Friday, March 16, 2012
Only Connect
By Josh R
Adapting a classic novel to the screen is a delicate proposition; with so many ways to go wrong, it’s always slightly unexpected when someone manages to get it entirely right. In many cases, filmmakers adopt an overly reverential stance to their source material; the approach is typified by lavish sets, swelling scores, and resplendently costumed actors speaking as though they’d learned all their lines in elocution class. The screenplays can be slavishly faithful to their source material, to the extent that the end product feels like a pop-up edition of Cliff's Notes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there will always be certain filmmakers (or auteurs, if you please) who feel compelled to make radical departures from the original, to the point that the resulting film bears only a passing resemblance to the book that inspired it. The mentality that inspires these modifications is somewhat peculiar, in that it smacks of both overconfidence in one’s own interpretive abilities, and lack of confidence in the book. It is very rare — too rare, if we’re going to be honest — that filmmakers trust and appreciate their source material enough to bring it to the screen without treating it like a sacred relic to be handled with kid gloves, or putting it through the ringer and revamping, augmenting and revising the content beyond the point of recognition (or at least beyond the point where the authors — if still living — could resist the urge to sue.) That’s the reason why Merchant Ivory’s superlative production of Howards End, based on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel, stands as one of the best and most satisfying examples of literary adaptation ever produced for the screen. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of its U.S. release this week, it exemplifies how rich an experience a great writing-directing team can create for an audience, merely by respecting the material and keeping things simple.
Howards End followed 1986’s A Room With a View and 1987’s Maurice as the third film adapted from a Forster novel by the veteran team of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Their affinity and affection for the material is unmistakable; one of the chief distinctions of Howards End is the ease with which the filmmakers capture the style and tone of Forster’s prose, without getting tangled up in the pursuit of trying to replicate it too faithfully. It should be said that the book — a beautifully written, thematically complex evocation of the rapidly changing social climate of late-Edwardian England — is not an ideal candidate for cinematic adaptation. While not exactly short on plot, much of the action takes the form of conversation, with Forster’s own observations about class, social politics and assorted esoterica (the magical properties of Beethoven’s compositions, for example) taking up a fair amount of space. Jhabvala’s elegant treatment expertly condenses the content of the novel without narrowing its scope; the screenplay manages to be economical without feeling cursory or abridged, or giving short shrift to any of the points the Forster hoped to convey in his illustration of the clashing temperaments, ideas and values of two very different families merging into one.
The repercussions of the unlikely, somewhat uncomfortable union of the Wilcoxes and Schlegels are mordantly humorous on one level, tragic on another. In a way, the novel anticipates what was to happen to Britain in the years immediately following its publication — while Forster couldn’t have augured what was on the horizon (the rumblings were felt in 1910, but the wolf had yet to arrive at the door), his considerations hearken to an impending war abroad that would change forever the rules at home. With the Victorian world poised on the brink of cataclysm, and its quaint, restrictive mandates about class, morality and gender roles being rendered increasingly obsolete, Howards End charts the fallout from a collision of the members of the old guard grounded in the traditions of the past with an intrepid new breed determined to topple the old world order. How far will people go in the vain attempt to hold on to what’s slipping from their grasp, Forster wonders, and how will they adapt in the face of inevitable change? Above all, how do the proponents of two wildly divergent philosophies and outlooks, meeting at the intersection of the death of an Empire and the dawn of a a new era characterized by turbulent social upheaval, not only coexist, but communicate, compromise and connect? The opening epigraph of Howards End is, in fact, “Only connect”; a simple directive in theory, if infinitely more complicated in practice.
The thorny considerations at the heart of the author’s scheme — in a work the critic and essayist Lionel Trilling, among others, considered to be Forster’s masterpiece — are neatly encapsulated in the dealings between a small circle of friends, relations and acquaintances representing three distinct social classes. At the center of the narrative are Margaret and Helen Schlegel (Emma Thompson and Helena
Bonham Carter), two sisters with progressive leanings living on a genteel middle-class income in London — the bohemian social circle of writers, intellectuals and rabble-rousers they frequent is loosely modeled on The Bloomsbury Group, of which Forster was a member. Vacationing abroad, the Schlegels meet and befriend another pair of English tourists, the wealthy business magnate Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Ruth (Vanessa Redgrave). When Helen accepts an invitation to join the Wilcoxes at Howards End, Mrs. Wilcox's pastoral childhood home in the English Countryside, she forms a hasty, impetuous attachment to their younger son, Paul (Joseph Bennett). When their short-lived flirtation concludes on an awkward, mutually embarrassing note, the two families are briefly estranged. Margaret reconnects with the frail Mrs. Wilcox in London, where their renewed acquaintance soon develops into a strong bond of friendship; Margaret is both intrigued and moved by Mrs. Wilcox’s deep connection to the traditions of the past and the natural world, represented by Howards End. Before her death, Ruth wills the house to Margaret — Mr. Wilcox and his two other adult children, Charles and Evie (James Wilby and Jemma Redgrave — daughter of Corin, niece to Vanessa), deliberately decide to withhold the existence of the will from Margaret’s attention, unwilling to cede ownership of what they consider to be theirs by familial right. 
Through a chance encounter, Margaret and Helen strike up an acquaintance with Leonard Bast (Samuel West), a shy young clerk from a modest, lower-class background. Adopting him as a de facto protege and seeking to improve his prospects, the sisters apply to Mr. Wilcox for advice. Mr. Wilcox gives them a faulty piece of insider information about Leonard’s place of employment — which he believes to be on the brink of ruin — that will eventually result in Leonard leaving his job, and unable to obtain employment elsewhere. Meanwhile, Mr. Wilcox finds himself becoming increasingly drawn to Margaret and, after some tentative attempts at courtship, surprises her with an offer of marriage. She accepts his proposal, to the confusion and consternation of Helen, who struggles to comprehend how her sister can forsake their shared ideals to assume the mantle of a traditional wife and helpmate to a conservative capitalist.
