioration) of the main character, Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), more is said than any film that would tell the story with a more bombastic, didactic approach.
That's all the more surprising considering the director, Oliver Stone, who pretty much defines bombast when it comes to Hollywood (OK, there's Michael Bay, but let's stick with serious directors here). Perhaps it's because Stone focuses on what he knows — the journey of a grunt through Vietnam over a period of months — that helps the movie maintain perspective. The societal rot depicted in the lives of these soldiers mirrors the loss of the country's moral decline when it comes to justification for the fight.
Viewers will come to recognize the justification for further bloodshed through the words of several characters, notably Bunny (Kevin Dillon, in his pre-Johnny Drama days), vowing revenge on unnamed Vietnamese who have slain one of the soldiers of their platoon. Such rationale for more destruction was present late in Vietnam and certainly throughout the recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq — that somehow, the loss of life by Americans justified further loss of life by others, that is, the "eye for an eye" approach. High-minded, moral reasoning that accompany such well-intentioned efforts (it's not for no reason that Sheen's character is college-educated, and has enlisted more to do the right thing than for any other reason) eventually breaks down, leaving the baser elements — vengeance, bloodlust, a self-fulfilling circle of violence predicated on giving back punishment. One could say a clear-headed view of war would recognize when too much blood and treasure has been given in service of an effort that is no longer necessary, but America's involvement in Vietnam lasted for several years after the events of this movie, and our troops are finally just leaving Iraq after nearly a decade, still accompanied by the cheerleading from those who would continue to justify more killing in service of an elusive utopia.
Much of what Stone presents in this fashion is understated. The greater political factions that exist behind the war are not presented — the action never leaves Vietnam and specifically follows the one platoon in the months leading to the 1968 Tet offensive, the results of which went a great distance toward changing American opinion about the conflict. There's no attempt to draw a greater lesson from poor decisions among higher leadership, save for the feckless Lt. Wolfe played by Mark Moses (who would go on to play another sad sack as "Duck" Phillips in Mad Men).
The difference between those who believe and those who don't are presented in stark fashion, between the weary, once-motivated Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe, in a great, understated turn) and the gung-ho, scarred Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger, a performance of such intensity that it overshadows every film he's made since). Elias smokes marijuana to escape the pain of this conflict, and counts a number
of allies within the platoon as the squad splinters. He's forced to intervene to stop the killing of a young Vietnamese woman, and serves as the conscience of the platoon, the superego to Barnes, all rage and desire. This can be seen as a parable for America, certainly, but if the movie only worked on an allegorical level it would be a failure. Thankfully the rhythm of the action between the characters, and the enveloping fear of dread that surrounds the cast offsets these impulses. If Stone makes one mistake, it's to rely too much on narration that does cross into a more heavy-handed exposition, notably the last lines where Chris says he often feels like a child "born of those two fathers," those being Barnes and Elias. The images are powerful enough without the voiceovers, and indeed it works best, and most powerfully, at those moments — consider the way Elias's expression changes when he realizes Barnes is going to shoot him, or late in the film when Barnes, wounded, picks up a trenching tool to bludgeon anyone he sees, or the crushed look on the face of Sgt. O'Neil (John C. McGinley, a Stone regular) when he's assigned the platoon after Barnes' death.If this all sounds dreary to the point of being unwatchable, it's not, thanks to a varied, lively group of supporting actors that include Forest Whitaker and Johnny Depp in early roles, engaging performances from Keith David as King and the late Francesco Quinn — son of Anthony Quinn — as Rhah, and the aforementioned Dillon and McGinley. They bring the subject alive in a way Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line flounders in part because of his decision to cast actors largely devoid of personalities (Nick Nolte, John Cusack and Elias Koteas excepted).
Unfortunately, later in his career Stone stopped trusting the images to tell his story, larding up his films with cinematographic technique that often feels pulled from a Tony Scott film — switching from black-and-white to color, extreme close-ups, blurry imagery — and even more portentous narration. Natural Born Killers is the worst offender in Stone's catalog, but the seeds were there in JFK, which tries to will the viewer through misdirection and fancy editing into believing that everyone from the armed forces to Lyndon Johnson to the Mafia assassinated the president.
That's a disappointment, especially when it seems Stone passes the "Five" test proposed by Steven Hyden over at The AV Club a number of months ago, that sought to judge musical artists by their ability to produce five great records in a row, to have the kind of critical peak that few can achieve. It isn't all that much of a stretch to say Stone gets there, if only barely, with the streak that begins with Salvador, followed by Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio and finally, Born on the Fourth of July. They're all at least four-star movies, garnered two directing Oscars for Stone, and three writing nominations. (Interestingly, Berenger and Dafoe both show up in the last of these movies in what can be plausibly can be called alternate realities for the Barnes and Elias characters — Berenger appears in one scene as a square-jawed recruiter, Dafoe in a larger role as a disillusioned, disabled vet.)
The Vietnam film had a steady run in the late 1980s, as this was followed by Stanley Kubrick's acclaimed but uneven Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War and less successful films such as The Hanoi Hilton and Hamburger Hill. Stone returns to the subject again with Heaven and Earth, another movie that tries to do too much despite strong performances. His feature films largely have failed to ever get back on track (though W. had its moments), but Platoon remains one of the strongest, most affecting movies from the 1980s.
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Labels: 80s, Berenger, C. Sheen, Dafoe, Depp, Kubrick, Mad Men, Malick, Nolte, Oliver Stone, Oscars
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Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Gilliam's Other Holy Grail Movie
By Damian Arlyn
In a perfect world, not only would I see every film on the big screen but I would know absolutely nothing about them beforehand. Once in a while I am reminded that the best way to see a movie is with no foreknowledge whatsoever as to the film's genre, cast or plot. To go in having no preconceived notions about how one ought to feel or what one ought to think about it — no expectations for how impressed one is supposed to be by the performances, sets, costumes, budget, etc. — but to simply approach the work on its own terms and be either carried away by the reality it creates for itself or be alienated from that reality based solely on the competence with which it weaves its tale would be my ideal. Of course, I realize that we do not live in such a world. Even if it were possible to see every film in the theater (which, for many people it is not, due to physical limitations or economic difficulties) I'm not sure I'd want to given how awful so many movies are nowadays. If I could somehow be guaranteed ahead of time of a film's quality, I'd be willing to go into every film-viewing experience completely "pure" and uncorrupted by any outside information or influence. As it is, I can recount the exact number of times I went to a movie under such circumstances. It has happened precisely twice. The first was The Fisher King. The second was The Usual Suspects. Since the former celebrates its 20th anniversary today, it is that title with which I will be concerning myself.
