Monday, July 22, 2013
Dennis Farina (1944-2013)
Dennis Farina tended to be typecast as a cop or a crook — and having served 18 years on Chicago's police force before turning to acting had a lot to do with that, but like so many who come to performing from other lines of work, you'd hardly notice the difference. By the premature end of his 31-year acting career, just seeing his name brought a smile to my face because I knew that he'd provide some good moments in the movie or TV show I was about to watch, even if the production itself didn't turn out to be that great. He garnered two acting nominations in his film career, both for Get Shorty. The American Comedy Awards nominated him as Funniest Supporting Actor in Motion Picture and he joined the other members of the ensemble up for the 1995 Screen Actors Guild Cast Award, including James Gandolfini.
Farina made his film debut in 1981 in Michael Mann's often overlooked gem Thief. He did many guest shots and small roles in movies until he teamed with Mann again as the original screen incarnation of the FBI's Jack Crawford in Manhunter, based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon, which introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter. That same year, Mann gave Farina the short-lived starring role in the 43-episode run of the period TV series Crime Story as Lt. Mike Torello. Atmospheric, vibrant and wonderfully scored — Crime Story couldn't last back then, but imagine if it had premiered a decade or so later on cable. The year Crime Story ended its run, Farina played memorable comic bad guy Jimmy Serrano in the great buddy movie Midnight Run, which just marked its 25th anniversary. Other comic bad guys would follow such as Ray Barboni in the film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty and the hit man Henry De Salvo in the underrated Big Trouble, based on the novel by Dave Barry.
On the good guy side of things he played Marshal Sisco, father of Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco in Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Leonard's Out of Sight. He turned up briefly as one of the recognizable faces fighting World War II, in this case as Lt. Col. Anderson, in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. He also
put in two seasons as Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order following Jerry Orbach's departure. His other television work includes the short-lived, quirky detective series Buddy Faro created by Mark Frost, which I enjoyed but ended quickly. Farina also put in a nice turn as an annoying fitness center owner in HBO's adaptation of Richard Russo's novel Empire Falls. Finally, in another case of a series that ended prematurely (and unnecessarily) he landed the great role of Gus Demetriou, right-hand man and aging strong arm for horse racing-obsessed prison parolee Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) in HBO's Luck, an ill-conceived partnership between Mann and David Milch whose cancellation got blamed on the unfortunate deaths of three racing horses in the same sort of incidents that happen at real race tracks across the U.S. daily. It's a shame, because the nine episodes of Luck that aired were excellent. HBO should have had the guts to buy either Mann or Milch out and let the series proceed. (My vote would have been to keep Milch).RIP Mr. Farina. Another gone too soon.
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Labels: Dustin Hoffman, Farina, Gandolfini, Hannibal Lecter, HBO, Michael Mann, Milch, Obituary, Soderbergh, Spielberg, Television
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
James Gandolfini (1961-2013)
Sometimes, when the greatest of our artists mark the upper reaches of their golden years or they've announced an ominous health prognosis, I plan in advance what type of appreciation to write. However, when an unexpected death such as James Gandolfini's occurs at the age of 51, the task proves harder — I expected a lot more to come from this gifted actor, not this sudden, cruel punctuation mark of finality stamped on a career that promised us so much more.
Some of the films Gandolfini made during his time on the show weren't always the best, but he seldom failed to deliver whether it was his military prison warden in The Last Castle, his philandering husband in the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There or, most especially, his gay hit man in The Mexican. Perhaps his finest screen work came in In the Loop, the satire about an attempt by D.C. insiders to stop hawks from starting a war. He also did a fine turn in the HBO movie Cinema Verite about the making of the landmark TV documentary on the Loud family in the 1970s that could be called the first reality show. His voice also proved perfect in Spike Jonze's film of Where the Wild Things Are. Among recent films, he and David Chase reunited in Chase's feature directing debut Not Fade Away, and he appeared in Zero Dark Thirty.
I wish I could have seen Gandolfini's Tony-nominated performance in Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage. Gandolfini also didn't limit himself to acting, serving as producer and interviewer for two great HBO documentaries related to war: Alive Day Memories and Wartorn: 1861-2010.
Several works lay in various stages of production, so I expect we have some more James Gandolfini performances to anticipate, but not remotely as many as we should. RIP Mr. Gandolfini.
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Labels: Alec Baldwin, Coens, David Chase, Gandolfini, Geena Davis, HBO, J. Lange, Obituary, T. Scott, Television, The Sopranos, Travolta
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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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Labels: 10s, A. Huston, Alec Baldwin, Apatow, Demi, Gandolfini, Godard, Gordon-Levitt, N. Lear, Seth Rogen
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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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Sunday, June 05, 2011
Treme No. 17: Carnival Time, Part I
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.
By Edward Copeland
This episode's title more or less says it all. Some stories advance in important ways, but this week's episode requires a recap less than it does a photo collage because that's what much of it plays like — especially the pre-credit sequence and almost everything that happens after about the first 23 minutes when it literally dances from one part of Mardi Gras Day to another (or so it seems at first glance). Co-creators David Simon and Eric Overmyer wrote the script, which pauses occasionally for moments of significance (and most of those go to Melissa Leo, reliable as ever as Toni; it's almost a cliché by now to note how great she is in this role). It even manages to finally move Sonny forward, where you don't actually cringe at the sight of him and see a glimmer of hope when you actually start to — gasp — care about the character. It's interesting that it's taken a real musician playing a version of himself to start giving Michiel Huisman's character a depth beyond sketchy stereotype. "Carnival Time" also gives Steve Zahn what may be his finest moment as Davis (and Davis' first moment behaving like a responsible adult). The one criticism I have really is more a sin of omission relating to what happened in last week's "Feels Like Rain" episode. Last week, Jacques was jailed, faced deportation and his situation was deemed so dire that chef Susan Spicer summoned Janette to New Orleans to help. The more I thought about it, it didn't make a lot of sense to me how Janette would have more pull in an immigration or bail problem than Spicer would but disregarding that, this week Janette's back in New York, working in Le Bernardin, seemingly with nothing heavy weighing on her mind, and Jacques' name isn't even mentioned. Other than that going unsaid and this season's continued trend of cutting musical performances to as little screen time as possible, "Carnival Time" provides a spirited hour with touching and heartbreaking moments sprinkled throughout. In fact, after the more conventional opening section, it's such a stylistic switch when it gets to Mardi Gras Day that for the first time, I'm dividing my recap in half. When they get too long with too much art, they tend to knock other posts off the page, so I'm hoping to avoid that. Part I recaps the opening through about 23 minutes in. Part II picks up once Mardi Gras Day arrives.
