Monday, July 22, 2013
Dennis Farina (1944-2013)
Dennis Farina tended to be typecast as a cop or a crook — and having served 18 years on Chicago's police force before turning to acting had a lot to do with that, but like so many who come to performing from other lines of work, you'd hardly notice the difference. By the premature end of his 31-year acting career, just seeing his name brought a smile to my face because I knew that he'd provide some good moments in the movie or TV show I was about to watch, even if the production itself didn't turn out to be that great. He garnered two acting nominations in his film career, both for Get Shorty. The American Comedy Awards nominated him as Funniest Supporting Actor in Motion Picture and he joined the other members of the ensemble up for the 1995 Screen Actors Guild Cast Award, including James Gandolfini.
Farina made his film debut in 1981 in Michael Mann's often overlooked gem Thief. He did many guest shots and small roles in movies until he teamed with Mann again as the original screen incarnation of the FBI's Jack Crawford in Manhunter, based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon, which introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter. That same year, Mann gave Farina the short-lived starring role in the 43-episode run of the period TV series Crime Story as Lt. Mike Torello. Atmospheric, vibrant and wonderfully scored — Crime Story couldn't last back then, but imagine if it had premiered a decade or so later on cable. The year Crime Story ended its run, Farina played memorable comic bad guy Jimmy Serrano in the great buddy movie Midnight Run, which just marked its 25th anniversary. Other comic bad guys would follow such as Ray Barboni in the film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty and the hit man Henry De Salvo in the underrated Big Trouble, based on the novel by Dave Barry.
On the good guy side of things he played Marshal Sisco, father of Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco in Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Leonard's Out of Sight. He turned up briefly as one of the recognizable faces fighting World War II, in this case as Lt. Col. Anderson, in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. He also
put in two seasons as Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order following Jerry Orbach's departure. His other television work includes the short-lived, quirky detective series Buddy Faro created by Mark Frost, which I enjoyed but ended quickly. Farina also put in a nice turn as an annoying fitness center owner in HBO's adaptation of Richard Russo's novel Empire Falls. Finally, in another case of a series that ended prematurely (and unnecessarily) he landed the great role of Gus Demetriou, right-hand man and aging strong arm for horse racing-obsessed prison parolee Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) in HBO's Luck, an ill-conceived partnership between Mann and David Milch whose cancellation got blamed on the unfortunate deaths of three racing horses in the same sort of incidents that happen at real race tracks across the U.S. daily. It's a shame, because the nine episodes of Luck that aired were excellent. HBO should have had the guts to buy either Mann or Milch out and let the series proceed. (My vote would have been to keep Milch).RIP Mr. Farina. Another gone too soon.
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Labels: Dustin Hoffman, Farina, Gandolfini, Hannibal Lecter, HBO, Michael Mann, Milch, Obituary, Soderbergh, Spielberg, Television
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Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here."
"It's just a satire on the way people behave in the movie studios. There was such a fuss started about it. People started saying, 'Oh people are afraid you are going to do this and do this.' So the more afraid they got, the more ideas they gave me. Looking back on this whole picture, it's a pretty tame satire. It's no big indictment. Things are much, much worse than this picture seems to say." — Robert Altman on the DVD commentary for The Player
By Edward Copeland
To begin a post on the 20th anniversary of Robert Altman's film The Player by showing the clip of his fabled eight-minute, one-take opening and then waxing rhapsodic about all manners of ingenuity in that shot puts me at risk of sounding like Fred Ward's character in that sequence, railing about how everything in movies these days is "cut cut cut cut" and teaching Jimmy the bike messenger (Paul Hewitt) about Orson Welles' famous tracking shot that started Touch of Evil (Unlike Ward's studio security head Walter Stuckel though, I would recognize Absolute Beginners when Jimmy brings it up). Despite any negative connotation I may endure for choosing the most obvious part of Altman's 1992 film to launch my tribute to The Player, I stand by my decision and commence my piece discussing those eight glorious minutes, not only because the work that went into creating that sequence still amazes me two decades later, but because that bite-size morsel of cinematic art serves as a microcosm of the entire film. As Altman himself said in a video interview on the DVD, "The film actually is like a snail — it kind of turns in on itself and becomes itself." When Francis Ford Coppola held a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival to tout Apocalypse Now, he famously declared, "My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." You could say that Altman's film isn't about Hollywood either — it is Hollywood — and who truly can determine on which battleground more blood has been shed. Watching The Player now, you discover (as you find in many Altman films) that wily director had been operating on several planes at the same time during filming and, as funny and dead-on as its humor may be, The Player doesn't exist exclusively as a satire. An audience's boisterous laughter distracts a viewer from noticing Altman's use of some directorial sleight-of-hand. When the humor subsides, a surprised viewer realizes that the film now plumbs much darker depths. That Altman successfully coordinated all these disparate instruments into the orchestral composition we know as The Player remains miraculous. Now, about that opening shot…
Assuming anyone reading this watched the clip or has seen The Player, the actual preparations that Altman, his crew and the actors involved in the sequence took required planning — lots of meticulous planning. Often, you hear people mistakenly
refer to this eight-minute take as a tracking shot when that isn't the case. A camera didn't run on rails as Akira Kurosawa did for The Woodcutter's long walk in Rashomon and isn't exactly equivalent to the move Martin Scorsese loves to do as in Raging Bull and Goodfellas, to name just two of his. Even a casual observer, seeing how the camera moves in those eight minutes, would realize that laying down tracks for all those angles and positions without any being caught on film by the camera as it switched heights and directions would be damn near impossible. No crews could remove or replace tracks that fast. On the DVD commentary track, Altman explains the steps he went through to achieve the scene. The director actually built a scale model of the studio set along with a scale-size crane that allowed him to see where he would be able to travel and reach and where he couldn't go. Using the model, he visualized roughly how the crane would circulate based on which characters and cameo players should appear in what order. "I had to set up the movie studio
and I wanted to set up the characters that we were going to be dealing with and I wanted to get the audience's attention," Altman said. The director went to the real set with the real crane and choreographed the take. While he knew who would be in the scene, Altman hadn't the slightest idea what words would emanate from their mouths as everyone with a speaking part in the opening improvised his or her dialogue. The amount of time on a single reel of film determined the take's total length, so they had to plan how much time to spend at each spot. Altman said everyone rehearsed for a day while the actual filming took half a day, employing 11 microphones and a mere 15 takes. For such a complicated undertaking, while it required intricate preparations, they managed to lock it down rather quickly. It's far from the only time The Player displays a self-reflexive moment — that happens in the film's first image as a hand enters the frame with a clapboard (and if that's an honest clapboard, it means take 10 ended up being used in the film) as you hear offscreen voices asking for quiet on the set, marking the scene and, finally, calling, "Action" so the film can begin — and similar instances occur all the way to its final frame. For his part, Altman emphasized the show in his showpiece. "It's a very conceited thing — this shot with no cuts in it.…It draws attention to it. It's showing off.…It got attention to the picture," he admits. 
