Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Bring on the lovers, liars and clowns!
By Edward Copeland
Without a doubt, one song stands heads and shoulders above all others written by Stephen Sondheim for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and "Comedy Tonight" holds that perch. Even people unaware of the movie or the stage show of Forum probably know that infectious number that opens and closes both versions. No more proof need be delivered to back this claim than the sheer number of performances, spoofs and use of the song as background music for clips and slideshows that I stumbled upon on the World Wide Web. Who knows how many more are out there? One used the song to back scenes from The West Wing, but the quality of the video was so poor, I wasn't going to use it until I stumbled upon a better version. Another person did three separate Bewitched montages, two of which employed identical moments only one used Zero Mostel's 1962 original cast recording version while the other took Nathan Lane's 1996 revival recording. I chose not to toss those in this collection because each montage only lasts 42 seconds, cutting off the song early. Never fear though, that still left me with plenty of options. Before I "open up the curtain," I thought I'd start with a clip of "Invocation and Instructions to the Audience" from The Frogs, a 1974 musical staged and "freely adapted" by Burt Shevelove (co-author of Forum) from the play by Aristophanes (written in 405 B.C.) and staged in the Yale University Swimming Pool with a cast of Ivy League students whose ranks included one Meryl Streep. Sondheim originally composed "Invocation" as the opening number for Forum when his first attempt ("Love Is in the Air") wasn't working during out-of-town tryouts. The show's legendary director George Abbott, according to Sondheim's Finishing the Hat, didn't find "Invocation" "hummable enough" — no doubt inspiring the producer's complaint in Merrily We Roll Along. Thankfully, that led to the blessing of "Comedy Tonight" and "Invocation" returned with the addition of the hysterical "Instructions to the Audience" when Sondheim and Shevelove collaborated on The Frogs. The clip below comes from the BBC Proms program given July 31, 2010, to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday. With the backing of The BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by David Charles Abell, Daniel Evans, a Tony nominee for best actor in the 2008 revival of Sunday in the Park with George, and Simon Russell Beale, a Tony nominee for best actor in the 2004 revival of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, perform the number.
As I mentioned, people love to use "Comedy Tonight" as a backdrop to scenes from their favorite television shows or, in one instance, a series' cast actually performed the song themselves. I thought I'd start with TV and go chronologically from the oldest to the newest. First, this variety show's ensemble performed the number in the show's third episode ever on Oct. 18, 1976. Honestly, it's pure coincidence that I led into this with the number from The Frogs.
Anyone recall the last time they saw a rerun of this hit 1980s detective series with romantic banter between the leads? No, not Moonlighting. I refer to Remington Steele, the series that made Pierce Brosnan a star during its run from 1982-1987. What did happen to Stephanie Zimbalist?
The English certainly aren't immune to the charms of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Five major productions of the musical have played London since 1963 (with its original Pseudolus, Frankie Howerd, reprising the role in a 1986 revival) and a company that toured throughout the United Kingdom. Some enterprising fan of the musical combined the song with the long-running British spy series MI-5 (originally titled Spooks) that ran 10 seasons beginning in 2002.
This West Wing fan not only sets scenes to a version of "Comedy Tonight" but tosses in some of "Love Is in the Air," the first opening song that Sondheim wrote for Forum as well.
Finally, since in some ways the farcical elements of Forum almost make it a cartoon, its final television salute should, most appropriately, pair it with an animated work, namely Avatar: The Last Airbender, which ran from 2005-2008.
The song brings out the fun in everyday folk as well as we see here where "Comedy Tonight" underscores a year-end slideshow presentation for players, coaches and fans of the Long Beach State track and field team.
What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas if you post it on YouTube as with this parody of "Comedy Tonight" performed by the master of ceremonies (officially named MC Vegas) for an annual Edwardian Ball.
Now, I haven't heard much of them lately but the concept of flash mobs shouldn't be an unfamiliar one to most reading this. Apparently, at University of Western Ontario, you might be able to get course credits for participating in them since they appear to do them so often. The campus' improv broke out once into Handel's "Messiah." They interrupted this lecture with — you guessed it — "Comedy Tonight" Impressively, they choreographed some moves as well as learning the words.
I'm not sure what's funnier: That this boy named Ben (I believe his last name is Lerner) would perform this spoof of "Comedy Tonight" at his bar mitzvah (interrupted by his younger sister Nina) or that the explanatory note by his father informs us that when dad posted it years ago, the video and audio had problems, so we're watching a corrected version that he has labeled Take 2. I didn't try to track down the promised one that Nina later sang at her bat mitzvah.
Also on YouTube sits, as you'd expect, the song playing against photos of various Republican presidential contenders. I almost included it, but that's really like shooting water in a barrel, isn't it? Why waste the space? They make the point so much more brilliantly when they open their mouths than when we just look at them, even if we do see Rick Santorum chowing down on a very phallic-looking food item. Instead, we'll skip to the movies. As with television, I'm going to do this chronologically, starting with the oldest and we're going way back to 1928 and one of the last gasps of silent German Expressionism, Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt as the creepy villain Gwynplaine, 14 years before Veidt became best known as Major Strasser in Casablanca.
For pure ambition, you have to give it to the students at The College of New Jersey Musical Theatre staged at the Ewing, N.J., campus a full-fledged musical based on the original Star Wars trilogy spoofing songs from a wide variety of musicals. The show opens with "Trilogy Tonight."
The title for the single best-edited video that I found involving a single subject probably deserves to go to the true identity of puddleglum128 for mating Zero Mostel's version to scenes from Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. I'd call it perfect if it didn't contain the strange audio splice in the middle, but the right moments of Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and the rest get used.
Christopher Nolan's second take on Batman, The Dark Knight, earns two takes of "Comedy Tonight!" The first, staged by The Pauper Players of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as part of the group's annual Broadway Melodies in 2009 where they parody different works. (The other two that year were Lost and Super Mario Bros.) The second video features photos from Nolan's film set to Nathan Lane singing the finale version of the song and also includes stills of Gerard Way.
For the last montage, which must have required a tremendous amount of time and effort by CRAIGSWORLD1427, he asked people about what movies throughout film history tickled their funny bones the most and then assembled various bits and pieces (including dialogue) with the song for this nearly 10-minute long package. It's worth it though. Chuck Workman, be damned.