The first sight we see are balloons shaped like shoes floating by on strings, followed by a high school marching band and then one huge shoe full of ladies. Throngs on the street surround the sights, part of Carnival's Thursday night all-women parade held by the Krewe of Muses, which only joined the festivities leading up to Fat Tuesday in 2001, but has tripled its membership since. The Muses don't only ride in floats resembling footwear, they also toss many custom-designed shoes to the crowd as well as other items such as medallions and the requisite beads (though
theirs have tiny shoe ornaments attached), but it's the shoes the people clamor for during the Muses' Parade. Davis, more hyper than usual, leaps from spot to spot alongside the parade's path, as if he's all eight lords rolled into one, shamelessly begging for a shoe. One of the Krewe tosses a shoe his direction, but a little girl seated above him snatches it first. He returns to Annie for comfort as yet another large shoe float enters the scene, only the people on this float throw beads at first — then the shoes start appearing and Davis starts pointing at himself again, pleading. He even lifts his shirt and flashes his nipples, but the Muse who looked as if she were going to grant his wish doesn't toss one. "You objectify me and then you deny me!" Davis shouts. Further down the route, Lt. Colson keeps a careful watch. One of the Muses tosses Colson a string of beads, which he dutifully puts around his neck. Toni and Sofia also are in attendance,
though the frolic seems to underwhelm Sofia, even when she catches a shoe. Toni cheers her acquisition, but Sofia gives it away to a little girl. An exuberant female spectator flashes her breasts, but Colson intercedes. She defends her act by saying it's Mardi Gras. "Yes, yes it is, but if you want to do that, you got to get to the French Quarter," Colson tells her. "This is the Muses' Parade. Everybody on the float is female so unless you go that way, you're fishin' with the wrong lure. Try the boys of Endymion on Saturday. Take it to Canal, where nobody cares." The girl gives Colson a kiss and takes his beads. Davis continues begging for a shoe. When he returns to Annie, he finds that she's managed to get one. "Find another of these in my size and I can wear them for you later," she promises. Davis squints with intrigue for a moment before returning to the hunt.With this week's episode, I can't complain about short scenes or quick cuts because "Carnival Time," for the most part, plays as if it's one long montage, taking a different form from any episode of Treme that we've seen, at least after we're about 23 minutes in. At least that's they way it played upon first viewing. When I went painstakingly through it again for the recap, it becomes more apparent what lies beneath the frivolity and while many writers have produced fine Treme episodes, dialogue really stands out when David Simon's name is on the actual teleplay and not just as a story credit. The flow of most of the episode though marches along like those high school bands in the many parades. Important things happen, but they're sewn into the fabric of the show's structure, much like the patch on Albert's Indian suit.
This episode was directed by Brad Anderson, who directed season one's "Shallow Water, Oh Mama," which concluded with the entire Bernette family dressed as sperm for the Krewe du Vieux parade. He also directed two episodes of The Wire, including "A New Day" from its fourth and best season, that took place after Carcetti officially became mayor. Anderson's resume also includes the "Belle Femme" episode of Boardwalk Empire, one of that series' most action and development-packed episodes in which I wrote in my recap: "It's the first time it's reminded me of The Wire, not in terms of complexity or greatness, but in terms of storytelling memory, showing that it did set up things early that would come into play somewhere later down the road." So I think Anderson proved to be a wise choice to direct "Carnival Time." I can't blame Anderson for the show once again trimming musical numbers to as little screen time as possible because by now it's clear that the show's makers have made the decision this season to do this on purpose. I don't know if it's a reaction (or overreaction) to those who whined about too much music. What's bad about it is the awkward and abrupt cuts often used on the performances. I would think the guest musicians who agree to appear would object at some point for going to the trouble of showing up for filming and then having less than a minute of their performance end up on the show or, worse, cutting to an extraneous scene in the middle of a song. Back when The Larry Sanders Show was on, even if they had other things going on simultaneously, guest musicians tended to perform a complete song — and that was a 30-minute comedy about a talk show, not an hour-long drama with music and culture as a central theme.
Colson and some fellow officers continue to monitor the crowds at the Muses' Parade. Colson notices a young man who raises his T shirt to show the gun he's carrying. The young man's date takes off and he tells her to wait up. Colson tails him through the crowd. Terry borrows one of the shoe charms from a parade watcher, promising to give it back. The young couple gets in a line at food vendor. Addressing the girl, Terry asks if she wants a shoe. "I just caught this. It's my third one. Give it to your girlfriend," Terry says. When Terry hands it to him and the kid reaches for it, Colson slams him against the vendor's trailer while another officer covers the girl. Colson gets the guy's gun. "Who the fuck brings a gun to a parade? What kind of asshole does that?" Terry shouts in the kid's ear. "Why do you want to take what's left of this city and turn it to shit?" The other officers take the young man away. As Terry goes to return the shoe, you hear the girl say, "So I ain't gonna get the fuckin' shoe?"
"Is this the big one in Eunice?" Davis asks. Annie says no, it's a new one that a lot of the musicians out there do. She tells Davis that Wilson, a friend of Harley's, invited him and Harley has invited them. "Cajun Mardi Gras. Not likely, darlin'," he responds. "For one thing, it's not Mardi Gras. So how are we gonna be in West French Toast, Louisiana, when we are gonna be in New Orleans for the holiday?" Annie thinks it would be interesting to do something different this year and take a ride out to the country. "My love, I have not missed a Mardi Gras in New Orleans in my life," he says. Annie tells him she's planning to take her violin and begins fiddling a bit of roots-oriented music. "Let me clarify," he says, as she runs her bow up his leg. "I'm going to leave New Orleans on Fat Tuesday to wander through swamps with some drunk-ass crazy Cajuns I don't even know. This is the plan?" Annie suggests next year and tells him she's going with or without him.