What Altman set out to do in that scene — the setting-up-the-characters-and-the-studio part, not the garnering-attention-for-the-film part — he accomplished quite efficiently. We begin with the woman who, truth-be-told, keeps the studio running through who knows how many regimes, the studio president's executive secretary Claire (Dina Merrill) telling the studio president's receptionist Sandy (Leah Ayres) the proper things to say about the boss's whereabouts; we hear the first mention of a name of a rival that will haunt our protagonist, Larry Levy; Speaking of our protagonist, he arrives. One of the top executives, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) pulls on to the lot in his Range Rover and we get an immediate sense of his importance as he gets a movie pitch from real-life writer-director Adam Simon before he's even closed the vehicle's door. Griffin tells Simon to talk to his assistant, Bonnie Sherow; next we see Walter and Jimmy have their tracking shot discussion and pass Griffin's office window where he gets updates from his secretary Jan (Angela Hall) and receives his first official pitch from Buck Henry and we get our first reference to a possible part for Julia Roberts; Adam Simon reappears and we meet Bonnie (Cynthia Stevenson) who begs him to slow down and write it down for her. A shriek is heard and they run over to find that a man driving a golf cart has run over Jimmy on his bicycle, scattering a huge pile of mail. On top of one stack, a postcard with drawings of old movie stars and the words YOUR [SIC] HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD; a young man (Randall Batinkoff) in a sports car pulls up to a young blonde sitting on the hood of a car and purposely mistakes her as Rebecca De Mornay in an attempt to pick her up; a low level exec (Jeremy Piven) sucks up to a group of Japanese visitors touring the studio; studio president Joel Levison (Brion James) arrives, driving to the door of his office and asking Sandy
to park his car for him; three other executives talk about the bank that owns much of the studio "putting the screws" to them and sending the owner's son out from Boston. They talk about how it happens at all studios every few years and rumors that Griffin may be replaced by someone else, maybe even Larry Levy; Griffin hears his second pitch of the day; Director Alan Rudolph asks Jimmy where Griffin's office is and Jimmy tells him and also mistakes him as Martin Scorsese. Rudolph goes in the door as Jan comes out and collects Griffin's mail from Jimmy; Walter now bends Buck Henry's ear, this time going on about Hitchcock's Rope while continuing to gripe about all those cuts. Henry brings up Bernardo Bertolucci's great tracking shot to Debra Winger in The Sheltering Sky. Walter, of course, hasn't seen it; Bonnie chastises her assistant Whitney Gersh (Gina Gershon) for having coffee with Alan Rudolph; Rudolph sees Griffin and gives him his final pitch of the opening scene as well as the film's first mention of Bruce Willis. Mill receives his mail, including that postcard which reads on the other side, "I HATE YOUR GUTS ASSHOLE!" Rudolph hasn't stopped pitching about his cynical political thriller comedy that's "got heart in the right spot" but he gets the last line of that bravura opening, "Of course someone dies in the end. They always do in thrillers." Beyond the technical virtuosity displayed in that opening
take, what an efficient introduction of most of the important characters and plot strands for the film. The single take goes beyond being a clever filmmaking stunt and prepares a viewer for most of what will be coming. If they didn't know what a movie pitch was, now they do. The film establishes the basic hierarchy of the studio's power structure. We know that shaky financial times embroil the studio and that its top development executive, Griffin Mill, could lose his job over it, perhaps to an executive who works elsewhere named Larry Levy. We've learned that someone representing the bank that owns most of the studio will be arriving to look things over. Griffin also has to contend with someone sending him threatening postcards. The movie even has laid the groundwork for the joke that leads to the final punchline. More ominously, as Rudolph says in the context of his movie idea, "Of course someone dies in the end. They always do in thrillers" as Griffin stares out the window after receiving his hate mail, the first scene of The Player doesn't end on a satirical note, but a suspenseful one, indicating the thriller blood flowing through its celluloid veins. Rudolph's description of the movie he wants to make inspires laughter, but it comes damn close to describing The Player as well: a cynical political thriller with its heart in the right spot, only its office politics and while the film does have heart in the right spot, the right spots occur only in isolated moments and not in the film overall.One final paragraph related to the opening, since it affords me the opportunity to share an anecdote from my days long past as a pseudo-professional film critic as well as illustrates that some of the funniest dialogue that just screams satire — well, as animated Springfield mob boss Fat Tony (voiced by Joe Mantegna) once said on The Simpsons, "It's funny 'cause it's true." Altman says in his commentary that the performers improvised all the dialogue in that sequence, including creating their own movie pitches. It shouldn't be surprising then that Buck Henry delivers the funniest one with his idea for a sequel to The Graduate. The other two pitches speak the ridiculous language that most assume has to be exaggerated. In Griffin's second meeting, he listens to writer-directors Patricia Resnick (on left in photo), and
Joan Tewksbury try to sell an idea about a television actress who takes a trip to Africa where a local tribe begins to worship her as an idol. "Kind of like The Gods Must Be Crazy, only instead of a Coke bottle, you have a television actress," Griffin says when he finally catches on to their concept. "It's like Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman," Resnick sums up. When Alan Rudolph spells out the basics of his story concerning a senator who develops the power to see what's inside a person's mind, his pithy summation of the film describes it as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." On Jan. 31, 1992, less than four months before The Player opened, another film finally made it to movie theaters. Originally scheduled as one of its studio's big year-end releases, the studio punted it to the January dumping ground because even they recognized how bad it was. If you review films outside of major markets, studios either contract local agencies to handle publicity and press relations or use regional offices, if they have one in close proximity. (At least, they did this once upon a time. Now, smaller markets get frozen out, if their newspapers haven't axed their film critics first.) In late summer 991, this studio's regional rep drove up to give me and my paper's other reviewer a preview of the studio's fall and winter releases. As he flipped through large photos featuring images from the films, he came to Shining Through starring Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas. After a brief synopsis, the man described Shining Through in a way that forced me to summon every ounce of strength in my 21-year-old body not to burst into tears of laughter. "It's like Working Girl goes to war," he said with a straight face. Yes Virginia, movie folk do talk this way.
"As a screenwriter, one gets used to sitting in the backseat on a film. One reason the writer is usually banned from the set by directors is so the writer's screams aren't heard on the soundtrack when they listen to all the changes being made," said Michael Tolkin, who wrote the screenplay for The Player, on the DVD commentary. Tolkin wasn't just writing the script for The Player, he was adapting it from his own novel and serving as one of the film's producers as well. Neither Altman nor Tolkin mention a Tolkin ban from The Player set on the DVD (in fact, he appears late in the movie with his brother Stephen as screenwriting siblings trying to make a deal). I guess Michael Mann kicking David Milch off the Luck set wasn't that unusual, but they both held executive producer titles, so how did that work? Oh well — horses under the tarp. While Hollywood at large goes beneath the microscope in The Player, how the film industry treats writers garners the bulk of the feature's focus — somewhat ironic given how often
Altman allows improvisation or creates scenes on the fly. (I just noticed how easily I slip into present tense when I write about what Altman "does." He died more than five years ago, but when you watch his best films again, the man seems so vibrant, vital and alive.) In the sidebar I posted Tuesday called Untold Stories of Robert Altman's The Player or Who the Hell is Thereza Ellis?, I covered many details of this, especially concerning the great scene at the Pasadena police station between the police (Whoopi Goldberg, Lyle Lovett and Susan Emshwiller) and Griffin that Altman acknowledges the actors worked out on their own and that Goldberg should be credited as the scene's writer and director. Despite the fact that Griffin keeps getting threatening notes from a pissed-off screenwriter whose calls he didn't return, his reputation has earned the label of "the writer's executive" in Hollywood. Though Griffin ends up physically killing a screenwriter, the rival executive, Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) plays the role of the man who would kill them all symbolically if he could. One fateful night, Griffin drives to Pasadena looking for screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), the man he believes to be behind the threats. Mill learns he's gone to a movie theater to see The Bicycle Thief from his girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi), who Griffin shares an odd and
voyeuristic phone call where he watches her through her windows while talking on his unbelievably large 1990s-era cell phone. He asks why she didn't go with David, but June doesn't go to movies. "Why?" Mill truly wants to know. "Life's too short," she answers. Griffin tries to calm Kahane after he locates him, dangling the possibility of deals and apologizing for not calling him back. Kahane won't allow Griffin's belated asskissing — June told Griffin on the phone his nickname for him was The Dead Man. Since Griffin found Kahane at the movie theater, he deduces June told Mill where he went. "Talk to the Ice Queen? You'd like her Mill — she's a lot like you — all heart," Kahane says before walking out on Griffin. Mill gives up and heads toward his Range Rover when Kahane, pissing in a corner, calls to him and taunts him about Larry Levy, who he has heard will make meaningful films again, and the impending loss of Griffin's job. His paranoia drives Griffin to follow Kahane to his parking lot in an attempt to get him not to tell anyone at the studio they spoke and to stop the postcards. "I don't write postcards! I write scripts!" Kahane yells when Griffin grabs his car door and Kahane shoves him, sending him sailing over a railing onto a loading ramp. Kahane checks to see if Griffin is OK, but Mill snaps and starts bashing Kahane's head into the cement, holding it beneath the water until the bubbles stop, quietly sneering, "Keep it to yourself! Keep it to yourself!" As Griffin snaps back into focus, realizing what he did and trying to fake a robbery, dialogue from the next scene, which takes place the following morning, bleeds into the murder cleanup. "Who wrote the new ending to Fatal Attraction?" Larry Levy asks. "The audience did," he responds to his own question.