My dad took me to see The Fisher King when I was 15 and, as I've said, I knew very little about it outside of its enigmatic title and the fact that it starred Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges (a fact I was able to glean from the marquee poster on the outside of the theater). I had no idea that the story involved a cynical, egotistical Manhattan radio "shock jock" named Jack Lucas (Bridges) whose careless on-air remarks prompt a disturbed caller to open fire with a shotgun in a restaurant full of yuppies before turning the gun on himself.
Racked with guilt, Jack descends into a deep depression and alcoholism for three years during which time he shacks up with a self-assured New York woman named Anne (Mercedes Ruehl) who owns a video store. On a particularly bleak night, Jack attempts suicide but two young hoodlums who find him and start pouring gasoline on him intending to set him ablaze interrupt him when he is saved by Parry (Williams) a homeless man who believes he's a knight sent on a quest from God to find the Holy Grail. Jack soon learns that Parry's insanity stems from his traumatic experience in the restaurant the night of the shooting when his wife was one of the seven people killed. Feeling responsible and, in a desperate attempt to ease his conscience, Jack resolves to help Parry in some way and thinks he may have discovered how when he notices Parry pining from afar for a mousy woman named Lydia (Amanda Plummer). I didn't know any of this going in.
Despite (or perhaps because of) my ignorance of the film prior to seeing it, I was positively captivated by it from beginning to end. Somehow it weaved a magical spell over me. As the cliche goes, I had never seen anything like it before. It quickly became my favorite film and remained so for a couple of years. I bought the soundtrack, which featured segments from the wonderful score by George Fenton, and even found a copy of the novelization to help enrich my understanding of the story and its themes, all of which resonated quite strongly with me: love, loss, forgiveness and especially redemption.
I also did not know who Terry Gilliam was. I didn't even really know about Monty Python yet, so I certainly didn't know that The Fisher King wasn't his first cinematic foray into the subject of the Holy Grail (though I was at least acquainted with the Grail having seen Indiana Jones search for the thing two years prior). I didn't know that this was a rare occasion where Gilliam, who normally writes his own screenplays, was really a director-for-hire. After the debacle that was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gilliam was looking for a smaller and more intimate story to tell and he found it in the unique and spellbinding screenplay written by Richard LaGravenese (who would go on to pen The Ref, Beloved and The Bridges of Madison County). Interestingly, when I watch the film now — having seen the rest of Gilliam's oeuvre and being a big admirer of his work — it seems like a project tailor-made for Gilliam and his personal pet interests such as reality versus fantasy, imagination as an escape from tragedy, medieval knights in shining armor, etc.
The film is filled with dozens of entrancing and unforgettable scenes. The sweet and hilarious double date that begins with Lydia clumsily knocking things over (with Parry doing the same in an attempt to make her feel less awkward) and ends with everyone in hysterics before Williams sings a sweet and simple rendition of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," the frightening chases involving the Red Knight, the climactic sequence where Jack attempts to retrieve the Grail from its "castle" (all the while commenting to himself on how crazy it is), the nightmarish flashbacks to the murders at the restaurant and Michael Jeter's audacious Ethel Merman-style musical number delivered to a flabbergasted Lydia are just a few. However, my all-time favorite sequence from the film occurs in Grand Central Station. It begins with Parry looking through the crowd for Lydia. When he finally glimpses her, he smiles and the music starts. She walks right past him and suddenly a couple dances by in the background as the cute little ditty that was playing transitions into a beautiful waltz. Soon that couple is followed by another and another until everyone in Grand Central is waltzing around Parry as he follows Lydia across the floor. It's a charming sequence and apparently was not in the original script but was the brainchild of Gilliam, who needed a way to visually capture how bewitched Parry is with his fair maiden. It's sublime.
The performances by all the actors are excellent. Jeff Bridges may be enjoying somewhat of a rejuvenation in his career currently, but at the time of The Fisher King he was just another solid, respected but somewhat underrated actor (like Johnny Depp before Pirates of the Caribbean or Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man). His portrayal of the selfish, cynical jerk is actually the emotional anchor of the story.
He's the straight man off of whom Williams can play his performance as Parry, a variation on his usual manic screen persona, though here it is put to good use in the guise of an insane, but brilliant, former history professor who even in madness has an entire library of references from which to draw upon in his ravings (one can almost imagine that had Williams' character from Dead Poets Society lost his mind, the results might look something like this). What makes Williams' performance superior to his usual fare are the quieter, more sensitive moments such as when he finally confesses to Lydia that he loves her. Williams earned a best actor nomination for his turn as Parry, but alas he would not receive that Oscar until years later for his stellar supporting work in Good Will Hunting. Mercedes Ruehl, however, did take the best supporting actress statuette home that year for her indelible turn as Jeff Bridges' sassy girlfriend and it was well-deserved. She embodies the self-assured, no-nonsense New York Italian woman perfectly. Amanda Plummer plays Lydia with just the right amount of sweetness and eccentricity and the late Michael Jeter as a gay cabaret singer does what is perhaps the best Ethel Merman impression I've ever heard in a film (except perhaps for Lt. Hurwitz in Airplane!). Also, David Hyde Pierce, Harry Shearer, Kathy Najimy and John de Lancie all play supporting roles.Generally speaking, The Fisher King was well-received by critics and did respectable business at the box office (making $42 million on a $24 million budget). In the 20 years that have elapsed since I first walked into that theater completely unaware of what I was about to experience, other films have gone on to replace it as my "favorite," but it will always have a special place in my heart. Its story still moves me, its music still delights me, its action scenes still thrill me and its characters still charm me. To this day when I watch it I want to believe that Parry is not totally crazy, that he really is "the janitor of God" and that the chalice they retrieve truly is the Holy Grail, "the symbol of God's divine grace." It may not be Terry Gilliam's best film (I tend to be unoriginal and go with Brazil on that point) but it is probably his most enchanting and more than any other film, shows off his gift as a romantic, honest-to-God storyteller and not just an eye-dazzling satirist/rebel.
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Labels: 90s, Depp, Jeff Bridges, Merman, Movie Tributes, Robert Downey Jr., Robin, Terry Gilliam
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Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Animation adults will appreciate more than kids
By Edward Copeland
Back in the days when Dennis Miller was funny, before he turned into Howard Beale after Arthur Jensen gives him the corporate cosmology speech in Network, part of what appealed to me about his comedy was that I felt as if I was one of the few who understood most of the cultural and historical references that Miller tossed in his standup as if they were adjectives. Rango plays as if it were an animated film made exclusively for an audience appreciative of that sort of referential humor. As a result, I found the movie very enjoyable at the same time that I questioned if it weren't weighed down by so many allusions and homages that it would fly over the heads of younger viewers. More importantly, would Rango be strong enough to stand on its own if all those clever references were removed and it had to get by solely on what remains?