At long last, the band class at Theophile Jones Elie Elementary have instruments and uniforms and what a noise they are making — a painful noise. Antoine winces while LeCouer tries to quell them to be
silent. One student figures they can march in parades now. LeCouer asks what they would play and the class suggests "Do Whacha Wanna" so he tells them to try and they do — to less-than-satisfying results. Antoine has heard enough and waves them to stop. "Do what you wanna? Y'all don't know what y'all doin'. Y'all killin' that song. It's gonna take a real band to cut that sucker loose and send it to the Saint Louis Cemetery." The band director tells the class that it's good that they finally have instruments and uniforms, but they can't just start marching and playing. "People come to those parades and expect to see the best school bands in the country. You ready to represent that?" Antoine asks. The class says, "Yes" but suddenly you hear the sound of some talented trumpet player and we realize that Robert, the boy who opened the series this season in the first episode is in that class. LeCouer suggests that the students watch the bands with the Zulus on Mardi Gras and the class thinks it's a good idea. He asks if Antoine can go and, though you see his reluctance, he agrees.Nelson tells Oliver Thomas that he's firmed up the computer cable pricing and can save the city more than 50 cents a cable and have enough left over for him to take a little cut. Thomas says he's done what he could, but Greg Meffert controls all the technology contracts. "If he's fine overpaying, then I'm guessing one of his friend's got the current contract. Either his or the mayor's," Nelson says. "Then we're gonna have to get you some home cookin' to go in there with," Thomas suggests. "Home cookin'?" a puzzled Nelson repeats. "Have you ever heard of Zulu, Mister Hidalgo?" Thomas asks. "Zulu?" Thomas elaborates. "Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club." What I find fascinating is Oliver Thomas playing himself with the implication of corrupt New Orleans city government when in August of that same year he pled guilty to accepting bribes and kickbacks and served time in a federal prison before moving to a New Orleans halfway house to serve the remainder of his sentence last year. Thomas discussed his unusual situation with The Times-Picayune's Dave Walker last week.
Helping his mom carry something in to Bush Antiques on Magazine Street, Davis complains about the idea of "traipsing through the woods" for a Cajun Mardi Gras. "It sounds lovely, Davis," Ramona McAlary tells her son. "This is the problem with relationships," Davis says, "Sartre was right. Hell is other people." Davis' mother suggests that he and Annie talk, but Davis turns quiet and sullen, admitting he doesn't want to disappoint her. Mrs. McAlary cocks her head with a slight grin. "Oh my God — you're in love." Davis doesn't comment other to say he wanted to tell her so she knew why he wouldn't be at the family's party on Tuesday. His mom tells him not to let that bother him — his dad won't either. "He's riding Rex again," she tells him. Davis thinks it's been six years, but his mother says it's been eight. Dr. McAlary ran into an estranged friend at the bar at Dickie Brennan's and they patched things up and the friend asked him to ride the float again, even offered to pay for his "throws." Davis sees his out. "This is a big thing for dad. Huge. He would be heartbroken if I'm not there to see him ride again," Davis declares. His mother says he'd understand. "Shattered!" Davis shouts. "My God, what have I done?" Mrs. McAlary asks.
Here's an illustration of that sin of omission I mentioned. Janette busily works in the kitchen at Le Bernardin when she gets a call on her cell phone. Does it concern Jacques? No. It's her friend Julie, who sounds to Janette as if she's stoned somewhere on Canal Street. Janette says calls like this "make her homesick." She gets back to work, but Chef Ripert notices her taking the call. Given his words last week about the lifetime importance of the relationship with your sous chef, Ripert may be more concerned about Jacques than Janette seems to be. He did eat at Desautel's once after all.
Antoine Batiste & His Soul Apostles have just completed their first set at Prime Example in the Seventh Ward. As they step off the stage, Cornell tells Antoine that the room seemed a little thin without a guitar. Knowing his bass player is making none-too-subtle hints about Sonny, Antoine says he thought they sounded OK. "Besides, we can do a lot better than him. You said so yourself," Antoine fires back. Batiste heads to the bar in flirtatious mode again, but Cornell won't let him off the hook that easy. "I think we should give Sonny one last chance to fuck up," Cornell suggests. "You know his problem and so do I," Antoine replies, turning his attention back to the lady at the bar, but Cornell taps his shoulder. "Right now? We could give him a hundred chances and he'd fuck 'em all up." Cornell agrees to some extent, but tells Antoine he feels like he can talk to him. Antoine wants to know why Cornell even cares. "Man, I've been there, ya know," he says. Antoine nods and gives Cornell permission to give Sonny a last chance. Antoine returns to trying to smooth talk the lady.
The frame fills with a tight closeup of Davis with his eyes closed, as if he's napping. "OK, you can look," Annie says. Davis opens his eyes and leans back in the chair at the table to take his first glance at Annie's costume for a traditional Cajun Mardi Gras. Her odd and very colorful costume resembles all the photos I've found and looks like the descriptions I've read, right down to the dunce cap-looking hat called a capuchon that she wears on her head. The tradition of these costumes reportedly date back at least to Medieval France, if not earlier, when peasant would don these crazy outfits to ridicule and mock their "superiors" such as nobles, clergy and the intelligentsia. "Voila! Tres chicness," she says upon presentation. Davis makes his ruling. "Pretty great," but has to ask, "You're really gonna go do this, huh?" Annie tries to get him to reconsider, saying Harley helped her with her costume, he could help him as well. "Annie, about that. I've got a little problem," he says, presumably about to give her his family excuse about his father's big day returning to the Krewe of Rex.
Sonny's surprised to see Cornell at his door. Looking at the disarray of his place, Cornell comments, "I see you gave the help the week off." Cornell doesn't
waste any time getting to his speech. "I've got a proposition for you, real simple. You do everything I say you gotta do, go where I say, show up when I say and when we get paid, I hold all your damn money." Sonny, already looking confused, just looks down and laughs at the last part. "For this I get what exactly?" Sonny asks. "You get back playin' with the band," Williams answers. Sonny assumes Antoine sent him, but Cornell says, "Hell no. I asked him to give you one more shot." Sonny lights a cigarette and tells Cornell, "I can hold my own money then." Cornell shakes his head. "No bro. Everything I say, you do. This isn't gonna work if you're hearing everything backwards." Sonny nods in agreement. "Gig's tonight at Prime Example. Be there at 9:30. Don't be late," Cornell says as he leaves. 
Thomas brings Nelson into the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club and introduces him to Gralen Banks who says that Thomas tells him that he wants to ride Zulu. "I am told that I very much want to ride Zulu," Nelson responds. "Ordinarily, you want to get started a whole lot sooner. Come down here, make the right donations, meet the right people, but seein' that O.T. is goin' to sponsor you, I'm sure we can work somethin' out," Banks tells Nelson. "You did bring your checkbook, didn't you baby?" Nelson glances at Thomas. "Why do I suddenly feel like a mark?" Hidalgo says. Thomas chuckles. "Oh no. It ain't that bad," Thomas said. "I told him to bleed ya, just for a little bit." Nelson still seems a bit skeptical. "And Zulu is where a guy like me wants to be, huh?" Nelson asks Oliver. Thomas tells Nelson if he wants the people behind the contracts "to take your shit serious, then these are the friends you need." By the way, despite Oliver Thomas' recent extended stay in a federal prison and a halfway house, he remains listed as a Zulu member on the club's website.