Levy's conversation turn out to come from his first meeting as a newly hired executive at the studio. It hasn't quite started as Levison waits in his office and Griffin hasn't shown up on the lot. Claire tells Levison that with or without Griffin, they should begin and he agrees, telling Walter, whom we've learned by now runs the studio's security department to "keep our noses clean, Walter." Levy complains to everyone about the high fees paid to writers and how they should make pictures the people want not the type writers want to give them when Griffin shows up. Levy asks everyone when was the last time they paid to see a movie. "Last night. The Bicycle Thief," Griffin replies. "It's an art movie. It doesn't count. We're talking movie movies," Levy says dismissively. As an exercise, Levy passes a newspaper to different executives and tells them to pick a story. Steve Reeves (Jeremy Piven) reads, "Immigrants protest budget cuts in literacy program." "Human spirit overcoming human adversity. Sounds like Horatio Alger in the barrio. Put Jimmy Smits in it and you've got a sexy Stand and Deliver," Levy smiles. It goes on for a while, but a headline that says “Man Found Dead in Theater Parking Lot” distracts Griffin. When
they capture his attention, he focuses enough to zing Levy back at least. "I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here," Mill suggests sardonically. The frightening thing to me comes from the possibility that with the state of digital effects now, getting rid of the actors could be highly plausible. After the meeting, when Griffin returns to his office where Walter confronts him about David Kahane, he receives a fax with bad news. "SURPRISE!" it reads. Kahane wasn't
the screenwriter sending him the postcards. At another time, Griffin again shows himself to be a bit of a writer's defender when he sends Bonnie to New York to look at the new Tom Wolfe novel and discern if it could be a movie. If it does, he tells her to offer $1 million, which makes Levy choke over the price. "It's Tom Wolfe," Griffin says, as if that's the only explanation needed. There's a catch that comes with Griffin's "writer's executive" reputation. The script still must fall within the proper parameters. He isn't a risk taker. When he becomes involved with June, she asks him what he needs to make a good movie and he rattles off a list of attributes. "Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings. Mostly happy endings," he tells her. Damn if Altman — the maverick, the Hollywood outsider — doesn't manage to include every single one of those elements in The Player. "When people ask me, 'How much did Altman change the script into the movie?' I would honestly say if anyone betrayed me, it was me. As the screenwriter, I betrayed the novel much more than the director," Tolkin admits on the DVD. Altman also offers some words on his reputation as an outsider.and the kind of movies that I can make and like to make and make are not the type of films they know how to distribute.
So basically, we aren't in the same business. There's no point in calling me to make a pair of gloves for you when I make shoes."
Labels: 90s, Altman, Buck Henry, Coppola, Debra Winger, Fiction, Hitchcock, Julia Roberts, Kurosawa, Luck, M. Douglas, Michael Mann, Milch, Movie Tributes, Scorsese, The Simpsons, Tim Robbins, Welles, Willis
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Thursday, March 15, 2012
"I'm just one of the Master's robes. He can put me on or he can take me off."
By Edward Copeland
That face. That gorgeous image of Gong Li not only exposed to me to her for the first time but to my first viewing of a Zhang Yimou film as well. Wait! I confess — factually speaking, clips of Raise the Red Lantern and its star crossed my eyesight before I saw the movie, but I prefer to remember it the other way and I hadn't seen Red Sorghum or Ju Dou yet. Besides, the scenes shown on Siskel & Ebert couldn't really do justice to that remarkable face or film, particularly that opening scene that consisted only of a young Chinese girl named Songlian (Gong) speaking to her offscreen mother (voice of Ding Weimin).
SONGLIAN: Mother, stop. You’ve been talking for three days. I’ve thought it over. Alright, I’ll get married
MOTHER'S VOICE: Good. What sort of man is he?
SONGLIAN: What sort of man? Is it up to me? You always speak of money. Why not marry a rich man?
MOTHER'S VOICE: Rich man? If you marry a rich man, you will only be his concubine.
SONGLIAN: Let me be a concubine. Isn't that the fate of a woman?
Songlian talks to her mother in a voice that's strong and defiant and that makes the silent streams of tears that fall down her cheeks even more powerful, just as the film that follows that scene will be.
When Gong Li and Zhang Yimou collaborated (onscreen and off), it turned out to be one of the most fruitful actress/director relationships in cinema history, even though it lasted a mere six features, the last of which, 1995's Shanghai Triad, ended the teaming on a mixed note (Gong and Zhang reunited for 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower, but it didn't come close to matching their work in the '90s). Raise the Red Lantern marks my second favorite of the Gong/Zhang films (topped only by 1994's To Live). Lantern immediately followed Ju Dou and, like that film, received an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. However, one major difference separated the two films in terms of Oscar submission. China submitted Ju Duo as its official entry when it received its nomination in 1990, the first Chinese film ever nominated. Ju Dou did face some controversy and the communist government banned it for a few years, though eventually they lifted the ban. Lantern proved even more provocative to the Chinese officials, who viewed the film as a veiled allegory for the contemporary Chinese government and similarly banned it (and later lifted it) so it was submitted to the Academy Awards by Hong Kong, which hadn't been handed over to the China yet.
Like Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern takes place in 1920s China during what was known as the country's warlord era, not that anything on the screen specifically tells you the date of the film, aside for a phonograph player that narrows the time period down. Songlian does marry a rich man as she told her mother she would. Soon after she arrives at the ancient fortress that the Chen family has held for generations, she'll learn how right her mother was when telling her that she'd be a concubine since she would become the fourth wife (or Fourth Mistress, as she's formally referred) to Master Chen (Ma Jingwu). Screenwriter Zhen Ni adapted Lantern from the 1990 novel Wives and Concubines by Tong Su. After the brief prologue where Songlian speaks directly to the camera, Zhang divides the film by seasons, beginning with SUMMER when Songlian shows up at the massive, Chen castle grounds dressed like a schoolgirl, wearing long pigtails and carrying a single suitcase. Her unexpected appearance panics the old, longtime servant Chen Baishun (Zhou Qi) who asks her why she didn't take the bridal sedan they sent for her. Songlian tells him that she insisted on walking and when he reaches to take her
suitcase, she refuses. She's determined to be self-sufficient. Baishun doesn't argue and begins to lead Songlian toward her new residence. After her long walk, Songlian feels slightly grimy so before she enters the interior of her home, she spots a servant woman (Lin Kong), who must be around her age, sitting on the ground of the stone courtyard, washing clothes by hand. Songlian asks if she might borrow a bit of the clean water from her basin to rinse her arms and hands and the servant, whose name is Yan'er, reluctantly acquiesces but doesn't hide her bitterness toward this new arrival — through glares, tone and words. Realizing quickly what the pecking order in the Chen household will be, Songlian drops any pretense of politeness and orders Yan'er to bring her suitcase into the house. When I rewatched Raise the Red Lantern, for the first time in several years, while many of its most potent and devastating details had remained seared in my memory, I'd forgotten how many surprises the film springs on you via its talented cast, Zhang's directing choices and Zhen's script. I don't mean twists in the conventional sense that we think of when it comes to movies such as Angel Heart, which I discussed just last week, or Fight Club but in characters and situations where things don't turn out to be quite the way they appear at first glance.
