Saturday, March 10, 2012
Bringing Up Babs
By Damian Arlyn
I remember working in the video store one day when a regular customer came in to check out a few titles. He glanced at the enormous flat screen we had behind the counter, saw Barbra Streisand belting out some catchy show tune and uttered a question I got asked a lot in those days. "What are you watching?" he said. "Hello, Dolly!" I answered. He smiled, shook his head and exclaimed, "See, now, here's where I break with the stereotype. I'm a gay guy who doesn't like Barbra Streisand." I just laughed and replied, "That's OK. I'm a straight guy who does."
And it's true. Although she is by no means my favorite actress (nor would I ever see a film simply because she's in it), I happen to enjoy watching her onscreen. Funny Girl, Meet the Fockers and the aforementioned Hello, Dolly! are all films I love, but my favorite movie of hers would have to be the hilarious What's Up, Doc? which celebrates its 40th anniversary today. Nowhere is Babs' gift for comedy and sheer charisma on display better than in this film. They even find an excuse to show off her incredible voice once or twice: namely, in the film's opening and ending credits where she sings Cole Porter's "You're The Top" as well as the scene at the piano when she croons a few lines of "As Time Goes By."
It also doesn't hurt that What's Up, Doc? happens to be a really great movie. Hot off of his success with The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich originally conceived it as a remake of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, but wisely decided (much as Lawrence Kasdan would do later with his film noir tribute Body Heat) to use Hawks' film merely as an inspiration rather than a template and to give What's Up, Doc? its own identity. As a result, it comes off more as a love letter to screwball comedies in general as well as to iconic Warner Bros. feature films (such as Casablanca) and classic animated shorts. Hence, when Barbra's character, Judy Maxwell, is introduced first to Ryan O'Neal's nerdy Howard Bannister, she's seen munching on a carrot a la Bugs Bunny and/or Clark Gable from It Happened One Night. With her brash, fast-talking, trouble-making personality and his stiff, bespectacled, long-suffering demeanor, the two leads clearly are based on Baby's Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. (Interestingly, Streisand shared a best actress Oscar with Ms. Hepburn only four years earlier in one of the Academy's rare ties. Streisand won for her film debut in Funny Girl while Hepburn earned her third best actress trophy for The Lion in Winter. Hepburn's prize was her second consecutive win in the category having taken the 1967 Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.) Aside from Judy constantly getting Howard into trouble and a reminiscent coat-tearing gag, the similarities between Doc and Baby essentially end there.
Also, What's Up, Doc? lacks a leopard. Instead the chaos revolves around four identical carrying cases containing such varied items as clothes, rocks, jewels and classified government documents. When moviegoers first see the quartet of cases at the start of Doc, it's the filmmakers signaling audiences that much confusion and hilarity awaits. At this point I have to confess that, although I've seen the film at least a dozen times, I cannot to this day follow which case is which throughout the course of the film. Every time I sit down to watch, I swear I'm going to keep track of the cases, but I always give up about 20 minutes into it. I take some comfort, however, from the fact that even the great Buck Henry, in the process of re-writing the screenplay, reportedly phoned Bogdanovich to say, "I've lost one of the suitcases. It's in the hotel somewhere, but I don't know where I put it."
The gags come fast and furious in What's Up, Doc? More than a decade before Bruce Willis and Bogdanovich's ex-girlfriend Cybill Shepherd resurrected rapid-fire banter on TV's Moonlighting, Streisand and O'Neal fire a barrage of zingers at each other so quickly that you're almost afraid to laugh for fear you'll miss the next one. The behind-the-scenes team also populates the What's Up, Doc? universe with a whole host of kooky characters, each bringing his or her unique comic flair to those roles. There isn't a single boring person in What's Up, Doc? Everyone (right down to the painter who drops his cigar into the bucket) amuses. At the top of the heap resides the great Madeline Kahn in her feature film debut as Howard's frumpy fiancée Eunice Burns. Two years before she joined Mel Brooks' cinematic comedy troupe, she proved to the world her status as one of the funniest women ever to grace the silver screen. Another Mel Brooks' regular, Kenneth Mars, plays Hugh Simon, providing yet one more strangely accented flamboyant nutball to his immense repertoire. A very young Randy Quaid, a brief M. Emmet Walsh and a very annoyed John Hillerman also show up in hilarious bit parts.
All of this anarchy culminates in a spectacular car chase through the streets of San Francisco that actually rivals the one from Bullitt. Apparently it took four weeks to shoot, cost $1 million (¼ of the film's budget) and even managed to get the filmmakers in trouble with the city for destroying some of its property without permission. Nevertheless, Bogdanovich pulls out all the stops in creating this over-the-top action/slapstick set piece that overflows with both thrills and laughs. When watching it, one can't help but be reminded that physical comedy on this grand of a scale doesn't even get attempted anymore. One wishes another director would resurrect the kind of awesome stunt-comedy on display here and in The Pink Panther series.
The film's dénouement takes place in a courtroom where an embittered, elderly judge (the brilliant Liam Dunn) hears the arguments of everyone involved and tries to make sense of it all. Howard's attempt to explain only serves to frustrate and confuse the judge further and results in this gem of an exchange that owes more than a little bit to Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?":
HOWARD: First, there was this trouble between me and Hugh.
JUDGE: You and me?
HOWARD: No, not you. Hugh.
HUGH: I am Hugh.
JUDGE: You are me?
HUGH: No, I am Hugh.
JUDGE: Stop saying that. [to bailiff] Make him stop saying that!
HUGH: Don't touch me, I'm a doctor.
JUDGE: Of what?
HUGH: Music.
JUDGE: Can you fix a hi-fi?
HUGH: No, sir.
JUDGE: Then shut up!
The tag line for What's Up, Doc? read: "A screwball comedy. Remember them?" Well, whether people remembered screwball comedy or simply discovered it for the first time, they certainly embraced the film as it was an enormous success upon its release. It took in $66 million in North America alone and became the third-highest grossing film of the year. Since The Last Picture Show was released in late '71 and Doc came out in early '72, Bogdanovich had two hugely successful films playing in theaters at the same time. Unfortunately, his career, which had just started to rise, also had neared its peak. Although he would follow Doc with Paper Moon his directing career would only see sporadic critical successes after that such as Saint Jack and Mask. He even filmed Texasville, the sequel to The Last Picture Show, but he'd never again see the kind of commercial or critical success he had achieved in the early 1970s. Bogdanovich would eventually end up working in television, often as an actor such as his long recurring role as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, psychiatrist to Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) on The Sopranos. The most recent feature film he directed was 2001's fairly well-received The Cat's Meow starring Kirsten Dunst as Marion Davies and Edward Herrmann as William Randolph Hearst. Based on a play of the same name, The Cat's Meow concerned a real-life mystery in 1924 Hollywood involving the shooting death of writer/producer/director Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes) on Hearst's yacht.
When Bogdanovich was good, he was great and What's Up, Doc? is, in my opinion, the jewel in his crown. It made a once-forgotten genre popular again, it jump-started a lot of comic careers and it reminded us all that love meaning never having to say we're sorry is the dumbest thing we've ever heard.