Antoine certainly has been a horny fellow of late — for any lady that isn't Desiree. Earlier, he was trying to make plans with a woman for about 4 p.m. on Mardi Gras Day. Now, still at The Prime Example, he's prowling after a different lady might be doing around 2 p.m. that same day. Batiste gets interrupted again though, this time by the sound of one of his band's horns signaling it's time for their set. As Antoine returns to the stage, Sonny has rejoined the band. Antoine greets the crowd and asks if anyone made it to Bacchus that night. Bacchus is the Sunday night superparade of Carnival featuring animated floats and a celebrity as its "king". In 2007, that honor went to James Gandolfini. Too bad
they couldn't have worked in a cameo by him into this episode since through The Sopranos, the recent TV movie Cinema Verite and the two war-related documentaries he produced and in which he conducted the interviews — Alive Day Memories and Wartorn: 1861-2010 — Gandolfini belongs to the extended HBO family. After bringing up Bacchus, Antoine tells the audience, "Speaking of which, we have a real celebrity in the house. Would you welcome Mister Al 'Carnival Time' Johnson to the stage?" As you probably surmised, Al Johnson's nickname comes from his best-known song which gives this episode its title and, for the third week in a row, the song for which the installment is named, gets short-circuited. The band starts the song's music going and then Johnson sings, "The Green room is smoking, and the Plaza burning down/Throw my baby out the window, let those joints burn down/All because it's Carnival Time, woooooohhh, it's Carnival Time....!/Oh Well it's Carnival Time and, everybody's having Fun!" Then onto another scene. The first four lines of the song that gives the episode its title and, including the musical intro, it gets 39 seconds of screen time.Logically, it makes sense that LaDonna wouldn't want to take part in Mardi Gras this year, but for giving an actress as talented and powerful as Khandi Alexander as wrenching a story as they have this year, they continue to waste her for the most part in its aftermath. She had that brief moment of power when she
recognized one of the men who raped her last week when Detective Leroy showed her the mug shots, but even that scene was a short one. With only four episodes left in the season, I have to wonder if she'll get any powerful scenes. With her rapist arrested in another attack, will she be called to testify or will she hesitate since that means everyone will know the truth and as far as we've seen, she's let everyone believe she was only robbed and beaten. The entirety of her appearance in "Carnival Time" finds her once again stretched out on that sectional in Baton Rouge with a drink in her hand as Larry tells her that he and the boys will stay in a La Quinta that night and be home by dinner the next day. Larry and her sons hug and kiss her goodbye and she says she'll enjoy her Mardi Gras there, raising her drink. She tells her sons to try to grab her some Zulu coconuts. Alexander's entire presence in this episode lasts about 44 seconds.Toni cracks open the door to Sofia's bedroom where she finds the teen not doing much at all. "I thought you were working on your costume. Want help?" Toni asks. "I'm just not feeling it this year mom, you mind?" Leo perfectly captures Toni's stricken look when Sofia utters those words — nearly identical to what Creighton said
last Mardi Gras shortly before he killed himself. "Maybe we can just do masks this year," Toni suggests, coming into the room closer to her daughter. Sofia's noncommittal. "Thought we could go see Pete come out at Commander's," Toni offers as an option. "He's back?" Sofia says since Fountain missed 2006 because of illness. "Daddy really missed that last year." Toni says she knows. "We could work our way Downtown, catch Saint Anne's toward the river." Sofia lifts her head. "The river?" At first, Toni can't look directly at Sofia while she's suggesting it, but she finally does when she's finished. "Well, yeah, I was thinking, there's this tradition of scattering ashes at the end of Saint Anne's." Sofia sort of shakes her head. "You want to scatter Daddy's ashes in the river?" Toni tries to make it sound joyous when she says, "On Mardi Gras. Sure. The band plays "Down By the Riverside" and they dip their streamers in the water, baptize the parade. I think he'd like that." Sofia won't look at her mother and registers little emotion when she says, "Sure. I guess. I mean, I know what the river meant to him." Toni's eyes widen as if she knows Sofia just said a lot more than she really did.Sonny sits playing his guitar (I assume he was with Antoine's band long enough to buy a new one and give Harley back the one he borrowed for the audition) when there's a knocking on his door. Cornell opens the door himself and says, "Pack a bag." Sonny wants to know where he's going. "Away," Cornell answers. "A couple or three days." Sonny again asks where. Cornell shakes his head. "Is there any place worse than up in here?"
In New York, Janette keeps busy in the Le Bernardin kitchen when Chef Ripert comes up to speak with her. Ripert asks if, for someone with such a strong connection to New Orleans as herself, working the next day which is Mardi Grast might be like she's working on a holiday. "Well, yes. That and Saints home games," she admits. Ripert tells her, "It would be bad enough to think you were stuck beating tuna on one of the home games." You can tell Janette thinks Ripert's being sweet, but she says, "Oh Chef, tomorrow is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Here, it's Tuesday. It's no big deal." Ripert won't let her refuse a day off that easily. "So make your own celebration. I'm serious," Ripert declares. Janette relents. Jacques, I presume, is either spending Mardi Gras in jail or has been deported back to Haiti. "That's nice. Thank you," she says. He's definitely no Brulard. "Hey Chef," Janette says, "would it be possible for me to dine here tomorrow? At Le Bernardin?" The ever-gracious man grants her wish. "For your holiday? Of course."
A man hauls a bucket full of catch off a fishing boat late at night as a car pulls up to the shore line. Cornell and Sonny exit the car and Cornell shakes the man's hand and greets him as his Uncle Don (John Beasley). Uncle Don asks Cornell if Sonny's "his boy." (Is Simon setting up just in case Treme lasts long enough that we have some Gulf fishermen characters in place
for the BP oil spill?) "You ever done any oystering?" he asks Sonny, who, of course, hasn't. "You know your way around boats?" the fisherman asks next. "Some. I'm from The Netherlands. Holland," Sonny tells him. Uncle Don rolls his eyes and looks at his nephew with an expression that says, "What have you gotten me into?" Cornell laughs and heads back to his car, offering little more information than, "Back on Wednesday." Sonny gets a little aggravated. "You're just leavin' me down here? What the fuck, Cornell?" Cornell tells Sonny, "It's quiet down here. Relax. My uncle there is gonna keep you out of trouble." Sonny inquires of his bandmate, "And where are you goin'?" Cornell opens his car door. "Back to New Orleans. It's Mardi Gras tomorrow night." Cornell drives away and Sonny just looks out at the boat where he'll be spending his Mardi Gras.That wraps Part I of my "Carnival Time" recap. Click here to be taken to Part II.