While the prospective in-laws adjust to the shifting dynamics of their changing relationships, Helen learns that the unemployed Leonard and his wife, Jacky (Nicola Duffet), have been reduced to a life of subsistence-level poverty. An enraged Helen shows up unexpectedly at Evie’s wedding with the Basts in tow, and angrily confronts Margaret with the consequences of Mr. Wilcox’s casually given, ultimately very costly advice. Seeking to pacify Helen and avoid further conflict, Margaret applies to Henry for help — while he feels no personal responsibility for the Basts’ circumstances, Mr. Wilcox agrees to provide Leonard with a position at his company. When Mr. Wilcox and Mrs. Bast meet face-to-face, Jacky recognizes him as her former lover. A humiliated Mr. Wilcox is forced to admit to Margaret that he not only betrayed the trust of his previous wife, but did so with a woman far below his station in life, whom he subsequently (and rather callously) discarded after tiring of the relationship. Against her own misgivings, Margaret decides to forgive Henry and keep the engagement intact; in a curt, peremptory note to Helen, she informs her that Mr. Wilcox can be of no assistance to the Basts, and orders her sister to abandon her sponsorship of the couple.
As the now-married Margaret and increasingly rootless Helen drift further apart, the latter has a brief affair with Leonard, resulting in a pregnancy. Upon learning of Helen’s condition — and the status of social outcast conferred upon her as an unwed mother — Margaret asks Mr. Wilcox to allow her sister to stay at Howards End. Henry refuses, believing that Helen’s compromised position would bring disgrace
upon the family. Margaret angrily confronts her husband with his hypocrisy, and repairs with Helen to Howards End in flagrant disregard for his instructions. When Leonard — whose identity as the father of Helen’s child has been ascertained by the Wilcoxes — arrives unexpectedly at Howards End in search of Helen, his appearance results in a violent confrontation with a tragic denouement. While no one emerges entirely unscathed, both the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes find there is room for reconciliation, forgiveness, renewal and — perhaps most critically of all — a fundamental shift in values, paired with hope for the future. While the two families, representing the traditional and the modern, will never view the world in exactly the same way, they have at least managed to achieve a measure of balance. Complete understanding can elude even the most devoted of friends, lovers and family members; if we can “only connect,” those who seek to bridge the gap can, at the very least, respect each other’s limitations and forgive each other’s frailties. Forster poses, but offers no definitive conclusion about, the question of who shall inherit England, and whose values and ideals shall give shape to the future; he only concludes that the future cannot improve upon the past in the absence of a true meeting of the minds. Whenever I watch Howards End — as I do periodically, when the depressingly reductive nature of most films based on books I love becomes too much for me to bear — I’m always struck by the naturalism of Ivory’s approach, atypical not only of literary adaptations, but period pieces in general. While the film certainly is beautiful to look at (Luciana Arrighi and Ian Whitaker’s production design received an Oscar, while Jenny Beaven and John Bright’s costumes and Tony Pierce-Roberts’ cinematography also were nominated), there’s nothing over-scaled, overwrought or just plain over-the-top about the visual component of the film. The world of the Howards End is drawn from recognizable reality, as opposed to a heightened fantasy version of Edwardian times (for a bit of comparison — start grinding your teeth now, Copeland — the design aspects of the following year’s The Age of Innocence were so damn amplified and prettified the thing might as well have been set in Disney World.) This blessedly unfettered approach extends to the way Ivory has managed the members of his cast. The film is refreshingly unencumbered by actors striking the romantic poses of Victorian thespians, or intoning their lines as if they were auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare Company; it seems hard for many contemporary directors to accept that, even a hundred years ago, people still spoke to each other in a conversational fashion. The characters of Howards End may find themselves in melodramatic situations, but their actions and behaviors never strike a false note, or smack of affectation. Likewise, the original score provided by Richard Robbins — augmented with a few selections by classical composer Percy Grainger — is richly evocative without being intrusive; the music underscores the action while resisting the urge to provide easy, obvious emotional cues.
It’s so easy — and really, a little exhausting — to enumerate and expound upon the plethora of acuminous decisions that went into the making of Howards End, and talk about how seamlessly its various elements fit together; but the creative team (with particular credit going to Merchant) most emphatically demonstrated their love and respect for the material in terms of their casting choices. When it comes to casting projects with ostensibly little in the way of commercial appeal, the standard practice involves enlisting the talents of bankable stars; had Howards End been made by a major Hollywood studio in the early '90s, Forster’s intrepid Schlegel sisters might well
have been entrusted to Julia Roberts and Demi Moore (if that was the film that had been made, methinks yours truly would not be writing this 20th anniversary Tribute.) Certainly, Merchant Ivory wasn’t enough of a financial powerhouse — even in the wake of several notable successes — to afford the type of big names that a Tinseltown outfit might have foisted upon the project. Still, the men who controlled the purse strings could have advocated for more in the way of name recognition (The Silence of the Lambs had yet to be released at the time of the film’s shooting) in drafting the film’s ensemble. Instead, they chose to pair rich, challenging roles with actors of commensurate talent who fit the descriptions provided by Forster. Watching the film, you can’t shake the implausible impression that the author must have been writing these characters with these specific players in mind; every member of the cast delivers an emotionally authentic performance that not only highlights Forster’s keen observations on human nature, but embodies the descriptions contained in his prose with an uncanny degree of exactitude. Fresh from his lip-smacking tutorial on scenery-chewing as Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins showed that he was able to shift gears with surprising dexterity. His Henry Wilcox is a masterful study in restraint, rigidity and misplaced confidence. While he is often unlikable, his unflappable certainty and sense of masculine entitlement have a certain magnetic quality; an audience can still understand why the heroine would be drawn to him almost in spite of herself. It’s to the actor’s credit that by the end of the film, the viewer actually can feel a certain degree of sympathy for this hidebound specimen of Victorian prerogatives who can’t adjust to the changing times, or comprehend how little control he has over his own destiny. Samuel West, with his gawky gait and naturally downcast features, does a very fine job of fleshing out the inchoate yearnings of Leonard Bast, grounding a character conceived on a very romantic level. It would be easy for a more conventional performer to come across as too poetic and tragic for words — fortunately, West brings enough quirky specificity to his performance that he doesn’t simply register as delicate and doomed. James Wilby — who played the title role in Maurice — provides a nice vignette of unctuousness coupled with doltishness as the uncomprehending elder son, whose very lack of imagination renders him capable of destruction. 
