,, I' I , Women in Film: Wolfat the Do-or Lewis Teague: Karat King on 'Jewel of the Nile' The 1985 Book Revue: ~~~~-..,......I ,\"'J\":--W- • 'Cahiers'
•Sl•SSUe published bimonthly by the Film Society ofLincoln Center Volume 21, Number 6 November-December 1985 The Boys from Termite Terrace .11 Women in Film (Just Barely) ...20 If ever a bunch of movies ex- Susan Seidelman hatched a hit emplified Manny Farber's def- with Desperately Seeking inition of Termite Art, it was Susan; Patrizia von Branden- the 1,003 cartoons produced stein won an Oscar for design- for 40 years at Warners Bros . ing Amadeus; Dawn Steel and Inside the Hollywood narra- Lucy Fisher are powerful execs tive beast, they gnawed away at Paramount and Warners. with surrealist subversion . The dawn of a new age, in Now the workofChuckJones , which women are accepted as Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Hollywood equals? Maybe, but and the other denizens ofTer- with heavy cloud covering. Ask mite Terrace is being recog- a dozen women on various nized at The Museum or\" rungs of the film-production Modern Art and peddling in ladder, as Marlaine Glicksman nine videocassettes . Richard did, and hear the same sad Corliss pa ys homage to the story of old with poignant new merrie menagerie (page 11), while David Chute metes out I -tw-ist-s.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i ~:::_:_:__:_\"__:____=_=_---~pr-a-ise-a-n-d-c-av-ea-t-s<.;.:.p....;ga;;...e_1_4)_. ..., The 1985 Book Revue ..31 ,Hillbilly Heaven. . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Read all about it! Richard Schickel reap- praises Preston Sturges (p. 32); David Smokey and the Bandit and the Thomson flashes back to the birth pangs Walking Tall series were the of Cahiers du Cinema (p. 35); Daphne upscale versions of the species Cornporn: fetid morality plays Merkin monitors those Bette Davis about moonshine, lust, sighs (p. 38); David Bianculli chats up miscegenation, shotgun jus- Kurt Vonnegut on all those squashed tice, and women with humung- movie projects (p. 41); John Powers ous breasts. Jimmy McDo- essays the MTV novel (p. 44); Jay Cocks nough and Bill Landis survey reviews John Boorman's jungle horror this hilly terrain and talk with stories (p. 47); and Anne Thompson has some of the survivors. the final word on Final Cut (p. 48). Also in this issue: Reel Help ..................52 Festomania................. 72 Journals ....................2 Suffering from \"compassion fatigue\" over Telluride, New York...wait, there's more. Savage Steve Holland has a weird name all those celebrity hootenannies for We've got Harlan Kennedy in Edinburgh, and lofty Hollywood ambitions; Savage noble causes? Then pin the picture Bob with a haggis of international film fare, Steve Schaeffer reports. j. Hoberman Geldof is putting together with Holly- and Dave Kehr in Toronto, where old went into the mountains of Telluride and wood's top stars and directors. A scoop films outshone the new. Next issue we'll found a Mexican treasure: actor-auteur by Jack Barth and Mike Wilkins. print their expense accounts. Emilio Fernandez. In Tel Aviv, Dan Yakir Video: VCR Fever in Britain ...78 discovered a West Bank movie romance New York Film Festival .......60 Nobody goes to the movies on the scep- Suddenly it's 1950! Irate Catholics picket ter'd isle any more, but everybody sees stirring political controversy. a \"blasphemous\" film about the Virgin them. Harlan Kennedy unravels the Up from 'Alligator' ...........27 Mary-not The Miracle but Jean-Luc home-movies riddle. A B-movie craftsman hits the big time as Godard's Hail Mary. Critics Elliott Back Page: Quiz #16 .........80 Lewis (Cujo) Teague directslewel ofthe Stein, Stephen Harvey, and Harlan Nile, the sequel to Romancing the Jacobson pick at the 23rd annual Lin- Cover photo: © 1985 Warner Bros. Stone. By Dan Yakir. coln Center bash . Co-Editors: Richard Corliss, Harlan Jacobson. Business Manager: Sayre Maxfield. Advertising and Circulation Manager: Tony Impavido. Art Director and Cover Design: Elliot Schulman. Production : Deborah E. Dichter. West Coast Editor: Anne Thompson. Editorial Assistant: Marlaine Glicksman. European Correspondent: Harlan Kennedy. Research Consultant: Mary Corliss. Circulation Assistant: Deborah Freedman. Back Issues: Marian Masone. Controller: Domingo Hornilla, Jr. Executive Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center: Joanne Koch . Second class postage paid at New York and additional mailing offices . Copyright © 1985 by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in FILM COMMENT do not represent Film Society of Lincoln Center policy. This publication is fully protected by domestic and international copyright. FILM COMMENT (ISSNOO 15-119X), 140 West 65th Street, New York, N.Y. 10023, U.S .A., is made possible in part by support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. 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s dog, wearing a plastic anti-flea bonnet and sporting a really unattractive strip of Savage Steve, Telluride, and Tel Aviv shaved skin along its side, sits quietly, free from fear and fleas. The cartoon-style vil- CAPE CAPERER everywhere. Producer Michael Jaffe, lains, New York actor Mark Metcalfe, and another Dead vet who says he's working Matt Mulhern (of Biloxi Blues) in his film A t 25, Savage Steve Holland has next on a four-hour TV sequel to The debut, are greedy land-developers itchy another \"SS\" on his mind: Steven Great Escape, is with his wife who is an for this Cape Cod residence. Metcalfe, Spielberg. His first film Better OffDead, a assistant director on MSV. Savage Steve's with three bulldozers for support, snarls cartoonish, if autobiographical, account of younger sister, Squid, is on the crew and his lines and then only pantomimes a kick. a high-schooler's near-suicidal sorrow over his cousin, Kristen Goelz, 7, is playing being jilted by his girlfriend, allowed him Squid. His older brother, nicknamed The crew repositions for the reaction to reach his goal of matching Spielberg's Slime, is missing, but Savage Steve's par- shot. A track is laid for a zoom shot that record for completing a first feature by the ents are visiting. \"That's right;' he says, will close up on little Krissy. \"Spielberg time he was 24. Now he wants to match \"my Mom likes to hang around the cater- uses this shot all the time;' says Savage Spielberg's grosses in his second film, ing truck with a bag, looking for handouts Steve. Krissy, whose blond hair has been which has a Jaws reference in its Nan- to take home:' dyed red to match the real Squid, is to say, tucket setting. \"Oh no, Bosco!;' and put her hands to her The joke catalog in MSV also boasts face. Surrounded by the young actors, Savage Steve - a name no one on the set (according to the publicist) a \"dancing alli- she's coached by Demi Moore: \"He's kill- calls him but which has stuck since a jun- gator\" who shares a nightclub stage with ing your dog, Krissy:' Savage Steve bends ior high school joke, and hey!, how many leading lady Demi Moore, a handicapped over and advises, ''You gotta pretend that's other directors get alliterative billing- Bosco\" as he points to a bare spot below draws from his unremarkable Greenwich, Savage Steve Holland the camera. Conn., life experiences to write and direct horseshoe crab who is given a Barbie-doll's his movies. In an attempt at Daffy Duck leg as a prosthesis and a drive-in marquee Krissy manages the take perfectly. The delirium, Dead 's catalogue included food that is showing Hemorrhoids from Hell surrounding assembly, some 40 people, jokes (boiled bacon for breakfast), ethnic and Chainsaw Date. All this plus a plot spontaneously breaks into applause. jokes (a Japanese Howard Cosell imita- with a dying grandpa, displaced old folks, That's too much for this would-be tion) , kid jokes, animated Gumby-style and first love. But first, the upcoming Margaret O'Brien: Krissy cries. Buckets. jokes (hamburgers' singing duet at the Pig shot. Demi, Cusack, and Bob Goldthwait hover Burger), and fat jokes, all accompanied by around, helpless to dam the flow. Finally, the expected pratfalls , explosions, \"Its going to be great!\" Savage Steve Savage Steve goes over and the tears stop. crashes, -and upbeat finish. enthuses. \"You're going to see a dog kicked:' The others are emotional too-for At Cal Arts, his animated shorts regu- many that was the final shot, and there are larly won student competitions; his inde- L ike much that passes for conversation farewell hugs. Curtis Armstrong, another pendent live action short, Buster 's First on the set, that is hardly true. The Dead veteran, looks relieved. He knows Date, tickled the fum industry's funny whatever it's title, MSV will be released - a bone when it premiered at Filmex; that fate hardly so definite for his previous landed him a Warner Bros . release for effort, The Clan ofthe Cave Bear. Savage Dead. Now, with $10 million and seven Steve prepares to do the next scene, a weeks, he's finishing his second A & M dialogue between Moore and Cusack on Films feature. My Summer Jizcation (a the porch. \"I know exactly what I'm doing title certain to change after last summer's here;' he says, sort of seriously, about Summer Rental and National Lampoon's making movies, \"it's life that's confusing:' European Vacation) is a coming-of-age comedy of a college bound youth (Dead 's - STEPHEN SCHAEFFER John Cusack) who learns about love dur- ing a Nantucket summer. 