Songlian entered this multiple marriage with a decidedly cynical attitude, but the attention a new wife gets shown on her first day overwhelms the 19-year-old. Baishun shows her into her home, which isn't particularly spacious but comes adorned with nice looking furnishings. What takes Songlian's breath away is when the battalion of servants begins appearing to equip residence, both inside and outside. Men hurry into place pushing rolling racks of bulbous red lanterns that they light and hang on hooks leading to her door. One man comes into the house, lowers a ring holding several of the lanterns above her bed, methodically lights each one and then raises them back toward the ceiling again. This section of the film brings the moment, as in Ju Dou when those dye machines began working overtime, that absolutely gorgeous cinematography consumes the screen. Unlike Ju Dou, which splashed wide array of vivid color across its canvas using the long abandoned Technicolor process, Red Lantern's cinematographer Zhao Fei utilizes the color in the film's title as his hue of choice (and won awards from both the Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics groups for his work. The Inaccurate Movie Database credits Zhao correctly on the movie's awards page, but claims he and Yang Lun, one of the two d.p.'s on Ju Dou, teamed up on Lantern's cinematography on the film's main page. Zhao removes other virtual crayons besides red from his box to create vibrant and striking images for such as a startling icy blue shade at one point. He even manages to make winter's grays and whites sparkle somehow amidst the dullness of the grayer ancient surroundings. While the pampering flatters Songlian, who likes to consider herself smarter and worldlier than many around her, the audience shouldn't forget her age either.
We eventually learn that Songlian attended a university but her father's death forced her to drop out since her family no longer could afford the tuition. That's what led her mother to pressure her into marriage but it's also why she warned her daughter against the type of marriage she enters. That first day though seems pretty good to Songlian — the new wife gets to decide the dinner menu and receives a foot massage, which brings another group of servants (all female) to her residence to prepare her for that ritual. What Songlian doesn't realize is that every day isn't like this and the Master picks which of his wives receives the "honor" of having
him sleep with her that night along with the other perks (foot massage, dinner menu, etc.) This pits the wives against one another on a daily basis, competing and scheming daily to be the chosen one. If this were played for laughs, they'd call it "Desperate Concubines." Raise the Red Lantern tells its story on so many levels simultaneously (if one happens to be veiled criticism of the Chinese government, so be it; the movie did come out just a little more than
two years after Tiananmen Square), but at its core, the lanterns being lit shine upon the tragic history not only of women in China, but women everywhere — a battle being waged frighteningly on state and national levels in the U.S. today over issues thought settled long ago. (And Songlian tried to pursue a higher education — what a snob!) The wives learn to covet the foot massages that, while not as awful as the practice of foot binding, don't look particularly relaxing. One of the oldest servants, Aunt Cao (Cao Zhengyin), explains to Songlian that "a woman's feet are very important" so she can serve her master well. That's why the wives get the "privilege" of this ritual where servants as the servants stretch out the wife's legs, resting the feet on a stool and wrapping a piece of linen around them. Then Aunt Cao takes two hard looking implements that make sounds like rattles and beat them repeatedly against the souls of the wife's feet. In an issue of Senses of Cinema by David Neo on the film called "The 'Confusion Ethics' of Raise the Red Lantern," Neo writes extensively about the history of fetishism of women's feet by men in China, saying, "It was a Chinese myth that the smaller a woman’s feet, the smaller her vagina — therefore, the better for the man."Songlian gets an idea of the games wives play that first night, what should be her "honeymoon." The young woman expresses nerves as it is, hiding her nakedness beneath the covers and asking her husband if they can turn out the lights, but he likes the
lanterns lit, so he can see her. It doesn't matter much because before they can consummate their union, a servant knocks on the door to interrupt. He apologizes but tells the Master the Third Mistress (He Caifei) has fallen ill and is asking for him. At first, the Master orders him to call for a doctor and to tell her he'll see her in the morning, but the servant says she's insistent. The annoyed Master says he's sorry to Songlian, but if he doesn't go, she'll keep this up all night. so he leaves Songlian alone. (This isn't fun for the servants either who have to extinguish the lanterns and Songlian's home and light them at the home of Meishan, the Third Mistress. Someone, presumably Zhang, made a very interesting decision concerning Master Chen in the film: The moviegoer never gets a clear view of his face. The first time I saw Raise the Red Lantern, I thought perhaps Zhang was withholding the moment the audience sees what he looks like for a dramatic purpose much as Spielberg didn't let you see the shark right away in Jaws. That doesn't turn out to be the case though. While Master Chen certainly can be viewed as a villain, it's more like evil spreads out from him and his family's "rules" while in most cases you don't see him committing the acts himself. The Master really serves as a pawn in this game where the women are the victims as well as the villains. Then as the saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover.
When I knew at the end of last year that the anniversary of the U.S. release of Raise the Red Lantern occurred this year, the prospect of
writing about this great film excited me. I wanted to detail the surprises and turns the film takes and how what could have been a staid period tale of oppression turns into a moving, riveting and entertaining motion picture all at the same time, but when I watched it again, a protective feeling awoke in me. Sure, I could utilize the silly SPOILER ALERT, but it isn't that important to tell you in specifics who does what to whom. If you haven't seen the film, you must experience these events for yourself to truly appreciate Zhang's masterful direction, Zhen's great screenplay and, most especially, the wondrous ensemble of actresses. I love Gong but, unlike most of her films, she's not the only actress with chops. All the characters that matter are women and two of the other actresses give performances as downright superb as Gong's. He as Third Mistress Meishan and Cao Cuifen as Zhuoyun, the second mistress also do brilliant work. Giving a fine turn in a smaller role is Lin as Yan'er, the spiteful servant who becomes Songlian’s personal maid and spits in her laundry. We eventually learn her attitude comes from her feeling that she should have been the Fourth Mistress. Playing the First Wife, Yuru, is Jin Shuyuan, an older woman who keeps quiet most of the time since Master Chen shows little interest in her anymore. (Given her age, that's one reason I though they kept his face hidden — to shock us with how old he looks.)