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Labels: Boardwalk Empire, David Simon, Documentary, Gandolfini, HBO, Larry Sanders, Melissa Leo, Overmyer, The Sopranos, The Wire, Theater, Treme, TV Recap, Zahn
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Friday, April 22, 2011
When that line started getting fuzzy
By Edward Copeland
As you idly flip past ads for TV shows with shrieking housewives, young Jerseyites, the home lives of aging rock stars and countless other forms of grotesqueries labeled "reality TV," it's hard to believe the genre began as a noble experiment aired on PBS nearly 40 years ago. The excellent new HBO film Cinéma Vérité, which debuts Saturday night, details the behind-the-scenes story that put the Loud family of Santa Barbara, Calif., in U.S. living rooms on the landmark series An American Family, turned them into national pariahs and created a truly pivotal pop culture moment.
All my life, I've pretty much been an information vacuum, sucking up trivia and being able to spend it like currency, even if it was something I'd never seen. Since I was just 4 when An American Family aired in 1973, I never actually saw the series, yet I always knew what people were talking about when they brought up the Loud family (not to be confused with the skit from the original Saturday Night Live cast). With Cinéma Vérité, I feel even more secure in my knowledge of this media milestone.
With co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini at the helm, Cinéma Vérité has precisely the right filmmakers steering the ship since they are the team who made the great and unusual biopic of Harvey Pekar, American Splendor. It also doesn't hurt that they're filming a sharp script by David Seltzer whose unusual resume of writing credits includes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Omen, Lucas and many others I'll omit so as not to embarrass him. The directors' greatest assets though happen to be its talented cast led by Diane Lane, Tim Robbins and James Gandolfini.
Gandolfini plays Craig Gilbert, a documentary filmmaker whose most recent work had been on the anthropologist Margaret Mead. He gets the idea to really look inside an American family, to get beyond the TV depictions such as The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch. After talking to a friend (Kathleen Quinlan) who brings him some possible Santa Barbara families to try to talk into the project, Gilbert settles on the Louds, approaching Pat Loud (Lane) first. The two seem to have an immediate connection as Gilbert explains that he wants to observe an American family the way Margaret Mead did a primitive one by placing a camera crew within their home. Pat's marriage with her husband Bill (Robbins) isn't in the best shape, but she's game anyway and Gilbert tries to sell the idea to the whole family, who mostly seem willing, though Bill asks what they get out of it if they aren't being paid.
The married camera team Alan and Susan Raymond (Patrick Fugit, Shanna Collins) become attached to the Loud family, since they see first-hand things that are ripping them apart, causing conflict with Gilbert who grows angry at times when the Raymonds refuse to film the most dramatic stuff, and the financial backers in New York are on his back over the lack of high drama, amount of film used and rising costs. Eventually, the secrets and tensions do spill out in front of the camera such as when Pat tires of ignoring Bill's adultery and asks him for a divorce on camera and when they film oldest son Lance (Thomas Dekker), who is openly gay (except with his in-denial, Nixon-backing father). When the camera crew follows Pat to New York to visit Lance, he tells her that a girl named Candy proposed to him and takes Pat to see Candy — at her drag show. "She's a man," Pat says to her son. "I haven't accepted anything," Lance reassures his mother. Since it was the first time a proud, openly gay man appeared on TV, Cinéma Vérité could have spent a bit more time on Lance's role in the impact the series had.
The real fallout happens once the 12-part series airs and the Louds see what a difference editing can make and cringe at the promotional ads asking what viewers would do if their son was gay or if Pat should leave Bill. The nation turns on them, wondering why they would allow their lives to be public like that, discounting the fact that the American viewers were the ones eating it up. Why is that "If you don't like it, turn it off" concept so hard to understand, particularly for Americans? Of course, nearly 20 years before An American Family aired Thelma Ritter's Stella nailed our country's problem in Hitchcock's Rear Window long before a reality TV show aired: "We've become a race of peeping toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change."
As they did in American Splendor, the directors employ unique techniques to tell this story, techniques that prove even more appropriate to Cinéma Vérité, since this movie recounts the merging of real life with entertainment and frequently in the film, especially during the opening credits, Berman and Pulcini mix footage of the real Patricia and Bill Loud with re-creations of Diane Lane and Tim Robbins playing
their roles. Throughout the movie, Berman and Pulcini keep their tale flowing efficiently and though they do use many great shots, aided by editing by Sarah Flack and Pulcini, but rarely ones overly showy to the point of drawing attention to the direction and away from the story. One exception comes late in the film and proves well worth it. After An American Family has hit the airwaves and become a national phenomenon, an image of Diane Lane on a TV set keeps multiplying into innumerable TVs which then become the lit windows of a building. It's a very nice shot, even if the beginning resembles Gus Van Sant's of Alison Folland's in To Die For when she describes her character's media fame.The cast all perform well, but by far Diane Lane turns out to be the standout, giving some of the other players, especially Robbins, a bit of short shrift. Coming this soon after seeing Kate Winslet's brilliant work in Mildred Pierce, I didn't think there could be any serious contenders, but I've never seen Lane turn in a better performance than she does here. She's touching, frustrating, brutally honest and damn funny at times.
Those adjectives describe Cinéma Vérité as well. It's only 90 minutes long, but it's incredible how many levels it's successfully working on simultaneously: historical account, satire, commentary, entertainment. So many films wear out their welcome, it's rare to find one that leaves you wanting more, especially from what happens after American Family airs. I could have used more of when the Louds took the offensive to defend their honor (and set the stage for future reality TV stars by perpetuating their fame through books, music and other projects). That reservation aside, it shouldn't be missed. Cinéma Vérité debuts Saturday night on HBO at 9 p.m. EDT/PDT and 8 p.m. CDT.