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Labels: 70s, Abbott and Costello, Bogdanovich, Buck Henry, Cary, Cole Porter, Cybill Shepherd, Dunst, Gable, Hawks, K. Hepburn, L. Kasdan, Mel Brooks, Movie Tributes, R. Quaid, Streisand, The Sopranos, Willis
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Mystery of the Missing Movie (or Body Heat at 30)
By Damian Arlyn
There’s a kind of freedom that comes in knowing you're about to die. A lack of fear. Once you’ve finally accepted that your number is up, a strange sort of detachment comes over you. I’ve always been a pretty apathetic fellow, but I’d never experienced anything like what I felt standing in that alleyway, staring down the barrel of a .38, two fresh corpses sprawled on the grimy ground beside me, knowing full well that my next breath would be my last. I found that I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything anymore. Not only that, but I’d lost my ability to B.S. There's no deceit in death. A man who lies to save his own skin does so because he still thinks there’s a chance he’ll live. A man who resigns himself to his fate cannot lie. So, in those last few moments of my life, as I reflected back on the twisted course of events that led me there, I knew it was the absolute truth.
It all started two days ago. It was a hot August evening in the city. I sat in my chair watching the ceiling fan spin, which did nothing to cool things off. It just blew the hot air around. The Venetian blinds in my window cast long shadows across my desk where a nearly empty bottle of bourbon sat comfortably next to an empty shot-glass. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost closing time. Suddenly the door to my office opened and a tall, thin brunette dressed to the nines strolled in and closed the door behind her. “Are you Joe Cannon?” she asked.
“If I’m not, then one of us in the wrong office,” I said indicating the name on the door window that clearly read "JOSEPH CANNON: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR." She sat down in the chair in front of my desk and crossed her legs giving me a swell view of them. "So, what can I do for you, Miss…?"
“My name isn't important. What matters is that I need your help. I would like to hire you to find…" she hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “…a movie.”
“Come again?”
“I need you to help me find a movie.” Now, in all the years I’d been a snoop, I never had a request like this. I’ve educated various women in the extracurricular activities of their husbands. I’ve helped locate missing persons. I’d even tracked down and fingered the occasional blackmailer, thief or murderer, but finding a movie? That was a new one.
“Not my line of work, doll,” I uttered. “Why don’t you try Blockbuster? There’s one down the street.”
“It closed down,” she said. I really need to get out more, I thought. “Besides, I know precisely what movie it is I’m looking for. All I need is a name. I caught it late one night on cable many years ago. I thought it was an excellent example of that genre known as film noir. It involved a man who had fallen in love with a dangerous blonde. Together they plotted to kill her husband but after the deed is done, he starts to suspect that she’s just using him for her own selfish purposes and —”
“I know that film,” I interjected. “It’s Double Indemnity.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I’m familiar with that film too and although it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was used as a source of inspiration given the many similarities, the film I’m looking for has some distinct differences. First of all, Double Indemnity was made in the '40s and is in black and white. My film
was made in the '80s and is in color. The protagonist of Double Indemnity is an insurance salesman while the protagonist of my film is a lawyer. That one is set in Los Angeles while my film takes place in Florida in the middle of an intense heat wave. In fact, because of that I believe the title has something to do with ‘heat’ or ‘hot’… also because it’s a very sexy film. There are several love scenes that are quite erotic, though it never crosses the line into becoming pornographic. There is some nudity, but far more is implied than displayed. Whoever made it knows that the most powerful tool in making something appear sexy is the audience’s imagination.” She suddenly stopped talking, a little embarrassed that she’d just gone on for two minutes about this mysterious film. “Please, I have to find it. It means a great deal to me. I was told that if anyone could help me, you could.”
I was about to tell her that I had better things to do than help some needy broad (who wouldn't even give me her name) track down some random flick she’d had a late-night fling with years earlier, but there was something about her eyes that grabbed me: a look of desperation in them that I couldn’t shake. That’s when I made a mistake that you never make in my line of work. For the first time in a long time, I felt sorry for a client. I told her I’d help her out. Her face lit up. As I discussed my pay, she jotted down some more information on a scrap of paper (along with a number where I could reach her) which she handed to me. She rose and sauntered to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Cannon,” she said looking over her shoulder with a smile.
"Call me Joe," I said. "What do I call you?"
"I'm known to my friends as 'The Siren.'"
So, a Greek mythological creature hired me to find a movie. I guess I'd had weirder cases. I decided to start with my old Army buddy Matt Zoller Seitz. Matt was such a film freak that he had forgotten more about movies than I would ever know. The next day I called his workplace. He wasn’t there, but his office told me where I could find him. I caught up with Matt at a local park playing with his kids. He was pushing one of them in a swing when he saw me coming toward him and smiled. “Joe,” he said holding out his hand as I approached him. “It’s been a while. What’s new? You still in the gumshoe business?"
I shook his hand. “Still. In fact, I’m on a case right now. I’m looking for a movie.”
“Well, I’m your man. What do you got?”
“It’s film noir. Story involves some sap who gets mixed up with the wrong dame. Together they kill her husband and then things start to go bad for him.”
“Sounds like Double Indemnity. Released in 1944. Directed by Billy Wilder.”
“Nah, this one’s more recent,” I said pulling out my notepad and looking at the details The Siren gave me. I told Matt that this film was made in the '80s. I mentioned it featured William Hurt as the sap, Kathleen
Turner (in her first movie role) as the voluptuous vixen he falls for, the late great Richard Crenna played her husband, J.A. Preston was the investigating cop, Ted Danson (in what apparently was one of his best performances) portrayed a sleazy rival lawyer who is always dancing wherever he goes and a very young Mickey Rourke was an explosives expert. I went on about what the lady had told me regarding the film’s visual style: how the camera could glide with confidence and grace but also know precisely when to let it rest in a static shot. As I read more and more details off, I noticed Matt’s smile slowly fade away. It was replaced by a look of concern. He was clearly getting uncomfortable. “I…uh, I don’t know that one. Sorry. It just doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You not knowin’ a flick? That doesn’t sound like you, Matt.”
“Well, I guess you can’t know ‘em all, huh?” he said wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta take the kids home.”
“What’s wrong, Matt?”
“Nothing. Just…let this one go, Joe. Let it go.”
Matt’s warning echoed in my head as I drove all over town talking to other friends of mine who happened to know a lot about movies. Everywhere I went I got the same answer. They didn’t know. Of course, I knew they were lying. They did know and they weren’t talking. They were scared. Someone had put the fear of God into them, but who? And why? As the evening rolled in, I was no closer to finding this flick than I was to finding Nick Jonas’ talent. I decided to try the local library. Not only did they have a very extensive collection of
movies to check out, but I happened to know a girl who worked there. Her name was Sheila O’Malley. She was a blonde, bookish type with whom I’d had a thing going a while ago, but she wanted more so I got out while the getting was good. Since then she’d had a string of casual boyfriends, but I still think she was waiting for me to come to my senses again and I was able to use that sometimes to my advantage. I caught up with her as she was getting ready to lock up. “Well, look at what the cat dragged in.” she said smiling wryly. “What brings you here, Joe?” I told her everything I knew about the movie and she agreed to help me out, for old time’s sake. She typed the information into her computer database. “Ah, yes. Here we go. The film you’re looking for is called Body Heat. It was released on August 28, 1981 and was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. He’s the guy who wrote the screenplays to Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. He later went on to direct The Big Chill, Silverado and Mumford, but Body Heat was his first film.”