When I was thinking of how to begin my review of Rango and I'd settled on using my Dennis Miller line about how a once sharp comedian turned into a right-wing mouthpiece and compared his evolution to how the malevolent chairman of CCA, the conglomerate that owned UBS in Network, transformed Howard Beale from a latter-day prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times into a preacher of corporate evangelism, I didn't even think of the irony that Ned Beatty played Arthur Jensen in Network and also voices the villainous Mayor in Rango. This follows Beatty's great vocal work last year as the bad teddy bear Lotso in Pixar's marvelous Toy Story 3. Beatty could corner the market on voicing the antagonists in animated films. He's always great when he appears on screen, but it's amazing to hear how he can create distinctive characters with only his voice.
That aside, on to Rango itself. In a way, besides the plethora of references, I wonder if the filmmakers intended Rango for an older age range. It received a PG rating (though I'm not sure why) but the MPAA details
claim it is for "rude humor, language, action and smoking." I bet the smoking pushed it over. So, should Disney ever revive their great old practice of re-releasing their classic animated films to theaters every few years for new generations, I suppose that 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians would have to have the G it received in its 1991 re-release changed to a PG because of Cruella's smoking habit. (The MPAA won't issue any warnings to parents that their children might be influenced to turn dogs into fur coats but SMOKING!) How much further will rating movies for behavior go? There's a big anti-junk food and concerns about childhood obesity going on. If someone eats a candy bar, will that eventually earn a PG? How about the presence of overweight actors? If Jack Black made a completely family friendly film, will he eventually be penalized by the MPAA for being out of shape? I bet they'll never issue warnings for pencil-thin actresses who might subliminally push young girls into having eating disorders.
Pardon my digression. As much as I enjoyed Rango, I find myself less interested in writing about the film itself than issues around its periphery. Though my reason for thinking Rango had an older audience in mind is the behind-the-scenes creative team who assembled for it. Its director is Gore Verbinski who helmed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films (which I only got through an hour of the first one when I realized I had nearly another 90 minutes to endure so I gave up); the god-awful film The Mexican starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, a film whose sole redeeming quality was James Gandolfini as a gay hit man; the American remake of the Japanese thriller The Ring and a couple other less notable films, but nothing animated or truly family oriented among them.
Verbinski also gets a third of the story credit on Rango alongside James Ward Byrkit, whose writing credits are puzzlers but longest section on IMDb lists his work in movie art departments, and John Logan, who actually wrote the screenplay. Logan has an extensive resume of screenplay work including Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Aviator, The Last Samurai and Gladiator, none of which you see as material aiming for the younger crowd. All though have worked with Johnny Depp, who voices Rango, so I can't help but feel that the film is a bit of a lark for those involved that turned out to be very entertaining, at least for film buffs.
However, I can't speak for the young out there, I can only speak for myself and I quite enjoyed Rango. Depp's title character is a chameleon living a solitary life with imaginary friends and dreams of being an actor and a hero. Rango isn't his real name: He'll adopt that later. A series of accidents ends up flipping him into the middle of the desert on the other side of the road from his usual haunts. Parched, desperate for water, he encounters a female lizard named Beans (Isla Fisher) who, against her better judgment, helps him to the closest town with the hopeful name of Dirt.
We've had a few allusions already (we've definitely landed in Sergio Leone territory), but once in town, he's not treated kindly by the townsfolk who distrust strangers. We hear obvious echoes of Pat Buttram-esque and Gabby Hayes-like voices among the crowds. When he goes to the bar and someone asks his name, he spots Durango on the bottom of a bottle of cactus juice and just takes the Rango part. Feeling more confident, Rango starts spinning tales of how he is a gunfighter and he once killed the notorious Jenkins Brothers (all six of them) with one bullet. Everyone is impressed, but they also are hurting. Dirt is in the midst of a serious water problem, as in they don't have much if any. They also are terrorized by a real desperado, a large rattlesnake named Jake (voiced by Bill Nighy). What keeps Jake at bay is a hawk who seems to circle looking for him, but the same scavenger chased Rango when he was struggling in the desert and when Rango sees him in town, he runs for it and kills the hawk by knocking the water tower over on it.
The town fears for its future: Water already is scarce and now that the hawk is dead, what's to stop Jake, but Rango tells them to have no fear, Jake happens to be his half-brother. They're stealing from everywhere else, why not toss a little Shakespearean element into the mix? At one point, Rango actually tells some of the
younger townfolk, "Stay in school, eat your veggies, and burn all the books that ain't Shakespeare." The townspeople take Rango to meet the Mayor, who seems a friendly enough chap, saying Rango is giving the town hope and appoints him sheriff. The Mayor, an old turtle scooting around in a wheelchair he certainly must have obtained from Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life says at one point that he "who controls the water controls everything" and Beatty even puts a slight bit of John Huston in his voice. In fact, Rango appropriates the plot of Chinatown more than any other film, so much so that I wonder if Robert Towne should sue. On the plus side, the Mayor doesn't have a daughter that he fathered a child with that Rango falls for and the movie doesn't end with "Forget it Rango, it's Dirt." It's interesting that Rango is at least the second film involving animation that adopts a Chinatown-like plot to its tale, the first being Robert Zemeckis' great Who Framed Roger Rabbit with its plan to destroy Toon Town for the L.A. streetcar.
The plot plays out as you would expect, though Dirt seems to exist out of time. It's an Old West town free of technology, but Rango crossed a highway full of cars to get there and when he figures out where the water is being diverted to, over a dune he spots Las Vegas. Plot isn't what's charming about Rango though, it's all the extras that make it so much fun. In addition to the obvious references to Chinatown and Leone's spaghetti Westerns, they manage to sneak in allusions to The Court Jester, Easy Rider, The Lord of the Rings, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and, when they get to the big climactic assault/chase, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, even using Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." Late in the film, when Rattlesnake Jake shows up and exposes Rango's stories about the Jenkins Brothers as lies, Rango dejectedly leaves and hallucinates a visit from The Man With No Name, riding around the desert in a golf cart. I actually thought at first that Clint Eastwood had done a vocal cameo for the film (which would have been really cool), but it turns out that it's only a pretty damn good impression of Eastwood by Timothy Olyphant.
Is Rango a great film? Not really. Is it a fun film? Yes, especially if you know a lot about movies. It's also exceedingly well made on the animation side. It wasn't made or converted to 3-D as all animated films seem required to be now, but even watching it at home, the depth of its images and its fine use of colors and shadings would be one of the greatest arguments as to why you don't need the money-grubbing gimmick in the first place. In addition to Depp and all the other great voicework I've already mentioned, Rango also includes nice vocal turns from Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone and Ian Abercrombie.