'El Indio' Rides Again On the porch of a typical Cape house in H anna Schygulla is certainly prettier, Falmouth, Mass. , overlooking the ocean but without doubt the most colorful and an island bird sanctuary, Savage Steve character feted this year at the Telluride presides over the shoot with self-deprecat- film festival was the octogenarian Mexican ing wit and a bit of nail-biting. He resem- director, Emilio Fernandez. Longhaired bles a Central Casting lifeguard: curly and mustachioed, dressed in a battered blond hair, happy-button eyes, and sun- Stetson, black leather jacket and boots, burned nose. The youthful cast hangs Fernandez made every other cowboy (let around him like puppies; relatives are alone filmmaker) in this Rocky Mountain aerie seem like just another extra. \"Ellndio\" (the Indian), as Fernandez is known in deference to his mestizo heri- tage, was born in 1904 in northern Mexico and grew up during a time of maximum revolutionary chaos. Supposedly, he killed his first man at nine- in defense of his mother's honor. Fighting for various gener- 2
als during the long, convoluted Mexican Pedro Armendanz and Maria Elena Marques in La Perla. revolution, EI Indio wound up on the los- ing side and was forced to seek refuge in tions. But, as Gregory Nava observed in ferent cultures have different standards:' the United States. There, according to various stories, he made his way to Chi- his introduction, not one of Fernandez' His best work is impressive by any. cago, where he met Rudolph Valentino and taught him some new steps. Following ftlms resides in the Museum of Modern Valentino's funeral train out to Hollywood, Fernandez found work as a movie extra Art's archives. To put together this tribute, Vi Indio's two-ftsted style not only fit in and riding double in grade-Z Westerns. researchers had to scour Mexico and Latin Dwith the landscape but, also comple- After his return to Mexico in the early Thirties, Fernandez was ftrst an actor, America looking for material. Here's hop- mented that of the Telluride regulars . If then a director. He was Mexico's most celebrated film figure, a fixture at interna- ing someone has a complete print of Salon the intrepid Werner Herzog was absent tional festivals, until his career went awry in the mid-Fifties. (In My Last Sigh, Luis Mexico, at least. The impressively tough this year, both Stan Brakhage and Les Bunuel tells the most famous Fernandez story: Having invited a group of journalists bit of business taken from this 1949 fea- Blank were much in evidence-each in his to his house, EI Indio responded to a slight by getting his gun and running them off in ture showed a hostile couple winning a way a salty, all-American original. a hail of bullets. One reporter was wounded but declined to press charges.) sleazy dance contest, the male partner Brakhage, who has been lately painting on Out of favor with local producers, Fernan- dez assisted and acted in the films of his walking off with the prize and buying a film, showed brief excerpts from two gringo pals John Huston and Sam Peckin- pah. (His best known role is as General whore, with the ostensive heroine sneak- works in progress, Purgation and exist- Mapache in The Wild Bunch.) A directo- rial comeback was aborted in 1976 when ing into a neon-dappled, fleabag hotel ence is song. Their swirlingly complex Fernandez shot a 26-year-old farm worker in a barroom altercation. Convicted of room to steal back the moolah while heel constellations made the hand-painted manslaughter, EI Indio served six months of a four-and-a-half-year sentence. So, he and hooker sleep. Although the film looks films of Norman McLaren and Len Lye switched horses and now appears in Mexi- can TV soaps. like a noir, it actually belongs to the Mexi- (not to mention Brakhage's earlier efforts Although opening, appropriately can cabaretera genre of the late Forties; along this line) seem primitive by compari- enough, with the machine-gun sequence from The Wild Bunch, the Fernandez trib- the lO-minute sequence came complete son. ute skirted the fantastic saga of shootings and incarcerations, exile and deportations, with the obligatory, sizzling Afro-Cuban Blank also screened a number of works- that made up Ellfldio's calendar in favor of clips from the film career: Doloros Del number. in-progress, including Cigarette Blues (he Rio heroically paddling her canoe through the floating gardens of Xochimilco in the Fernandez was greeted by a standing seems to have stopped smoking), Gap- Cannes prize-winner, Maria Candelaria (1943); a comic explosion from the ovation that nearly reduced him to tears. A Toothed Women (the surprisingly dull Fernandez version of The Taming of the screening of La Perla (The Pearl, 1945), chronicle of a personal erotic obsession), Shrew (Enamorada, 1946); a bizarre, ultra-macho, horseback knifethrowing his best known film, written by John Stein- and an account of Chicago-based Serbian contest in Pueblerina (1948). One aston- ishing sequence from Rio Escondido beck, tried to do it to the rest of us. An musicians (some of whom were previously (1947)-in which Marfa Felix (\"devora- dora de hombres\") is cast against type as a overly schematic parable in which a poor, filmed by Jill Godmillow). More substan- heroic rural schoolteacher-begins with the town sheriff slugging a priest, then virtuous Indian couple have their lives tial were the short Don't Mess With My abruptly turns hallucinatory as an eerily keening religious procession circles the blighted by the enormous pearl they dis- Toot- Toot - Blank's contribution to the church. There's a drought, and the local kids are drinking pulque; the excerpt cli- cover, the film is enlivened by some thun- great Rockin' Sidney caper, the biggest maxes when the sheriff shoots a boy who dared to steal his water. derous studio dance numbers and ripe New Orleans hit in years, and a canny bit Fernandez's clips exhibited a robust, performances (including Alfonso Bedoya of exploitation in its own right-and the often heroic style, founded on exteriors (mostly shot by Gabriel Figueroa) and as the village headman). It's shamelessly feature Drums Across the Ocean. monumental, Eisensteinian composi- blatant in its devices-to mixed effect. Made in collaboration with Howard Although the Indians' illiterate, shoeless Drach and Eugene Rosow, Drums is an innocence might be difficult to take, it's international survey of Afro-Cuban music, hard to resist the medieval, gargoyle qual- shot mainly in New York and Cuba. It is ity of the leering avarice they encounter. more didactic than the usual Blank, with a La Perla also includes a fairly blunt discus- voice-over narration by Harry Belafonte sion of abortion; when asked about the and a tendency to collect statements from relative frankness here, as well as in Salon the peasantry on how La Revolucion has Mexico, Fernandez blandly replied, \"dif- improved their lives. But the Cuban voo- 4
\"This year's New York Film Festival poster is abeauty:'-Janet Maslin, TIle New York Times, September 15, 1985 u~~ ~35 ~~ The 23rd New York Film Festival poster, by noted American ~ ~w )f(Q) ~ ~ Pop artist Tom Wesselmann, is \"the first manifestation\" of [F~L M [F~~u~ ~ffi\\ L his new work, based on cut-outs. ~ (Q)~u~~ Wesselmann is known for his lush, sensuous colors, and large scale paintings...seen in this spectacular poster TOM WESSELMANN designed especially for the Film Festival. The image is 39x37, silkscreened on high-quality paper. The unsigned limited edition poster is $40. The signed, limited edition poster is $100. PRESENTED BY THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER T he 23rd New York Film Festivat is made possible. in part , with public funds f rom the New York St8te Council on the Ans and the National Endowment tor the Arts. Allow six weeks for delivery. OHer good in U.S. only. I enclose $ _ _ for _ _ signed _ _ unsigned 23rd New York Film Festival Poster Name: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Address: _ _ _ _\"\"\"\"'---_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ City/StatelZip: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Daytime Phone: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Mall coupon with check or money order payable to: The Film Society of Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th Street, New York, New York 10023. You may use the postage paid envelope in this magazine.