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Labels: 10s, Documentary, Gandolfini, HBO, Hitchcock, Television, Thelma Ritter, Tim Robbins, Van Sant, Winslet
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Those were the days
By Edward Copeland
Forty years ago tonight, CBS put extra operators in place at switchboards across the United States, anticipating the commotion that would rock the world when a new situation comedy called All in the Family made its debut. With its lead character, a loudmouth, blue-collar bigot in constant conflict with his liberal son-in-law, and broaching prejudice and other touchy topics, the network feared that they wouldn't hear the end of it. Surprisingly, most of the calls they received were favorable, Archie Bunker became a household name and new ground was broken on what could be discussed on a network television series. Unfortunately, when you scan across the dial today, I fear that much of that ground has been lost and a series such as Norman Lear's American take on the British comedy Till Death Do Us Part would never make the network air today.
When All in the Family debuted, its immediate lead-in, unbelievably, was the country music variety series Hee-Haw. Before we "Meet the Bunkers" (the title of the first episode), CBS placed a note on the screen that read as follows:
"The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It attempts to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter, we hope to show — in a mature fashion — just how absurd they are."
Then viewers were treated to that familiar opening number, re-shot several times over the years as the characters and actors aged, of Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton as Archie and Edith Bunker sitting at the piano and warbling the words to "Those Were the Days."
songs that made the hit parade,
guys like us we had it made,
those were the days.
And you knew where you were then,
girls were girls and men were men,
mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
Didn't need no welfare state,
everybody pulled his weight,
gee our old Lasalle ran great,
those were the days!"
There were other verses, but those were the ones audiences would come to know. Something I'd long forgotten until I started re-watching episodes for this piece is that this song was written by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams, the team best known for the Broadway musicals Bye Bye Birdie and Annie, among many others. Strouse even composed some film scores solo including Bonnie and Clyde and Ishtar. Strouse also scored the movie The Night They Raided Minsky's, which was co-written and produced by Norman Lear, the mastermind who brought All in the Family to the small screen.
For such nervous executives, All in the Family had an extraordinarily long and fruitful run of nine seasons and 201 episodes and that doesn't count its mutation into the four-season, 97 episode run of Archie Bunker's Place. It, alongside other 1970s hits Happy Days and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, proved extraordinarily successful when it came to spinning off characters into their own series. All in the Family begat Maude (which itself begat Good Times), The Jeffersons (which begat the short-lived Florence spinoff Checking In) and, even though they were less successful or downright flops, a much later series called Gloria and a brief one called 704 Hauser Street, which only took place in the same house in which the Bunkers had lived but was now occupied by an African-American family with a old-style liberal father (John Amos) clashing with his conservative college-age son.
Since it began midseason, that first season had a mere 13 episodes and, as still is the case with most shows today, it usually takes a few episodes for a new series to find its sea legs. Various reference sources will give you different titles for some of the episodes. The episode titles on the DVD won't necessarily match those in the book Archie & Edith, Mike & Gloria by Donna McCrohan or the IMDb or episode guides Web site. Regardless of its title, having re-watched the entire first season (time constraints prevented me from re-visiting all the episodes (at least that's my excuse for avoiding the Danielle Brisebois season), the fourth episode, which I'll call "Judging Books By Covers," is the episode when they really had all the cylinders humming. Archie finds himself annoyed when Mike's flamboyant friend Roger (Anthony Geary in his pre-General Hospital days) visits and Archie assumes by his dress and the way he carries himself that Roger
must be gay, despite Mike and Gloria's insistence that he's straight. Archie finally seeks refuge at his favorite place of refuge, Kelsey's Bar, where he gets to hang with his old friend and former football star Steve (the late Phil Carey, in his pre-One Life to Live days) who now runs a photography store and knows Roger through it. When Mike and Roger drop by, Kelsey (Don Hastings) pulls Mike aside just to be reassured that Roger isn't gay, because he doesn't want Kelsey's to become known as one of those bars because Steve is gay, even though Archie is utterly clueless about it. Eventually, Mike and Archie argue and Mike blurts out the truth and Archie sees Steve again and is laughing, saying that Steve will want to sock Mike for what he said about him. Then Steve tells Archie that it's true and turns Archie's world asunder. It's a landmark episode. Compare it to the very funny first season Cheers episode "The Boys in the Bar," where rumors of gay men frequenting the bar prompt fears that the whole bar could go gay. It's a very good episode and while there is an element of homophobia addressed, less than 11 years after "Judging Books By Covers," it's a sort of defanged homophobia, afraid to push the boundaries of hate and ignorance that dwells beneath.Despite the expected controversy, All in the Family did not become a ratings juggernaut during its initial run and it wasn't even certain that a renewal was in the offing. Critical reaction was mixed. Some thought it was endorsing Archie's prejudice, while others felt it was soft-pedaling it by having him use "softer" epithets for various groups instead of harsher terms. Still, as the series stayed on, its numbers grew and at the Emmys
(which actually were held in May back then), it picked up outstanding comedy series and outstanding actress in a comedy series for Jean Stapleton as well as the defunct Emmy category of outstanding new series. When the 13 episodes were rerun during the summer, its numbers skyrocketed and by the time of its second season premiere in September, it was the No. 1 rated series on television. It stayed at the top or near the top for most of the rest of its run and retained much Emmy love. The following year, it practically swept the Emmys, winning series, actor (O'Connor), actress (Stapleton), supporting actress (Sally Struthers in a tie with Valerie Harper for The Mary Tyler Moore Show), writing (for "Edith's Problem") and directing for the classic "Sammy's Visit" when none other than Sammy Davis Jr. winds up in Archie Bunker's living room. Over the course of its nine seasons, it won four Emmys for comedy series, O'Connor won four times, Stapleton won three times, Rob Reiner and Struthers each won twice, it won three times for writing and twice for direction.What remains astounding though are the topics that it worked so openly into conversation as part of an overriding story. Sex probably is the only topic the networks still feel safe in touching in the same way.