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Labels: Animation, Books, Christopher Nolan, Demme, Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Lost, Music, Musicals, Sondheim, Star Wars, Stoppard, Streep, Television, Theater
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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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Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Late Night wouldn't have been the same without Chris Elliott
By Edward Copeland
The key to the success of Late Night with David Letterman wasn't just Letterman but the crack writing staff he assembled that shared his bent sense of humor. One of those writers in particular proved to be a breakout star of his own by the many characters he would play during appearances on the show. His name was Chris Elliott and he was a mere 31-years-old when Late Night debuted. As far as Late Night fans were concerned, Elliott quite literally was the guy — as in The Panicky Guy, The Conspiracy Guy, The Guy Under the Seats, The Laid-Back Guy, The Fugitive Guy and The Regulator Guy.
I desperately tried to pin down Elliott's first on-camera appearance on Late Night and I think it may have been on the 25th or 26th show that aired either March 15 or March 16, 1982, in the role of "Garbage" in a sketch about "Urban Paranoia," but I can't be positive. Elliott also would appear as himself, usually in the Viewer Mail segments, as the "staff scientist" answering questions such as the one in this example from YouTube.
Eventually, Elliott would have his own career on television and in the movies. On TV, he starred in the short-lived cult sitcom Get a Life on
Fox and later had a recurring role as a brother-in-law on Everybody Loves Raymond, provided the voice for the TV version of Dilbert and served as a cast member on Saturday Night Live for a season. In the 1970s, his father, Bob Elliott, half of the legendary comedy duo Bob & Ray, hosted SNL with Ray and did a Bob & Ray special with the original women of SNL. Now, Chris Elliott's daughter, Abby, is part of SNL's cast, making three Elliott generations involved with the show. On the big screen, Elliott starred in and co-wrote the story with screenwriter and director Adam Resnick (another former Late Night writer) for Cabin Boy, which included a cameo by Letterman (using the name Earl Hofert) as Old Salt in Fishing Village. Letterman turned his single line — "Would you like to buy a monkey?" — into a gag when he hosted the Oscars with stars such as Anthony Hopkins testing for Letterman's role. Elliott's supporting roles in movies such as Groundhog Day and There's Something About Mary came off better. He even did small, noncomic turns in films such as Michael Mann's thriller Manhunter and James Cameron's The Abyss. Before I let the clips tell the story of the "guys," here are some impersonations and other sketches that Elliott performed on Late Night. First, Chris Elliott testifies during the Iran-Contra hearings.
Next up, Chris did his take on two talk show staples. First, Chris Elliott is the director of the Columbus Zoo, not Jack Hanna. Second, it's Marv Albert with the wild and wacky in the world of sports.
After Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and many of the other wackos we've seen and heard recently, Morton Downey Jr. has largely been forgotten, but back in the 1980s the loudmouth was a phenomenon briefly and spawned "The Chris Elliott Jr. Show."
I have to admit that this one was my favorite and it's hard to not pick every clip out there, but in the 1980s when the great actor Marlon Brando was a world-class loon giving rambling interviews to Connie Chung and Larry King (including a big wet kiss on the lips), when Elliott started showing up as Brando, that was funny enough. When he ended every appearance doing the "Bananas" dance to "Alley Cat," it was hysterical.
The joke about The Regulator Guy, a Terminator-like spoof that was supposed to be Elliott's new series, was that it never aired. Every time he showed up to show a clip or premiere an episode, something would interrupt it or pre-empt it.
One of the earliest running characters Elliott came up with was The Conspiracy Guy, usually seated in the audience spinning outlandish theories about all sorts of topics. Today they are knows as Birthers and Truthers but they have no sense of humor.
Picking just one guy under the seats segment was the hardest of all because they were so many and so varied. Go to YouTube and check out the other ones out there.
Finally, I think the only way to conclude a post on Chris Elliott is to end with the final installment of The Fugitive Guy since it is the one they put the most effort into with location shooting, dragging Letterman along, the credit sequence, etc. NBC can suck on my intellectual property rights as I salute Letterman and his cohorts today.
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Labels: 80s, Brando, Cameron, Hopkins, Letterman, Oscars, TV Tribute
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Monday, December 12, 2011
Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night…
By Edward Copeland
…may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. That little poem of folklore gets repeated several times in 1941's The Wolf Man which, like all the other classic Universal horror films of the 1930s and '40s, I saw for the first time at a young age, before I'd even started school. That rhyme of warning is so short and simple, I memorized it early and never forgot it — or much of the movie that contains it either. The Wolf Man was a latecomer to Universal's monster mash, premiering 70 years ago today, a full decade after Dracula and Frankenstein began the trend, The Mummy joined their ranks and many sequels popped up in the interim. However, the 10-year wait proved beneficial for The Wolf Man as a movie, gaining it better production values, a cast with higher marquee value and what may be the most literate and philosophical screenplay of any of the Universal horror films. Written by Curt Siodmak, what separates Larry Talbot's werewolf from the other monsters within the Universal fold is the story's more psychological approach. Certainly we feel sympathy for Frankenstein's monster, but he's not evolved enough to feel sorry for himself and he can't wish, as Talbot does in later installments, for his own death. As a werewolf, he may become a predator when his transformation takes place, but Talbot takes no joy from it the way Count Dracula does.
Until I looked at Siodmak's prolific credits on IMDb, I didn't realize that the 2010 film The Wolfman starring Benicio Del Toro was an actual remake of the 1941 film. Del Toro played Lon Chaney Jr.'s role of Lawrence Talbot and Anthony Hopkins took on Claude Rains' part as his father Sir John Talbot. Having not seen the 2010 film, I have no idea how closely it follows Siodmak's screenplay, though I'm certain it improves on the makeup effects. Admittedly, the makeup by Jack Pierce, while impressive on its own, doesn't show us the facial transformation as I remembered. In my mind, I always recalled the still shots that showed Chaney's face changing into that of a werewolf, but I must have been confusing my Talbots with later outings which did show that, as you can see in this YouTube clip that compares the metamorphosis in The Wolf Man which only showed Talbot's feet changing and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943 which showed his face undergoing the transformation (though the quality isn't great). Hopefully, this will stay. Three times I've placed clips that have gone away later and this one is the same one that was there before.