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Labels: 10s, Animation, Brad Pitt, Coppola, Depp, Disney, Eastwood, Gandolfini, Huston, Julia Roberts, Leone, N. Beatty, Pixar, Shakespeare, Towne, Zemeckis
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Thursday, July 28, 2011
Curiouser and Curiouser
By Damian Arlyn
Alice in Wonderland is Disney's most bizarre animated feature. In choosing to adapt the British fantasy novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Disney jettisoned his usual strong narrative backbone and compelling characters for a series of absurd, drug-induced comic vignettes populated with characters of varying degrees of insanity. The resulting product is indeed lively, colorful and humorous at times but it is also dark, disturbing and ultimately emotionally un-involving. It also, in the eyes of many literary critics, distorts its beloved source material beyond all recognition. For these reasons, Alice in Wonderland was a critical and financial disappointment when it premiered in theaters on July 28, 1951. So why are we still talking about it 60 years later? Why, in spite of these shortcomings, is Alice in Wonderland considered by many to be, if not quite on the same level as Snow White or Pinocchio, a Disney classic today? My guess is because children love it and they are ultimately the audience for whom Disney made the film.
Walt had long wanted to make a feature based on the Alice stories penned by the British author, mathematician and logician Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll). He had considered it at one time as his debut animated feature and had returned to it many times over the years as a possible combo live-action/animation movie (much like what would eventually be seen in those now famous sequences from Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks). However, it wasn't until 1946 that work actually began on the project that would eventually become Alice in Wonderland and in the end Disney wisely decided to make it completely animated. In many respects, animation was the perfect medium for the fantastic tale of a proper British girl who falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in a land of nonsense and madness. Nowadays, of course, it is far easier to depict such a world with CGI (and indeed Tim Burton recently fashioned a lavish, whimsical and obscenely successful semi-sequel, with his friend Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, doing just that) but in 1951, this was the closest one could get to seeing such fanciful images come to life on a screen.
It probably seems redundant to compliment a Disney film on the quality of its animation (like complimenting Muhammad Ali on his boxing ability), but the animation on display in Alice in Wonderland is indeed superb and should be acknowledged. Disney animators have always had a knack for drawing engaging, believable characters and here they have outdone themselves creating beings who were not only soft, cute and often cuddly, but also odd, grotesque and sometimes downright scary. For example, while the Queen of Hearts never comes off as more than an ill-tempered bully, that memorable feline known as the Cheshire Cat so delights in his lunacy that he has actually been compared by some to Hannibal Lecter. Furthermore, as Alice makes her way through the strange, alien world that she has (literally) stumbled upon, we are treated to some stunning visuals all around her. Perhaps because the animators and background artists were usually rendering relatively realistic environments in films such as Bambi, this time they had far more room to let their imaginations run wild.
Music has always been a strong element in Disney films and this one in particular is also very music-heavy. Some songs feature lyrics taken from Carroll's text (such as "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and "Twas Brilig") but many are original tunes written specifically for the movie. None of them are as iconic as "When You Wish Upon a Star" or even as supremely catchy as something like "Bippity Boppity-Boo" but a few are memorable enough to warrant humming afterward (including "The Un-birthday song" and "Painting the Roses Red"). The voice acting, provided by a cast of Disney regulars, is uniformly good. Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat and Verna Felton as the Queen are particular standouts.
Despite of all its technical achievements, Alice in Wonderland ultimately fails to resonate. The lack of an actual plot on which to hang the series of outrageous episodes, gives the film an aimless, meandering feeling. Also, Alice is one of the more annoying Disney protagonists (the actress voicing the character, Kathryn Beaumont, does a decent enough job but her talents were put to much better use as Wendy Darling in Disney's Peter Pan released two years later). From the beginning she seems like an arrogant, spoiled child who has no
real arc nor comes to any kind of self-realization (other than that she wants to get home). Disney himself even admitted that she wasn't very likable. However, in spite of (or perhaps because of) these flaws, Alice in Wonderland still is a beloved entry in Disney's canon of animated features. I remember watching it all the time as a youngster and, though not understanding everything that was going on, enjoying it nonetheless. Though I still have affection for it, I had to grow up to realize how mediocre it is compared to Disney's usual fare. The anarchic tenor, "stream-of-consciousness" transitions between the set pieces and wacky slapstick-oriented antics are exactly the sort of things that appeal to a youngster who is no older than seven. A child won't be bothered by the lack of story, depth in character or logical coherence to the events occurring on screen. They're not going to care a fig for Carroll's satirical symbolism or his wonderful use of the English language that Disney virtually ignored. They'll simply follow Alice on her trek through this bizarre world that feels a lot like a dream (which, in fact, it turns out to be in the end) laughing at the sheer silliness of it all and then when it's over, move on to the next thing. It is, in some respects, the perfect "children's animated film" and in that regard at least, Disney succeeded in what he set out to do.
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Labels: 50s, Animation, Depp, Disney, Hannibal Lecter, Movie Tributes, Tim Burton
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Sunday, July 17, 2011
He did more than just think funny things
By Edward Copeland
Thirty years ago, we were visiting my aunt and uncle when one night my older cousin came home raving about a hysterical movie that he and his date had seen called Arthur and how good this Dudley Moore was in the title role. Why he didn't know who Moore was before that, I can't rationally explain. I certainly knew who he was. Not only from two years earlier in Blake Edwards' sex farce 10 but for his amusing supporting turn in 1978's Foul Play with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Admittedly, I was unaware of his decades of British work with the satirical troupe Beyond the Fringe or his frequent comic pairings with Peter Cook. However, when Arthur opened on this date 30 years ago, it launched Moore into the stratosphere in the U.S. thanks to his brilliant comic turn, a great supporting cast led first and foremost by the incomparable Sir John Gielgud and a Grade A script by writer and first-time director Steve Gordon. Despite the best efforts to suppress the original gem for this year's remake which thankfully bombed, the real Arthur survives and perhaps finally will get the proper DVD release the movie always has been denied.