“Yeah, fascinating," I said suppressing a yawn. "Do you have it?”
“As a matter of fact, we do.” She led me to the area where they kept their movies. As she looked through the numerous rows of plastic cases for it, I decided to ask her if she had ever seen the film herself and if so what she thought of it. “Oh, sure. I saw it a long time ago. I quite liked it. I remember thinking that the music in particular was very good. John Barry, the fella responsible for such great scores as Midnight Cowboy, Somewhere in Time and many of the James Bond films, wrote a very lush, sensual jazz score. It captured the steamy essence of the story quite effectively I thought. In fact, it’s one of his best scores.” She stopped and looked off nostalgically. "I can still hear that sultry sax solo playing over those opening credits." I cleared my throat, she snapped out of it, pulled out a case with an image of a mustached guy and a hot blonde dressed in white on the cover. “Here we go.” She opened it and her brow suddenly furled. “Well, that’s strange. It’s not in here.”
“What?” I asked.
“It should be here, but it’s not. There’s no movie in the case. Someone stole it.”
This just gets more and more bizarre, I thought. “Something’s going on here, Sheila. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel right. Can you tell me who the last person was to check it out?”
“Sure.” She led me back to her computer where she looked up the film’s rental history. “Someone named Ross Ruediger.” I thanked her and headed for the door. “What are you getting’ yourself into here, Joe?” she called out to me. I pretended not to hear.
So, I had a title and I had a name. I decided to pay a visit to this Ruediger fellow and see what he knew. I found his address in the phone book and the following morning showed up at his home. It was a nice suburban house with a perfectly mowed lawn and a white picket fence. As I approached the front door, I
noticed that it was slightly open. I drew my piece and cautiously entered. The living room had been ransacked. Someone was looking for something. Chairs were overturned, couch pillows were cut to bits and dozens of opened movie cases were spread out all over the floor. It was quite the collection: L.A. Confidential, Brick, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Long Goodbye and many more. What was most striking about this residence, however, was the dead body lying face-up in the middle of the floor. He looked like he had been shot in the chest. I leaned over, pulled out his wallet and checked his I.D. It was Ross. There was very little else in the wallet aside from a couple bucks, a library card and a scrap of paper with some random letters and numbers that looked like they'd been scrawled hurriedly on it: "D.B. 5552314 82881." I pocketed the cash and the paper, rose to my feet and made my way to the kitchen. Unlike the living room it was immaculate. The floor had been swept, the counters were clean and there were healthy potted plants everywhere throughout it. Suddenly something hit me over the head. I fell forward and everything went black.
When I woke up, my ears were ringing like the national anthem and my head felt like it had gone 12 rounds with Tyson. How long had I been out? I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the faces of two of my least favorite people in the world: Lt. Dennis Cozzalio and Sgt. Jim Emerson of the police department.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Cozzalio said. Together, the two of them picked me up and threw me into a chair next to a small table in the middle of the kitchen. They told me that when they received a call from some neighbor who heard a gunshot in this house, they never expected to find me here. They then proceeded to ask me a series of questions in rapid succession, each one taking a turn. It was like watching a tennis match — and I was the ball. I told them everything I knew but decided it was wise to leave out a few little things, such as the truth. Cozzalio wasn’t buying my yarn.
“That’s some story,” he said rolling his eyes. “If I ever enter a fiction-writing contest I’ll have to remember it.”
“Now, why would I lie?”
“To protect your client maybe. Tall, thin brunette. Goes by the nickname 'The Siren?'” I froze. How did he know about her? Cozzalio pulled out my notepad. "It was found on the floor next to you. What's this Siren want with you? And what does it have to do with all these details about some neo-noir movie?"
"You know I can't tell you about what goes on between me and a client, Lieutenant."
"Well, you're not going to be doing her any good by keeping quiet. We just got a call that her body was found in her apartment across town. Looks like she was plugged with a .38.”
“Same weapon it seems was used on Mr. Ruediger here,” Emerson added.
"So, you see, Cannon," Cozzalio continued. "This is a double homicide. Somehow you’re connected to both of them and you damn sure know more than you’re tellin’ me. So, give…or am I gonna have to haul you in on suspicion of murder.”
He was bluffing. “Oh, come on, Lieutenant. You think I came in here, popped this guy and then decided to take a nap until you boys showed up?”
“Then give us something, Cannon.” Emerson barked. “What can you tell us about this Ross Ruediger?”
“He liked neo-noir?” I joked. Cozzalio wasn't amused. Emerson looked confused.
“What’s neo-noir?” he asked.
Cozzalio turned to him. “Neo-noir is a term used to describe a recent sub-genre of movies that attempt to replicate many of the same elements seen in classic examples of film noir from the '30s, '40s and the '50s. Some have said that noir was a genre distinctive to a particular historical era of cinema. Others have said that the genre is more defined by its content (style, themes, etc). Neo-noir tries to imitate the form, if not perhaps the function, of traditional noir and sometimes it’s highly successful, as it was in Chinatown. Other times, such as The Black Dahlia…well, not so much.”
“Can I go now?” I asked. Cozzalio glared at me. He knew he had nothing he could hold me on.
“Don’t leave town,” he snarled.
So, The Siren was dead. Probably shot by the same gun that killed Ruediger. What was going on? What was so important about this movie? I walked the streets trying to figure it all out, but my head hurt. I stopped at a drugstore a block from my office and bought an ice pack. My head was still throbbing as I trudged up to the stairs to my office. Before I could get my key in the lock, the door flew open and a hand pulled me in and threw me to the floor. “Good evening, Mr. Cannon,” a polite but sinister voice said. I looked up and saw a small, extremely well-groomed man in a suit that cost more than a year’s worth of my rent sitting in my chair with his feet up on my desk. I wasn’t sure how, but there was something familiar about him. “I hope you don’t mind that we let ourselves in.”
“Not at all,” I muttered as I slowly stood up. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Bordwell and this is my associate Odie.” I turned around and got a good look at the goon who pulled me in. He was easily twice my size with hands as big as cocoanuts. He grunted a greeting. The little guy in the fancy suit pulled a tiny clipper out of his pocket and started to trim his nails as he spoke to me. “Word is that you’re looking for a movie that goes by the name of Body Heat? Is that true?”
“What’s it to you?” The mountain slapped me upside the back of the head and my knees became acquainted with the floorboards once again.