In the 1941 original, we don't see his face until later when it's complete and in reverse when he "dies." In a documentary on the werewolf legend in film on the two-disc special edition DVD, Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (who won the first Oscar in that category for An American Werewolf in London) heaps praise on Pierce as a trendsetter who doesn't get the credit he deserves largely because of his reluctance to use rubber pieces in his designs, even though they had become standard practice by the time of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. As a result, Pierce eventually lost his job in the later films though his essential look for The Wolf Man remained.
Now, without meaning to, I've leaped way ahead of myself, failing to give my readers even a minimal amount of background detailing the story of The Wolf Man and how the son of a wealthy Welsh family returns home and ends up falling victim to a werewolf's curse. The Wolf Man was directed by George Waggner, who earlier in 1941 directed Lon Chaney Jr., in his first Universal horror film, Man Made Monster (also known as Atomic Monster). Waggner's other best known features probably were 1949's The Fighting Kentuckian and 1951's Operation Pacific, both starring John Wayne. Waggner's real niche turned out to be television where he directed multiple episodes of series such as Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman. The Wolf Man opens on a row of leather-bound encyclopedias and hands pull out the volume for the letter L and flip pages until they find the entry for lycanthropy that reads:
LYCANTHROPY (Werewolfism). A disease of the mind in which human beings imagine they are wolf-men. According to an old LEGEND which persists in certain localities, the victims actually assume the physical characteristics of the animal. There is a small village near TALBOT CASTLE which still claims to have had gruesome experiences with this supernatural creature. The sign of the Werewolf is a five-pointed star, a pentagram, enclosing…
From there, we see Lawrence "Larry" Talbot being driven by a chauffeur (Eric Chilton) to his family's Welsh castle after that 18-year exile in the United States. His return has been sparked because of his older brother John's death in a hunting accident. The chauffeur soon points and says, "Talbot Castle, Mr. Larry." The gargantuan Welsh estate does provide a stunning sight. The car pulls up in front and his father, Sir John Talbot (the always-welcome Claude Rains) comes out to welcome him home. Larry steps inside his family's ancestral home again and comments that it looks the same, though his father comments that they've added some modern conveniences. Larry also
receives a surprise visitor — old friend Paul Montford (Ralph Bellamy, taking a rare break from the usual third wheel in screwball comedies), who just wanted to say hello before getting back to his job as chief constable of the district. When he departs, Larry expresses surprise to his father than Montford became a cop, a term his father isn't familiar with, so Larry says policeman, but Sir John says Montford was a captain, but he's retired. Strangely, the opening credits identify his character as Colonel Montford. It isn't clear what either Sir John or Larry Talbot do for a living, though it's clear that the family's wealth has been handed down and Sir John is a very educated man who conducts research in a variety of areas. For not having seen each other in nearly two decades, the reunion lacks tension though a definite chill
continues between the two men, especially from Sir John's direction. When Larry crosses into the area of the main floor in front of the hearth, the large portrait of his late older brother John (who bears a striking resemblance to Larry) that hangs above it immediately draws his eyes and he offers his sympathies to his father. "Your brother's death was a blow to all of us.…You know, Larry, there's developed what amounts to a tradition about the Talbot sons. The elder, the next in line in succession and so forth, is considered in everything. The younger frequently resents the position in which he's found and leaves home, just as you did," his father opines while stoking the fire. "Yes, but Father, I'm here now," Larry reminds him. "Fortunately, but isn't it a sad commentary on our relationship that it took a hunting accident and your brother's death to bring you?" Sir John asks rhetorically. Rains raises the level of every film he ever made and to have him here lifts The Wolf Man to a higher plane immediately. Then again, Rains' choice of roles always were eclectic and with the exception of an appearance in a 1920 silent film called Build Thy House, Rains' true film debut came in James Whale's The Invisible Man in 1933 which Whale made between Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Larry assures his father that the perceived fracture between him and his family isn't as bad as it seems and tells him he followed news accounts and beamed with pride when Sir John won the prestigious Belden Prize for his research. "The whole business is probably my fault. The tradition also insists that the Talbots be the stiff-necked, undemonstrative type. Frequently, this has been carried to very unhappy extremes," Sir John tells his son. "Don't I know that," Larry says, almost under his breath. "Larry, let's decide between you and I that from now on there shall be no such reserve," his father suggests. 
Father-and-son bonding begins almost immediately with the arrival of the final parts that Sir John needs to complete a powerful new telescope he's installing in his in-house observatory. He can hardly wait to get the device working so he enlists his son's help to carry the boxes upstairs and help him set up. While Sir John Talbot might be brilliant when it comes to matters of research and theory, when something requires assembly, he often runs into trouble. Fortunately, while his son Larry might not share his high IQ, he compensates for that with an ability to fix just about anything and soon the new telescope's installation and optics satisfy his father and his son's work on it impresses Sir John as well. Sir John assumes that Larry must work in a similar field to accomplish such a task, but Larry says he just has a knack for mechanical things. He also mentions to his father that he didn't realize that he'd added astronomy to his many areas of expertise, but Sir John denies he has. "All astronomers are amateurs. When it comes to the heavens, there's only one professional," his father tells him. After Sir John tries it out for a little while, there isn't much to see during the daytime so he excuses himself and Larry takes his seat at the large magnifying device and finds one celestial object that seems heaven sent to him — a young woman (Evelyn Ankers) in her bedroom above a small shop in the downtown area of the village, Larry determines that he must meet this woman soon.