As fine as the male cast members are, Howards End really belongs to the women — and they are a wonder to behold. As the least-known member of the principal cast, Emma Thompson received fourth billing as Margaret Schlegel; for graciously ceding that status to Hopkins, Redgrave and Bonham Carter, she received the best actress Oscar, along with about every other prize the international awards-giving community had to offer. To many, her rapid ascent from virtual unknown to unstoppable trophy magnet registered as a bolt from the blue; while she had been impressive on previous occasions, most notably opposite her then-husband, Kenneth Branagh, in the BBC miniseries Fortunes of War, it was by virtue of her revelatory performance in Howards End that her film career was launched in earnest. Really, it’s very fortunate that 1992 was such a weak year for leading ladies, a fact Thompson tacitly commented on during her acceptance speech in wishing aloud for “the creation of more great female roles.” Performances this subtle don’t usually win Academy Awards; even before the voting began, the British novice already had a big advantage over her more established competition by virtue of being in the only film on voters’ radar screens (most of the people I went to school with in 1993 hadn’t even heard of the other nominees’ films, let alone seen them - I remain unconvinced that Love Field and Lorenzo’s Oil played on any screens outside of New York and Los Angeles.) In retrospect, it’s no surprise that the actress' career blossomed as quickly as it did in the wake of that acknowledgement — as Margaret Schlegel, she exhibited some of the special brand of self-possession, equal parts intelligence and radiance, that Deborah Kerr trafficked in so well for more than 20 years as a Hollywood staple, tempered with a quickness and quirkiness unique to Emma Thompson.
There are so many moments in Thompson’s performance to treasure — the staircase proposal scene alone is essential viewing for acting students — and her choices are disarmingly original. With the flashes of wit and halting sensuality she brings to the part, it’s fair to say that her creation is actually an improvement on Forster’s (the Margaret of the novel is a bit on the earnest side), and she brings a sense of dramatic coherency to a character whose motives are sometimes difficult to fully accept at the author’s insistence. Margaret is a spirited, independent woman with a lively, intelligent mind and a practical sensibility; in forsaking her values, she is not merely a sheep being led meekly to the slaughter, but the willing architect of her own moral compromise. It’s the shades of loneliness and yearning Thompson brings to the role, as well as her expert communication of Margaret’s dawning awareness of herself as a desirable, attractive woman and growing fascination with Wilcox’s dynamic clarity of mind and purpose, that make the transitions seem logical.
As great as Thompson is — and really, her performance is both the soul of the film and the motor that drives it — Bonham Carter’s contribution in the role of Helen was and remains greatly undervalued. I particularly appreciate her interplay with Thompson; the actresses complement each other beautifully, and strike up a rhythm that truly suggests (as Forster asserts) that the sisters are two halves of the same whole. When they’re finishing each other’s sentences, or reacting to things in unison with near identical physical responses, it seems natural to accept that these two women have been a constant presence in each other's lives since childhood. When the rift between the sisters goes into effect, Bonham Carter displays a fire and urgency unlike anything in her previous work. Helen’s dramatic flashes of temper, the product of being uncertain of her place in the world once she’s lost her moorings (you still feel the tug of symbiotic sibling relationships once you become a solo act), never seem overstated; the sense of hurt and confusion that fuel her character’s behavior are made explicit, without being hammered home too emphatically.
Finally, there is Vanessa Redgrave, who was initially noncommittal when offered the role of Ruth Wilcox. She relented when Merchant told her she could basically name her own price — a gutsy move for the producer of a film being made on a limited budget. Whatever figure the two resolved upon, her services were worth every pound of Merchant’s money; no other actress could have played the part with the same degree of luminousness and lyricism. There’s always been a vague, dreamy quality about Vanessa Redgrave, coupled with an air of inscrutability — a friend of mine once speculated it might be the product of her having dropped too much acid in the '60s (I don’t believe this for a second — but if drug use will help any of today’s young actresses approximate the qualities of Vanessa Redgrave, I say Get Thee to a Dealer.) The character of Ruth is more of a literary conceit than a flesh-and-blood woman; she’s a symbolic Earth Mother figure tied to the land, the properties of nature, and pre-Christian mysticism; ancestral voices are supposed to reverberate in her presence. With her lovely, elegiac performance, Vanessa Redgrave actually makes sense of Ruth as a person. The shades of wistfulness and melancholy she brings to the part lend Ruth’s predicament — that of an ethereal, isolated onlooker bewildered by the modern world, unknowable even to those who love her most — an almost unbearable element of poignancy. It’s a towering performance, delivered on a human scale.
After all this, it is with a certain degree of reluctance that I’ll admit that Howards End is not bound to be everyone’s cup of veddy British tea. For those who prefer films with less resonance — where everything is pitched faster, louder and without much in the way of subtlety — there are surely no lack of entertainments to provide satisfaction (and numbness). Speaking only for myself, I find it heartening to revisit Howards End — a prime example of how good filmmaking can be when a great director, screenwriter, producer and cast embrace and honor the novel they’re bringing from the page to the screen. Forster’s epigraph should serve as guidance for anyone attempting an exercise in literary adaptation: Only Connect.
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Labels: 90s, Books, Branagh, Deborah Kerr, Demi, Emma Thompson, Fiction, H.B. Carter, Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins, Julia Roberts, Merchant Ivory, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Vanessa Redgrave
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Friday, December 24, 2010
The "O" Word
By Josh R
I have one rule when it comes to reviewing films: I try not to use the “O” word. With one notable exception, I’ve stuck to my guns even when writing about films that I knew had some serious “O” love coming to them — whether my verdict was hot (Happy-Go-Lucky), cold (Rachel Getting Married), medium (Doubt) or a sub-arctic blast of untrammeled bile the likes of which could plunge North America into its next Ice Age (oh, Babel, the frosty times we’ve had.)
My reasons for this are threefold. Like Mr. Copeland, who uses the dreaded word more than I do but has always managed to keep it in its proper place, I’m not sure exactly what awards handicapping has to do with legitimate film criticism. You want odds, go to Vegas; a review should read like a review, not a scouting report. In the second place, reliance on The “O” word is an excuse for laziness; it’s easy to take the convenient shortcut of “So-and-so gives an Oscar-worthy performance!” rather than actually discussing what made a performance great — the latter requires not only effort and imagination, but a decent working vocabulary. For the record, none of the excellent contributors to this blog — fine writers and analysts — have ever been guilty of the sins described above. As for some of the critics whose opinions most often wind up as single-sentence blurbs in print ads, well…using the “O” word will definitely get your name in the paper.