“Let’s just say that I am also interested in obtaining that particular motion picture. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it is very hard to find these days. All existing copies seem to have vanished. If one is indeed located, it could be very valuable. I was wondering if I could retain your services in finding it for me?”
“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” Again, his henchman smacked me to the floor. That’s it, I thought. I’m tired of being knocked around on this case. As I slowly rose to my feet I shot him a dirty look. “Touch me again and you’ll regret it,” I threatened.
“Easy, Odie.” the suit remarked. “I don’t think you realize how important a person I am. I could reward you very handsomely for it.”
“I don’t know who you are and I don’t care.” I said. Odie took another swing at me, but this time I ducked and brought my knee up into his groin. He went down like the walls of Jericho. “I warned you.” I gloated as he rolled around on the floor whimpering. The suit rose from my chair and walked around the desk toward me.
“It’s so hard to find good help these days.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small pad and a pencil and started writing something on it. “If you are ever interested in becoming a rich man, ring this number here. It's my private line.” He ripped the slip of paper from the pad and held it out to me. Reluctantly I took it. With a bow, he was gone, taking his limping sidekick with him.
I sat down at the desk and removed my hat. Who was this guy and why did he seem so familiar to me? I glanced down at the paper and was about to crumple it up when I noticed something. The phone number he wrote was "555-2314." I pulled out the paper I got off Ruediger's body. "5552314." It was the same number. That's when I noticed the letters. "D.B." David Bordwell! Ruediger knew Bordwell! Not only that, he had his private number. The only thing that I had left to decipher on the sheet was the remaining number: "82881." That's when it hit me. I grabbed my phone and called the library hoping Sheila would still be there. She was. I asked her when she had said the release date was for Body Heat. "August 28, 1981," she immediately responded. 82881. It was a date! 8-28-81! Thirty years ago today! In a flash, it all suddenly made sense. I remembered where I'd seen Bordwell before and I knew where to find the flick.
"Sheila, I need you to do something for me," I said. "I need you to call the police department. Ask for a Lieutenant Cozzalio or Sergeant Emerson. Tell them to meet me in 30 minutes at this address."
"What's going on, Joe?" Sheila asked.
"Just do it, Sheila," I asserted. "I know who murdered Ruediger and The Siren. I also know where to find the missing movie." I gave her the address to tell the police and she agreed to call them right away. I hung up and immediately dialed Bordwell's private number to set up a meeting. First, however, I had to make a quick stop somewhere else.
A half-hour later I was standing in the middle of an alley between Cain Street and Chandler Boulevard. My hat's brim dipped low, my trench coat's collar rose high. It wasn't that I was cold. This was just the kind of neighborhood in which you didn't want to draw attention to yourself; the kind of place where the sound of gunshots were so common that neighbors weren't reporting them to the police. I looked around nervously as I waited. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.
"Well, that didn't take long, Mister Cannon," I turned around and standing before me was the little guy and the big guy. "Is that it there?" he said pointing to the disc I held in my hand. I nodded. "Where did you find it?"
"At Ruediger's house. When you tossed the place you forgot to look in the potted plants in his kitchen…one in particular. When a man takes great care to mow his lawn and see that his plants are watered and healthy, it should stand out to you when one plant is dying. It means he's got something else hidden in there." Bordwell looked impressed as he held out his hand. "Before I hand it over, I was wondering if you could tell me what would someone with unlimited access to the Warner Bros. movie archives want with a copy of Body Heat?" He smiled and asked me when I realized who he was. "I knew your face when we spoke in my office earlier, but I just couldn't place it. Then I remembered reading an article in Variety a few months ago about how you had taken over the DVD/Blu-Ray division at Warner Bros. studios. I just couldn't figure out why someone in your position would so badly want to get their hand on a copy of this or any other Warner Bros. title."
"Have you ever seen it, Mister Cannon?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well, it's a fine film. A damn fine film. It was well-received by critics back when it was released and the years have been very kind to it. It's one of the treasures of our library and were it to be re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in a special 30th anniversary collector's edition it could make us a fortune…but only if people didn't already own it. The economy has hit everyone hard, Mister Cannon. Consumers don't double-dip anymore. They're tired of having to repeatedly purchase their favorite films in new formats. Just as Ridley Scott's FINAL CUT of Blade Runner promised closure to so many cinephiles, so would this definitive release of Body Heat be the last chapter in the life of a significant piece of cinematic history."
"That's why it's so hard to find nowadays," I continued. "You've been snatching up every available copy out there so that demand would be high for your release of Body Heat with all its 'bells and whistles.' You also bribed or intimidated reputable cinephiles, such as my buddy Matt Zoller Seitz, so they'd keep their mouths shut. Tell me, why did you kill Ross Ruediger? Was he refusing to give up his copy of it? Did he love neo-noir movies so much that he couldn't bear to part with it? Or was he just threatening to spill the beans on the whole operation? And what about The Siren? She was just a woman in love. What did she ever do to deserve what she got?"
"You know, I'm bored with this conversation," he said casually pulling out a .22 and pointing it right at me. "Now, if you don't mind, Mister Cannon, kindly hand over the disc." I tossed it to him. "Thank you."
"Are you going to kill me too? Just as you killed Ross Ruediger and The Siren?"
Bordwell chuckled. "This may be hard for you to believe, Mister Cannon, but I've never heard of this…'Siren.' I didn't kill Mister Ruediger either. In fact, he and I had an understanding. He was very keen on selling me his copy of Body Heat. That's why I gave him my private number. He was supposed to get in touch with me by today, but he never called. However, it's no matter now. Goodbye, Mister Cannon." Bordwell bowed and turned to leave. Odie grunted his usual response and turned with him. Was he telling the truth? Did I have it all wrong? If he didn't kill them, then who did? At that moment two gunshots rang out and both Bordwell and his henchman fell to the ground. The shots came from behind me. I whipped around and standing there holding a smoking .38 was the last person I ever expected to see.
"Sheila?"
"That's right, Joe," she said smiling at me.
"What the…? I don't get — How? Why?"
"It's a long story, Joe, but it goes back several years…to the day that you dumped me. I was heartbroken, devastated. I invited my best friend over to comfort me. I believe you two have met. She called herself 'The Siren.' Anyway, we ended up watching a movie on late night television together. It was Body Heat. I didn't quite know what to think of it that first time. I enjoyed it but was not blown away. Over the years, as I went
through relationship after relationship with other men, I couldn't get certain images and lines of dialogue from that film out of my mind. Kathleen Turner in that gorgeous white outfit standing alone on the pier staring off at the ocean, William Hurt admiring his new fedora in the reflection of the car window, the haunting sound of those beautiful wind chimes…All these moments stuck with me. That's when I decided, a few months ago, I needed to watch it again. By this time I had the job at the library and checked out our copy of it. It was then that the film's greatness became apparent to me. I fell in love with it. Its style, its elegance, its romanticism. It is an impeccably-made motion picture. I realized that I didn't need a man as long as I had Body Heat. But Bordwell and his greedy friends at Warner Bros. were making sure that nobody could get their hands on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to take the library's copy away too. I had to make sure that didn't happen. So, I chose a sap whom I could seduce into checking it out permanently."