Are there any other open atheists on network television now other than Dr. Gregory House since Dr. Perry Cox and Scrubs left the air? When there was a report that The Simpsons discussed religion more than any other series, there was more truth in that than you know. Certainly, no series would attempt an episode such as All in the Family did when Archie, concerned that his new grandson's soul was doomed because of nonbelieving father Mike, sneaked the infant to a church to perform his own baptism. Nor would they tackle the loss of faith the truly religious Edith faced when their friend, the cross-dressing Beverly LaSalle, was murdered. (Archie, for all his bluster about about the Bible and his misquoting of it, seldom actually attended a service.) Vietnam came up in the Bunker household far more often and earlier than it got any serious treatment in films. Once again, Scrubs was one of the few recent series to touch on that sort of subject when it had an episode where the staff took sides on the Iraq war. Of course, the topic that came up the most frequently was Archie's bigotry, but the secret is that Archie doesn't know that he's a bigot. When he and Edith sing "Those Were the Days," they are referring to the Great
Depression and World War II, back when Bunker thought the future would be great and before he realized that his blue-collar life would be a struggle. He would never be the type to burn a cross, though he'd sign petitions to try to keep blacks and Jews out of his neighborhood. In fact, when a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan comes to Queens and sees Archie as a potential recruit, they want him to pressure Mike by burning a cross on Stivic's lawn because Mike wrote a letter to a newspaper that the racists didn't agree with. Archie, in one of those rare moments of being on the right (as in correct) side of things, stands up for Mike, refusing to aid them or join them, telling them he's part black because he once received a blood transfusion from a black person, meaning he wasn't "pure white." In the episode that more or less served as a pseudo-pilot for The Jeffersons, The Bunkers and the Stivics attend an engagement party for Lionel (Mike Evans) and Jennie (though Jennie and her parents are all played by different actors than the ones who would play them in The Jeffersons) where George (Sherman Hemsley) learns for the first time that Jennie is the product of a mixed marriage. Being as prejudiced against whites as Archie is against blacks, George stirs up a hornet's nest to the point that Tom and Helen Willis start arguing. George is the first person in the series to use the 'N' word when he suggests that Tom will call Helen that at any moment as Archie proudly makes an aside to Edith that he hasn't used that word in years.
Part of the show's brilliance was that it didn't fall into the trap of always making Mike the voice of reason either. You could see that he had his own prejudices, such as in the episode when Gloria gets into women's lib and he tries to explain to her, "I believe in total equality but it can only come about when you admit your total inequality." When two unmarried hippie friends of Mike and Gloria come by and ask to stay, Archie has a conniption over their lack of a marriage license and the Stivics side with their friends for a while, until the girl, who chooses not to communicate with words, finally gets on their nerves as well with her intransigence over proposed compromises. Mike also can be so self-righteous that he can shock himself when, while playing a Scruples-like game, Lionel wishes Mike treated him more as a friend than as a spokesman for the black race and Mike storms out of the room. Archie also gets to goad him when Mike loses a teaching position to an equally qualified black candidate, which Mike at first finds unfair but eventually comes to accept.
It's truly amazing, considering that All in the Family at its core was a comedy, the number of topics it touched upon during its nine season run. In fact, remove the live studio audience, and you at times could call it TV's first dramedy. Here's a cursory list of subjects culled from perusing the episode guide: homophobia, miscarriages, premarital sex, keeping neghborhoods racially and ethnically pure, job layoffs, women's liberation, disliked relatives who die during visits, impotence, loss of home insurance, choosing which employee to fire, menopause, gun control, swingers, hate crimes, vigilantism, returning to high school, attempted rape, menstrual cycles, gambling addiction, Vietnam, Watergate, defining pornography, breast cancer, the mentally challenged, mixed-race couples, striking unions, adultery, transvestites, medical costs, vasectomies, draft dodging, after death revelations, the Ku Klux Klan, pill addiction, crises of faith and end of life care. However, it wasn't just the mentioning or tackling of these topics that set it apart, it was part of a trend among many sitcoms in the 1970s where, while they certainly earned their laughs, they weren't afraid of genuine emotion either. All in the Family paved the way for the serious moments on non-Norman Lear shows such as Henry Blake's death on M*A*S*H, many moments on Soap and episodes such as The Who concert on WKRP in Cincinnati.
Those emotional moments on All in the Family could be its strongest ones, topping the laughs. Seeing Archie's tender side when Gloria loses the baby. Edith explaining to Mike what he should have been bright enough to see already: That Archie's frustration with him doesn't stem as much from what he stands for as from the chances he has that Archie never did, having had to quit high school to support his family before serving in World War II and then moving immediately into unsatisfying blue collar work. Then there was that moment, the moment at the end of the eighth season (when the series really should have ended gracefully) as the Stivics moved to California and off the show, and Mike admits to Archie that he knows he always thought he hated him, but he didn't. He loved him and was like a father to him and Archie did his best to stay stoic, adding that he was like a son, he never did listen to anything he said.
ARCHIE: Maybe so, but I make a lot of sense.
Still, that central conflict between Archie and Mike (or Archie and just about anyone) powered most episodes and the series, in the most entertaining way possible, showing the audience the error of Archie's ways even if Archie himself remained oblivious. Imagine if the networks had the guts to air a series with an Archie Bunker
equivalent today (and they wouldn't) and he was an ignorant Birther, being easily debunked by his son-in-law? It's hard to imagine since the national discourse has become so coarsened that many elected officials make statements that come off making Bunker sound like a beacon of reason. In many respects, with the amount of misinformation on all sorts of subjects that enter the national bloodstream, America is almost malnourished for a program of that sort that entertains large audiences and manages to show them things they didn't know without making it painful. Then again, is it too late? Since what passes for television news has been destroyed and divided into camps, would anyone already leaning to one side of the political spectrum or the other give such a series a chance? If we lack anything, it's tolerance and understanding of other points of view, but in today's political climate, that's viewed as a weakness worthy of excommunication from the party of your preference.
Forget the issues. Forget the ground that was broken. Forget that you actually heard the flush of an upstairs toilet (which occurred for the first time in the 12th episode). What All in the Family did really well and did often was make us laugh with a plethora of classic episodes. One of my personal favorites, "The Bunkers Meets the Swingers," came in the third season. Edith, feeling lonely since Gloria has gone to work answers an ad for a couple seeking friendship, not realizing that the ad is for spouse swapping. The swinging couple, delightfully played by Vincent Gardenia and Rue McClanahan, come over expecting something quite different than Edith is and the miscommunication between all the various
characters (even Isabel Sanford's Louise Jefferson stumbles upon the situation) makes for one of the series most hilarious episodes. Gardenia must have been a true casting favorite as he played three different characters over the course of the series: The neighbor who moves and sells his home to the Jeffersons in the first season, telling Archie that he's tired of hating people; the wife swapper in this episode and later the recurring character of Frank Lorenzo, the proud Italian husband of Irene Lorenzo (the great Betty Garrett). The show would never have been able to make its points if it hadn't been as funny as it was — and this was smart, character-driven comedy, not just waiting for the punchline to a gag. The reason it was so successful at this was because its casting was so peerless from the starring quartet to all the other characters who ventured in and out of the Bunker living room throughout the years. The true genius though lay in the four actors Norman Lear and his collaborators tapped as the regulars to bring life to these iconic characters.