Arthur Bach (Moore) may look like an adult, but he's really a child trapped in a man's body and having one helluva time with it. He's a wealthy playboy devoted to fun and leisure and leaving many an empty bottle in his wake across Manhattan. In the film's very first scene, his chauffeur Bitterman stops the Rolls by two streetwalkers for his drunken boss who asks if "the more
attractive" of the two would please step forward. Realizing that's not the best approach, even when you are paying, Arthur amends his query to ask the one who finds him more attractive to step forward. Dressed in red spandex pants, the hooker Gloria (very recognizable character actress Anne De Salvo) steps up to the car and asks Arthur what he wants. "VD. I'm really into penicillin," he laughs. She gets in any way as the inebriated heir continues to crack jokes and laugh. When she asks him what he does for a living, Arthur tells her, "I race cars, play tennis and fondle women, but I have weekends off and I AM my own boss." At one point, he just starts laughing for no apparent reason. Gloria asks what's so funny. "Sometimes I just think funny things," he responds. Arthur will say a lot of funny things as will the other members of the cast and we'll learn we're not just laughing at someone doing a drunk act — if it's been a while since you've seen the 1981 film, you might be surprised to see how relatively little time Arthur spends soused in the movie and when he's on a bender, something has usually set him off or he's inoculating himself ahead of time for an event he's dreading. There's a serious reason behind it that actually makes Arthur slightly deeper than your average comedy. I'll get to all that later, first I have to take a break to vent about unnecessary remakes and how they actually can be dangerous in this era.I must get this rant off my chest about the Arthur remake that came out earlier this year with Russell Brand taking Moore's role and John Gielgud's Oscar-winning valet Hobson getting a sex change and becoming Arthur's nanny Hobson in the form of Oscar winner Helen Mirren. I did not see the remake. I live by the principle that if the original movie was really good or great, I will not see a remake of it. There's no point other than filmmakers
bereft of original ideas looking to steal what worked in the past and, inevitably, doing a piss-poor job of it. When I first heard that they were remaking Arthur, I thought it sounded like a bad idea. Once commercials started appearing, it looked much worse than even I imagined. It didn't help that they had Brand going around semi-criticizing the original in a way that only proved he couldn't have seen it (or wasn't sober at that time if he did). Since the character of Arthur does drink to excess and Brand is a recovering addict in real life, he made a big point about changes in the remake as if the original were pro-alcoholism. “It was very important that we established a context where the alcohol was humbling,” Brand said in an interview. “In 2011, you also need to see a resolution to his vice. I was happy to see how it was rendered.” The only times Dudley Moore's Arthur Bach gets drunk is when he's miserable or frightened. Once he meets Linda (Liza Minnelli) and falls in love or when he worries about Hobson's health and becomes his caretaker for a change, his drinking ceases. His drinking wasn't a vice: It was an anesthetic to ease his pain about being forced into marriage with a woman he not only didn't love but didn't like much either with the cost of refusing to wed her being the loss of his fortune.What's most despicable in this case is that it sort of proves my fears of why remakes are dangerous. With the constant development of new technologies, Hollywood won't keep transferring every film ever made to the latest format. They will stick to the most recent versions with the most recognizable stars. When I started plotting out tributes to do this year at the end of 2010, I knew that the 30th anniversary of Arthur would be one of them. Upon investigation, I was shocked to find that it was NEVER released on DVD in its proper aspect ratio. All versions were cropped instead of the 1.85:1 in which it was shot. (At the time of the remake's release, the original along with its horrid 1988 sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks were released together on a single Blu-ray disc in widescreen without any special features which even the cropped DVDs had.) I also try to collect screenshots from the web ahead of time, so I know if there is anything I'll have to grab from the DVD. Surprisingly, very few shots from the actual 1981 movie are out there. Mostly, there are poster or publicity stills. Even more frightening, if you try to do an advanced search where you specifically omit the name "Russell Brand," you still end up getting more art related to the remake than the original anyway. Now someone tell me I have nothing to fear from Johnny Depp's ego thinking it needs to play Nick Charles in a remake of The Thin Man. If they start trying to pretend that a 1981 film doesn't exist, what do you think they'll do with one made in 1934? Think they released that no-frills Blu-ray where they handcuffed it to its terrible sequel by accident or so they can say, "Nobody bought it" and then let it die? It's more ridiculous when you realize what a gigantic hit the original Arthur was and what a colossal flop the remake turned out to be.
Back to the real Arthur. We'll pick up where we left off with Arthur on his "date" with Gloria. Part of the genius of Steve Gordon's screenplay was how deftly it intertwined plentiful laughs and exposition at the same time. Arthur takes Gloria to dinner at The Plaza. Needless to say, when she walks in first, the maitre'd (Dillon Evans) is ready to throw the hooker out — until he sees she's with "Mr. Bach" and then he's all manners. The other haughty patrons express shock, but few of them stand to inherit $750 million someday so the maitre'd isn't
too concerned. On their way to Arthur's regular table, Arthur spots his Uncle Peter (Maurice Copeland, no relation) and Aunt Pearl (Justine Johnston). He goes on to introduce the hooker as "Princess Gloria," telling them she hails from a tiny country. "It's terribly small, tiny little country," he breathes on Aunt Pearl to her disgust. "Rhode Island could beat the crap out of it in a war. That's how small it is." Uncle Peter finally steps in saying what he does know is that Arthur is terribly drunk and perhaps they should see him when he's sober. "Grow up Arthur, you'll make a fine adult," his uncle tells him. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have 50 pair of short pants hanging in your closet," Arthur responds as Gloria leadx him to their table. Without being aware of what he just asked, Arthur prods Gloria to tell him about herself. "You mean why I'm a hooker?" she replies. She goes on to reveal that her mother died when she was 6 and her father raped her when she was 12. "So you had six relatively good years," Arthur slurs. "Sorry. My father screwed me too." That's how he introduces the film's main plot point and why Arthur drinks. His father and grandmother keep pressuring him to marry a young heiress named Susan Johnson, but Arthur wants no part of it. He holds on to the silly notion that he'll get married for love.The next morning, when Gloria wakes up with Arthur in his bedroom that looks more suited for a child, complete with an elaborate train set behind his bed, we meet the most important person in Arthur's life: his butler/manservant/valet Hobson (Gielgud, who most deservedly took home the Oscar for best supporting actor). We first see him as elevators door open to reveal him bearing a tray of breakfast sustenance. Having just awakened, Arthur's embracing Gloria and we hear Hobson intone, "Please stop that." He steps further into the room and informs Arthur, "I've taken the liberty of anticipating your condition. I have brought you orange juice, coffee, and aspirins. Or do you need to throw up?" Gloria registers surprise at the sudden appearance of this British gentleman who hands her a robe and asks her to put it on, adding that she has breakfast waiting for her on the patio. "Say goodbye to Gloria, Arthur," Hobson instructs him and Arthur does as he says. Later, Arthur sits in a chair reading part of the newspaper while Hobson stands next to him reading another. It's a scene that contains several classic moments and, thankfully, YouTube had the clip.