Finally, to frame any discussion of a film’s merits within the context of “O” implies that The Academy Awards are the ultimate barometer of quality in the motion picture industry. Which is just silly. For the record, I actually like The Oscars — albeit on the same level that I enjoy Dancing with the Stars and Olympic figure skating — but to view them as the yardstick by which we should measure artistic success in the cinematic medium is kind of like viewing Wikipedia as the ultimate authority on global history and culture. Lily Tomlin once described The Oscars as “classic American kitsch,” and that’s an apt assessment — equal parts glitzy industry trade show and highly entertaining spectator sport, the proceedings are informed as much by politics, popularity and pettiness as the vagaries of subjective taste. They’re impossible to take seriously. For all those who maintain that The Oscars are everything that they purport to be, I’ll offer up this in response: You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
As it happens, I have nothing against pigs — they make for some good eatin’ — and I’m not so scandalized by the fundamentally absurd nature of The Academy Awards that I can’t follow them obsessively once the politicking and pageantry kick into hyperdrive. Nor do I take my highfalutin ideals about film criticism quite so seriously that I can’t forsake them every now and again. When I bandied the “O” word like a verbal volleyball in my vivisection of La Vie en Rose, it was because I specifically wanted to address the manner in which certain folk were bashing one Oscar hopeful’s performance as a means of promoting the candidacy of another. I’m going to station the coveted statuette front-and-center once again in my discussion of The King’s Speech, because I’m really not sure how else to talk about it. As it happens, this stately biopic chronicling King George VI’s ascension to The Throne of England — a climb made rocky by virtue of the speech impediment he had to conquer en route — is a well-made, enjoyable film. It is also a film that feels as though it were conceived and executed for one purpose and one purpose alone — namely, to be nominated for (and win) Academy Awards. Some films are made for love, others still for money; it’s clear that some love went into The King’s Speech, but it’s not some little shoestring indie that was made without expectation or ulterior motive. Even when it achieves something greater than its aims — which, thanks to the resourcefulness of Colin Firth, it very often does — every frame seems to be flashing the words For Your Consideration.
The plot plays almost like an inversion of Shaw’s Pygmalion; when it was being pitched to studio execs, it was probably described (in Oscarspeak) as My Fair Lady turned inside out. Instead of the common flower girl being drilled in elocution so she can pass for royalty, in The King’s Speech, a Royal is taught to speak in such a way that he becomes more acceptable, as both a leader and figurehead, to the common man. In the tense, uncertain days leading up to WWII, Firth’s Duke of York (Bertie to his intimates) is second in line to the throne and a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time player in the theater of public relations. Lacking the polish and glamour of his brother Edward (Guy Pearce), he is hampered by a nasty stammer that rears its head at inopportune moments, making him a bit of a national laughingstock. Ironically, the dapper, microphone-ready Prince of Wales can barely hold a candle to his stammering sibling in the character department. As proof that image often trumps truth, it the conscientious, level-headed son — possessed of all the qualities necessary to shepherd his subjects through a period of war and strife — who is treated as an object of ridicule, while the feckless, wishy-washy Prince of Wales is a figure of adulation.
Egged on by his supportive wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), Prince Albert seeks out the services of the Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), whose methods prove as unconventional as his manner — he treats his new charge as he would any other patient, starting with his blunt refusal to address him as “Your Highness.” It’s an uneasy relationship that eventually develops into a bond of genuine trust and friendship — soon to become of vital importance to the nation when the heir apparent abdicates the throne in order to marry an American divorcee. In order for Prince Albert to assume the mantle of King George V, his must literally find his own voice — one unmarred by defect.
Defect is something which is not much in evidence in the film itself, and that’s very much by design. With golden goodies on the brain, director Tom Hooper and screenwriter David Seidler play things safe, safe, safe. To be fair, The King’s Speech is not the only film in the marketplace blatantly trolling for Oscar gold — that’s a characteristic shared, to varying degrees, by most of the films released in the waning months of the calendar year. If the syndrome feels more pronounced in this context, that’s a reflection of how few risks Hooper and Seidler have taken, stylistically or otherwise, and the extent to which their product adheres to the rules set forth by the Oscar playbook. It ticks off every box on the list (British accents, check…based on a true story, check… costume & art direction that are pure period porn, check…), and has been cast to the gills with the sort of performers whose very participation bespeaks Class with a capital C; blink-and-you-miss-them bit players include Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Ehle, Timothy Spall, Eve Best, Anthony Andrews and Claire Bloom. There is nothing unexpected or even particularly creative about the way the material’s been shaped; as lush as the design aspects of the film are, it’s fitting that the dominant color is brown. The filmmakers know exactly who their audience is, and The King’s Speech works on the level it’s supposed to — it has no personality, but it covers its bases.
A film that exists purely on the level of Oscarbait is not such a bad thing when it furnishes an opportunity for great actors to strut their stuff, and if The King’s Speech lacks something in terms of inspiration, that’s not a trait shared by the performances. After his deliciously over-the-top vamping in Broadway’s Exit the King, Rush adroitly shifts gears with his subtle, finely calibrated turn as the quietly charismatic speech therapist. Logue is someone who can stand toe-to-toe with both King and Court, but without raising his voice or going in for grandstanding; given the actor’s occasional penchant for scenery-chewing, it’s nice to see him pull in the reins and portray a character on a smaller, more human scale. The film also provides a refreshing change of pace for Bonham Carter, who’s spent most of the past decade studiously avoiding the type of period, literary-seeming roles on which her early reputation was based. It can’t be much fun for an actress to go through her career feeling like a Victorian dress-up doll; that said, her more recent efforts (primarily for her husband, Tim Burton, an unparalleled visual stylist who has never really seemed to grasp what constitutes good acting) have favored a style based in feverishly antic caricature, emphasizing the grotesque and with less-than-scintillating results. Commercial success aside, it’s not a style which showcases her talents to best advantage — and has produced more than its fair share of squirm-inducing moments, of the ilk that have sent other actresses on the prowl for good divorce lawyers (if there’s any better grounds for trial separation than Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight, it’s Alice in Wonderland and Sweeney Todd.) Here, Bonham Carter is back in Merchant Ivory mode, and delivers a fine, understated performance — one which actually allows her to display some backbone beneath the period fashions she models.