Sally Struthers hasn't had much to show in her post-All in the Family career beyond being lampooned for her weight gain on South Park and her commercials for starving African children, but when you catch a rerun you remember what a talent she was as Gloria Bunker Stivic. Her comic timing excelled as her character displayed equal parts Edith and Archie at times while she tried to stay true to her husband Mike's points-of-view (except when they turned out to be as pigheaded as her dad's). It's also wild to watch the various hairstyles that would top Gloria's head over the years, especially when she practically resembled an overgrown Shirley Temple in the Mike and Gloria flashback episode. It's telling that though three out of the four characters were tempted to stray during the course of the series that it was only Gloria who actually broke her wedding vows and cheated on Mike, prompting Archie to unbelievably say that Mike was too good for her when he learned of it.
Rob Reiner's career, unlike Struthers', has flourished since he left Meathead behind, though he's largely abandoned his life in front of the camera for one behind it. While it's been some time since he's directed a feature of really great worth, he began with a great run that included This Is Spinal Tap!, The Sure Thing,
Stand By Me and The Princess Bride. It's a bit of a shame he doesn't act more, because when he does venture on screen, such as in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, he hasn't lost that comedic knack that he no doubt inherited genetically from his brilliant father Carl. While he got to show all sides as Michael Stivic, he may have had the best gift for the double take of anyone in the talented ensemble. Though he was only 22 when he began playing Mike, he had to grow the mustache because he was thought to look too young to be believable otherwise. I don't know if that would have been true, because I think his talent would have saved the day. He never directed on All in the Family, but he did get the chance to write, including many of their best episodes starting with the first season's "Mike's Hippie Friends Come to Visit" and both flashback episodes to Mike and Gloria's wedding and Mike and Archie's first meeting. His writing extended beyond his own show. He also penned a script for Happy Days and before All in the Family was even on the air he was a staff writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, so controversial television came naturally to him.Archie may have called Edith a dingbat, but Jean Stapleton didn't particularly play her that way, at least in the early episodes as the show was gaining its footing. At first, Edith seems more as if she's in a fog than she's particularly dim, even showing a slight bit of dull cynicism at times. It's over the course of that first season
and especially later that the Edith Bunker that America came to love really blossomed into full fruition, not only as someone who missed the point of things but more importantly as the Bunker household's source of essential sweetness and goodness. As the series went on, we also got to see more sides of Edith. Gloria may have accused her mother once of just being there for Archie to abuse (psychologically at least) and worse, but there was more steel in that spine than Edith usually showed, especially in "Edith's 50th Birthday" when she fended off a would-be rapist. Stapleton also had a career that extended beyond this series and dates back to lots of episodic television beginning in the 1950s. The same year All in the Family debuted, she had a brief but memorable role in the movie Klute. She often appeared in television movies, including playing Eleanor Roosevelt in 1982's Eleanor, First Lady of the World. She has occasionally popped up on the big screen in her later years in films such as Michael and You've Got Mail.Then there was Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker. There really are just a handful of television characters that can truly be called a monumentally successful integration of the actor and the role and O'Connor and Archie belongs near the top of the list, even though the politics of the real-life O'Connor couldn't have been more
divergent from that of the role that ensured his status as a television icon. Like Jean Stapleton, O'Connor's career really began as he kicked around episodic TV in the 1950s and the 1960s. He also did land some feature work in films such as Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way, Blake Edwards' What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, the dreadfully dull epic Hawaii, John Boorman's Point Blank and as part of the large cast of Kelly's Heroes starring Clint Eastwood, all of which were released before All in the Family hit the airwaves. Unlike the other members of the Bunker-Stivic quartet, O'Connor had another hit series after All in the Family in the television version of the movie In the Heat of the Night and it brought O'Connor another Emmy, this time in the drama category. The year before he died in 2001, he had a prominent supporting role in the film Return to Me starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver and directed and co-written by the wonderful Bonnie Hunt.Still, Archie Bunker always will be the role that lasts. In fact, you can almost draw a straight line between three of television's most indelible characters that all were similarly linked between actor and role. It began
with Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a blue collar ancestor to Archie without the prejudice. Kramden dreamed and schemed to try to make himself better much in the way Bunker always wanted to find a way for a quick buck. The crucial difference between the two was that Ralph still believed it could happen; Archie had been disillusioned to the point that he leaped when he could, even if it meant attempting outright fraud. That disillusionment fed his prejudices and resentments. He had to quit high school, he fought for his country and he once believed that he would be rewarded for those selfless acts only to learn a more harrowing truth. The character who in a warped way fulfilled Archie's dreams was James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos, though he did do it through outright fraud — and worse — but he got rich, supported his family (while being unfaithful to them) and, unfortunately, hung on to Bunker's bigotry. It would be interesting to see what Archie Bunker would make of Tony Soprano, him being a "wop" and all. It's also fascinating to look at the three partners of these men. Alice Kramden never took any crap from Ralph and Carmela Soprano would stand up to
Tony, though she enjoyed the fruits of his crimes. In between the two was the sweet one, Edith, who could be a doormat, but really was the spouse who kept her husband the most grounded. Archie may have wanted her to stifle herself, but he'd never threaten to send her to the moon and though he may have been tempted to stray once, he could never cheat on Edith even once, let alone constantly the way Tony did to Carmela. Archie and Edith Bunker were and are a pair for the ages. Norman Lear did television and America a great service with his 1970s comedies (and he still aids American history when he takes a copy of the actual U.S. Constitution on tour). All in the Family may have been based on a British show, but Lear made it distinctly his own and America's own. He created a comedy that not only fulfilled the requirement for being uproariously funny, but was downright challenging. It also served a function that seems to be lost a little more with each passing day: the art of conversation. There still are so-called water cooler shows, but few exist on broadcast television where the lowest common denominator reigns supreme. All in the Family became such an American institution that it was rightly recognized as such. That's why Archie's fabled chair sits alongside Edith's and the table that rested between them in The Smithsonian Institution.
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Labels: 70s, Awards, Blake Edwards, C. Reiner, Eastwood, Gandolfini, House, Musicals, N. Lear, Preminger, R. Reiner, South Park, The Simpsons, The Sopranos, Theater, TV Tribute, Woody
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