Larry takes his first step toward meeting the woman by wandering into Charles Conliffe Antiques where the young lady happens to work since she is the daughter of the owner (though Larry never learns this or her name in the entire scene). He decides to toy with her at first, acting the part of the type of wolf women more commonly encounter, saying that he seeks a pair of earrings and while she shows him some, he describes a very specific pair that he's looking for — the kind he saw her putting on when he spied her through the telescope. When he reveals that he knows she has a pair (leaving out how he knows). Gwen tells him that they aren't for sale. Larry decides that if he can't get the earrings, he'll purchase something else instead. A curious Gwen asks how he knew about her earrings and Larry tells her he's a psychic — it's a power that kicks in anytime he spots a beautiful girl. Talbot settles on buying a walking stick. He rejects the first one with a gold tip that Gwen shows him as
well as the second with a dog on the handle. He likes a third though — at first joking that it would make a good putter — then he notices that it also has a carved dog on the handle and a star. He wonders aloud what that could mean. "I thought you were psychic," Gwen says. He tells her that the cane is made only of wood and silver — and doesn't have blue eyes. She explains that it isn't a dog but a wolf and that star is a pentagram and she prices the piece at three pounds, which Larry calculates as "15
dollars for an old stick." She explains to him that it's a rare piece because the wolf and pentagram are the sign of the werewolf, a creature about which Talbot at this point shows complete ignorance, asking her what a werewolf is. "That's a human being that at certain times of the year changes into a wolf," she informs him. He laughs it off. "You mean, runs around on all fours and bites and snaps and bays at the moon?" he asks. "Even worse than that sometimes," Gwen replies, adding that the pentagram marks the werewolf as well as their next victim. "Oh, what big eyes you have Grandma," Larry jokes as he flirts across the counter. Gwen confirms that Little Red Riding Hood was a werewolf story, but says there have been many others. She then becomes the first person to recite the infamous poem to him in the film: "Even a man who is pure in heart/and says his prayers by night/may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/and the autumn moon is bright." Gwen still wants to know how he knew about her earrings and Larry says that she should take a walk with him that night and they'll talk it over, but she says no, then they hear the hoofbeats of horses outside. As they go outside the shop, they see the arrival of gypsies, which Gwen identifies as fortune tellers who arrive around this time every year. Larry, who still persists in trying to get Gwen to go out with him suggests they get their fortunes told that evening. Her response steadfastly continues to be, "No" but Larry tells her he'll be outside the store at 8.When Larry returns to the Talbot Castle, Sir John recognizes the markings on his son's new cane as the sign of the werewolf. "That's just a legend though, isn't it?" he asks his father. "Yes, but like most legends it must have some basis in fact. It's probably some ancient explanation for the dual personality in each of us," Sir John speculates. While I couldn't appreciate this aspect of The Wolf Man when I first became a fan of the film in my pre-school days, each time I've watched in the many decades since, it becomes so much clearer how this is as much a psychological horror story as it is a monster movie. Eventually, we do see that after Larry gets bitten, he undergoes an actual physical transformation, but for a little while the movie does play with the idea that it's all in his head. Even after the audience knows the curse exists and Larry does indeed change into a werewolf, when he tries to seek help and explain this to others, Sir John thinks that all he requires is some rest, Paul Montford believes Larry should be punished for committing murders and Dr. Lloyd (Warren William), whom we've yet to meet, thinks he's had a psychological breakdown and needs help restoring his sanity, not jail time punishing him for his crimes. In the current scene, Sir John even finds a book in his library with the poem and repeats it once again to Larry.
Larry's a guy who just won't take no for an answer, so as promised he shows up in front of the antique shop that night despite the fact that Gwen said she wouldn't go with him. Despite her negative answer, Gwen turns up as well — though she brings a safety net in the form of her friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm), who is anxious to have her fortune read. You'd think that where the gypsies set up shop would give the trio second thoughts as they have to walk deep into the fog-shrouded woods to find their encampment. While The Wolf Man already looks great, we really can see the decade in filmmaking advancements start to appear now through Joseph Valentine's sharp cinematography, Jack Otterson's art direction and R.A. Gausman's set decoration. Credited as associate art director is none other than Robert Boyle, who just received an honorary Oscar in 2008 for his lifetime achievement as an art director and production designer on Hitchcock's North by Northwest, The Birds and Marnie as well as other films such as the original Cape Fear, In Cold Blood, Fiddler on the Roof and The Shootist. As they slog through the murky view, Jenny notices some wolfsbane blooming by a tree, which — of course — prompts another recitation of that poem. When they arrive, they find the gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). Jenny asks him if he
can really read the future. "I will not disappoint you, my lady," he replies. Jenny begs to be the first to hear her fortune and Larry has no objection, since he wants to be alone with Gwen anyway and soon talks her into taking a stroll in those creepy woods after Jenny steps inside Bela's tent. Lurking around the gypsy encampment is Bela's older mother Maleva (the one-of-a-kind character actress Maria Ouspenskaya). Inside the tent, Bela has Jenny cut a deck of Tarot cards. On their walk into the woods, Larry comes clean to Gwen about how he knew about her earrings (and, amazingly, she doesn't flee at the thought that he's a peeping tom who stalked her), saying it was an accident that he caught sight of her with the telescope as he was just testing the refractor. Gwen has a
confession of her own to make — she kept resisting his overtures because she's engaged and will be getting. "In fact, I really shouldn't be here," she says. Back at the fortune teller's tent, Bela notices the wolfsbane that Jenny brought with her and suddenly grabs his head as if he has a migraine. "Can you tell me when I'm going to be married?" Jenny asks, apparently oblivious to the gypsy's pain. When she does notice how he's acting, she assumes he saw something bad and grills him about it. Bela puts on a happy face and asks for her hands, explaining that her left hand shows her past, her right hand shows her future. Jenny eagerly complies, but Bela sees the pentagram on her right palm and even Jenny recognizes that something has disturbed the fortune teller. "I can't tell you anything tonight. Come back tomorrow," Bela replies as he steps away from the table. Jenny persists in quizzing him about what he saw and if it was something evil. Bela won't answer — he just yells at her to go away. "Go away now! Quickly!" he shouts. Jenny follows orders and sprints out of the tent. Maleva turns and notices that one of the gypsies' horses has started acting crazy and she sees Bela standing agonized. As Jenny runs through the woods, a wolf's howl can be heard.
Larry and Gwen hear the ominous wolf sound first, followed soon after by Jenny's scream. Talbot tells Gwen to stay where she is and he takes off, carrying his cane with him. Part of the genius here is that we don't see what has already attacked and killed Jenny and then
takes on Larry — a tree obstructs our view so we can only see Larry whacking the killer hard with the cane. Eventually, Gwen finds him with his clothes torn, collapsed by the tree, saying he was attacked by a wolf. The gypsy woman Maleva comes by and she helps Gwen get the injured Larry back to Talbot Castle where Paul Montford happens to be. Gwen gives him and Sir John the lowdown about what happened in the woods and mentions how Maleva helped her, but the gypsy woman has slipped away as if she were never there. Montford decides to gather men and go back to the scene. When Montford and his men get there, they discover that Jenny indeed is dead, her jugular slit, but they find no evidence of a dead wolf. What they do find is the corpse of the gypsy Bela with a massive head wounds though his feet are bare. Lying near his body, they also discover Larry Talbot's cane. The next morning, Montford, accompanied by Dr. Lloyd, pay a visit on Larry to ask him some questions about the incident. Larry admits that the cane belongs to him — that's what he used to kill the wolf. They tell him they found no wolf, just the gypsy. Larry insists it was a wolf because it bit him on the chest and he opens his shirt to show them the wound — but it seems to have healed magically overnight. To go much further into the minutiae of the film's story would get into its spoilers, not that much should be a surprise after 70 years. 