doo feast, with old folks getting down to exotic one. Not only do we see Chinese story, The Woman from Ramallah, the rumba under the benign gaze of a house- film depicts the travails of Tagar, an Israeli, hold Che Guevara icon, could scarcely youth spitting out Coke in justified disgust who falls in love with Leila, a Palestinian have been shot by anyone else. widow. She lives in Ramallah, where he is and auditioning for politically correct fash- prosecutor for the Israeli military adminis- The festival's undeniable hit proved to tration of the West Bank. Her father-in- be Peter Wang's The Great Wall Is a Great ion shows; a surreal nightclub scene has law, Anwar Mansour (played by Turkish Wall, a low-budget independent that is actor Tuncel Kurtiz of Yo/) is the local actually the first U.S .-Chinese coproduc- dancers waltzing to \"My Bonnie Lies Over mayor, while her brother, in exile in tion. The title comes from Richard Nix- Jordan, is a wanted terrorist. His friends on's evaluation of China's most celebrated the Ocean\" and twisting to \"Oh Susan- harass Tagar, and her family roils m landmark; the premise of this extremely disgrace. good-natured film is a Chinese-American's nah:' The dramatic climax is a champion- return to his birthplace, American-born Although Dayan · speaks Arabic, he wife and thoroughly Americanized son in ship Ping-Pong match between Leo's son, knew nothing abo!Jt the West Bank. After tow, after an absence of 30 years. As Leo, field research he \"discovered that the basic the San Francisco computer expert, dis- Paul, and one of the local heroes. As an assumption of the film was impossible;' he covers, you can't really go home again. \"Is says. '1\\ woman from Ramallah wouldn't that all, is that the drama?\" Wang main- action sequence, it's worthy of Hong Kong fall in love with an Israeli Jew, especially tains was the Chinese response to script. not a member of the military administra- chopsocky. tion, while an Israeli might be intrigued by Anyone who has seen Allen Fong's Ah the mystery of the Arab woman behind Ying knows what a droll fellow Peter Wang Well shot and briskly paced, The Great the veil. So, we toned it down by making (who played the acting teacher) can be. her a Christian - many of Ramallah's This 'sense of the absurd is carried over Wall Is a Great Wall may not repeat the inhabitants are Greek Orthodox- includ- into The Great Walfs gentle comedy of ing the actress I chose, Salwa Haddad (a misconceptions. \"Who are these strange commercial success of Wayne (no relation) theater veteran making her cinematic people-Japanese?\" Beijing residents debut) . The Greek Orthodox are as Arab wonder as Leo and his family show up in Wang's Chan Is Missing , but it certainly as any Moslem-they're even more radi- their courtyard looking for their long lost cal, so as to avert any suspicion of being relatives. \"Filipino maybe:' Playing the should find its audience. During the moderate-but their extremism is condi- ensuing generational and culture clashes tioned. They're also open to discussion. for all they're worth, The Great Wall is enthusiastic Q&A that followed, super- The Anwar Mansour figure is modeled basically a sitcom - albeit a wonderfully agent Paul Kohner, who was also honored at this year's festival, got up and publicly offered the beaming Wang his help. Only in Telluride. -J. HOBERMAN 'ROMEO, OY ROMEO' Set in the West Bank, On A Narrow Bridge (Gesher Tsar Me'od) infuses the story of Romeo and Juliet with an explosive immediacy that adds to the already charged love story. Written by 39- year-old Israeli film critic and director Nissim Dayan (no relation to Moshe Dayan) and Haim Hefer from the latter's STORARO • ALONZO • BUTLER· CHAPMAN • ROllMAN • WILLIAMS • WILLIS STURGES*CASSAVETES *WELLES W~LER • KOVACS • ZSIGMOND • ALMENDROS· BAILEY· HALL • FRAKER • TOSI THE MAKING justifies Welles' screen credit the reader with fascinating lovers and all film makers.\" b~yond doubt. ... Spellbinding.' background information on the -Los Angeles Times OF -Kirkus Reviews $22.50 genesis and evolution of these Book Review $27.50 ClraEN KANE pictures,' - Michiko Kakutani, FIVE SCREENPLAYS New York Times $35.00 AMERICAN DREAMING by Robert L Ca\"inl(er by Preston Sturges MASTERS OF LIGHT The Films of John Cassavetes and Carringer recreates the making of Edited, with an Introduction, the American Experience the masterpiece, Citizen Kane. by Brian Henderson Conversations with Contemparary by Raymond Carney He has interviewed numerous Cinematographers participants, including extensive •The scripts presented in this by Dennis Schaefer The first detailed examination talks with Welles himself. volume-The Great McGinty, and Larry Salvato of the work of America's most Christmas in july, The Lady Eve, \"Th~ art and technique of controversial and iconoclastic •Athorough technical SuUivan's Travels and Hail the cinematographers are explored filmmaker. Carney offers a investigation.... Carringer lays to Conquering Hero - not only with rare understanding and provocative meditation on the rest Pauline Kael's assertion ... stand on their own as some of expertise.\" -American crisis in commercial American that Welles' co-writer Herman Sturges's best and most repre- Cinematographer filmmaking and a profound Mankiewicz is the great sentative work, but they also commentary on what Cassevetes' unrecognized genius behind illuminate his development during •Afirst-rate book about men films can tell us about the dreams Kane. Carringer's study (far more his golden years .. .In a series of whose contributions have too long and realities of the contemporary fine-grained and objective than intelligent introductions to these been overlooked or taken for American experience inside and Kael's) of the script's seven scripts, Henderson provides granted.... Abook for all film outside of Hollywood. $27.50 versions proves this false and At bookstores or call free SOO-UC BOOKS/SOO-S22-66S7 UNIVERSITY OF Califgrnia PRESS Berkeley 94720 6
© 19B5 by AI Hirschleld, Published by Beaulort Books, \"!6e¥ + ~p;J;.8lLUCI PACK rGAlolle A I! h )' 71lynamtu AnTlIl ' 1I Octette , WHIGS . OF KOI'IT Brfdge ~, hy POI\" La ..n:nCt' Alice LIES Roman 2774 ++ Club ~...,\"'~ \" -~ Hugh Whilemore byP'J. Barry 5264 4796 4077 7815 2535 Take Any4 * Warning: Subject mailer or language may be ollensive to some, E $1or with membership How the Club Plan works: You 'll get 4 BOOKS FOR ONLY $1 (plus shipping and handling) and your choice of a FREE TOTE BAG or FREE HIRSCHFELD CALENDAR when accepted as a member , We re serve the rFi~~Th~;B~kCTu~---1 right to reject any application . However , once accepted , if you are not fully satisfied wi th your introduc· tory books , return them within 10 days at our expense , Your membership will be cancelled and you will Dept AS-698, Garden City, NY 11535 owe nothing, The FREE TOTE BAG or FREE CALENDAR is yours to keep in any case , AUractive selection : As a Club member , you 'll have dozens of titles to choose from : the best of every Please accept me as a member of the Fireside Theatre Book Club , New York theatre season , even off· Broadway successes , plus practical guides to performance and pro· and send me the 4 books I've numbered in the boxes below, Bill me duction technique , and other volumes-many not available in any store at any price , YOURS FREE just $1 plus shipping and handling . Also send my choice of a FREE How you save money: The Club offers its own complete hardbound with membership TOTE BAG or FREE HIRSCHFELO CALENDAR, mine to keep even if I don 't remain a member. I agree to the Club plan as described in this editions (sometimes altered in size to fit special presses) , CLUB EDITIONS ad , will take 4 more books at regular low Club prices during the com · SAVE YOU UP TO 400/0 OFF PUBLISHERS ' HARDCOVER EDITION your choice of ing year, and may resign any time thereafter. PRICES . A shipping and handling charge is added to each shipment. Club bulletin : Enjoy the luxury of at·home shopping with your free Club bulletin , Curtain Time , About every 4 weeks (14 times ayear) you'll receive the bulletin describing coming Selections , In addition , up to 4 oPlease send me (check one) : U FREE TOTE FREE CALENDAR times ayear, you may receive offers of special Selections , always at dis· counts off publishers ' prices , If you want the featured Selection(s), do 13723\\ 13897\\ nothing-shipment will be made automatically. If you prefer an Alternate Mr. -or no book at all-indicate this on the order form and return it by the date specified , You 'll have at least 10 days to decide . If you have less Ms ________________~~~~---------------- than 10 days , and receive an unwanted Selection , you may return it at our Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(Ple_ase_pri_nt) _ _ ApI. # _ _ _ __ expense and owe nothing, 1986 City Slate Zip ______ The choice is always yours: Your only obligation is to take just 4 books at Members accepted in U,S,A, and Canada only, Offer slightly different in _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _purchasing your 4 books , or continue to enjoy Club membership for as regular low Club prices within one year. You may resign any time after TarE BAG OR HIRSCHFELD BROADWAY L~~ ~~~ long as you like , CALENDAR 7