As fine as the entire cast is, The King’s Speech belongs — as well it should — to The King himself, and Colin Firth once again demonstrates that he is among the best, most indispensable actors working in films today. The thing that distinguishes Firth as a performer — as evidenced by his stellar work in projects as diverse as the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones’ Diary and A Single Man — is the remarkable degree of emotional transparency he brings to characters who make it their business to keep their emotions in check. He doesn’t need to resort to showy effects to reveal what a character is thinking and feeling; he communicates it through the slightest of inflections and gestures, so that even while his countenance remains stoic, the inner life of the character is brought into full and glorious focus. I’m not a fan of strenuous acting; when I watch the tightly clenched whirrings and grindings of Daniel Day-Lewis, I often have the sensation of being able to feel the tension in his face and body, to say nothing of his vocal chords — apart from My Left Foot, it’s an approach that has always felt distinctly unnatural (there’s a school of thought that asserts that if it looks painful to do, it must be brilliant.) Firth lives on the opposite end of the spectrum — he achieves his effects so simply that you’re never conscious of any element of artifice; because you don’t catch him acting, everything he does seems to be rooted in truth. It’s why his work as the grieving professor in A Single Man had such devastating emotional impact; if The King’s Speech, staidly packaged little Oscar vehicle that it is, doesn’t quite allow him to go to those places, the actor still manages to give the impression of having created a characterization which feels completely fresh, unhindered in any way by the limitations of the material. Without him, The King’s Speech would be a nice, pleasant little film which would linger in memory about as long as your average morning cup of coffee. Because of what Firth brings to it, it exceeds its own ambitions.
Given the nature of this piece — and how many of my own rules I’ve broken in the process of writing it — it wouldn’t be fitting to let Mr. Firth off the hook without one mention of the “O” word. For anyone out there looking for a quick, blurb-able soundbite of the type I’ve grown to loathe, just this once I am willing to oblige. Colin Firth delivers an Oscar-worthy performance.
God, I feel dirty now.
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Labels: 10s, Colin Firth, Day-Lewis, Gambon, H.B. Carter, Merchant Ivory, Oscars, Pearce, Theater, Tim Burton
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Sunday, October 10, 2010
From the Vault: Mighty Aphrodite
This movie year has become one of extreme disappointment as one good filmmaker after another produces a misfire. So far, we've seen the stumbles of the Hughes brothers and Kevin Smith, among others, and the biggest fall of the fall (Martin Scorsese's Casino) isn't even out yet. This week, it's Woody Allen who trips up with Mighty Aphrodite, leaving movie fans with a few laughs, some OK performances and a lot of regret-filled sighs.
Allen stars as Lenny Weinrib, a New York sportswriter wed to Amanda, a younger art dealer (Helena Bonham Carter) who suddenly decides she wants a child. At first, Lenny expresses reluctance but Amanda adopts a son anyway and Lenny becomes entranced by the power of parenthood.
In fact, the magic of the bright boy and the zip that has vanished from his marriage prompts Lenny to seek out the boy's natural mother.
Mira Sorvino plays the birth mother who, much to Lenny's chagrin, turns out to be a prostitute/porn actress who's several cards short of a full deck. Sorvino's amusing take on the typical role of the "dumb blonde" gives Mighty Aphrodite much of its energy as she's simultaneously naive and streetwise, vulgar and innocent.
Allen's script does produce many of the hearty laughs you expect from Allen, but the story itself fall flat and the comic gimmick of a Greek chorus seems just that — a gimmick.
Aside from Sorvino, the other performers, except for a brief bit by Michael Rapaport as an equally dumb suitor that Lenny tries to fix Sorvino up with, get little to do.
Mighty Aphrodite, coming after the inspired Manhattan Murder Mystery and Bullets Over Broadway, definitely lands in the category of lesser Woody efforts.
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Labels: 90s, H.B. Carter, Hughes Brothers, Kevin Smith, Scorsese, Woody
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Tuesday, June 08, 2010
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
By Edward Copeland
Honest — I hadn't planned to bash more on Avatar, especially this soon after I wrote my review lambasting Cameron's Folly last week, but I really see little way to avoid bringing it up as I discuss Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Godard famously said that the best way to criticize a film was to make another one and since that option is not available to me, I often find that it's illustrative to compare what one film does well to show how another film fails and that is the case here, even though I can't truly say that Alice in Wonderland itself is a good movie, but it did excel for me at most of the things for which I feel Avatar earned undeserved praise.
Don't get me wrong: Overall, I don't think Burton's film is a particularly good movie, but it held my interest because somehow he found the formula to make his style-over-substance approach mesmerizing in a way that I found Avatar just tedious. Though, as in the case with all 3-D features, I'm unable to see them that way, Alice in Wonderland is the first case where I could visualize what that would have been like even though I didn't have glasses, special equipment and I wasn't in a movie theater.
Part of the reason for this I believe is the vibrancy of Burton's imagery, where he uses a vast array of colors and imaginative characters and sets to bring his fantasy world to vivid life. It seems to leap off my television in a way that the monotonous color schemes of Pandora and the military headquarters did not in Avatar.
Still, despite my praise for that part of Alice in Wonderland, I can't say the film itself really works. The premise of this finds a much older Alice (Mia Wasikowska) escaping a boring matchmaking garden party in London and once again falling down the rabbit hole where she finds herself in Underland with no memory of her previous visit as a little girl. All the same characters are there: The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), etc., but she doesn't seem to recall any of them.
The plot seems to be a bit of a muddle, a mixture of the original tale with an expansion of new strands, as Alice must don armor to face off against the Jabberwocky to restore the crown from the evil Red Queen to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). In fact, the battle may be better staged than any of the by-rote scenes in Avatar only with the added plus of wonderful color schemes beyond the eventually dull blue, green and camouflage. It's also helped by having characters such as the Hatter, the Queens and the others (some voiced by greats such as Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry) usually assorted with the story, even though Lewis Carroll takes the credit. There's a reason those characters have stood the test of time since the 19th century. I doubt people will even know who Jake Sully is next year, let alone decades from now (I had to consult IMDb just to remember the Avatar character's name).
While I can't say I'd want to sit through Alice in Wonderland again, I can't deny it held my interest thanks to its phenomenal look. It gave me wondrous things to gaze upon and a sense of a truly vital imagination at work behind the camera, even if my mind began to wander elsewhere.