Truly though, it's easier to appreciate The Wolf Man now than as a child. The idea that Larry might have snapped really entices me, even if the movie doesn't play with the notion long (or at all really since in the opening credits they don't say "Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot" but "Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man." None of the classic horror films frighten that much, but few get stuffed with as many ideas as The Wolf Man. Siodmak's screenplay touches on mental health, religion, intolerance and other topics I'm probably missing. Rains' Sir John Talbot character acts as the mouthpiece for most of the ideas, but not always. Consider this great exchange between Larry and his father after Larry has come to believe he has the werewolf curse and Larry tries to ease into the discussion by grilling his dad on the topic.
SIR JOHN: It's an old legend. You'll find it in the folklore of almost every nation. The scientific name is lycanthropia. It's a variety of schizophrenia.
LARRY: That's all Greek to me.
SIR JOHN: Well, it is Greek. It's a technical expression for something very simple. The good and evil in every man's soul. In this case, evil takes the shape of an animal.
LARRY: But do you believe in these yarns?
SIR JOHN: Larry, to some people life is very simple. They decide this is good, that is bad, this is wrong, that's right. There's no right and wrong, no good and bad. No shadings and grays, all blacks and whites.
LARRY: That would be Paul Montfort.
SIR JOHN: Exactly. Now others of us find that good, bad, right, wrong are many-sided, complex things. We try to see every side but the more we see, the less sure we are. Now, you ask me if I believe a man can become a wolf. Well, if you mean, 'Can he take on the physical characteristics of an animal?' — no — it's fantastic! However, I do believe that most anything can happen to a man inside his own mind."
(church bells ring)
SIR JOHN: Time for church. You know Larry, belief in the hereafter is a very healthy counterbalance to all the conflicting doubts man is plagued with these days.
The crucial words contained in that exchange come when Sir John tells Larry, "…the more we see, the less sure we are." While the elder Talbot says those words, he also declares with certainty that a physical transformation of a man would be impossible, a belief he will have challenged in the harshest way possible at the movie's end when he's placed in the same position that Larry was when he tried to save Jenny, only Sir John rushes to save Gwen and uses the same cane to kill the wolf and then watches in horror as he sees the creature revert to the human form of his son. Rains' facial expression is remarkable when you consider that the actor has to conjure what the proper look would be for something that no one has experienced in real life. Another of the many great conversations come when Dr. Lloyd tries to convince Sir John to get Larry help, but Talbot resists and Lloyd questions his motive.
DR. LLOYD: Sir John, your son is a sick man. He has received a shock that has caused severe psychic maladjustment. You must send him out of this village.
SIR JOHN: You're talking like a witch doctor. If my son is ill, the best place for him is in his own home proving his innocence.
DR. LLOYD: Does the prestige of your family's name mean more to you than your son's health?
I can't end this without discussing in more detail about the great Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva. She was nominated twice for the supporting actress Oscar — each time for single scenes in a movie: in 1936's Dodsworth and 1939's Love Affair. Her character has all the answers and appears to be the only one who can calm the werewolves and lead them to peace after their deaths. "The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over, Bela my son. Now you will find peace," Maleva prays, first over her son, later over Larry. Ouspenskaya was a unique presence in every film she appeared in starting with silents in 1915 through 1949, the year she died. Her age was a subject of dispute. Her headstone gives her birthdate as 1887 but other records dating back to her birthplace in Tula in the Russian Empire say 1876. She also was a diminutive presence, standing a mere 5 feet 1½ inches tall.
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Labels: 40s, Bellamy, Hitchcock, Hopkins, Lon Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Rains, Remakes, Silents, Television, Wayne
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Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Charles Napier (1936-2011)
Charles Napier, a longtime character actor who was a favorite of directors as diverse as Jonathan Demme and Russ Meyer, died today at the age of 75. Since first appearing in episodic TV in the late 1960s, Napier seemed to always be a recognizable presence in roles, usually small in size but almost always memorable.
His first credited television appearance was on an episode of Mannix in 1968. Throughout his early career through the mid-1970s, he also appeared on the TV shows Hogan's Heroes, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco, Baretta, The Rookies, Black Sheep Squadron and The Rockford Files.
During the same period, Napier also was active in feature films, making his debut as the lead in a 1969 film called The House Near Prado. The same year, he played the title role in a Western made by the same director, Jean Van Hearn, called The Hanging of Jake Ellis.
In 1970, he played Harry in Cherry, Harry & Raquel!, the first of four movies directed by Russ Meyer in which Napier appeared. The quartet included that same year's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, whose screenplay was written by Roger Ebert.
In 1977, he worked in Handle With Care, the first of 10 films with director Jonathan Demme. Demme and Napier would go on to collaborate on Last Embrace, Melvin and Howard, Swing Shift, Something Wild, Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs (where he memorably guarded Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter and ended up displayed on Lecter's cage), Philadelphia, Beloved and the remake of The Manchurian Candidate.
Those credits just start to scratch the surface of his work in TV and movie work. Among the other notable films in which Napier appeared include The Blues Brothers, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Miami Blues, The Grifters, The Cable Guy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Other television shows and TV movies he played roles in included The Incredible Hulk, The Blue and the Gray, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazzard, Night Court, The A-Team, War and Remembrance, L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Party of Five, Walker: Texas Ranger, The Practice, CSI, Monk and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Napier's distinctive voice also earned him much work in animated programming, most notably in the regular role as the Ted Turner-esque Duke Phillips on The Critic. He also contributed his vocal talents to animated shows such as Men in Black: The Series, God, the Devil and Bob, The Simpsons, Squidbillies and Archer.
R.I.P. Mr. Napier.
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Labels: Animation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Demme, Ebert, Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins, Obituary, Remakes, Television, The Simpsons
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011
With the exposition out of the way, will a story be starting soon?