Now Arthur's bathtub is much like his bedroom: Elaborate with an intercom system and a stereo (From the photo of the remake the bigger budget seems to have bought a smaller tub with fewer frills). Hobson reminds him that he must meet with his father in his office, so he gets prepped. Once they arrive and wait in the outer lobby, Arthur's jitters are on full display. He tells Hobson how he hates it there. "Of course you hate it. People work here," Hobson replies, before ordering Arthur to lean back in his chair and sit up straight. The receptionist announces that Arthur's father will see him now. He wants to take Hobson, but the receptionist says that his father said for Arthur to come in alone. After Arthur has left, an
exec in the lobby (Paul Gleason) picks up the courtesy phone and says to Hobson, "He gets all that money. Pays his family back by being a stinkin' drunk. It's enough to make ya sick." Hobson smiles. "I really wouldn't know, sir. I'm just a servant. On the other hand, go screw yourself." In his father's office, Arthur makes a beeline for the bar. His father, Stanford Bach (Thomas Barbour), flips through newspaper clips, noting how his drunken playboy status has made great fodder for the tabloids. He calls his son weak. "I despise your weakness," his father tells him. Arthur reiterates what he says he's told his father "a thousand times." He's not going to marry Susan Johnson. His father tries to sell him on it, insisting that he wants it, his grandmother wants it and Burt Johnson wants it. "Burt Johnson — he's a criminal!" Arthur exclaims in reference to Susan's father. Stanford Bach says they all are criminals in their own way and he admires Arthur, in a way, for sticking to his principles, but from this moment on — he's cut off. "From you? From grandmother? The rest of the family?" Arthur gulps. His father shakes his head. "You mean from —" Arthur can't even say the word. "The money Arthur," his father says. Suddenly, Arthur has a change of heart about Susan, finding positive qualities about her. Stanford shakes his son's hand. "Congratulations Arthur. You're gonna be a very wealthy man for the rest of your life," he tells him. "It's all I've ever wanted to be."Most of the pieces for Gordon's simple yet great screenplay are in place but the final part comes into play after Arthur's meeting with his father when he and Hobson go shopping at Bergdorf Goodman. Arthur goes on a spiteful spending spree, ordering three dozen of a particular shirt then telling Hobson, "I hate my father." "Buy four dozen," Hobson advises and Arthur increases the order. Then Arthur spots her (Liza
Minnelli). She's wearing a red hat and bright yellow slicker with a bag draped over her shoulder — and she steals a necktie and stuffs it in the bag. Arthur asks Hobson if he saw that. "It's the perfect crime — women don't wear ties. Some women do so it's not the perfect crime, but it's a good crime," Arthur comments. He then sees that the store's security guard has begun to follow her. Despite Hobson questioning why they should care, Arthur follows her out to the street where the guard confronts her, accusing her of stealing a tie. She gets confrontational, wanting to know the guard's name and asking the people in the crowd to get her a cop. Arthur steps in and says he thinks he can straighten this out. The guard of course knows who he is. He tells the guard he told her to pick out a tie and he'd put on his bill at the cashier. Arthur even asks to see it which the woman shows to him. Arthur says it's lovely and plants a big kiss on her lips. He tells the guard to have the cashier add the tie to his bill and he just keeps following the woman, whose name he learns is Linda. She can't figure out who the tall British gentleman stalking them is. When Arthur tells her he's not married, she gives him her phone number. "Thank you for a memorable afternoon," Hobson tells her. "Usually one must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature." Arthur lets Bitterman drive her home while he and Hobson continue shopping. Now the romance, albeit thwarted, at the center of Arthur may be between Arthur and Linda, but when you get right down to it, the film's most important relationship exists between Arthur and Hobson. The reason Arthur drinks has little to do with him being an overgrown kid out to have a good time but much to do with
the lousy childhood he had. The movie never even alludes to what happened to Arthur's mother, but in one of the film's quieter and sweeter scenes, when he's showing Linda his favorite horse, she comments how great it must have been to be around the horses and the rest of the estate when he was growing up. Arthur admits he wasn't home a lot because he always was at a boarding school — and he got kicked out of 10 prep schools because he was a bad kid. "You weren't bad. You just wanted to come home," Linda tells him. She's right — and the main reason for that was Hobson, who treated Arthur more like a son than Stanford Bach did. Sure, Hobson and Arthur have a teasing relationship, but Hobson always has been Arthur's protector. While the rapport between Moore and Gielgud provides many of the movie's biggest laughs, it also supplies the film with much of its emotional underpinnings and heart. You can tell from looks that Gielgud gives early in the film (or the TV ads showing Mirren's Hobson in the remake) that Hobson isn't well and he's trying to prepare Arthur for life when he's no longer there.At first, Hobson isn't the wise oracle you might take him for, at least when it comes to Arthur's feelings toward Linda. When Arthur asks Bitterman where Hobson is and the driver says he's tired, Arthur notes that he's been tired a lot lately. Arthur goes to Hobson's room out of concern for his surrogate father and also to vent because he's feeling crappy, having just told Linda about his engagement to Susan. First, Hobson tries to
allay Arthur's fears about his health by doing his usual hammy fake dying scene, but Arthur isn't in the mood. He tells Hobson about his admission to Linda and the old valet, assuming they still are playing their usual verbal games responds, "I don't know why. A little tart like that could save you a fortune in prostitutes." Arthur gets livid, yelling at Hobson never to speak about Linda in that way again and asking why he has to be such a snob before storming out. It actually causes Hobson to sit up in bed when Arthur returns to the room, saying that's the first time he's yelled at him in his life. "Perhaps you're growing up," Hobson suggests. Despite Arthur standing up for Linda as he did, it still isn't enough to convince Hobson yet that Arthur's feelings really represent love for Linda and not just resistance to marrying Susan. Arthur's mood does not change though. Hobson accompanies him to one of his favorite getaways — some high-speed spins around the racetrack — but Bach remains as morose as ever when he climbs out of his car, complaining to Hobson that, "I could love somebody. I never got to love anybody. I'm a failure in everything I do." Hobson asks Arthur to remove his racing helmet, then his goggles, and holds them both under one arm as he repeatedly slaps him on both cheeks with one hand.
And incidentally, I love you. (Hobson puts his arm around Arthur and they walk off together.) Marry Susan, Arthur. Poor drunks do not find love, Arthur. Poor drunks have very few teeth, they urinate outdoors,
they freeze to death in summer. I can't bear to think of you that way."
Hobson may have advised Arthur to marry Susan, but he has plans of his own. He soon shows up at Linda's apartment with a dress and the time and address for Arthur and Susan's engagement party. Linda can see that the old man is sick, but she realizes he's doing this because he cares for Arthur. He tells her he still recognizes when "a gentleman is in love." She does have to ask though if Arthur sent him. "Arthur would never be involved in something as devious as this," Hobson insists. Linda tells Hobson that Arthur has a really good friend in him. "You really look out for him, don't you?" she says. "It's a job I highly recommend," Hobson
responds. He has another bad coughing spell as he's leaving and she asks if he's seen a doctor. "Yes — and he has seen me." Soon, Hobson does end up hospitalized and his role and Arthur's are reversed as Arthur sees to his care, completely re-doing his hospital room, bringing him catered meals against doctor's orders ("I'm not going to let his last meal be jello.") and moving in himself. He also brings him a plethora of gifts from basketballs and toy trains to a cowboy hat, which Hobson insists he remove if he should die suddenly. After Arthur stays up most of the night when Hobson has a bad one, Hobson tells him in the morning that he looks awful. "That's because you've never seen me sober," Arthur tells him. At one point as he grows weaker, Hobson confides to Arthur that he can do anything he wants. Arthur asks what he means. "Figure it out." The pairing of Gielgud and Moore was brilliant casting on someone's part and, as I wrote before, Gielgud deserved that Oscar win. Moore also deserved his nomination for best actor, but he faced a tougher field that consisted of Warren Beatty in Reds, sentimental favorite and winner Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City and Paul Newman in Absence of Malice.Watching it again, you have to commend whoever took a chance on Steve Gordon and let him make his directing debut on Arthur when it was only the second screenplay he'd written. The first, The One and Only starring Henry Winkler and directed by Carl Reiner, wasn't bad, but couldn't prepare anyone for how good Arthur would be. The remainder of Gordon's resume consisted of limited sitcom writing on shows such as Barney Miller and Chico and the Man and as creator/head writer of a short-lived 1976 comedy called The Practice starring Danny Thomas. Sadly, after the success of Arthur, including an Oscar nomination and a Writers Guild award for original screenplay, Gordon died in 1982 of heart failure at the age of 44.