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Labels: 10s, Anne Hathaway, Cameron, Depp, Godard, H.B. Carter, Rickman, Tim Burton
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Saturday, May 08, 2010
From the Vault: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Lots of lightning come with the territory when telling the story of "Frankenstein," but in the latest movie version, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it's the quieter moments that retain the most power.
This new Frankenstein film stars Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) as Victor Frankenstein, an aspiring medical student with an unhealthy interest in beating death by harnessing electricity to restore life. Unfortunately, the talented Branagh delivers a rather lackluster performance, failing to make the character's obsessive nature convincing.
In any Frankenstein tale, you need a monster and this time he stomps onto the screen in the form of Robert De Niro, who displays his increasing tendency to go over the top. De Niro makes up for it when he's given some quieter moments and nice speeches late in the film (though the monster learns to read even faster than De Niro did in Stanley and Iris).
The best moments of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein fall to the supporting players who get more subdued moments like Ian Holm, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hulce and, especially, a nearly unrecognizable John Cleese as Victor's medical mentor. Alas, pretty much everything else about the film disappoints with Branagh directing some scenes as if he were Mack Sennett editing a Keystone Kops comedy.
As Branagh displayed in Dead Again, he often tries to distract the viewer with flashy technique instead of solid storytelling. Perhaps the weakest of the film's weaknesses is Patrick Doyle's oppressive musical score which tends to compete for our attention against every word and sound.
Francis Ford Coppola produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein two years after he brought us Bram Stoker's Dracula. While that film contained many faults, it looks like a masterpiece when compared to the boring botch this new film turns out to be.
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Labels: 90s, Branagh, Cleese, Coppola, De Niro, H.B. Carter, Ian Holm, Remakes
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Friday, August 28, 2009
From the Vault: Howards End
For three decades, the team of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala have collaborated on quality motion pictures. In 1992, they've produced their finest effort so far with Howards End.
Following adaptations of E.M. Forster novels "A Room With a View" and "Maurice," the Merchant-Ivory team finds their greatest source material in another of Forster's works.
From outward appearances, this production may look like something that belongs on PBS' "Masterpiece Theater," but the passions bubble beneath the surface of this drama of love, class and real estate, involving the viewer in a way few films do.
Emma Thompson proves effervescent in her role as Margaret Schlegel, the kind bridge between the aristocratic Wilcox family, her own clan and an unhappily married clerk named Leonard Best.
Helena Bonham-Carter portrays Margaret's sister Helen, the feisty center of all the conflicts that occur between the families, especially the initial romantic misunderstanding with one of the Wilcoxes' sons.
Margaret, concerned that the Wilcoxes think badly of her family, reaches out to the Wilcox matriarch Ruth (radiantly played by Vanessa Redgrave). Margaret's earthy goodness touches Ruth so deeply that she bequeaths the Wilcoxes' treasured homestead, Howards End, to Margaret.
The inheritance doesn't sit well with the Wilcox patriarch, the stiff Henry (Anthony Hopkins giving a superb performance that, in its own way, proves more frightening that Hannibal Lecter).
Determined not to lose the estate, Henry sets out to woo Margaret. The plot developments seem perfectly tuned as they subtly touch upon all the themes, especially the problems of conscience and class. The entire cast excels and the production values are exceedingly high. Don't miss the opportunity to see Howards End in a theater.
Labels: 90s, Emma Thompson, H.B. Carter, Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins, Merchant Ivory, Vanessa Redgrave
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Monday, December 24, 2007
Those above will get served down below
By Edward Copeland
It was with the greatest of trepidation that I faced the prospect of Tim Burton filming Stephen Sondheim's greatest musical, especially with the casting of actors who admitted their lack of vocal skills. It's with some relief that I can report that the film of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is neither as bad as I feared nor as good as it could have been.
Burton's direction moves the action along nicely and the sets and atmospherics are beyond reproach, making the musical even more intimate for film and resisting the urge to "open" it up for the movies. The musical cuts didn't bother me that much: I fully understand why the great "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" wouldn't quite transfer to a film version.
However, the most pleasant surprise for me is Johnny Depp. Is he the strongest of singers? Hardly. Still, he manages to pull Sweeney off, even if his look appears to be a cross between Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. His somewhat soft voice belies the intensity he delivers in the nonmusical parts, but Depp pulls the part off and deserves to be commended.
The same cannot be said for his Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Supposedly, Sondheim had final casting approval so he's got some explaining to do in regards to how he let this disastrous casting of the director's girlfriend go through. I hope Sondheim got a check big enough to make him forget his betrayal of his own material.
When Mrs. Lovett sings of herself as a woman of "limited wind," she ain't kidding when Bonham Carter is inhabiting her role. I found myself in the surprising position of wishing they'd cut more of the music, because when Bonham Carter sings Lovett's wistful fantasy "By the Sea," it brings the film to a dead halt, saved only by the fact that Depp keeps Sweeney's intensity in silence throughout Lovett's colorful dream sequence. If only Depp had a partner who could really deliver.
Unfortunately, a lot of the laughs of the great "A Little Priest" get lost in Bonham Carter's delivery. Burton in general has chosen to emphasize the bleak and the bloody over the dark humored throughout the adaptation, but this Sweeney Todd still could have worked and, in fact, mostly does.
It's just Helena Bonham Carter who sticks out like a sore thumb. The other casting choices are quite good. Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall as Judge Turpin and his faithful Beadle Bamford are more sinister than in any stage version I've seen. Bamford usually comes off as more oaf than bad guy on stage, but he's a true villain here.
Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisner as the thwarted lovers Anthony and Johanna perform quite well and don't interfere much with the action. The real find and the best decision made for the movie is by casting the role of Toby with a boy (Edward Sanders) instead of as a slow-witted young adult, so it makes his eventual actions all the more horrifying.
Even better, this kid who I've never seen before saves "Nothing's Gonna Harm You," his duet with Lovett, and shows once again what a poor choice Bonham Carter is.
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Labels: 00s, Depp, H.B. Carter, Musicals, Rickman, Sondheim, Tim Burton
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
He served a dark and a vengeful god.
What happened then — well, that's the play,
And he wouldn't want us to give it away,
Not Sweeney,
Not Sweeney Todd,
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
By Edward Copeland
I love Stephen Sondheim and Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical of his. I admit that I have great trepidation about what Tim Burton will do to it in his upcoming film version, that's why I chose this date to pay tribute to the 25th anniversary of the first U.S. airing of the television version of the original Broadway hit. I beg all of you who haven't seen this version to seek it out before Burton's version hits the big screen.