after Karim Khalaf, a mayor deported by 'The real gap between Arabs and Jews Haddad, who's a feminist , supported me the administration. The more we built an is cultural;' the director stresses. 'The completely. She said, 'I hate those macho authentic world for the story to take place problem here is Eastern atavism. The Arab men. I'm making this ftlm for them in , the more we could aUow the story itself majority of Jews in Israel are Eastern and too: \" to develop. they resist a dialogue ... But the film is also The filmmaker, who terms himself \"a \"I discovered; ' Dayan says, \"that the about the place of the women in Eastern Marxist, but not a radical;' says his film \"is West Bank is mainly administered by Society. It's said that a family's honor is a cry for a solution. I don't know what 'Eastern' (Sephardi) Jews who, after 1981, analogous to a woman's honor, and she isn't solution;' he points out, \"but I know it's a have the stigma in Israel of being avid supposed to sleep with a man she isn't must. Things just have to explode. If the Arab-haters. I thought, 'l\\n Eastern Jew married to. It's symbolic of the entire explosion isn't radical, then it'll be rightist who hates Arabs is, after all, not that Middle East. In this respect, Khomeinism and we'll become a Khomeinist state. different from them: That hooked me. and Kahanism [as in Israeli right winger That's the problem of the entire region. \"I was amazed by the slavish behavior Meir Kahane) are the same. Kahane tells And inversely, the Palestinians are our required of the West Bank people-it's his people that the Arabs want to fuck problem. It's a Jewish problem:' 'Come' or 'Go' or 'Come back; and they do. Jewish women. Those who refuse to deal with the Israelis \"I see myself as an Eastern Jew;' f late, the exploration by Israeli filmmakers of how Jews and Arabs are Oaren't there anyway; they're in hiding. But continues Dayan, \"and therefore I have to those who stay, need to get permission to deal with this. For me, the Middle East is a to live together has taken on renewed build, to export, etc. The mayor is not a sick area with a soft underbelly. The area vitality. Beyond the Walls (Meachorei coUaborator, but he has to satisfy all sides. is still stuck in the Byzantine age: my film Hasoragim), the biggest Israeli hit ever Khalil Jankho, an Arab American from is Byzantine; the relations between Arabs (over 500,000 admissions, many Israeli South Carolina, helped me. He liked the and Jews, as well as the Arab leadership, Arabs) proved that there's an audience for idea because the film represented both are all Byzantine-on the verge of corrup- this genre, which Dayan points out has sides. He said, 'We have indeed lived on a tion and bribery. Lebanon was the last existed since the Thirties. In 1936, a very narrow bridge which is very shabby. vestige of the Byzantine way of life, and Polish-Jewish director, Alexander Ford, Either we cross it or we drown: And now Israel is slowly taking its place. shot Sabra in Palestine, about a feud Israelis from the West Bank administration \" Take the hero, Tagar (played by between a Bedouin tribe and a newly told me, 'Don't kill anybody in the film- Aharon Ipale, an Israeli actor who lives in formed kibbutz over a well. Now Uri from any side. We want to have a dialogue, L.A.). He's an Eastern Jew from Jerusa- Barbash, director of Beyond the Walls, is not see anybody dead : lem, who went to Tel Aviv and married a currently preparing The Dreamers, a \"Logically, both lovers should have been blond Ashkenazi (European) girl. The remake of Sabra , and Shimon Dotan, the killed, like Romeo and Juliet. But since marriage failed , but he keeps his new director of Repeat Dive (Tslila Chozeret), they're just a pretext, why not let them 'Hebrew' name, Tagar. His friends remind is lensing Smile of the Lamb (Chiyuch live? It's a pessimistic film, but it holds out him of his origins, that his real name is Magdi), which explores the confrontation hope. Slim hope is still hope:' Turgeman. I made his wife blond and between Arab and Jew in mythical rather Although the film was cleared by the 'liberal; because the members of Shalom than political terms. Israeli censor, there were endless debates Achshav (Peace Now) are overwhelmingly Last year, Eran Riklis' On A Clear Day, at Dayan's office \"because I dare show a Ashkenazi. Those women who march for You Can See Damascus (with no humma- Jewish officer collapse dead, in close up:' 'a Palestinian state' may enjoy a falafel in ble tunes) opened. It included a Udi Adiv- He is geared, ho\\vever, toward the battle Ramallah as exotic, but would be uncom- like character, a real Israeli, convicted as a that will accompany the film's release. \"If fortable in a similar falafel joint in their own Syrian spy. Hamsin, a Western set in the the picture is applauded or accepted backyard where Eastern Jews would rub Galilee, pit Jewish landowners against indifferently, I'm in trouble. I want to stir elbows with them. It was the Eastern Jews their Arab employees, and Fellow Travel- people up . I believe Arabs will oppose it. who wanted Begin in the first place, ers spun another variation on the Udi Adiv The cast and crew were mixed - Jewish because those blonds never talked to story by Judd Ne'eman. Lastly, Serge and Arab. A lot of those I approached them. I think we're all in the Byzantine Ankri's Mama Cham (Terre Brulante) refused to take part in it, because of the mess:' depicted the land confiscation of Jewish subject. My star, Salwa, was threatened by peasants in Tunisia, commenting on the Narrow Bridge is Dayan's third feature Arab theater people and warned not to (he's also made two documentaries and a irony that, generations later, the same TV mini-series) and cost $600,000, high family of Jews would serve as real estate take the part. for an Israeli film. Dayan employed a brokers in Israel, dealing with land \"During the shoot in the West Bank-I mobile camera, citing influences of Ameri- confiscated from Arabs. can cinema and the Italian Neo-Realism. insisted on shooting in reallocations-we While the love scenes are done fully \"I think it's to the credit of Israeli cinema were attacked. They threw stones and clothed , it isn't out of \"modesty;' but that it finally deals with something rele- molotov cocktails at us and threatened to because \"in a Byzantine context, it's not vant;' Dayan states. \"In France, the New kill us . One of our vans was hit. The her breasts that matter, it's what the Wave didn't touch upon the Algerian War military administration also kicked us out, neighbors say about it;' says Dayan. He (except for Godard's Le Petit Soldat). because we shot with Arab actors in their insisted on an Arab actress because a Here, if we have a New Wave;' he con- offices, which supposedly had classified Jywish one could be \"dismissed as cludes, \"I only hope that this subject files. In short, we lived the experiences we 'pretending: Here nobody could turn away doesn't serve as a subterfuge-for either show in the film. But nobody gave up. All from an Arab actress kissing a Jewish actor. lack of talent or imagination:' this was proof that the script was valid, that we were doing the right thing. -DANYAKIR 8