He Caifei and Cao Cuifen stand out in what really end up being the film's most difficult roles since the movie places the audience in the same position as Songlian in that we don't know how to read them. He's Third Mistress Meishan definitely comes on the scene as the troublemaker, interrupting Songlian's first night and when the same tactic fails the second night, she
uses her skills as a former opera singer to sing all night on the roof of the castle and keep everyone awake. Cao's Second Mistress Zhuoyun
doesn't seem duplicitous at all at first, going out of her way to be friendly to Songlian and give her gifts. She even acts as if she's happy for her when she gets picked as the mistress for the night. It's only when Songlian uncovers secrets that Yan'er hides in her quarters that she realizes that the maid works as a spy for Zhuoyun. The situation that persists in the Chen household infects everyone in the end and soon Songlian plays the same sort of games and schemes in the same ways to try to monopolize the master's attention. Eventually this chain of events leads to horrifying results for most of the people who live there. After someone dies, Songlian actually says that she is lucky to be dead because that is a better fate than being alive in the Chen household. A lot of lines prove to be very telling, but I'm going to give them to you as blind quotes to preserve the film's surprises. During a dinner of the wives, one complains about another and vows how different things will be when she's in charge prompting another to say, "When you're in charge, the Chen household will perish." One mistress on another: "She has the face of Buddha and the heart of a scorpion. She's the truly wicked one. I'm no match for her." Even though Master Chen has a grown son Feipu (Xiao Chu) by his first wife and has another by Meishan, Zhuoyun regrets only giving him a daughter and Songlian gets warned, "If you don't give him a son, you're in for hard times." Both actresses give simply superb performances, but I haven't heard much of either since. Not that you can trust the Inaccurate Movie Database, but it lists very few titles for He Caifei (I'm going with the spelling of her name I find everywhere else, that's how little I trust IMDb these days) except for some Chinese TV series, though it says her last feature was Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Cao Cuifen's IMDb filmography ends up even sparser, showing a single TV series and four feature films in her entire career. Then again, who know what can happen to artists in China?
As for Gong Li, Raise the Red Lantern might have been one of her earliest performances, but it showed what a gifted actress she was even then in her mid-20s. She has continued to work steadily in China as well as some American productions such as Memoirs of a Geisha and Michael Mann's film version of Miami Vice. In Red Lantern, what she has to accomplish and does truly amazes. Every emotion you can think of, Songlian expresses — and she gets a drunk scene and gets to go mad as well. It's too bad the performance wasn't eligible for an Oscar nomination. When you think of the Academy's tendency to bestow best actress on twentysomething actresses constantly, few of whom approach what Gong did.
Zhang Yimou provides a lot of great camera moves in the movie both in terms of composition and motion. He has one sequence that pulls back from a scene (I don't want to say of what) to give you the bigger picture that's quite remarkable. As I said earlier, the wondrous
cinematography combined with the production design just produces a stunningly beautiful film, even if it's a heartbreaking one in the end when you see a Fifth Mistress arrive who looks like the youngest yet. Zhang often ran into trouble in China, but he has stuck it out there. Part of me always has wished that he made the leap as other directors did when fleeing totalitarian states such as Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder. Then again, who's to say that Hollywood wouldn't have ruined him as they did Jean Renoir who had to return to Europe to make good films again? China has done their own damage. I miss the Zhang Yimou who made the personal, intriguing films before he got caught up in the Hero-House of Flying Daggers-Curse of the Golden Flower-type of filmmaking. Riding Alone for a Thousand Miles certainly went in the right direction and there are a frustrating number of his works that just never make it here at all. The Flowers of War makes me curious, but after the disaster of A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, I don't know what to expect from him. Whatever he does, we'll always have that great period of work that lasted through about The Road Home in 2000. More importantly, we'll always have Raise the Red Lantern.
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Labels: 90s, Books, Ebert, Fiction, Foreign, Gong Li, Lang, Michael Mann, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Ray Top 100, Renoir, Spielberg, Wilder, Zhang Yimou
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Monday, February 06, 2012
Luck Episode No. 2: Part II
By Edward Copeland
When you recap a television show the way that I do, you see an episode more times than the average viewer (or critic, in many cases) and it allows you to see how individual episodes hold up in relation to others. Having seen all nine episodes of Luck already, I can say truthfully that it gets better as it goes along. It follows the path that many series do in that it takes until about the fourth episode for everything to really jell. Mistakenly, coming off the high of a season that was great overall, I felt that the show just kept rising — each episode improving on the one before until it found its groove. Now that I've delved into the first two with my recap microscope, I can say that while most of the characters improved in the second episode, the second installment itself pales when compared to the pilot. For one thing, it has too many of those microscenes that drive me up the wall but even worse, these short scenes make it seem as if the show was edited out of order. Ace comes out of his meeting with his parole officer to the news that he has a lunch invitation. At the track, the morning workouts are going on. Then Ace has lunch but Marcus and the gang appear to be having breakfast where Renzo meets Goose and they decide to go to the track. We get a couple track scenes after the morning workout, then a quick insert of Renzo getting his photo taken for his owner's license. Then, his partners are back at the motel and Renzo appears, bearing coffee. Next scene, Marcus and Jerry arrive at the track by themselves. Then Renzo shows up, though he had been with them at the motel. The order of the day and scenes just seem out of whack. By the way, if you started here by mistake and didn't read the first half of the recap covering those events, click here.
Escalante prepares Mon Gateau, complete with his red bandages on his front legs, while Goose walks Renzo through the process of filling out a claim. "Whatever you do, don't spell nothin' wrong or the claim will be null and void," Goose tells him. "On owner, I put my name until my friends get licensed and for trainer, I put you," Renzo says out loud, to make sure he's doing it right. Goose notices the bandages on the horse for the first time. "I can't see his front legs," he comments. "What would that be a sign of?" Renzo asks. "He didn't wear them in his last race so either he has a problem or Escalante's pretending he has a problem so nobody will claim him," Goose speculates. "Why is he pretending if he doesn't want him claimed?" Renzo inquires. "So he looks broken down so the odds go up but he keeps the horse," Goose replies.
The horses entered in that day's claiming race are led up through the tunnel from the saddling stable to the paddock. Renzo has never seen Escalante before but figures that it's him leading Mon Gateau out. "He puts his pants on one leg at a time, believe me," Goose says. Turo marches straight ahead to greet his VIP visitors standing before Santa Anita Park's statue of Seabiscuit. "Gentlemen, happy afternoon," Turo addresses Gus and Ace. "Turo Escalante, Chester Bernstein," Gus makes the introductions. "Good to know you, Mr. Bernstein. Mucho gusto, we say in my country," Escalante says, putting on his humble servant show again. "Don't interrupt yourself — stick to your routine," Ace tells him. "I know he bring you to show you his champion in my barn. First, I have to run this eight thousand dollar bum," Escalante apologizes. Goose and Renzo continue to watch from the fence around the paddock as Mon Gateau walks by. "He looks like new money, Renz, and I wouldn't say that just to get you to claim him," Goose comments. Turo points out to Gus and Ace that the jockey who is going to ride the "bum" approaches. "We call him a bug cause he's just starting out, you know," Escalante informs them as Leon walks up. "Tell him your name," Turo orders. "Leon Micheaux. How you gentlemen today?" he asks as he shakes hands with Gus. "Yeah. Good. You?" Gus replies. "Nice to meet you," Bug Boy answers. Ace wishes him good luck and a safe trip. Gus quietly inquires of Ace exactly what a claiming race is and Bernstein explains. "And after the race you can pull your claim?" Gus asks. Ace grins. "No. He's yours no matter what — unless there's more than one claim. But you knew that."
As Turo and Leon head to the horse, the Bug asks, "Should I warm him up real good, Mr. Escalante?" A displeased Turo, arms crossed, turns to face the young jockey. "Why do you ask a question like that?" Escalante wants to know. "No reason," Leon says. (We get a nice, subtle shot here — something that's been in short supply this week with all the hit-and-run scenes and compared with Mann's work on the premiere. After Leon responds to Turo, he steps out of the frame to the right revealing Joey leaning over the paddock fence trying to listen in.) "You should be as sound as this fucking horse," Turo tells Leon as he boosts him into his mount. "Riders up!" the starter calls out and the horses start their march toward the gate. Escalante returns to Gus and Ace. "Seems like a nice kid," Gus comments. "No brain, but he can ride. If you wanted to make a bet, I wouldn't tell you don't go ahead," Turo quietly confides. "OK. So you're pretty confidant with his chances here," Gus says. "If the Bug don't fall off, they win farther than you can throw a rock. ¿Comprende? Understand?" Escalante tells them. "Sí. Yes," Ace replies. "Gentlemen," Escalante says as he leads the men away from the paddock area.