"Ross Ruediger," I said.
"It was a cinch picking him. I saw him in the library all the time. He loved neo-noir and when I came on strong to him one day, he folded like a pup tent. Men are so easy to manipulate. In a few weeks, he would do anything for me…even hold on to my movie for me, hiding it so that nobody could find it."
"And you were able to make sure that it was constantly checked out, so that nobody could ever take your precious Body Heat away from you. Clever." Sheila wore a somewhat triumphant expression. "So, why'd you kill him?"
"Because he was weak. The day after you came by the library, I went over to his house bright and early hoping to get him to give me the movie before you showed up and strong-armed him into handing it over to you. The man loved good movies, but he had no backbone. Bordwell had already gotten to him, as Ross tearfully confessed to me that morning, and talked him into selling it back to the studio. He could no longer be trusted. He had to go."
"So you shot him and then ransacked the place looking for the movie. Is that when I showed up and you ambushed me?"
"You guessed it. I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see you turn up at the library looking for it, Joe. I couldn't figure out why you were suddenly interested in the film, so while you were out cold I went through your pockets, found your notepad and saw the name and phone number of your new client: my old friend, The Siren. I guess the same thing had happened to her. She also had fallen in love with that film that we were both introduced to that night. She must also have became obsessed with having it. Well, I couldn't let her. This movie was mine and mine alone. Nobody was going to take it away from me. Ever." She raised the gun. "I guess I owe you some thanks, Joe. Not only did you locate the movie for me, but if you hadn't broken up with me all those years ago, I never would've even found out about it. Now, get the disc."
"You'll never get away with this, Sheila. The police will be here any —" I stopped when I realized that I had asked her to call the police. She smiled at me. I sighed, walked over to the Bordwell's small body which lay on the ground behind me, took the disc out of his hand and turned back to face Sheila. "Throw it to me."
"Don't do this, Sheila," I pleaded with her. "No movie is worth this."
"You don't know that. You haven't seen it."
"And I guess I never will." I crunched the disc in my hand before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. Sheila let out a noise like nothing I'd ever heard. It was more than a scream. It was the sound of a person's soul being crushed. She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and a look of intense fury in her eyes.
"You bastard!" she said cocking the gun.
This is it, I thought. This is how you die. I closed my eyes and waited for the gunshot that I knew was going to end my life. There was a loud boom. I actually heard the sound of my own death. So, where did she hit me? I couldn't tell. I felt nothing. Did she miss? I opened my eyes just in time to see Sheila fall forward. At that moment, Sgt. Emerson emerged from around the corner holding his gun. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was fine. Just in shock. "Cozzalio's been having me follow you around ever since you left Ruediger's place this morning. Good thing too."
"Where were you when she killed the other two?" I asked.
"I was…um, indisposed at the moment," he said looking a little embarrassed. "I ran over as soon as I heard the gunshots and that's when I saw her pointing that .38 at you. Don't worry. I heard her whole confession. You're off the hook, Cannon." Within 10 minutes, there were a dozen cops at the scene, the alley was quartered off and Lt. Cozzalio was taking my statement. This time, I decided to tell him everything, leaving nothing out.
"Well, it's only a shame you had to destroy the movie too, Joe. We could've used that."
"I didn't destroy it." I said pulling another disc out of my pocket. "While I was picking up Body Heat at Ruediger's place I grabbed another disc just in case. I don't even know which one it was. Sin City I think." I handed it to him.
"All this trouble over a movie," he said holding it up and looking at it. "I hope it was all worth it." I asked him what would happen to it. "Oh, it's evidence now," he answered. "It'll get put away with all the other junk for a long, long time. Why? Were you interested in watching it?"
"No, thanks," I replied lighting a cigarette. "Too many people have died for that thing." Cozzalio was still examining it as I turned to exit the alley. I stopped, however, and glanced back over my shoulder one last time before walking off into the night. "But I hear it's damn good."
A special word of thanks to all of my film-blogging friends who allowed me to use their names in this crazy, but amusing, little endeavor of mine:
Matt Zoller Seitz
The Self-Styled Siren
David Bordwell
Jim Emerson
Ross Ruediger
Odie Henderson
Sheila O'Malley
Dennis Cozzalio
Black-and-white image courtesy of Jim Ferreira Photography.
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Labels: 80s, K. Turner, L. Kasdan, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes, R. Scott, Wilder, William Hurt
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
It's Not the Age, It's the Mileage
By J.D.
There’s no disputing that Raiders of the Lost Ark, which opened 30 years ago today, is one of the greatest action/adventure films ever made, featuring some of the most memorable action sequences ever put on celluloid. Who can forget part-time archaeologist, part-time adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) outrunning a giant boulder at the beginning of the film? Or the exciting gun battle in a Nepalese bar? Or Indy being dragged behind a truck full of Nazis? However, the older I get, the more I appreciate the quieter moments in Raiders — the downtime between action set pieces. These scenes convey exposition and develop the characters. The credit for them working so well should be given to the film’s screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who also wrote the screenplays for such noteworthy films as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983) and many others. He’s written some of the best scripts ever committed to film and knows how to write witty dialogue and create engaging characters.
Kasdan’s ability to engage us in the obligatory exposition scene is evident early when Indy and his friend Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) meet with two military intelligence officers about the location of an old colleague of Indy’s — Abner Ravenwood — who might have an artifact — the headpiece of the Staff of Ra — that will reveal the location of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Nazis are eager to get their hands on. Indy and Marcus give the two men a quick history lesson on the Ark and its power. Marcus concludes with the ominous line about how the city of Tanis, that reportedly housed the Ark, “was consumed by the desert in a sandstorm which lasted a whole year. Wiped clean by the wrath of God.” The way Denholm Elliott delivers this last bit is a tad spooky and is important because it lets us know of the Ark’s power, his reverence for it, and why the Nazis are so interested in it. This dialogue also gives us an indication of the kind of danger that Indy is up against.
This segues to a nice little scene right afterward at Indy’s home between the archaeologist and Marcus. He tells Indy that the United States government wants him to find the headpiece and get the Ark. As Indy gets ready they talk about the Ark. The camera pans away from Indy packing to a worried Marcus sitting on a sofa and he reveals his apprehension about what his friend is going after: “For nearly 3,000 years man has been searching for the lost Ark. It’s not something to be taken lightly. No one knows its secrets. It’s like nothing you’ve ever gone after before.” Indy shrugs off Marcus’ warning but his words, accompanied by John Williams’ quietly unsettling score, suggest the potential danger Indy faces messing with forces greater and older than himself.