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Award-Winning Animation From Direct Cinema Limited Audition Pies While worrying about a theatrical audition, a young woman PIES is a surprising animated story filled with humor, warmth and grapples with her conflicting desires for both a career and a color. It tells a 'universal tale of how human understanding can family . Photographs of the audition are used as documentary overcome pmjudice. bridges between the pastel and wash drawings portraying her The National Film Board of Canada imagination. Produced by Caroline Leaf, Directed by Sheldon Cohen A Film by Candy Kugel 13 minutes Color 1985 9 minutes Color 1981 Rental $30 '12\" Public Periormance Video Sale $100 Rental $20 W' Public Periormance Video Sale $100 Rub A Dub Dub Coney Here is a very special collection of animated nursery rhymes for GRAND PRIX MONTREAL ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL preschool and primary school children. These twenty-five short Coney Island itself becomes the world 's greatest amusement ride films are filled with fun , music , and lively invention. that kids of all ages will wan t to take again and again in this Produced by David Yates in Association with Media Home pixillated documentary. Ent ertainme nt. A Film by Caroline and Frank Mouris 5 to 6 minutes each Color 1985 5 minutes Color 1975 60 minute '12\" Public Periorman'ce Video Version $250 Rental $25 '/2\" Public Periormance Video Sale $100 A Special Letter 1Frank Film ACADEMY AWARD WINNER BEST AN IMATED FILM 1973 This film tells a true story of a special love between a mother and , SELECTED FOR THE OLYMPIAD OF ANIMATION : her grown daughter in delicately drawn animation . In a few short minutes the film touches on the meaning of love as an aging parent = THE 32 GREATEST FILMS EVER MADE becomes like a dependent child . The National Film Board of Canada 11 ,592 collages tell you everything you always wanted to know A Film by Bozenna Heczko about Frank... and yourself... and the USA 5 minutes Color 1985 A Film by Frank Mouris Rental $25 '12\" Public Periormance Video Sale $75 9 minutes Color-1973 Rental $30 '12\" Public Periormance Video Sale $150 1Sundae in New York ACADEMY AWARD WINNER BEST AN IMATED FI LM 1984 Impasse FIRST PRIZE LOS ANGELES INTERNATI ONAL AN IMATION CELEBRATION 1985 AMER ICAN FILM FESTIVAL RED RIBBON WINNER New York Mayor 'Ed Koch , singing a special rendition of \"New SELECTED BY THE CENTER FOR UNDERSTANDING MEDIA AS York, New York\" \"stars\" in this amusing and energetic clay AN OUTSTANDING FILM FOR CHILDREN animation extravaganza. An irresistible Force, an immovable Object, and a rainbow of A Film by Jimmy Picker brilliant Hues create a moral tale that was never so coloriully told . 4 minutes Color 1984 A Film by Caroline and Frank Mouris Rental $20 Y2\" Public Periormance Video Sale $50 10 minutes Color 1978 Rental $25 W' Public Periormance Video Sale Apply What Do Children Think Of When Thev Think Of The 80mb? Paradise Through music, mime, dance, games, paintings , drawings and ACADEMY AWARD NOM INATION BEST ANIMATED FILM 1985 drama, American children explain what the threat of nuclear war FIRST PRIZE LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION means to them . CELEBRATION 1985 Produced by Mary Silverman A little blackbird learns that fine feathers alone cannot bring Directed by Elizabeth Swados and John Canemaker happiness, even in a brilliantly colored fantasy kingdom. Dazzling 30 minutes Color 1984 detailed art and haunting music combine to tell this gently Rental $45 '12\" Public Periormance Video Sale $100 humorous moral tale. The National Film Board of Canada Direct Cinema Limited ~, A Film by Ishu Patel PO . Box 69589 16 minutes Color 1985 Los Angeles , California 90069 cmema Rental $30 '12\" Public Periormance Video Sale $100 (213) 656-4700 limited For Information Contact:
by Richard Corliss ing, ''T-this way in folks to the gr-gr- to go yet, boy. Ah ain't been buffeted!\" In greatest sh-sh-show on ear-ear-uh in On an October Saturday afternoon, a Nuh-Nuh-New Yo-Yor-uh-the gr-gr- front of the monitor, watching a 1975 TV young woman and her beau wandered great-sh-show on Manha-Manhuh- documentary called The Boys from Ter- down to the basement gallery of The well on Fift-Fifty-Thuh Third Street buh- mite Terrace, 50 or 60 grown people were Museum of Modern Art. A monitor in the between Fuh-Fith Ave nue and Avuh- sprawled and enthralled. I couldn't have middle of the room was playing a scene Avuh nue of the Am-Am-Amer-Am - Oh, been more tickled at the sight of all this from th~ 1952 Warner Bros. cartoon to heck with it!\" and Daffy standing by naked pleasure if my wife had organized Rabbit Seasoning-where Daffy Duck, snorting, \"Oh yeah? Well that's easy the exhibition. Which she did. thinking he has out-smartypantsed Bugs enough for you to say\"; Elmer stalking Bunny in a survival game with hunter with his twusty wifle and whispering, But it gets better: some of the pictures Elmer Fudd, sticks his tongue out at Bugs \"Sh-be vewy, vewy quiet ... I'm hunting move. Leonard Maltin (author of the a micro-moment before Elmer's shotgun early storyboards\"; Pepe Le Pew, the affectionate, comprehensive history of blast rearranges Daffy's beak (and still- skunk with savoir flair, loitering near the animation, Of Mice and Magic, selected protruding tongue) into a left earring. At toilets and crooning, '1\\pres 'le reste come 122 of the 1,003 cartoons produced under this spectacle of animated rumpus, avec mois to the cat's-bah, cheries (Pole the Warners aegis between 1930 and 1969 comedy, and character revelation, the cat's-bah, that is)\"; Hippety Hopper for public viewing in Saturday and Sunday young woman let loose a ribald, involun- (\"Kangaroois Infantilii\") pursuing Sylves- matinees at the Titus Auditoria through tary laugh. A split second later (her timing ter j. Pussycat (\"Felinus Cowardum\"), as the end of january. Aficionados who can't was tops, too), she put her hand over her Sylvester jr. cringes with a paper bag over make the trip to Fift-Fifty-Thuh Third mouth. Surely you're not supposed to his head an9 wails, \"Oh, the shame of it, I Street have three agreeable options. 1. laugh at a MoMA exhibition. can't show my face at the Museum of Pick up a few of the nine hour-long Modern Art-because my father has been videocassettes recently issued as the Looking around the gallery, she must affrighted by a mouse\"; and, at the Exit, Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden jubilee 24 soon have realized that her response was tiny Henery Hawk dragging Foghorn Karat Collection (my faves: the cassettes the only appropriate one. A hundred or so Leghorn, who stentorizes, '1\\h ain't ready devoted to Bugs, Daffy, jones, and Mel sketches, cels, model sheets, and back- Blanc), a steal at $19.95 each. 2. Catch grounds lined the walls. Over this docu- ABC's Saturday-morning skein of post- mentation sprawled a dozen murals of 1948 Warners shorts, which include many Warners characters, drawn for the occa- titles on the cassettes. 3. Zap your cable sion by the very Chuck (Apex) jones: scanner to SuperStation wrBS each week- Daffy holding a sign reading CHUCK day afternoon at 3:05 (Eastern) for Bugs JONES SEASON! next to Bugs with a FRIZ Bunny and Friends. Depending on the FRELENG SEASON sign; Porky announc- selection, you'll see three or four Warners gems stretching from the rough-and- tummel early Thirties through the .mid- 11
Forties, the fust Golden Age of Warner- ged (or rabbitted) craftsmanship. A hay- lowed his elusive trail. But I wonder if vana presided over by Bob Clampett and wire genius like Fred (Tex) Avery, who Herbert Ross or Bob Zemeckis thinks Frank Tashlin-plus, if you're very good, a spent seven undergraduate years at about fum comedy in five-frame incre- side trip to the Tex Aviary at MGM. After Warners before his mindbending tenure at ments. We hear a lot about \"cartoony\" subjecting yourself to this much bliss, MGM , might tap his unfettered lunacy for a feature pictures; we don't see much you'd better lie down with a cup of throwaway gag like the moment, in the evidence that the hard lessons of cartoon Ovaltine. 1938 Cinderella Meets Fella, when a pacing, gag-building, and the crucial pretty girl kisses Egghead's bulb-nose, and suspension ofsuspension of disbelief have Reduced to primitive essentials, live- the lipsticked outline comes to life and been learned. Perhaps Steven Spielberg action film requires only the push of a emits a sultry \"Wo boy!\" But the behav- will divine these secrets with his forthcom- camera button and the hope that someone ioral scientist in Avery figured out that the ing Who Killed Roger Rabbit?, which or something of interest will be visible quickest gag demanded a minimum of five mixes animation with live action and co- within the camera's range. Animated frames, or about a fifth of a second, to stars Warner and Disney cartoon charac- cartooning is tougher. Not every one of the register on the moviegoer. Chuck (Zenith) ters of the Forties. 