The Los Angeles production of the original Broadway tour was filmed for a defunct entity known as The Entertainment Channel, but I saw it when it aired on Showtime. There were cast differences from the Broadway production: George Hearn replaced Len Cariou in the title role, Cris Groenedaal took over the role of Anthony from Victor Garber (known to you kids as Sydney's father on TV's Alias) and Betsy Joslyn played Johanna instead of Sarah Rice. However, most of the other roles were played again by the Broadway cast, most importantly Angela Lansbury re-creating her triumphant Tony-winning turn as Mrs. Lovett, seen to the right with Ken Jennings, the show's original Tobias. If you are only familiar with Lansbury as crime-solving mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on TV's Murder, She Wrote or as the malevolent manipulator Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate, you owe it to yourself to watch Sweeney Todd. Lansbury sings, Lansbury dances and Lansbury wows. Her Mrs. Lovett is a hard act for anyone to follow.
Like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world
Inhabit it
And its morals aren't worth
What a pig can spit
And it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the hole
Sit the privileged few,
Making mock of the vermin
In the lower zoo,
Turning beauty into filth and greed.
For the uninitiated, Sweeney Todd is set in 1846 London where an escapee from Australian captivity has made his way back to London after 15 years with revenge on his mind. The television rendering of Harold
Prince's original Broadway staging was directed by Terry Hughes and begins with the same opening screech those familiar with the original cast recording will know well. Todd, whose real name is Benjamin Barker, was imprisoned by an evil and corrupt judge who had designs on Barker's wife. Now that he's escaped, Barker aka Sweeney Todd is determined to learn what has become of his wife and then-infant daughter as well as Judge Turpin. Helped by the young sailor Anthony, Todd finds his way to his old stomping grounds on Fleet Street, where his former barber shop remains vacant above Mrs. Lovett's meat pie store where she makes what Lovett herself calls "the worst pies in London." Lovett figures out who Todd is and lets him know what's transpired during his exile: his beloved wife poisoned herself following an attempted gang rape by Turpin and his friends and the judge now raises Barker's daughter Johanna as his own. Todd is understandably livid at the news, but is eager to figure out a way to start making money. Lovett brings him a surprise: She saved his barber utensils and Todd lovingly embraces his former tools, proclaiming that "his arm is complete again."Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett,
Tell you why:
Because in all of the whole human race Mrs Lovett,
There are two kinds of men and only two.
There's the one staying put
In his proper place
And the one with his foot
In the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett,
Look at you.
No, we all deserve to die,
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett,
Tell you why.
Because the lives of the wicked should be
Made briefFor the rest of us, death
Will be a relief —
We all deserve to die!
What's so remarkable about Sweeney Todd, aside from Sondheim's miraculous score, is its ability to shift between so many tones, often within the same sequence. In one particularly brilliant musical setpiece, a
mournful medley of murder and romantic longing even has time for some dark-humored laughs within it. The book by Hugh Wheeler perfectly joins Sondheim's score to cross from musical comedy into musical tragedy to dark farce and back again. It even tosses in plenty of suspense and commentary about class struggles for good measure. Even the simple act of Sweeney wetting his shaving brush in a cup of water can prove ominous. Of course, most discussions of the show and the forthcoming film version reveal the dark twist at the heart of the show. I thought about trying not to discuss it in this piece, but since it will undoubtedly become known to those who don't already know, spoilers be damned. As Sweeney's revenge plot begins to pile up a side effect of corpses, Mrs. Lovett hits upon a bright idea to dispose of the bodies and to shore up her flailing meat pie business: Yes, Sweeney Todd is a musical that involves unwitting cannibalism and the number that introduces this dark-comic turn, "A Little Priest," is the Act I closer that will leave you laughing through much of the intermission if you see the show staged or on DVD.
Falling in love with the show as I did when I first saw the television production, I eventually got the original cast recording and was able to see the cuts made for the TV version. Nothing too bad, but the contest between Sweeney and the snake-oil salesman Pirelli is cut to one contest for TV instead of the three in the stage version. Pirelli is being played in Tim Burton's film by Sacha Baron Cohen of Borat fame. Though they knocked down the stories that Cohen couldn't sing the role and was allowed it to do it "rap style," it's another example of why I don't have much confidence in the upcoming film. I also noticed other minor cuts in the television version, such as one of the songs the evil Judge
Turpin gets. Still, the TV version is spectacular and is as close to seeing the original Broadway show as I'll ever get. George Hearn is great and though I've only heard Len Cariou's Tony-winning performance as Sweeney, I imagine he was just as good or better. My love of the musical runs so deep that it really concerns me what will happen in Burton's hands. Even though Johnny Depp is probably old enough to play Sweeney, he still looks younger than he is. Helena Bonham Carter just seems all wrong for Mrs. Lovett. Even more disconcerting is their acknowledgment that neither of them had much singing experience before beginning to make the film. That makes me nervous, since Sweeney Todd is one of Sondheim's most difficult scores and nearly the entire show is sung. It's probably the closest a Broadway musical has come to being an opera and I worry about how they will pull it off.Josh R has been fortunate enough to see both Broadway revivals of the show, so he can expound on how the Bob Gunton-Beth Fowler and Michael Cerveris-Patti LuPone versions stacked up. Of course, my concerns may be a bit paranoid. I've seen two productions of Sweeney Todd myself, one put on by college students and one by a professional community theater and while the casts of neither approached the image of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett that I have in my head, both versions did the show well. Perhaps the material is strong enough that it's hard to sink it. Heck, Sweeney Todd even provided one of the best parts in Kevin Smith's otherwise limp Jersey Girl, when Ben Affleck and his young daughter perform a number from the show for an elementary school talent show, complete with blood and rightfully shocking the audience of children, parents and teachers. Maybe alcohol should be involved before I see Burton's film since, as Sweeney and Lovett advise in "A Little Priest," Everybody goes down well with beer. I'll reserve judgment, but I still recommend that everyone try to see the George Hearn-Angela Lansbury version, if for no other reason that if you are unfamiliar with the show, it will get you prepared for what's coming.
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Labels: B. Affleck, Depp, H. Prince, H.B. Carter, Kevin Smith, Lansbury, M. Cerveris, Musicals, Sondheim, Television, Theater Tribute, Tim Burton
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Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Does this look inanimate to you?