Kasdan also does a great job hinting at a rich backstory between Indy and his ex-love interest, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). When they are reunited at a bar she runs in Nepal, she is clearly not too thrilled to see him, giving Indy a good crack on the jaw. Marion alludes to a relationship between them that went bad. She was young and in love with him and he broke her heart. To add insult to injury, her father is dead. All Indy can do is apologize as he says, “I can only say sorry so many times,” and she has that wonderful retort, “Well say it again anyway.” Harrison Ford and Karen Allen do a great job with this dialogue, suggesting a troubled past between them. In a nice touch, Spielberg ends the scene with Indy walking out the door. He takes one last look back and his face is mostly obscured in shadow in a rather ominous way as he clearly looks uncomfortable having had to dredge up a painful part of his past.
Indy and Marion have another nice scene together after they’ve retrieved the Ark from the Nazis and are aboard the Bantu Wind, a tramp steamer that will take them to safety. Marion tends to Indy’s numerous wounds and says, “You’re not the man I knew ten years ago,” and he replies with that classic line, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.” It starts out as a playful scene as everything Marion does to help hurts Indy’s world-weary body. In frustration, she asks him to show her where it doesn’t hurt and he points to various parts of his body and in a few seconds the scene goes from playful in tone to romantic as they end up kissing. Of course, Indy falls asleep — much to Marion’s chagrin. Kasdan’s dialogue gives Spielberg’s chaste, boyhood fantasy serial adventure a slight air of sophistication in this scene as two people with a checkered past finally reconnect emotionally.
For me, Raiders of the Lost Ark still is the best film of the Indiana Jones series. The pacing is fast but not as frenetic as today’s films. There are lulls where the audience can catch its breath and exposition is conveyed. In many respects, it is one of the best homages to the pulpy serials of the 1930s and a classic example of when all the right elements came together at just the right time. This film has aged considerably well over time and each time I see it, I still get that nostalgic twinge and still get sucked in to Indy’s adventures looking for the lost Ark.
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Labels: 80s, Harrison Ford, John Williams, L. Kasdan, Movie Tributes, Spielberg
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Friday, May 21, 2010
When the son bested the father
— Horace, "Odes," III, 6, l. 1.
— George Lucas, talking about his father, 2008
They may not mean to, but they do."
— Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse
By Ali Arikan
The interwebs was abuzz last week with the news of a letter George Lucas sent to the producers of TV’s Lost. In it, Lucas apparently stated that he had made up the whole story of the Star Wars saga as he went along — a nonadmission, really, but one on which the fanboys pounced anyway, as if a meticulously detailed trope from the start were automatically greater than a naturally evolving one in service of its characters (it isn’t). Since Lucas is the great pariah when it comes to genre fiction, the backlash — such as it was — was hardly unexpected, but most definitely unfair.
The unjustly despised prequel trilogy has had such a retroactive fallout on the original three and their reputation that Lucas’ involvement in the Star Wars saga (and, to an extent, the Indiana Jones films) can be boiled down, by many, to ultimate responsibility for all the saga’s missteps, and none whatsoever for its triumphs. Spectacularly unfair, this claim, nonetheless, has become a shibboleth amongst the most ardent fans of the saga, as well as its saner aficionados. One doesn’t need to be well versed in Star Wars lore or Lucas’ biography, however, to see how major an influence the latter had on the former (and, naturally, vice versa) — even in the two films that he did not direct. In fact, it is in the beloved first sequel that the saga reached its philosophical apex, and it was because of Lucas’ direct involvement. The Empire Strikes Back is not just the finest chapter of the Star Wars saga, it is also the most personal.
On this day in 1980, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was unleashed on movie screens in the United States to almost universal acclaim (for the sake of brevity, and sanity, from this point on I shall abbreviate the film’s full title to the colloquial ESB). Coming on the heels of the previous film’s unprecedented — and unexpected — success, the second chapter of the saga (retconned to serve as the fifth within the in-movie chronology) had a completely different feel from its predecessor, and this narrative contrast was hammered home during the film’s first few minutes.
Whereas 1977’s Star Wars (re-titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1978) opens on the desert planet of Tattooine (after the initial space age shenanigans, natch), ESB sets the action on the ice planet of Hoth. Even though both environments are extreme wastelands, the direness of the situation is made more explicit by the expository opening crawl (“It’s a dark time for the rebellion”) as well as the dialogue: there is almost no life on this planet, and what there is of it, is hostile. On the run from the Empire following the destruction of the Death Star at the end of the first film, the Rebel Alliance has taken refuge here, but they are soon discovered by Darth Vader (body by David Prowse, voice by James Earl Jones) and the Empire, and have to flee for their lives. The heroes are separated: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) goes to the swamp planet of Dagobah to train under the tutelage of the impish Jedi Master Yoda (Frank Oz), while Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) end up going to Cloud City, where the betrayal of Han’s old friend Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams – Billy Dee! Billy Dee! Billy Dee! Billy Dee Klump!) will have dire consequences for everyone involved.
The first Star Wars was admittedly more a cacophonous, albeit endearing, hodgepodge of boys’ own and pulp stories of yesteryear than a holistic tale. Auteurist touches were sprinkled like fairy dust, haphazardly, and not
coherently. It was in ESB that this earlier promise was fulfilled: multifaceted and rich, George Lucas’ sequel, directed by his film school mentor Irvin Kershner, implied to the world just how personal an affair these films would end up being, from a philosophical as well as psychological standpoint. I recently struggled through the film while suffering from a particularly bad spell of food poisoning (not that there are good spells of this messiest of ailments), and was struck by the fiendishly systematic way themes and motifs are built up to culminate in one of the most depressing, yet hopeful, finales in the history of genre storytelling. One fully comprehends the gravity, and sheer precision, of both those notes only after seeing ESB’s 1983 sequel, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi; but to contextualise it, appreciation — or, at least, experience — of the Prequel Trilogy is also equally crucial.Of all the movie brats, George Lucas is commercially the most successful one and also the most maligned; and I doubt the two are completely unrelated. Even though people with short memory spans tend to make a direct connection to the auteur’s general deprecation with the prequels, they are wrong: as far back as 1977, people were upset with Lucas for daring to opt for levity rather than portent. Recently, the inimitable Girish Shambu published on his Facebook feed a quote he discovered of Lucas, which originally appeared in Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Sight and Sound review of the first film:
“Rather than do some angry, socially relevant film, I realized there was another relevance that is even more important — dreams and fantasies, getting children to believe there is more to life than garbage and killing and all that real stuff like stealing hubcaps — that you could still sit and dream about exotic lands and strange creatures.”
Then came a number of comments that chastised Lucas, some going as far as pitching him as some sort of a modern Pied Piper, leading an unsuspecting audience to piffle (because, obviously, if it weren’t for Lucas, we’d all be lining around the block for the new Kiarostami); until Glenn Kenny The Wise sagely offered these words of observation:
“Let us remember, however, that 'angry' and 'socially relevant' do not automatically equal 'good.' In fact, more often than not, in art they tend to equal 'strident,' 'obvious,' 'condescending,' etc.”