9,000-plus frames that pass through the Jones later filed reaction time down even projector during a seven-minute cartoon further for his eye and eyebrow flickerings It may be unfair to expect (or to endure) need be individually drawn; but in the in the service of Bugs and Daffy, c. 1950. a two-hour movie that Superchiefs along at \"full\" animation of the Warners variety a Such are the rigors of comic timing the speed of a seven-minute Clampett like thousand or so do, and that's just the adhered to by the cartoon adepts. Baby Bottleneck (1946) , which vacuum- perspiration. The inspiration comes ear- packs more breathless laughs than are to lier. It's what makes the Hollywood Who in live-action moviemaking would be found in the collected works of the cartoon such a combustible anomaly: see the need for such precision? Bruce Saturday Night Live alumni. And it's true surreal, free-association artistry and dog- Conner, for sure, and perhaps a few that, as David Chute says nearby, watch- vagrant rock-video artists who have fol- ing the 24 Karat Collection back to back to back can make you feel all wore out. But it's also true that, after dieting or gorging on the Warners stuff, watching almost any current live-action film is slow torture. It takes fooorrevvver for an actor to walk from the door to the kitchen table. Every reaction shot plays like an ennui festival. And don't these people have any control over the.ir bodies? Daffy Duck can convey more with the merest shrug or saunter or slink. Who let human beings into movies anyway? The Warners guys shine too in the reflected light of other studios. And not just for the ur-modern anarchist attitude ascribed to Avery, Clampett, TasWin, and the rest. Disney's feature-length cartoons gave that studio the rep of crocheting lace valentines on middle-class dreams; but the Disney shorts had probably as high a carnage quotient as anybody's. Maybe because Disney backgrounds were the most \"realistic\" in the business, I always feel the pain more pointedly when Pluto gets his paw caught in a bear trap. Sadism seemed at the heart of MGM's Tom & Jerry matchups as well; the sting of that slapstick left welts on the animals and the audience. It's different, though, when Daffy or Wile E. Coyote gets blowed up real good. The physical pain they feel comes in second to a more universal pang: humiliation. At the opposite end of the cartuun- reality spectrum, the wondrous spatial and temporal incongruities of early arabesques from Winsor McCay, Max and Dave Fleischer, and the anonymous pornocrats of Buried Treasure renounced real life for a nether-never-world of cool artistry. Their characters were as emotionally involving as a magician's props. Once Warners 12
shifted into high gear, though, their You Ought to be in Pictures, but was just a gust of soot. Clampett's Coal Black directors mixed to perfection (and not always in equal proportion) character dubbed by Blanc) and Jack Warner (\"J.L:' and De Sebben Dwarfs (1942), a jive comedy and self-irreverential modernism. Next to an astonishment like Chuck in Jones' The Scarlet Pumpernickel; Snow White, co-starred a Prince Chawmin (Apogee) Jones' Duck Amuck (1953), most other cartoons are just drawings. Daffy is trying to sell him on the script for with dice for teeth. And even Chuck The lousy thing was, nobody noticed. a costume epic). Warners stars were (Pinnacle) Jones milked Inki, his Little Disney, who was perhaps entitled, won eleven of the first twelve Academy Awards mercilessly caricatured: \"Edward G. Black Sambo character, into a series that for animated short subject. Warners, in more than 30 years, won just five: Robemsome;' in Avery's Thugs With Dirty lasted through the Forties. Freleng's Tweetie Pie (1947), Speedy Gonzales (1955), Birds Anonymous Mugs (1939), looks like a cross-species of We're not about to hold cartoons of 40 or (1957), and Knighty Knight Bugs (1958), and Jones' For Scent-imental Reasons Ubangi Hassidim. The aristocratic 50 years ago to the exalted moral (1949) - not their very best work. In just two years with Mr. Magoo car- hauteur of Katharine Hepburn was a standards of today (or, rather, to those of toons at UPA, Pete Burness copped more favorite butt; in Freleng's The Coo-coonut the liberal Sixties; in- the Eighties racial Oscars than Jones did in a quarter century of directing at Warners. (The humiliation Grove (1936), she's a horse named stereotyping is back in low style). In fact, of class by mass hounded Avery in his 14 years at MGM. His films were nominated Katharine Heartburn, Clampett's 1946 we wish that today's pictures boasted only once, while those of his cannier, less gifted colleagues, Bill Hanna and Joe Book Revue has a careering wolf trip some of the aesthetic discipline and Barbera, copped ten citations.) over Jimmy Durante's proboscis as it artistic vigor of classical Hollwood. Any- Granted, one rarely looks to the Academy for recognition of excellence, in protrudes from the cover of So Big. way, the cartoonists' skewed view of all live-action films or cartoons. But the Warners crew didn't find profit or honor at Especially in the Thirties, racial stereo- things sanctimonious-whether it was home either. Leon Schlesinger, who produced the stuff for the first 15 years, types were exploited and parodied with their bosses' self-importance, or the high- was a cheap nogoodnik with little appreci- ation of his employees' craft or art, but he schoolyard abandon. In 1933, a Jewish flown airs of movie stars, or the Disney pretty much stayed out of the way. \"Disney can make the chicken salad;' baby and a child Chevalier swap choruses aura of bourgeois quality, or the tender Schlesinger once opined, according to ace cartoon writer Michael Maltese. \"I wanna of Shuffle Off to Buffalo. Avery, in feelings of racial minorities-were rooted make chicken shit:' This sensitive patron Golddiggers of '49 (1936), converted a in the nature of their medium. Cartoons, was succeeded by Warners functionary Eddie Selzer, who was every bit as comic-Chinese into a comic-black with (Continued on page 16) philistine as Schlesinger and a buttinsky besides. Chuck (Vertex) Jones recalls Selzer walking into a giggly story confer- ence and demanding, \"What the hell has aIL this laughter got to do with the making of animated cartoons?\" Nor was the studio hierarchy much hipper or more sympa- thetic. Jones avers that \"Harry Warner thought we were the ones who did Mickey Mouse-and when someone told him we weren't, he closed the joint:' When the joint closed, in 1963, Jones' annual salary was $39,000. Worse, the directors, writ- ers, and animators receive no residuals for the endless recycling of their work in prime time, syndication, or cassette form (though Mel Blanc and the musical directors, Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn, do). Their only royalties are the thanks of a grateful nation. So the boys from the Termite Terrace got no respect-and they returned the favor. They poked gentle fun at Schle- singer (who played himself in Freleng's 13
Keeping up with The Jones by David Chute Nemo (1911) and The Sinking ofthe Lusi- work of Ub Iwerks and the Fleischer tania (1918). Right at the outset, instinc- brothers and Bob Clampett. Looked at Global explorer Porky Pig no sooner tively, McCay grasped the one great from this angle, Ralph Bakshi's rotoscoped sets foot in darkest Wackyland than advantage that movies made from draw- feature films, cartoons with imagery traced he spots a sign that says a wise thing: \"It ings must have over movies made from from photographs (American Pop, Fire Can Happen Here:' The \"it\" in this sen- photographs: that absolutely anything is and Ice), could be the entropic nadir that tence is \"anything:' In the phantasmagoria possible. In the frequently quoted words animation has been seeking all along, the that follows, a series of gibbering impossi- of Erwin Panofsky, 'The very virtue of the fulfillment of its death wish. bles (a giant, blue singing rabbit; a three- animated cartoon is to animate; that is to headed hula-dancer; and a buzzing, high- say, endow lifeless things with life, or living Clampett, Tex Avery, and Frank Tashlin stepping \"rubber band\"-four musicians things with a different kind of life. It effects worked with Friz Freleng as directors of made of rubber) gambol like demented a metamorphosis ... :' There may be an Warner Bros. cartoons a full 50 years ago, elks across a Dali-esque landscape full of associative, recombinant state of mind just before Freleng and two other guys- melted watches and purple trees. Bob that corresponds to the potential of anima- Robert McKimson and Chuck Jones- Clampett, the director of Porky in J#zck- tion and that prompts artists to exploit took over the Terrace. Many of the yland (1938), offers no explanation for this rather than suppress these capabilities. Warner cartoons of the Fifties, particularly silliness. If he had been pressed for a Jones', are small masterpieces of charac- rationale, I like to think he'd have said, \"I Despite the popularity of shape-chang- terization on the run and, preeminently, of did it because I could:' ing entertainments like Frank Baum's Oz split-second timing. Supervised by Jones, books and McCay's own Little Nemo in Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck became One plausible account of the history of Slumberland comic strip early in this cen- vivid star personalities, masters of snappy American animation insists that the form tury, Americans have never been terribly chatter. This is especially evident in the was born in a surreal state of grace and has fond of flexible, nightmare imagery. Walt pictures they made together, like the been steadily falling away from the pure Disney understood this best; he saw that famed \"hunting trilogy\" with Elmer Fudd: light source ever since. The earliest ani- his bread was buttered on the other side. Rabbit Fire (1951), Rabbit Seasoning mations were, after all, among the wildest Disney transformed the conventions of (1952), and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953). ever made for commercial consumption: animation by filtering out the occasional image orgies like Winsor McCay's Little bits of grit that crept into his cartoons- Timing as note-perfect as theirs is rare the wild-eyed, limb-twisting, lewd quali- enough in human thespians, much less in ties that lingered, nevertheless, in the funny animals-although these two goof- balls seemed human sometimes. Jones 14