Arthur wouldn't feel that out of place if it had been made decades earlier than 1981 except for some language and sexual innuendo. Classic comic scene follows classic comic scene, great actors both of stature and solid character work fill most every role and it
follows the tried-and-true rule of the best comedies by running around 90 minutes. (The remake and the original's own awful sequel both end up 10 minutes shy of the two hour mark.) The infectious, bouncy score by Burt Bacharach blends perfectly with the laughs and tugs on the heart when needed, though the instrumental music was overshadowed by the film's popular and award-winning theme song. The cinematography by Fred Schuler (who also filmed The King of Comedy) makes Manhattan look beautiful and glistening, something you didn't see too often in films of the late '70s and early '80s. I've praised the exquisite work of Moore and Gielgud, but some of the others deserve their due. Admittedly, I've always felt that Liza Minnelli was the weak link as Linda, but seeing it again, I enjoyed her performance more than I have in the past and it's probably the most likable she's been on screen. Of course, this was before her body was made mostly of plastic, rivets and wax. Even better is the late Barney Martin (probably best known now as Morty Seinfeld on Seinfeld) as Linda's unemployed father who gets more upset than she does at times when it looks as if she's lost her chance at love with a multimillionaire. Martin's far from the only familiar face that shows up. 
Jill Eikenberry, long before L.A. Law, gets the somewhat thankless task of playing Susan, Arthur's unwanted fiancée, who always denies the evidence of what's in front of her — namely that Arthur isn't attracted to her in the least. She's blind to the clue of his drunken playboy antics that perhaps she shouldn't be anxious for this marriage. She does come from her own fortune after all. The restaurant scene where Arthur forces himself to propose turns out to be another hilarious keeper as he shows up blotto — he couldn't go through with it otherwise — and tosses out a seemingly endless line of nonsequiturs. (My personal favorite: "Do you have any objection to naming a child Vladimir? Even a girl?") Susan never runs out of patience, insisting to Arthur that "a real woman could stop you from drinking" to which he replies, "It'd have to be a real BIG woman." While Susan may be a forgiving sort, the same cannot be said for her father Bert Johnson, a tough self-made millionaire who likes to intimidate and, though he wants Arthur to marry his daughter, he doesn't trust him or like his drinking. Played
by another great character actor, Stephen Elliott, veteran of countless TV appearances as well as films such as The Hospital and Beverly Hills Cop as the police chief. Bert sets up a meeting with Arthur to make it clear that he won't put up with his nonsense. Arthur offers him a drink, though he's in Bert's house, but Bert informs him that no one in his family drinks. "I don't drink because drinking affects your decision-making," Bert tells Arthur. "You may be right. I can't decide," Arthur replies. On a feature on the DVD, which must have been made before anyone even dreamed of a laserdisc let alone a DVD, the late Gordon talks about how during the sequence, which takes place in Bert's study in front of the head of a moose he killed while hunting, Dudley Moore kept improvising so many funny things that he ended up with 12 takes where each one was just as funny as the last and he wished someday he could run all of them in a row. Bert makes a point of telling Arthur — with a smile no less — how he killed a man when he was 11 who was trying to steal food from his family. "Well, when you're 11 you probably don't even know there's a law against that," a drunken and nervous Arthur replies.
Sir John Gielgud wasn't the only actor with "prestige" in Arthur. Also a delight is Geraldine Fitzgerald, the Irish-born actress whose film career dated back to the 1930s (She earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for 1939's Wuthering Heights), though she moved to the U.S. early and became an American citizen during World War II to be in solidarity with her adopted country, and earned the title of a British Lady when she wed Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg 4th Bt., which means he held an inherited title of baronetcy from one of the U.K.'s isles. Fitzgerald turns in a doozy of a performance as Arthur's grandmother, who he calls Martha, and who is keeper of the Bach family fortune. She can be naughty, as when she tells Arthur, "Every time you get an erection it makes the papers" or asks him, "Is it wonderful to be promiscuous?" However, she might seem old and dotty, but that doesn't mean she isn't ruthless as she insists that Arthur marry Susan, reminding him that he's too old to be poor. "You're a scary old broad, Martha," he tells his grandmother. She's also one of the few with the guts to stand up to Bert Johnson in the film's climax, slapping him and threatening him with the words, "Don't screw with me."
I wanted to make sure to include a good shot of Ted Ross as the chauffeur Bitterman. He didn't get a lot to do, giving a performance that was mostly reacting to what was going on around him. He wasn't close to Arthur the way Hobson was, but he had a similar dynamic where he could be exasperated by his boss, but he wouldn't want to work for anyone else. Ross deserves some recognition not just for his performance because
he also belongs to the sadly long list of people associated with Arthur who have died in the 30 years since it was released. I already discussed the early and untimely death of writer-director Steve Gordon, but of the performers in major roles in the film we have lost Dudley Moore, John Gielgud, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Stephen Elliott, Ted Ross, Barney Martin and Thomas Barbour. Even though they only had single brief scenes, even Paul Gleason, Lou Jacobi who plays a florist, Richard Hamilton who plays a drunk in a bar who listens to Arthur's story and Lawrence Tierney who plays a diner customer sitting next to Arthur when he proposes to Linda. Of the major characters and notable appearances, only Liza Minnelli, Jill Eikenberry and Anne De Salvo remain. Even Executive Producer Charles H. Joffe and Peter Allen, one of the four people who took home an Oscar for contributing to the song "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do") have passed on. (Allen only got any credit because on a completely separate occasion, he'd coined the phrase "caught between the moon and New York City" when his airplane was circling awaiting approval to land.)Three decades after it first seemed to spring out of nowhere, Arthur remains a well-crafted, well-acted piece of film entertainment. After the disastrous remake's huge flop and the original's years of neglect (probably partially due to its origination as an Orion release, making it another unfortunate orphan of that defunct studio), the movie deserves proper preservation and presentation for those who wish to see it again at home, either as a rental or as part of their home library. If they need another reason, do it as a record of what may be Dudley Moore's finest work. Sadly, he never made another film that came close to equaling Arthur in terms of quality or using his talent to great effect.