This conversation was nothing new. Lucas was ostracized by a bunch of his contemporaries, and a fair few of the critical establishment, in 1977, for breaking from the pact, and having the audacity to discover edge, and profundity, through subtext rather than text. Art is subjective, and if any work of art, be it a film, or a book, or a piece of music, doesn’t work for one, it just doesn’t work for one, but secondguessing the reasons why is silly, and is a direct road to mind-numbing vacuity and conformism. It wasn’t the Ewoks wot killed Lucas’ reputation, and it wasn’t Jar Jar. It was because he did not make THX-1138: he made Star Wars.
Even though disapprobation of Lucas is relatively old news, a recent trend, which could be dated back to the lukewarm (boom, boom) reception of 1999’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, is the attribution of the saga’s failures to Lucas, while crediting its triumphs to his collaborators. Since ESB is generally regarded as the finest chapter, it’s no wonder this oversimplification applies to it the most.
A period of De-Lucasisation began around 1999, the gist of which was, “Irvin Kershner and Lawrence Kasdan (ESB’s writer) did all the hard work, and made the film what it is while Lucas crunched numbers in Marin County.” It is unfair to downplay the importance of Kershner and Kasdan, but to completely write Lucas off is egregious. However, blame, in this case, also rests with Lucas.
According to Laurent Bouzerau’s 1997 book Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, work began on a sequel to the first film almost right away. Lucas put together a number of story conferences with friends, and then hired Leigh Brackett to write the first draft of the script (which was recently leaked on the interwebs).
These initial conferences show some major diversions from the final film. First of all, Darth Vader and Luke’s father, by the later drafts that bear at least a modicum of resemblance to ESB, are two very separate people. In fact, records show that Lucas came up with the idea of their being one and the same well into the development of Empire. From the first transcript of the story conferences between Lucas and Leigh Brackett, entitled Chapter II: The Empire Strikes Back, through to the two subsequent treatments written by Lucas, to the imaginatively titled first draft, Star Wars Sequel, Vader is most definitely not Luke’s father (in fact, even the concept of Ben Kenobi’s (Alec Guinness) Force-ghost only appears in the first draft — in all the previous treatments, Luke uses a talisman that used to belong to Ben to find out about Yoda).
The notion of Vader’s being Luke’s father appears in the second draft. Lucas nowadays argues that that was the idea all-along, and that he kept it quiet. Through five separate treatments and a full first draft of the script? OK, from Leigh Brackett maybe, but from himself? Eh? That’s either bullshit, or batshit insane. Besides, it makes no sense whatsoever as, in the earlier treatments and the first draft, Luke contacts Ben during his training, and the latter brings along with him Luke’s father from the netherworld for an interplenary father and son tête-à-tête.
Hell, the possibility of romance between Luke and Leia, already pretty icky, is full-on in the earlier drafts. And even though Yoda says, in ESB, that “there is another,” Irvin Kershner explains in the DVD commentary that it was a later addition to unsettle the audience with regards to Luke’s apparent invulnerability. It’s clear that Lucas never thought ahead to the third film, and this, too, attests to Lucas’ aversion to coming up with an overall storyline (even though Star Wars lore argues otherwise).
Fans have used this to wag their fingers at Lucas, for not having figured out the plot to the saga when he first sat down to write it in 1972. I’d like to invoke a favorite quote here from Stephen King: “Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story that results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored. I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story.” Plot, obviously, is different from story — and while Lucas worked out the plot as he went along, he must have known the story, subconsciously, from the start. And that’s because the films have all been so deeply personal to him. And, albeit directed by Kershner, in retrospect, ESB is the most personal film in the saga, and betrays a true auteurist touch.
First of all, certain motifs are delicately worked in to the narrative like subtle melodies in a symphony. Take, for example, the cave motif, one that figures out in all drafts going as far back as the first story conferences. Earlier in the film, Luke gets attacked by a Wampa, and is dragged into its cave. When he comes to, he is suspended, head down, from the ceiling: it is in this cave that his world is turned upside down for the first time. Luke’s lightsabre has fallen off his belt, resting gently on the snow a few feet away. Luke can’t reach it. Finally, he closes his eyes; and as the “Force Theme” — the true leitmotif of John Williams’ Star Wars scores — begins, Luke starts to concentrate, uses the Force, and, for the first time, wills an object to his hand. The transformation to his true self has begun.
Later, Luke confronts the image of Darth Vader in a cave in Dagobah, and, after a brief clash, decapitates the mirage, as the exploding mask reveals Luke’s own face underneath. Similarly, Han and Leia first kiss while hiding from the Imperials in a cave (which turns out, literally, to be the belly of the beast), and what is the Carbonite Chamber in Bespin but a metallic cave: one where both Luke and Han pay the heaviest price. Cave allegories go all the way back to Plato, and Lucas, having immersed himself in the Campbellian idea of the monomyth, employs it to splendid thematic use in this film.
Further, Lucas (and Kershner) play around with masks, scars and revelations: when we first see Luke, he has his face covered to protect him from the blizzard: he looks like an outlaw. After the attack, as he heals in the Bacta tank, an iron lung of sorts is attached to his face, and, in hindsight, gives Luke a sort of proto-Vaderesque look. On a practical level, masks not only act as a way of hiding one’s identity, but also as protection against damage. Or, once that damage is done, to conceal its effects. The way Darth Vader’s helmet is lowered over his scarred, corpse-like head, and the way Luke gets pulled out of the bacta tank, work as mirror images: in the former the helmet hides Vader’s scars, and, as we know from the next film, his true identity. The latter learns from his scarring experience, and has an epiphany to set off on his journey. The Wampa attack leads Luke on his way to Damascus.
Of course, there is a more obvious reason why Lucas went to all that trouble to underline the contrast: in one of the most memorable scenes in the history of cinema, Darth Vader reveals to Luke that he is, in fact, his father. The revelation comes after Vader bests Luke in a lightsabre fight (“The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet”), and chops off his right hand. For all intents and purposes, this is emasculation at the hands of the father. Lucas’ uneasy relationship with his own father, especially as he was growing up, rears its head.
Lucas said in an interview in 2008 that, “(My father) wanted me to go into his business. I said, 'I'm absolutely not going to do it. He sold office equipment in a store. I said, 'I will never go to work every day doing the same thing day in and day out.'” As Anthony Breznican of USA Today noted at the time, “It sort of gives a new perspective to all Darth Vader's talk of, "Join me and together we can rule the galaxy!" Lucas’ father hated his love of fast cars, and chastised him when he got into an almost-fatal accident. Later, he was less than enthusiastic when his son decided to become a filmmaker, and not a businessman (though he ended up being both, which is also interesting).
Unable to receive support from his father, Lucas sought other paternal figures, fathers, if you like, by proxy. Francis Coppola was one of them, and their master-apprentice relationship is analogous to that of both the Jedi and the Sith. Kershner was another paternal influence: Lucas’ hiring of his old mentor to make a film about rising up against the legacy, the sins, of the father was no coincidence.