contributed 300 to 400 drawings of key seen a short cartoon on a big screen. narrowing the range of acceptable impossi- positions for each six-minute movie , For many fans, the Roadrunners rep- ble activities until all you have left are which reveled in deep-screen perspectives dizzying displays of Rube Goldberg vio- (the doomed Coyote plummeting earth- resent the distilled essence of Jonesian lence is , I think, a pinched accomplish- ward into a Monument Valley canyon) and animation. This is what's left, they claim, ment, perhaps a waste of Jones' prodi- distinctive raised-eyebrow \"takes\" (Bugs gious cleverness. giving us a \"watch this\" look just before the after all the impurities have been removed, dynamite explodes). the chase-ritual degree zero. If he was I can't bring myself to venerate Chuck human, the feckless Coyote (carnivorous Jones for this particular aspect of his vulgaris) might be Harry Dean Stanton in career. But the moment in Bully for Bugs Repo Man. Carlo Rambaldi could supply While Jones is indisputably a brilliant the implacable Road Runner (burnius when our hare hero turns upon the El Toro cartoonist, it is nonetheless disturb- roadius) ; no soul is required . Is Wile E. a that has crept up behind him in the ring (a ing to see that the Warner's stalwarts of his raggedy-eared pop Ahab, with his elabo- huge, knotted-up black animal that snorts generation are getting not just the lion's rate machines that never seem to work out little rhythmic puffs of vapor, like an share of acclaim these days but almost all right (the catapults that always drop the overheated locomotive) and sneers, \"Stop of it. A new nine-tape, nine-hour series of rock on his head, never on the bird's), steamin' up my tail! What're ya tryin' a do, Warner Home Video compilations of the struggling to subdue this caroming force of wrinkle it?\"-a moment like that deserves studio's cartoons includes only one Avery, nature, this Moby Dick with tail feathers all the veneration we can muster. two Clampens, and no Tashlins. The and a topknot? Perhaps, although Jones 1\\ JfY preference for ' the Warner's car- omissions are important (and not just to claims to have made the first Road Run- cartoon buffs) because for most people, as ner, 1948's Fast and Furrious, as a parody ll'Jxoons of the pre-1948 era is almost of this month, the \"Golden Jubilee\" set of of all the other brainless chase cartoons tapes becomes the Warner Bros. cartoon that were popular at the time. \"But since more theoretical and aesthetic than emo- library, the only such collection they will no one was taking it as a parody, I said to ever see. And it's monotonous! The car- hell with it and just tried to make them tional. It's obvious that the cleaner narra- toons are all basically in the same style, funny: ' As Richard Thompson wrote of tive lines and the character-oriented com- edy of the later Jones and Freleng films would seem more congenial to TV-genera- with fabulous-fifties background art like a Jones a decade ago in FILM COMMENT, tion moviegoers. The earlier cartoons can Dave Brubeck album cover. It doesn't sug- \"He evidently failed to consider that in the look literally nightmarish; nothing in them gest a rich undergrowth of imagination. field of cartoons, reductio ad absurdum is ever holds still or is quite solid. In using (The folks at MoMA, at least, are not as simply the logical conclusion of the genre:' the medium recklessly (at times foolishly shortsighted; their current Warner's retro- Commentators who don't think the or glibly), the earlier animators empha- spective showcases 66 of the more exotic Road Runners are \"pared down works of sized changes of shape or form that pre- 1948 cartoons.) modern art\" (in Thompson's phrase) prob- couldn't possibly occur in real life. I don't think there's a conspiracy afoot to ably prefer the \"experimental\" one-shots The eyeballs of a lecherous wolf (a walk- rewrite the history of American animation. and parodies , the would-be or actual ing pun), in a Tex Avery MGM cartoon like My guess is that the tape peddlers were Oscar winners: Duck Dodgers in the Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) , snake out of nervous about including cartoons in black 24'hth Century (1953), One Froggy Eve- his head on stalks to encircle a bouncing and white, or with different-looking early ning (1956), Feed the Kitty (1952), Duck broad, as autonomously mobile as the versions of familiar characters (Avery's nas- Amuck (1953), What's Opera, Doc? drippy tendrils on a Rob Bottin special ef- tier Bugs has a sharp-nosed, rat-shaped (1957), and High Note (1960). Froggy fect. An Averyan tongue can unfurl across skull). Further, the early animators were Evening is a wonderfully precise dry-joke a table top like a damp red carpet. The always pulling weird stunts, twisting the cartoon; Duck Amuck brought reflective bodies of all cartoon characters are rou- medium around in ways that current self-awareness to the animation field; and tinely squashed and stretched, but in home-videophiles might find puzzling or the kitten-loving bulldog in Feed the Kitty Clampett's The Daffy Doc (1938) Porky even dull. We're turning into a nation of goes through some droll, rubbery facial and Daffy are aerated by an iron lung that literal-minded squares, and no mistake. contortions. But these specimens are all a blows up alternating portions of their anat- But just try watching nine solid hours of bit too self-conscious for my taste, not omy like big balloons-head, feet, head, the smoother, simpler, postwar cartoons. quite grass roots enough. feet-until they look like two big throb- The repetitive chase-comedy gags (Meep, Among the cartoons that are \"grass bing bruises. This stuff hurts. meep!) begin to fray the nerves after a roots;' I still don't understand why the Animated effects like these are violent while. boiled-down purity of the Road Runners is in more senses than one; they inflict out- Obviously, it's not sensible to see car- considered an advance over the character rages upon the laws of nature. There are toons in mass quantities. These cartoons comedy of Bully for Bugs (1953) and the plenty of distortion effects in the later car- were made to be viewed one at a time, in a Bugs 'n' Daffy team efforts, which for me toons, too, but they're no longer included theater, as a sharply flavored condiment are Jones' finest work. Like all the great for their sake, just because some loopy alongside a feature . They were designed to team players, the two stars were at their animator got a kick out them . Probably make a strong impression almost at a best when inciting each other to redou- they've been integrated into an overall dra- glance, so that an afterimage of Bugs or bled efforts: Daffy never worked himself matic narrative, and have therefore Wile E. Coyote would linger for a little into dizzier tizzies, and Bugs was never achieved a more mature aesthetic synthe- while. The last Warner's cartoons were more gleamingly ingenious. Obviously, sis. That sounds about right. But there are released when theatrical attendance had too, Jones was doing things in his films times when the raw, \"roots;' unprocessed plummeted astoundingly, and when TV that could only be envisioned in cartoons. feeling of those oldies can be as bracing as had taken over as the principal, downright You could never drop a two-ton boulder on a Howlin' Wolf record or pinch of fresh insatiable market for animation. There are Harry Dean Stanton's head and expect to horseradish. You gotta get your tongue now very few people under 35 who have get away with it; SAG would object. Still, burned occasionally. ® 15