By Edward Copeland
I didn't think it was possible for a movie that's 1 hour and 50 minutes long (including end credits and requisite Marvel teaser scene) to end up spending all but about the last half-hour of that time on exposition, but indeed that's what Thor plays like.
As the comic book empire continues to expand its movie franchises for an inevitable film that brings the Marvel characters together under the leadership of that mysterious SHIELD organization which allows Samuel L. Jackson to earn a living by making cameos while Clark Gregg wears suits and travels from film to film so he can report to Jackson's Nick Fury. (Have no fear — there's the required Stan Lee cameo as well.) When they toss Robert Downey Jr. in as a reformed arms maker in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, it turns out to be great fun. With Thor, you literally get an hour and 20 minutes of gobbledy-gook followed by about 25 minutes of yawn-inducing action and it's over.
Kenneth Branagh directs. Yes, that Kenneth Branagh. The man once spoken of being the next Olivier in terms of bringing Shakespeare to film but he can't even be the new Olivier on an entertaining level of whoredom. His acting for cash is sporadic and not hammy enough to be a hoot and his non-Shakespeare direction results in films such as a remake of Sleuth that no one was asking for and the godawful Mary Shelley's Frankenstein where both he and Robert De Niro were so over-the-top that it turned out that John Cleese gave the film's best performance. He even marred his Shakespeare films with stunt casting that probably made the Bard in the afterlife wish the stories were true that he weren't the true author of his works.
Fortunately, Anthony Hopkins is on hand to pick up some of that U.K. actor "I'll blow anyone for cash" spirit to his role as Odin, Thor's father, the king of Asgard, the realm from which Thor (Chris Hemsworth) comes. Not that Hopkins gets much emoting to do: His job — other than making certain the check clears — consists of little more than standing (and lying) around in a fancy metallic-looking suit with a patch on his eye and seriously imparting information to both the audience and to his sons, Thor and Loki (Tom Hiddleston).
Thor tends to be a bit of an arrogant hothead and when a group of Asgard's enemies (I'd look up their names if I truly gave a damn, but I don't. They're sort of blue and icy) somehow invade their realm and violate a sacred area with sacred relics, Thor leads an unsanctioned raid on them which Odin did not approve. As a result, his father banishes Thor to Earth for his actions and, because all the exposition hasn't been revealed yet, decides this is the best possible time to let Loki know that he was adopted (though stolen seems a more accurate description) from the same realm and while he doesn't look blue and icy, he belongs to that enemy's race. Loki, now next in line to be king anyway since Thor has been jettisoned, in a fit of spite, plots a coup and throws Odin into a coma.
Meanwhile on Earth, Thor lacks his powers, but he does fall for a young researcher, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), when he lands on the RV of her and her scientific team Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings, who was so good in the woefully underrated Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist). Gregg's SHIELD agent promptly steals the RV and their research and holds Thor who can't lift his sacred hammer, which has been embedded in the desert. (Speaking of hammered, getting drunk might make Thor go by quicker.)
Though it will be next to impossible, don't blink or you'll miss that Rene Russo plays Odin's wife Frigga, which as far as I know is not Norse for friggin' as in "give me a friggin' break." Poor Idris Elba, who has been good in so many things but most memorably as Stringer Bell in the first three seasons of The Wire, gets hidden by an elaborate costume as Asgard's gatekeeper who controls "the bridge" between different realms.
In fact, the costumes and design of Asgard really offer the only good things about Thor. Those parts are gorgeous to gaze upon. Bo Welch's production design and Alexandra Byrne's costumes on Asgard do leave quite an impression even if the film itself doesn't. In theaters, the film, which was shot regularly, was converted to 3-D for some showings and I can't imagine how exciting exposition plays in three dimensions. Wow — Thor and Jane lie by a campfire and point to a paper so he can show her where he comes from. It's like I'm in the scene! Their "romance" has about as much believability as the little kids' attachment to Frosty the Snowman when they've known him for about 15 minutes.
As the credits roll, before we get the requisite teaser scene with Nick Fury and the next Marvel movie, words tell us that Thor will return in The Avengers. I imagine that movie will at least have a story and, if nothing else, the IMDb cast list promises Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, so that at least holds the promise of some entertainment.
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Labels: 10s, Branagh, Cleese, De Niro, Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Olivier, Remakes, Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Shakespeare, The Wire
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Monday, August 15, 2011
When Hannibal First Crossed the Screen
By J.D.
Before Jonathan Demme's Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs (1991) graced the screen with Anthony Hopkins in all of his visceral glory, Michael Mann's little-remembered (and seen) thriller, Manhunter (1986), which was released 25 years ago today, presented a very different kind of Hannibal Lecter. While Demme's film opted for over-the-top performances and needlessly gory scenes of violence, Mann's film took a subtler, creepier approach to its material. Manhunter is less interested in depicting the actual killings (the main attraction of this genre when it became popular) than in the cerebral and actual legwork required to enter the killer's frame of mind and track him down.
Thomas Harris' novel, Red Dragon, was published in 1981. It explores one man's eerie trip into the mind of a serial killer. Profiler Will Graham (William Petersen) reluctantly comes out of retirement to track down Francis Dollarhyde (Tom Noonan), a man who slaughters whole families to fulfill his own power fantasies. Graham is able to pursue the killer by thinking and dreaming as he imagines the killer does. However, the last time he tried this technique it pushed him to sanity’s edge. The case involved a cunning psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecktor (spelling changed from the novel) who viciously killed his patients, scarring Graham both physically and emotionally. Now Graham must make the dangerous journey back into the mind of a killer to catch him before he kills again.
Richard Roth (who produced director Fred Zinnemann's penultimate film, the much-lauded Julia, starring Jane Fonda, in 1977) bought the film rights to Harris' novel for Dino De Laurentiis with David Lynch attached to direct. Lynch already had made the critical and commercial disaster Dune (1984) for the Italian movie mogul and was looking for a chance to redeem himself. "I was involved in that a little bit, until I got sick of it. I was going into a world that was going to be, for me, real, real violent. And completely degenerate. One of those things: No Redeeming Qualities." Lynch went on to make Blue Velvet (1986) and so Roth offered the project to Mann. Although, one wonders what Lynch’s take on the material would have been like.