Goose licks the seal on the envelope marked CLAIM and hand it to Renzo. "Stamp it," he tells him. Renzo slips the envelope into a machine resembling a time clock and hears the snap of the stamp. He then inserts into a green box where all the claims go and shares a high-five with Goose. Marcus motors to behind the last row of a section minus any of his partners. A woman in a wheelchair also sits in that area. "Hello," the woman (Dina Belle Garcia), who appears to have cerebral palsy, says to him, "Yeah. Back at ya," he turns and offers in stunned response, not used to social niceties. "Who do you want?" she asks, referring to the horses about to race. "The four, yeah," he replies. Renzo and Goose hurry to the rail to watch Mon Gateau race. Marcus spies through his binoculars and sees who Renzo has with him. "Jesus Christ — that low-ball numbnut you're gonna use to train," he comments to himself.
While Marcus by necessity sits in his own chair at the back of the grandstand and Renzo and Goose stand at the edge of the outer rail, Ace and Gus get shown to box seats by an usher (Aaron Perilo). "Right this way, gentlemen," the usher, Caleb, says as he allows Demitriou and Bernstein to enter the box section. "You take care," Ace whispers as he gives Caleb a tip. "OK. Thanks," the young man responds. "There isn't three hundred people here today," Ace notes. The Greek waves his betting slip. "Ace, this is the biggest bet I ever made by a hundred and ninety-five dollars. Do you believe it?" Gus smiles, amazed at himself. Leon and Mon Gateau behave well as
they're loaded into the gate, but some of the other horses up for claim act somewhat rambunctiously. "You ready, kid?" an assistant starter (Kevin Steed) asks Leon. "Yeah, yeah," the Bug replies with a hesitancy in his voice as he pulls his goggles down. With all the horses loaded, Leon stares ahead at the long expanse of the dirt track that awaits. On the spectators' side, Renzo and Goose stand in anticipation, Ace and Gus sit, with The Greek slightly more interested
than Bernstein and Marcus gets out his binoculars again, focusing them on the gate until the starting bell rings. The chime tolls and the thoroughbreds for sale begin their run, all tightly bunched at the start. In his box, Escalante stands as well. Mon Gateau has hung back toward the rear while two of the other horses put a squeeze on him, making it look as if they're creating a Bug Boy sandwich. Renzo grimaces at the sight. "That's our horse, right Goose?" he asks. Goose just nods. Marcus lowers his binoculars for a moment, looking concerned, then raises them again. "What the fuck? He should be pissing on these cucarachas, this pinhead…," Turo proclaims from his box, picking up his field glasses as well. (Unfortunately, try as hard as I could, I wasn't able to make out the rest of Turo's dialogue and with Luck, I haven't been as fortunate to have helpers with access to scripts who could or would clarify lines for me.) Leon starts pulling back on Mon Gateau, taking the horse further behind but at least escaping the vise. He then steers the horse wide and outside, passing the troublemakers with ease and moving up in the standings quite
quickly. "Come on now, you conyo," Escalante says. Everyone in the stands appear to be on the same wavelength as Renzo, Gus and Marcus, though seated separately, nearly simultaneously root variations of, "Come on, horse." From the back of the pack, Leon has moved Mon Gateau into a sizable lead. Renzo, Goose and Marcus have played the game too long to let their excitement blow yet, but Gus' enthusiasm bubbles over. "Ace, look, that horse is going to win," The Greek glows while Ace smiles for his friend. Leon and Mon Gateau cross the finish line impressively. Gus is giddy. "Ha ha ha. Ace, I had two hundred dollars on this race. Don't ever knock this fuckin' country to me," Gus proclaims. Renzo, Goose and Marcus cut loose with their exuberance once the race officially finished. As Escalante climbs the stairs to leave the grandstand, one of the patrons (Paul Perri) makes a comment referring to the price he was asking compared to how Mon Gateau just performed. "He run good, yeah," Turo replies and keeps moving. "Hey, you won," the woman sitting near Marcus says to him, giving him a "way to go" gesture with her arm. Marcus halfway grins until he spots Goose and Renzo's celebration. (Like it was in last week's premiere, the race scene proves to be the highlight. Mann might not be directing, but it's been widely reported that he left detailed instructions for directors of subsequent episodes to follow, telling them what angles they are allowed to use, what type of lighting has been approved, etc.)
Goose and Renzo come down to the Winner's Circle to see Turo, Leon and Mon Gateau have their photo taken. While Escalante prepares to smile for the camera as always, he's pissed off to see a red CLAIMED tag has been attached to the horse. Renzo asks Goose if they shouldn't be in photo as well. "First let's see if there's a shake," Goose tells him. Walking past the two of them is the man in the cowboy duds who expressed unhappiness with the way Ronnie worked out his horse earlier that morning. "What's a shake?" Renzo inquires. (Scroll to the bottom of that page for shake definition.) "Just come out with me," Goose whispers. Leon dismounts Mon
Gateau and expresses astonishment when he sees the tag. "Ah jeez…he got claimed?" Leon says. "You better hope I don't find out you ran your mouth," Turo growls at Bug before marching off in a huff. "I didn't say nothin' to no one," Leon swears. "You know, for a guy who just won, he don't look none too happy," Gus observes from the box while Ace smiles in stillness as if he were a statue of Buddha. "There's another claim in for him," Goose informs Renzo. Apparently belonging to that horse owner who argued with Ronnie since he's standing with Renzo and Goose awaiting the shake. "Oh no. Oh my gosh," Renzo starts getting jittery. While they wait, the steward's assistant (Amanda MacLachlan), who will conduct the shake, has to weigh-out Leon first. "It's us and Mulligan. We've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting him," Goose reassures him. (Hey — W. Earl Brown's character has a last name: Mulligan.) "Ahh — my stomach's all butterflies," Renzo says. The steward's assistant is ready for the shake now. "Number one is Goose Kellogg," she snnounces. (I hope she said Kellogg. I feel like singing about New York right now, but I'm not going to say why.) The woman reads the other claim card. "Two is Chris Mulligan." (He's got a first name as well. Maybe he's a trainer, not an owner, or perhaps a hybrid like Walter Smith.) She literally shakes a brown bottle containing two numbered items in it. She removes it and proclaims, "Two. Mulligan." Renzo doesn't get Mon Gateau. "You got outshook Renz," Goose says, shaking his head. "Mulligan gets him, not us," Renzo sighs.Escalante storms up the steps of the box seats to resume his meeting with Gus and Ace, but he can't put on his polite Peruvian charade while he's this red hot angry, so he rambles about losing his horse to "some fuckin' cowboy with three different size haircuts." Gus tries to get Turo see the bright side that he at least won the race, but Escalante's rage won't be quelled that easily. "Don't worry. When I found out who has spilled out their beans — I make the fucker a little sorry," Turo pledges. "Yeah. Good," says Ace, always one to appreciate a little payback — as long as it's not taking up his time. Escalante sees he needs to get back on track and apologizes for wasting their time with his own problem. "When can he see his horse?" Bernstein asks. "Right away, señor. I'll take you both right now," Turo tells them.