Nonetheless, ESB never offers a true black-and-white view of Luke and Vader’s relationship — the dichotomy of good father vs. bad father is not clear in any of the films, especially with regard to Luke. For one, Luke’s proxy parents all lie to him, from his aunt and uncle in the first film, to Obi Wan and Yoda in this one. They, too, want to use him for their own ends: to destroy Vader and to destroy the Empire. The latter is also Vader’s ultimate objective. Both parties want power, and they want Luke to help them get it. But, Luke is not the only one to suffer from the sins of his father. In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Darth Vader becomes a slave to the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), his “bad father,” but only after being betrayed — according to him — Obi Wan and the Jedi Order (his “good father”). And Obi Wan is forsaken by his “father,” Qui Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), who, in The Phantom Menace, takes on the responsibility to train Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) when the Jedi Council refuses to do so. It is only after the murder of Qui Gon that Obi Wan is handed the burden to train Anakin, something he’d initially protested. “Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf.” Indeed.
ESB shows that the old guard, good or bad, are intrinsically manipulative: that the children live with their parents’ sins, and end up having to atone for them. By the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke becomes a tragic figure; as Robin Cross put it in his 1985 book Science Fiction Films, “Like John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956), he has saved those around him, but can find no peace for himself.” Since Lucas identifies so much with Luke (Luke-Lucas, etc), is this how he sees himself? I wonder. Even when taking a stand against his father, and redeeming himself through his actions, does he, nonetheless, become a slave to his past? The answer is ambiguous.
Note: Some parts of this essay were appropriated from the author’s previous writings on Star Wars.
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Labels: 80s, Coppola, Criticism, Guinness, Harrison Ford, J.E. Jones, John Williams, L. Kasdan, Liam Neeson, Lost, Lucas, Movie Tributes, Sequels, Star Wars, Television, Wayne
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Friday, May 25, 2007
Yub Nub! Defending the Ewoks
By Odienator
What is it about the Ewoks that turns people against Return of the Jedi? It can't be because they are cute, as the proprietor of this blog described them. Have you looked at an Ewok? They are ugly as hell, with their raggedy clothes and their mismatched fur and faces only an Ewok Mom could love. For my money, R2-D2 is far cuter. It cannot be that.
Is it because they are the results of a drunken night of debauchery and planning at the Kenner Toy factory? Perhaps. I suspect that the majority of the creatures introduced after Lucas struck pay dirt on the marketing deal on Star Wars were created to cash in on gullible kids like me. If you hate the Ewoks because of that, but love other characters, then you are guilty of a hypocrisy matched only by their creator.
If you find them annoying, then I have two words for you: Jar-Jar Binks. Which would you rather have?
The reason I think most people hate the Ewoks is exactly why I love them. They're low-tech creatures in a high tech galaxy far far away. They're not just scraggly looking teddy bears who cuss in what sounds like Russian. They're commentary on the state of our technological world, a back-to-basics approach that Lucas would have been wise to adhere to when he made the "bad" trilogy. I love the Ewoks because they are bootleg as hell. And they know how to party. Lucas should never have cut their little calypso number from the end of Jedi in his revisited version. You know these blue collar primitives knew how to knock back whatever you get shitfaced with on Endor.
The Arrogant Worms have a song that says that Canada has "rocks and trees and trees and rocks and rocks and trees and trees and rocks and water." So do the Ewoks. Stormtroopers attacking? Fly by on some beat-up hang glider and drop a load of rocks on 'em. Knock them down with a forest's worth of chopped down trees. Enemies invading your turf? Stick spears in their faces — regardless of whether they have laser guns — and say "Yub Nub!" Then try to cook them.
Lucas and company had the audacity to ask us to believe that rocks and trees and trees and rocks could stop the Imperial Army. The fact that they do leads me to believe that Larry Kasdan was going for something deeper than toy shopping with the Ewoks. Technology is all fine and good, but sometimes a candle works better than a light bulb. Especially if you didn't pay your electric bill.
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Labels: Blog-a-thons, L. Kasdan, Lucas, Star Wars
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Friday, January 13, 2006
The year of Terrence Howard
By Edward Copeland
Where in the world did Terrence Howard come from? IMDb says he had roles in films I've seen like Ray, Dead Presidents and Mr. Holland's Opus, but he never registered with me until he started getting a lot of buzz for his work in 2005.
I saw him first in Crash and he was one of the many great performances in that really good movie that is what Lawrence Kasdan's awful Grand Canyon wanted to be.
Last night, I caught up with Hustle & Flow and it's hard to believe it's the same actor. Howard's work as DJay, a pimp and drug dealer trying to realize his dream of becoming a hip-hop star in Memphis is astounding.
The movie itself is pretty good too. I sort of guessed where it was heading, even though the tone of the film itself is a mixture of eyes-wide-open hope and down-to-earth cynicism.
When SAG nominated Hustle & Flow for best ensemble, but didn't nominate Howard for best actor, I thought that was odd, not having seen the film yet.
Now SAG's reasoning is clear. As great as Howard is, so is the ensemble that surrounds him: Anthony Anderson, who showed his acting chops last season on TV's The Shield; Taryn Manning as Nola, one of DJay's working girls; D.J. Qualls as the skinny white kid who shows DJay lots of tips on making the music; Paula Jai Parker as the feistier of DJay's streetwalkers; and Ludacris (who also appeared in Crash) as Skinny Black, the hometown boy who returns after making his name in the music industry.
For me though, of all the supporting cast, the standout is Taraji P. Henson as Shug, who is pregnant with DJay's child and becomes a crucial part of his music as well. It's a shame that supporting actress seems to be the most crowded category at this year's Oscars, because she deserves to be a contender.
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Where in the world did Terrence Howard come from? IMDb says he had roles in films I've seen like Ray, Dead Presidents and Mr. Holland's Opus, but he never registered with me until he started getting a lot of buzz for his work in 2005.
I saw him first in Crash and he was one of the many great performances in that really good movie that is what Lawrence Kasdan's awful Grand Canyon wanted to be.
Last night, I caught up with Hustle & Flow and it's hard to believe it's the same actor. Howard's work as DJay, a pimp and drug dealer trying to realize his dream of becoming a hip-hop star in Memphis is astounding.
The movie itself is pretty good too. I sort of guessed where it was heading, even though the tone of the film itself is a mixture of eyes-wide-open hope and down-to-earth cynicism.
When SAG nominated Hustle & Flow for best ensemble, but didn't nominate Howard for best actor, I thought that was odd, not having seen the film yet.
Now SAG's reasoning is clear. As great as Howard is, so is the ensemble that surrounds him: Anthony Anderson, who showed his acting chops last season on TV's The Shield; Taryn Manning as Nola, one of DJay's working girls; D.J. Qualls as the skinny white kid who shows DJay lots of tips on making the music; Paula Jai Parker as the feistier of DJay's streetwalkers; and Ludacris (who also appeared in Crash) as Skinny Black, the hometown boy who returns after making his name in the music industry.
For me though, of all the supporting cast, the standout is Taraji P. Henson as Shug, who is pregnant with DJay's child and becomes a crucial part of his music as well. It's a shame that supporting actress seems to be the most crowded category at this year's Oscars, because she deserves to be a contender.
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