After the failure of The Keep (1983), Mann went back to television and produced the very popular Miami Vice television series for NBC. The 1980s was a time when Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. The country was a consumer culture, a carnivorous, materialistic society that is reflected in the show with its stylish fashion and architecture. Manhunter also is a product of its time as it reflected that era's currency of popular culture in terms of fashion, style and music. Mann read Red Dragon not long after it was published and "thought it was the best thriller I'd ever read, bar none." Mann was intrigued by Harris' exploration into the nature of evil. As Mann wrote the screenplay, he decided not to graphically depict the murders as in the book. This is why Mann's film stands apart from the other Lecter movies and serial killer films in general.
The first Mann theme that Manhunter explores is the conflict of the individual versus the desire to preserve their family. Will Graham is a consummate professional and the best at what he does — profiling serial killers. His friend, Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina), seeks him out. Two families have been brutally murdered by the same killer: the Jacobis in Birmingham, Ala., and the Leeds in Atlanta. They talk on the beach in front of Graham's house. Crawford shows Will not pictures of grisly murders as we almost expect, judging from the way they're talking, but snapshots of two families frolicking in a recreational setting. This is quite shrewd on Crawford's part. He is obviously appealing to Graham's protective nature toward his own family. He knows Graham will feel empathy for the dead families and future ones and therefore offer his services.
This opening conversation between Graham and Crawford also is a teaser of sorts. Nothing is alluded to concretely — especially Graham's ability to get into the mindset of a killer. The closest we get to what happened to him before he quit is when Crawford says, "You look alright." Graham responds, "I am…alright."
That hesitation makes one wonder — is he really OK? How damaged is Graham? What is so fascinating about this scene is that so much is implied. The scene begins mid-conversation and alludes to Graham’s mysterious past, one that has caused an obvious rift between him and Crawford. The audience can only imagine what the source of this tension was and will only learn bits and pieces of what happened to him later on in the film. While Graham keeps in the tradition of Mann’s intensely professional protagonists who are the best at what they do, he is also one of his most layered characters. There is much more to Graham than a driven investigator. He also is an extremely sensitive person who is compelled to do what he does out of a need to save others from being brutally murdered. The process that Graham undergoes to catch these killers is what intrigued Mann in the first place.
The visual motif of imprisoning bars features prominently in the scene between Graham and Lecktor (Brian Cox) where the investigator goes to visit the killer in order to get the criminal mindset back. The first shot has Graham framed with bars in front of him. The film cuts to a shot of the imprisoned psychiatrist lying on his bed, his back to Graham with bars in front of him as well. In a way, both men are imprisoned. Lecktor literally and Graham metaphorically, trapped in the nightmare of trying to solve these murders. Graham almost is trapped in his nemesis' presence. Graham does not want to talk too long to Lecktor and risk exposing his mind to the psychiatrist's horrible thoughts.
As Hannibal gets up and faces Will, the camera slowly zooms in ever so slightly on him which creates a great dramatic effect. Lecktor resides in an antiseptic white prison cell and he wears white so that he almost blends into his surroundings except for his black hair and the skin color of his face and hands. It is a miniature disturbance in this immaculate and pristine place that effectively conveys how dangerous Lecktor is: those tiny bits of him are already disruptive to the immaculate white of the scene. It also throws everything off just ever so slightly as the focus is directly on Hannibal's face, forcing the audience to pay attention to what he is saying and how he is saying it. Even though imprisoned, he seems very clearly in control.
The two men engage in a verbal dogfight as Lecktor tries to push Graham over the edge, while Graham fights being exposed to the madness. The speed of this little exchange is like some kind of perverse screwball comedy. Cox is so effective by the way he underplays it: completely calm, yet always just a tad menacing — be it the affectations of his accent or the quiet and ruthless way he gives his lines an off-center spin.
Lecktor does not go for the easy insult and counters, "You're very tan, Will," and proceeds to analyze him, demonstrating how easily he can pick him apart. Then, Hannibal goes in for the kill when he says, "Dream
much, Will?" At this point, Graham has had it and gets up to leave. He cannot let Lecktor invade his thoughts or his dreams. In Mann's world,j this would be fatal. Finally, it gets to be too much for Graham as Lecktor presses his advantage: “You know how you caught me, Will? You know how you caught me? The reason you caught me, Will, is because we're just alike. You want the scent? (quieter, menacing) Smell yourself.” Lecktor starts off speaking quietly yet insistently. Graham can no longer stand it and begins pounding on the door, demanding to get out. Lecktor continues, increasing the volume of his voice until Graham, frantic at this point, runs out of the building. As Lecktor says this last line his voice dips to a threatening whisper. Graham runs down the many corridors of the psychiatric hospital, almost as if he is symbolically escaping Lecktor's brain, his cell being the vortex or center of it.
The scenes that take place at the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane were shot at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta while the scenes in Lecktor’s cell were shot on a soundstage in Wilmington, N.C. According to Cox, he and Petersen rehearsed this scene for 10 days and shot it during a period of four days. Not surprisingly, Mann shot the scene many different ways. "At one point," Cox remembers, "I screamed the line 'Smell yourself.' At another, I did it very quietly. I did it every way imaginable." Cox plays Lecktor as a polite man, but you can sense the menace seething underneath the cheery facade. He delights in probing Graham's mind, threatening to invade his thoughts and his dreams.
Another of Mann's preoccupations is showing the process of professionals hard at work, doing what they do best. This is showcased prominently in the scene where Graham and Crawford analyze Dollarhyde’s note to Lecktor. While cleaning Hannibal’s cell one day, a janitor finds the note addressed to the psychiatrist. Lecktor is taken out of his cell, giving the investigators just a few hours to decipher the note before Lecktor gets suspicious. First, the hair fibers are analyzed; second, the note is analyzed for fingerprints; third, they try to figure out what the missing section of the note says; and finally, they try to decipher Hannibal's reply in the National Tattler personal ads. Mann is meticulous in how he shows the hard work that these professionals do as they analyze physical evidence with state-of-the-art science and technology at their disposal. Everybody works and communicates together as a team racing against time. As a result, there is a believable tension between the haste of beating the clock and the patience Crawford and Graham exert as they supervise their expert forensic team.