Joey tries to boost Ronnie's spirits ahead of his meeting with Walter. (Again, this timing seems all off. Smith told him to drop earlier that morning and hours have elapsed since then. Joey even mentioned to Leon that he thought that Ronnie and "The Old Man" had a good talk when Leon craved a bear claw well after Ace had his lunch meeting.) "The beaks are a hundred percent if I find a case to tell him," Joey says to which Ronnie concurs. (A reference to a spill Ronnie took that broke his collarbone that was mentioned fleetingly last week, but you understandably might have missed since the focus was on his drinking and drug problems.) "I'm refreshed and I'm enthusiastic," Joey declares, punching the air with his fist. "Jesus Christ Joey, you act like you're walkin' me to school," Ronnie lets him know. That brings on Joey's stammering until all he can get out is, "You go on ahead alone." Joey begins to walk away but he can't resist tossing out one more caution. "We'll have no problem making that weight." Under his breath, Ronnie mutters, "Shut the fuck up."
Goose accompanies Renzo as he watches with sadness as Billy Mulligan walks into the receiving barn to take ownership of Mon Gateau. "I was gonna give him to my friends. I don't know what's gonna happen now," Renzo tells Goose. "I know a guy who's got a two-year-old for sale. Says he can really run," Goose says.
Ronnie comes upon Walter's stables just as the Old Man is taking Gettn'up Morning around the yard for a trot. "Pretty good lookin', ain't he?" Ronnie comments. "Of course, it ain't a beauty contest," Smith says. "Lucky for the two of us. He's just about the picture of his
daddy," Ronnie declares, stroking the Big Horse behind his ear. While Ronnie and Walter shoot the breeze about "Kentucky quality," Rosie eavesdrops from another building on the grounds. "Kentucky quality killed his daddy. When the colonel died, they took over the farm and they spent all the money. There was nothing left. They took out an insurance policy on Delphi — thirty million. They killed him," Walter tells him, a sniffle sneaking out.
"They broke his leg," his voice definitely is beginning to crack now. "They said it was his fault. You know what breakin' legs sounds like — branches snapping. I always wondered if maybe I could have done somethin', heard somethin'," the Old Man regrets. "Well, you've got a chance with Delphi's son now, sir," Ronnie tells him, his voice breaking up as well. "If I had all the time," Walter mumbles, almost absent-mindedly. "What'd you say?" he asks Ronnie, as if he just woke up from a nap. "You've got a chance with this one, sir," Jenkins says forcefully. "Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'll take it," Smith agrees as he leads Gettn'up Morning off and thanks Ronnie for coming. (Not only do we get the basics behind the two central mysteries in this episode, they come in the form of monologues for the series' biggest names, though Nick Nolte's scene comes off much better than Dustin Hoffman's did, not because of any fault on the actor's but because Hoffman's scene was handled so ineptly whereas Nolte's built to an emotional finish instead of functioning merely as exposition. Though nothing like this happens this season, the way both Ace and Walter get portrayed at times, I can't help but suspect that there are future plans for one of these characters to develop Alzheimer's. Call it a hunch.)
Jerry has returned to The Hustler Casino and one of its high-stakes poker tables. Shifts have changed and a new dealer (Erika Lenhart) has placed the 10 of hearts, the king of spades, the queen of clubs, the 9 of clubs and the 4 of spades as community cards. Lester Chan sits at Jerry's table once again as Jerry mulls his move. Jerry checks his hole cards again and sees that they remain a queen and 8 of hearts, giving him a pair of queens with a king kicker. "I call," Jerry says, pushing all of his chips to the middle. "Straight up and gamble, not to draw," Lester comments. Jerry tosses his pair of queens on the table. Lester shows his pocket pair of 10s, giving him a set. Jerry grits his teeth at losing to Lester again. The dealer button moves to Jerry though he lacks chips, but he tells the dealer to deal anyway. He stands up and pulls a stacks of bills from his pocket and tosses it in front of the dealer, "Jerry got money to win back. Taking him forever," Lester says as the dealer counts out Jerry's cash. Marcus seems to possess Jerry again. "Keep it up, bug ear and I'll slap the slant off your fuckin' face," he warns Jerry. The dealer isn't amused and calls for the floor man.
Lonnie, still decked out in his snazzy new suit, has met those infamous lady insurance agents at a bar where he's trying to break the news to them that playtime — and scamtime — has now come to an end. "I only wish I could give specifics on how my circumstances seem to have improved," Lonnie tells them, without giving anything away about the Pick Six Jackpot as Marcus feared he would. "Well, obviously
your situation has changed," Lynette (Mary-Margaret Humes) observers. "And you don't need our help any longer in what we were trying to arrange," Adelle (Patti Tippo) adds. Lonnie tells the women that he regrets that the new circumstances have interfered with their plans for an insurance scam. "What I hope we can agree on is, we'll be eligible, every so often, to occasionally, still have a few laughs," Lonnie suggests, thinking of the effect this could have on the Emperor. "Sure. Why not?" Lynette agrees, taking a drink. "That makes me happy. Believe me," Lonnie declares. Adelle gets rights into Lonnie's face and breathily asks, "What about now?" Lonnie seeks clarification. "For a few laughs," Adelle giggles. "He's letting us down easy. He's never gonna see us again," Lynette asserts. "That happens to be bullshit and does not represent my feelings," Lonnie insists. Adelle dissolves into little laughs while Lonnie again apologizes for all the paperwork the women went through setting up the con they never executed. "And I thought you liked your cock between our titties," Lynette says as she places her hand down Lonnie's pants. "Well hello to the Emperor," she announces while Adelle slips something into Lonnie's drink. "Are you trying to wake up the sleeping giant?" Lonnie asks. Adelle wants to know why Lynette is trying to embarrass herself in front of Lonnie. "What's that? I hear a voice from inside my pants. 'What about me?' the Emperor is asking. 'I'm white and 21. When did I lose my right to vote?'" Lonnie speaks for his penis before taking a drink of the spiked liquor.Outside the casino, Jerry pilfers through a bag in his trunk and grabs more cash to take back inside. (Again, another one of these tiny scenes that drive me up the wall, especially since we had no resolution to that large amount of cash the dealer was counting out in the last casino scene nor her call for the floor man when he lashed out at Lester with the racist remark. Jerry's time in the parking lot lasted 24 seconds.)