On the 19th day in the month of December in a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a very entertaining treat to its very existence. This hysterically funny joy came, as such joys often do, in the local movie theater…
By Edward Copeland
Twenty years ago today, one of the most enjoyable films of my moviegoing life was released and while movie musicals have seen somewhat of a resurgence of late, for me, none hold a candle to Frank Oz's great film version of Little Shop of Horrors.
Chicago was fun. Moulin Rouge was designed for viewers with the attention spans of gnats. The Phantom of the Opera was a bore. I could never bring myself to see Rent, because I loved the stage version too much and could see that Chris Columbus was going to blow its transfer to the screen. Dreamgirls had good performances but turned out to be an overlong botch and Nine — that sounded like a terrible idea for turning from a musical to a movie when I first heard about it and then the film managed to be even worse than my low expectations. The two best attempts at stage adaptations were undermined by bad casting — Helena Bonham Carter in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd and John Travolta's horrid drag performance in the film version of the musical Hairspray. Really, of the three best recent attempts at movie musicals one was animated — 1999's South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut — and the other two barely got seen — 2001's Hedwig and the Angry Inch and 2003's Camp.
However, re-watching Little Shop of Horrors , the movie still holds up as one of the best movie musicals to come out in the post-death-of-movie-musicals era. To think that a Roger Corman 1960 quickie filmed in a little more than two days could decades later inspire such a winning musical still astounds me. Granted, my exposure to Little Shop of Horrors came during my formative years in high school, I was pleased to see how much I still enjoyed the film when I sat down to watch it again for the first time in years, though it did produce a bit of sadness in me that Howard Ashman isn't here anymore to keep producing work such as this. His great book and lyrics teamed with Alan Menken's music are infectious and launched the team's work on the resurgence of Disney animation with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast before Ashman's death from AIDS during the production of Aladdin, when Tim Rice was brought in and future Disney animated scores lost all of Ashman's wit and subversive qualities and became Disneyfied, saccharine and hackneyed. Still, we should be grateful for the Ashman lyrics we did manage to hear, especially his infectious score for Little Shop of Horrors, often sung through the Greek chorus of Tichina Arnold, Michelle Weeks and Tisha Campbell.
One thing that really struck me upon re-visiting the movie is how great that set is to behold. It simultaneously seems like a stage show transferred to the big screen while opening up with its wonderfully artificial yet three-dimensional rendering of Skid Row thanks to the imaginative and magnificent production design by Roy Walker (who served the same role on Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining) aided by art director Stephen Spence and set decorator Tessa Davies. Putting some of the finishing touches on the film's canvas are the spot-on costumes designed by Marit Allen, John Jympson's editing and Robert Paynter's cinematography. Director Frank Oz (the Muppeteer best known as the voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy) never directed a movie better than this and Little Shop shows an astounding display of cinematic gifts on his part that he's unfortunately never come close to matching. Of course, what really makes this movie soar are the many great performances, led by Rick Moranis as Seymour Krelborn who discovers the mysterious plant with a hidden agenda.
Moranis' lovesick nebbish is a delight (and his singing isn't half bad either) as he longs for the delightfully daffy Audrey (Ellen Greene, repeating her stage triumph) and finds that his way to her heart could involve murder and world domination at the behest of a plant from outer space. Seymour even goes so far as to name the plant Audrey II after his unrequited love interest, who unfortunately is embroiled in an abusive relationship with one Orin Scrivello (Steve Martin in one of his greatest performances). Greene gets some of the show's best numbers such as "Somewhere That's Green," where she longs for a domestic life similar to those that look so perfect on TV, and "Suddenly Seymour," her duet with Moranis where they declare their feelings for one another once Scrivello is no longer in the picture, though of course a bigger villain stands in the way of their happiness. We still get to see Greene from time to time. IMDb list her most recent credit as a role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, but it's a shame that she wasn't able to turn this star turn into bigger and better things either in theater or the movies.
Martin's Scrivello manages to be funny and scary. His scenes turn out so superbly they almost threaten to take over the entire movie. His set pieces within Orin's dental office (Did I forget to mention that he's a dentist? Relax! Want some nitrous oxide? Suit yourself.) are priceless. His sadistic dentist could prove just a one-note joke (with one great song) if it weren't for the scenes here, most especially when he encounters the world's most masochistic patient in Bill Murray, playing the role that a young Jack Nicholson had in the original 1960 nonmusical version. It's not often that you can say that someone plays a part better than Jack did, but Murray pulls it off here. Then again, has anyone else ever tried to play a Nicholson part on film after he's put his stamp on it other than Murray? (Of course, since I originally wrote this piece five years ago, we had the late Heath Ledger take on The Joker and win a posthumous Oscar for it.) This brilliant comic duet — where the sadist finds a masochist offensive — remains laugh-out-loud funny to this very day.
However, of all the great cast members, none prove more important that one who only appears as a voice — the great Levi Stubbs of Four Tops fame (who, alas, left us since I originally wrote this) giving voice to Audrey II. From the moment Audrey II begins to speak in Stubbs'
great baritone, seducing Seymour with his plead to "Feed Me," to his climactic showstopper "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" (the coolest Oscar-nominated song until "Blame Canada" from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut usurped the title), Stubbs owns this movie. I'd also be neglectful not to mention the great work of the late Vincent Gardenia as the owner of the flower shop where Seymour and Audrey work and cameos by the likes of the late John Candy, Christopher Guest and Joe Flaherty. Of course, I know purists of the stage show will regret that test audiences made Oz and the studio relent and nix the more pessimistic ending where Audrey II wins and everyone ends up as plant food, but the movie entertains so thoroughly, I'm prepared to forgive it. So here's to those integral to the film who have left us in the past quarter-century since its release: Levi Stubbs, Howard Ashman, Vincent Gardenia, John Candy, producer Denis Holt, associate producer David Orton, composer Miles Goodman, director of photography Robert Paynter, film editor Jim Jympson, set decorator Tessa Davies, costume designer Marit Allen and any other members of the cast and crew who might have left us that I missed and to the ones still with us on the Tweet
Labels: 80s, Animation, Corman, Disney, H.B. Carter, Kubrick, Movie Tributes, Murray, Musicals, Nicholson, Remakes, South Park, Steve Martin, Tim Burton, Travolta
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