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Labels: 80s, Blake Edwards, C. Reiner, Depp, Gielgud, H. Fonda, Lancaster, Liza, Mirren, Movie Tributes, Newman, Oscars, Remakes, Seinfeld, Sequels, Television, W. Beatty
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Thursday, June 30, 2011
You Can Even Eat the Dishes
By Damian Arlyn
There's a moment in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the character of Willy Wonka emerges for the first time from his factory to the enthusiastic applause of a crowd gathered to see him. The noise gradually dies down and becomes silent as they realize he is limping along on a cane. Children are unable to hide their disappointment. Grown-ups look confused and concerned. Suddenly, only a few steps from his front gate, Wonka's cane gets stuck in some cobblestones. He freezes, starts to fall forward, does a somersault and victoriously leaps to his feet with a smile. Children's faces light up. The crowd erupts into even more enthusiastic applause. It was all a joke. A delightful bit of showmanship from a master trickster. This introduction, as the story goes, was Gene Wilder's idea. When approached for the role, Wilder stipulated he would only do it if he could make his entrance in just such a manner. When asked why by the director, Wilder replied, "Because from that moment on, whenever I do anything nobody will know whether I'm lying or telling the truth." That kind of profound understanding Wilder brought to the character is just one among many examples of why Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory works just as beautifully now as it did when it premiered 40 years ago today.
The tale of Willy Wonka began as a book entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, penned by Roald Dahl and published in 1964. It told the highly fanciful tale of a poor boy taken on a tour through a magical wonderland by an eccentric confectioner. The book was a hit and in 1970 producer Dave Wolper was looking for a movie idea to serve as a promotional tie-in for a new line of candy bars the Quaker Oats Company was hoping to manufacture. Dahl’s fantastical fable of sugary goodness seemed a perfect fit. It was the first of his stories to be adapted for film and Dahl himself was hired to write the screenplay. Massive changes, however, were made to his script by David Seltzer and this caused Dahl to be severely dissatisfied with the final product and consequently disown it (a phenomenon that was to occur time and again with cinematic adaptations of his works). In a delicious bit of irony, however, the candy bar that Quaker Oats produced turned out to be faulty and so had to be withdrawn from shelves.
To helm the project, Mel Stuart (a director known mostly for TV movies and documentaries) was chosen. It seems an odd choice for a theatrical fantasy film for families (particularly given that his visual style is rather bland), but he acquits himself adequately through his numerous astute filmmaking decisions, his first being to make Willy Wonka a musical. The songs written by the award-winning team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley are all (with the exception of the mother's "Cheer Up, Charlie" which was always a fast-forward song for me as a kid) melodic and memorable.
Who among us doesn't know "Pure Imagination," the "Oompa-Loompah" song or "The Candy Man" (made immortal by Sammy Davis Jr.) by heart? To this day, I think Grandpa Joe's energetic rendition of "I've Got a Golden Ticket" as he dances around the room in his pajamas has to be one of the purest expressions of sheer joy I've ever seen in cinema. Stuart also decided to shoot the film in Germany to save on costs. Wisely, however, the country is never identified by name in the film and it adds to the fantastic other-worldly quality of the story.
In casting the film, Stuart had to find not just one or two but five young actors to play the lucky children who find the Golden Tickets. All five are quite good but a couple standouts are Peter Ostrum (in his one and only film appearance) who manages to be believably innocent and selfless without coming off as disgustingly saccharine in his performance as Charlie. The other is Julie Dan Cole as Veruca Salt, the brattiest kid of the bunch…and that's saying something. Cole totally commits to the supreme selfishness of her character and even gets her own song to sing ("I want It Now"). She's the kind of devil-spawn that every parent is afraid their own offspring will turn out to be. The inimitable Jack Albertson plays Grandpa Joe, Charlie's surrogate father figure, with equal amounts of love for Charlie and disdain for the injustices of the world.
Finally, there's Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Although Dahl presumably wanted Spike Mulligan or Ron Moody to play the part, Stuart once again demonstrated a keen grasp of the material by approaching Wilder, a brilliant comic actor who thoroughly understood the complexities and ambiguities of the character. His Willy Wonka is unpredictable (as demonstrated by his introduction) but lovable, strange but predominately non-threatening, bizarre but surprisingly witty (quoting such varied writers as Shakespeare, Wilde and Keats). Wilder brings a childlike enthusiasm and exuberance to the role and it is arguably his most iconic performance (and he's certainly given us several to choose from).
For the most part, Willy Wonka charmed critics when it was released, but audiences were not quite as won over by it and tended to stay away (the film only grossed $4 million on a $3 million budget). Eventually, however, it developed a cult following on home video and television broadcasts. How well does it hold up today? Well, obviously there are elements which are extremely dated (the psychedelic boat ride down the tunnel is a like a bad 70's acid trip), but like Wizard Of Oz or Mary Poppins, there is an element of imagination at work in the film (something sadly lacking in most contemporary movies) that makes it utterly charming and helps give it a timeless quality. Today it is remembered with much fondness and affection by many families. Personally, I love the film and when I revisit it every couple years I am surprised at how moved I am by it at various points in story. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may not be a great film, but it is the product of an era when wonder and fancy could still be found in big screen movies, when cinematic fairy tales could be told earnestly (without cynicism or self-consciousness) and when things like story, character and genuine emotion were more important than budget or special effects.
A comparison with the more "faithful" 2006 adaptation by Tim Burton demonstrates this very thing. The remake is not without its charms (including some stunning visuals and a charming performance from Freddie Highmore), but it serves as yet another reminder that newer is not necessarily better. Among the many miscalculations was
Johnny Depp’s decision to play Wonka as an excessively bizarre weirdo stuck in a state of arrested development. With echoes of pop sensation and eccentric man-child (not to mention accused child molester) Michael Jackson, Depp's Wonka was creepy and off-putting. Wilder's Wonka could indeed be dark, mysterious, enigmatic and even outright scary sometimes, but he was never creepy. His character, like the film he inhabited, ultimately had a warmth and a generosity at heart whereas Depp's Wonka, also much like the film itself, had a coldness at the center, a sense of detachment that makes its hard to be engaged by what we are watching even while we are being amazed by what we are seeing. I suspect that the 1971 version of the story will still retain its appeal long after the motion picture landscape has been become overrun with ugly, calculated and expendable pieces of cinematic junk (a fate of which I'm skeptical Burton's version will share).In essence, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may not have been revolutionary, but it was definitely non-pollutionary.
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Labels: 70s, Depp, Documentary, Movie Tributes, Musicals, Remakes, Television, Tim Burton
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