Another stand-out scene is one where Graham decides to deal with the rift that has been created between him and his family by talking with his son. The scene between them features some of Mann's best writing. Fascinating insight into Graham's past and his special ability are discussed in detail. It also is a nice scene between a father and his son. It takes place in an everyday setting — a grocery store — but they are talking about extraordinary things. Kevin tries to understand what his father does and Graham explains how he caught Lecktor: "I tried to build feelings in my imagination the killer had so that I would know why he did what he did." They also talk about how catching Lecktor affected him. This scene beautifully underlines the danger that Graham faces. He runs the risk of hurting himself physically and mentally again. It also shows that he is able to compartmentalize his thoughts and his feelings. He recognizes that the thoughts of killing and hurting people are wrong where Lecktor and Dollarhyde do not and that is what separates Graham from them. This exchange is fascinating because we learn more about the internal struggle that exists within Graham and how much of a threat it is to his well-being. Graham and his son have a heartfelt talk about madness which is contrasted by their banal surroundings: brand name consumer goods. This nicely foreshadows what eventually happened to the serial killer genre: in the 1990s: It became riddled with cliches and stereotypes (i.e. the "normality" of the serial killer who is a symptom of our consumer culture). At the time that Manhunter was made, the genre was still quite fresh and new. Terms such as "profiler" and "serial killer" were not as commonplace. The scene ends with a final shot of Graham and Kevin, his arm draped protectively around his son's shoulder, heading to the checkout. Most importantly, this scene demonstrates that Lecktor was not successful in splitting up Graham and his family because they were able to communicate and talk to each other about their feelings.
Mann also provides insight into Francis Dollarhyde's day-to-day existence. This is an attempt to humanize the killer. He is not just some faceless, inhuman maniac or an obvious caricature a la Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Dollarhyde works at a photo developing lab. We see him walk into a room and look intensely at a photo of what will be the next family that he will kill. As he stands up, he rubs the sides of his head and looks up. We can see a shift in his facial expression — he has gone from being Dollarhyde to the Red Dragon, his murderous persona. The way Tom Noonan plays this scene is excellent and understated. He effectively conveys the sudden shift of personalities in Dollarhyde.
Mann goes to great lengths to make Dollarhyde more humane in the sequence where he and Reba (Joan Allen), a woman from work with whom he becomes romantically linked, lie in bed together after making love. He rests his head on her chest almost as a child would and much in the same way she did in an earlier scene with a tiger. She rolls over and puts her hand on his chest but he places it on his mouth. The camera zooms in and his expression transforms into one of sadness as he starts to cry. There is this realization that buried beneath those frightening eyes is a scared, abused child. The Red Dragon persona has not completely taken over. All that Dollarhyde really wants is what most people want: to be loved and needed. He has found this with Reba. Noonan's performance in this sequence is a revelation. He uses his big, awkward-looking body to menacing effect but is as sad as he is deadly in a child-like, almost uncomprehending way. With his very expressive face, Noonan conveys the tortured soul buried deep within and this brings a sense of humanity to his character.
Mann's theory on why a killer such as Dollarhyde does what he does is revealed in a great phone conversation between Lecktor and Graham. The first shot of Hannibal shows him lounging in his cell, his feet up like he is talking to an old friend. It is amusing because here is this very dangerous psychopath being completely casual. Lecktor unwittingly provides Graham with the key to understanding Dollarhyde, thereby allowing the investigator to find him. Lecktor explains why killing feels so good. "God has power. And if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is." As Lecktor rambles on about what "a champ" God is, Graham is not even listening to him anymore. He has found the key to understanding Dollarhyde and he does not need Lecktor anymore. At this point it becomes readily apparent what Graham meant early on in the film when he said that Lecktor had "disadvantages." This is what allows Graham to finally surpass him.
Throughout the film, William Petersen portrays Graham as a low-key, brooding, tortured individual. He also maintains an incredible amount of intensity and this is no more apparent than in the scene between Graham and
Crawford where they talk about what motivates and creates monsters like Dollarhyde. Petersen takes the intensity of this scene up another notch when he delivers a disturbing monologue about the duality that exists within Dollarhyde with scary vigor. This scene is the heart of darkness in the film. Serial killers do not materialize suddenly, they are made, gradually, over many years, until they explode, expressing themselves the only way they know how: through violence. In a baffling move, Mann subsequently cut Petersen's monologue from the recent DVD versions of Manhunter that were produced by Anchor Bay. Perhaps Mann felt that it spelled things out too much but it also diminishes one of the most powerful scenes in the film. (Note: this footage has been restored in a bare-bones DVD by MGM)
Not everyone appreciated Mann's approach to filmmaking. Many crew members were stressed out from a grueling and intense shooting schedule. This was only exacerbated by De Laurentiis having financial trouble at the time and as a result the production was running out of money. They were forced to shorten their shooting schedule, which meant that the film’s exciting showdown between Dollarhyde and Graham would have to be shot in only one or two days. The special effects team quit prior to the filming of the scene. The gunshot effects, as Dollarhyde is killed by Graham, were done by Mann himself. The entire confrontation was shot in one day over three-and-a-half hours. Mann remembers that they were shooting so fast it felt as if they filmed the scene in real time.
Harris' novel was named after poet/artist William Blake's famous painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Rays of the Sun." Mann kept the name “Red Dragon” for the film right up to its release. The title was changed to Manhunter so that, according to Mann, the audience would not mistake it for a kung fu film. The "Manhunter" moniker came from a headline on the Tattler newspaper in the film. The cruel irony is that this change in name did nothing to help the film at the box office. Manhunter grossed $2.2 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $8.62 million in North America.
In retrospect, Mann feels that "the project was probably doomed commercially from the outset." At the time, Harris had only written Black Sunday and was not the big name he is now. The movie's title still is a sore point for the director. "The film's backers all said, 'Red Dragon? It sounds like a Chinese movie. Who cares about kung fu movies?'…Manhunter was a compromise title and a bit too much in the mode of generic police thrillers." Mann’s film was dumped into cinematic limbo after the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group declared bankruptcy. However, Manhunter survived on video and cable television. With the film’s commercial failure, Mann returned to television and continued to executive produce Miami Vice and a new television series, Crime Story. In a few short years, Crime Story was canceled after only two seasons and Miami Vice ended its lengthy run soon afterward. He would not make another feature film until six years later.
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Labels: 80s, Demme, Farina, Fiction, Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins, J. Fonda, Lynch, Michael Mann, Movie Tributes, Television, Zinnemann
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