Pint of Plain finishes a carrot from Turo's hand as Ace meets him for the first time. "I gotta say, he looks a lot better than he did from last week," Gus says. "Well, you know a lot of time people feel something they don't know about without actually knowing but they still go ahead and run their fuckin' mouth anyway," Turo bitches. "Hey!" Gus exclaims. "Jesus Christ! Keeping a civil tongue too tough?" Ace asks
him. "…That's what you expect me to do," Escalante responds. (Another example where it would be helpful if I had support I felt I could ask to consult the script to decipher the first half of Turo's line.) "His cold, it got better and now his feet got better. We giving him better shoes," Escalante reports. "He's got a helluva stride on him when he runs. He showed me some of the tapes of the races," Ace says, realizing he almost slipped in the illusion that it's not really his horse. "Very smooth action. He move very good on the track. Two years ago I got to stop paying all his bills myself," Turo comments. "Bill was scheduled," Ace replies. "The horse's both front legs were bad, broke.…How they were broke — there's no conceivable way. To nothing, to someone you don't like," Turo informs
Ace. "You lost him. Looks like you took a beat on a game you ran on him," Bernstein theorizes. "Ace, there's that goat. You know, the one with nuts the size of pumpkins," Gus points out excitedly as his boss stares down Escalante. "Good," Ace responds, never removing his gaze from Turo. "This horse likes him. Always pushing him around with his nose," Turo tells him. A young worker speaks to Escalante in Spanish. "He say when this horse go to the track, the goat comes to the stall and waits for the horse to come back," Turo translates. Bernstein asks Escalante what they charge for the bags of carrots, emphasizing now, not when he started 30 years ago. Turo has to ask the young worker. "Maybe fifteen dollars. What do you care how much my carrots cost?" he inquires. "You know I was in prison," Bernstein says. "That's what people say," Escalante responds. "Maybe what else they're gonna say is this is some kind of mobbed-up project," Ace adds. "What do I know? I'm from Peru," Turo replies. Ace seeks permission to pet Pint of Plain. Turo lets him and Ace gently strokes the white patch on his head. "He's got a very plain head on him," Escalante says. (Now, that's a scene with meat on it. Why did we need 24 seconds of a trunk in a parking lot between the bar scene and this one? I felt bad, in a way, for Farina who basically stood on the sidelines as Hoffman, the well-known powerhouse, went toe-to-toe with John Ortiz, the up-and-coming powerhouse who stood his ground and didn't give him an inch — because Escalante wouldn't unless it worked to his advantage.)Whatever Adelle slipped in Lonnie's drink isn't helping the Emperor, so she urges Lynette to try to give him a hand. An embarrassed and drugged Lonnie wants to give up and let the Emperor abdicate his throne for the evening. Before he can pull his pants back on, the women encourage him to keep trying, so he does just as Lynette removes a blackjack from the bedside table drawer and whacks him across the back of the head with it. "What'd you fuckin' hit me for?" Lonnie asks as he falls backward on the bed. Since he didn't lose consciousness, Adelle tries to draw him back into sex games while Lynette tells him the truth as she takes another swing. "What we insured you moron is your life," she growls. Lynette keeps swinging away but Lonnie proves surprisingly resilient. (I wonder if Marcus is laughing somewhere for being right.) "Fuck man. Are you trying to kill me?" he yells as he fends off her attacks. Adelle grabs the weapon and starts doing the swinging. "You think you can just doublecross people, breaking promises," she screams. With Lynette hanging off him as he tries to flee Adelle's attacks, the three end up crashing through the motel's sliding glass window. Lonnie spots a landscaper (Jose Reyes) loading his truck and asks him for help. "What's up, bro?" the man asks. "They're fuckin' crazy. I got money. Do you know where the Oasis Motel is?" Lonnie asks him?" The landscaper helps Lonnie into his truck. (I tried to locate an Oasis Motel in Arcadia near Santa Anita and Rod's Grill, but none seemed to be in the area. I did find a chain motel whose exteriors slightly resembled the exteriors of the scenes of their motel, but then I couldn't find the link to those photos again.)
They count out Jerry's cash at the casino again. "Twenty-five thousand," the dealer says. "Twenty-five thousand," this shift's floor man (Christopher DerGregorian) repeats. "The sail's up and ship's leaving," Jerry says. Lester looks amused. "This is a house ruling for this hand only," the floor man announces. "Do not try this at home," Jerry talks over him as he pushes his chips in. Only the flop has been dealt, showing an ace of clubs, 8 of diamonds and queen of diamonds. "By agreement of both players, cash not on the table at the beginning of the hand has now been put into action," the floor man concludes. "Alright guys, turn 'em over," the dealer tells them. Lester flips an ace and queen of hearts, giving him two pair, Jerry shows a king of clubs and a king of diamonds for a pair of kings. The dealer deals a 2 of clubs for the turn (or fourth street), which doesn't help Jerry. The river, however, certainly does as she turns over the king of hearts, giving Jerry trips and winning him the hand. Lester's face sinks. "Give him his chipa," the floor man says, adding. "One-time ruling. Normal house rules resume." Jerry, smiles and stacks his chips. "Floor, cash me out," he requests. "Yes sir, Mr. B.," the floor man replies. "Make it back, Mr. B. Come back tomorrow — I'll wipe the white off your face," Lester tells Jerry. Jerry tips the dealer and applauds for himself.
Outside The Long Shot bar, Rosie's having a smoke when Walter rolls up in his pickup. "Hey boss. Out among 'em," she says as if she's been caught. She asks if the horse ate. "Oh yeah. Didn't leave an oat," Smith tells her. "Listen. I'm red in the face, puttin' you on the spot about ridin'," Rosie admits. "Now Rosie, that was my fault. I just left you out there by not speakin' up. I wasn't sure," Walter takes the blame. "There's my answer," Rosie responds. "There's your answer. You've done a lovely job to get him here. I don't think anybody else could have done it any better and I'm gonna be surprised if you don't turn out to be one race-ridin' son of a gun when you're working…(Something else it would have been nice to have support from someone with a script to decipher)," The Old Man predicts. "At Portland Meadows, it looks like," she says. Walter tells her that Portland probably will be a better place for her to get her start. "Spot you three in Nine Ball," she suggests. "A while back, that'd be an offer you regret," he declares as he goes into the bar and Rosie asks him to have one for her.
Inside The Long Shot, Joey happens to be lurking and makes sure to start a talk with Walter. Before any other subject comes up, Smith asks him if he knows any jockey agents in Portland and tells him about Rosie. Joey says he does and gives Walter his card and tells him to have her call him. Walter asks Joey if Ronnie would be ready to ride the mount on Gettn'up Morning for a six-furlong race a week from Saturday. Rathburn assures him that Jenkins would be.
Renzo tries to talk to Marcus but gets interrupted when the beat-up Ronnie is dumped outside their rooms. Jerry arrives about the same time.
You know the episode has reached its finish when we've returned to the Beverly Hilton suite for bedtime and Ace and Gus have one of their bull sessions about the day's events. "I drive around to the track's back entrances for a chance to wind him up to knock a nickel off the price of his bag of carrots. He'd scream bloody murder, Escalante," Ace tells Gus. "That is a picture — Escalante behind a pushcart full of fruits and vegetables. Him, wanting to be on the inside training horses," Gus says. "All I think he knew was that he was in a strange fucking country and he hated selling vegetables," Ace states. "And he don't know to this day that it was you that got him through that gate," Gus marvels. "It's him that took the bit between his teeth. He's made himself into somethin'. All I did was tell some trainer whose
bets I took, 'Hey, there's this guy outside. You should hire him, bring him in here to the stable, to shovel horseshit. Give him a start,'" Ace elaborates. Gus chuckles. "That's how I know what's waitin' for Mike. You don't leave no open contracts," Gus proclaims. "We need a go-between, Ace decides. "Between DiRossi, Cohen, Mike and us?" Gus asks. "Yeah," Ace confirms. "What about me?" Gus suggests. "You get hot under the collar," Ace raises as a reason for Gus not to be it. "Well, yeah, granted, but…" Bernstein interrupts Gus (unfortunately with yet another line I can't decipher leading me closer that without supportive reps, if not at HBO as all my previous great helpers have been then connected with the show itself, it's going to be pointless to continue this endeavor.) "Someone we trust or someone we don't?" Gus asks. (More unintelligible) not make a difference," Ace replies. "All that trouble, getting them to fix that slot so they think I owe them," Gus proposes. "Set a meeting tomorrow with my investment company. I'll pick a go-between so we can do what we need to do to get these guys," Bernstein orders. "Please tell me I didn't let you down," Gus says. Ace shakes his head no (and says something else I can't make out). "Then let's go get these cocksuckers," Gus suggests. (MORE BALLOONS AND STREAMERS FALL FROM THE CEILING) (By about the fourth episode, Luck will really hit its stride, though it's such a short season, it will seem as if it's just getting started by the time it's over. Unless a miracle occurs in the next couple of days, I'm leaning toward abandoning the recap of this show, which I hate to do. It's a very good show and, more importantly, it's complicated and often subtle and I like to serve my readers by helping to explain parts they aren't getting, but if I'm not going to receive the help I need to accomplish this end, I shouldn't try. It will just be too frustrating for me.)Tweet
Labels: Dustin Hoffman, HBO, Luck, Michael Mann, Nolte, TV Recap
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