(Continued from page 13) words to live by. Like a vaudeville Petunia Pig, who hogs the spotlight at the entertainer who traveled with the same act opening credits and gobbles sweets after all, are simply graffiti that move. The from town to town and always knew where through the rest of the film. At the end, Termiters were carrying, to dizzy heights, the laughs were, Show Biz Friz kept Porky realizes that life with this creature a vox-pop tradition that extends back to putting his cartoon stars onstage for would be a sow-pecked nightmare; he is a the Stone Age satirist who drew a another softshoe turn, pie in the face, or loser, but a sweet one. Rebuffed by his mustache on the first cave painting, and Dr. Krankheit routine. Bugs, Daffy, Porky, inamorata, he pauses outside Petunia's forward to Kilroy and Taki 181. It is the and the rest may have been funny animals door long enough to plant a kiss on her privilege of the powerless to be rude. to some viewers, and seven-minute stars nameplate. Then he walks sadly away, a Toiling in a remote corner of the movie to others, but to Freleng they were the Chaplin in bow tie, jacket, and no shirt or kingdom, with little certifiable power and third act on the bill struggling toward top- pants. It takes an accomplished actor to zero glory, Warners cartoonists reveled in banana 'status or sliding down past the wear that costume with dignity. the one perquisite their obscurity bought singing parakeets. them: freedom . As an Avery character says Within a few years Porky would grow in A Feud There »as (1938): \"In these So in You Ought to Be in Pictures Daffy, up, slim down, fret less, and stanch his here cartoon pictures, a fellow can do that base canard, tells Porky he could stutter; he was a much less jejune, titanic, about anything:' Almost a half century make three grand a week in live-action cacophonous, didactic, susceptible, viva- later, on the stage of The Museum of films; a trip to the real world of make cious mammalian. He became the one Modern Art, Chuck (Meridien) Jones believe convinces the pig he should crawl ordinary audience surrogate in the gear- described the audience he and his fellows back on the animation stand. In the great loose Warners menagerie-a straight man, had in mind: \"We didn't make our pictures Yankee Doodle Daffy (1943), the little nemesis, or faithful young space cadet to for kids, and we didn't make them for black duck executes a dozen full-throttle the star of the moment-and thus mallea- adults. We made them for ourselves:' celebrity imitations for the grumbly book- ble to each director's need or whim. Surely ing agent Porky. A year later, Stage Door he was the only earthling on Planet C olor Rhapsodies (Columbia), Screen Cartoon has Bugs hiding onstage behind Clampett. In Porky in Wackyland (1938, Songs (Paramount), Cartunes (Walter Elmer, with the \"twechewous miscweant\" but it makes a guest appearance in the 24 Lantz), Jolly Frolics (UPA)-all took the forcing the befuddled Fudd into a strip Karat Collection under the title Doughfor cue for their series titles from Disney's tease; a Yosemite Sam-type sheriff stomps the Dodo), the intrepid pig treks to Silly Symphonies. So did Schlesinger, with in to arrest Elmer for \"indecent southern Darkest Africa and encounters a sign that exposure:' In Curtain Razor (1949), reads IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. Bob Clam- his Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, booking agent Porky auditions a stream of pett's mantra: it does happen, at Mock 2 but at least the paired names of his pre-Letterman hopefuls, including a two- speed. cartoons' producers were made for comic headed man ('l\\ct, shmact, I'm the harmonizing: Hugh Harman and Rudy janitor\") and a guy who swallows nitro and For Clampett, Porky's sole stage direc- Ising. From their first cartoon, the1930 kills himself for the job. In neither case is tion is to get out of the way. Stand aside, Sinkin' in the Bathtub (a song Tweetie Pie seen-it-all Porky easily impressed. And would oft warble in his little bird cage), rarely does reality live up to Daffy's idea of skid (in the 1939 Porky Tire Trouble), through such titles as Young and Healthy his own star status. In Show Biz Bugs (a and ~'re in the Money (both 1933), the 1957 Freleng that reprises gags from and watch a mechanical crane bite into a Harman-Ising shorts spun music-hall fan- Curtain Razor and McKimson's 1949 rubber tree, chew the wad like gum, spit it tasias around hit ditties from Warners live- What's Up, Doc ?), Daffy, his webbed feet into a waffle iron - and out comes an action films; they-were the Busby Berkeley in dapper spats, checks in backstage and of ink and paint. They also introduced, to goes to the door with his name on it. sautomobile tire. Steer clear (in Porky general torpor, the relentlessly cheerful Chagrin wreathes his beak: \"Hmmm, Bosko, a continuing character that there can be only one explanation for Hero Agency, 1937) of the Venus de Milo blended Mickey Mouse with Our Gang's white tile in a dressing room:' It's the statue that, restored to life, sprouts Popeye Farina. In mid-'33 Harman and Ising toilet. That's entertainment for Daffy, and arms. Get off that infant assembly line (in ankled to MGM (where they started a Freleng, too: white tile and tails. Baby Bottleneck, a baby-boom remake of series called-what else?-Happy Har- Shuffle Offto Buffalo) or you'll be burped monies), and Leon Schlesinger raided In 1935, Daffy was not even an by a mannequin mom, be fed milk from a rival studios for new blood. If Warners and unhatched egg, and Porky, in I Haven't gas pump, and be flown to the jungle by MoMA choose 1935 as the year of the Got a Hat, is a huge boy swine who turns a ace pilot Jimmy Doquitealittle to be studio's birth, they are not really fibbing. school recital in a psychotrauma. Stut- deposited in the arms of a bespectacled That was the year Jones arrived as an tering pathetically and sweating, well, like mother gorilla. (Porky, mustering up all his animator; Avery and Tashlin followed as a pig, Porky barely survives declaiming nerve, lets out a querulous \"B-boo!') directors; Freleng introduced Porky Pig; \"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere\"; by Throw those four cats out of your house and the house style began to flourish. the end of his ordeal, he has somehow (Kitty Komered, 1946) or they'll carom segued into ''The Charge of the Light around your den like billiard balls with Freleng had joined the studio in 1930, Brigade:' You'd never guess that this fat sneezing powder and, no time for explana- and would stay (except for a year at MGM ham with stage fright would become tions, turn into Martians and snuggle next in the late Thirties) even past the razing of Warners' first cartoon star. And at first no to you in bed - the occasion for peripatetic Termite Terrace in 1963. In 40 years he one seemed to know how heavy or old he panning and great Porky eye and head directed 266 cartoons, the most of any was (a child in Porky the Rainmaker, a distortions. In the midst of this feral furor, Warners helmer. (Avery did 61, Tashlin father in Golddiggers of '49). But Frank Clampett can tenderize a joke. Porky 34, Clampett 81, Jones 211, and Robert Tashlin knew. In Porky's Romance (1937) scares the cats away with a hand-shadow McKimson 166.) For Freleng, Looney he cast Porky as the nice-guy suitor of doggie; impulsively, the dog's \"tongue\" (a Tunes were more than a logo; they were Porky finger) licks his master's face. In the Fifties, rehabilitated by Chuck (Fastigium) Jones, Porky would become a wry understater to Daffy's splenetic mala- 16
droit. As the Fat Friar (Tuck) in 1958's Warners work. In fact, they could have Waller harmonize on \" Sweet Georgia Robin Hood Daffy he punctuates his been made by two different men - one of Brown\" (pingo Pongo); a barbershop monastic composure with a giggle fit burgeoning talent, the other of deranged quartet's gold fever breaks long enough for whenever Daffy botches his Errol Flynn genius . then to warble \"Sweet Ad-o-line\" (Gold- imitation. (Daffy is not amused by the diggers of '49). Best of all, pert Owl friar's derisive mirth, riposting drily: Young Tex Avery was content to twist Jolson, with turbulent button eyes and a \"Ho ho. Very Funny. Ha ha. It ithp to expectations by taking a phrase literally. In rudimentary buck-and-wing, wins star- laugh:, But by this time, Clampett was The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938), first of dom with a nifty rendition of the E.). long gone from Warners. He left in 1946, Avery's spot-gag travelogues, we visit the Harburg-Harold Arlen smash tune \"I first for some dead-end studio ventures, Sandwich Islands (a sandwich) and meet a Love to Sing-a\" (the title of this mjnor then to TV for Beany and Cecil. hummingbird (hummmmm) .and a mock- ingbird (who repeats in sarcastic tones the revelation of 1936)-a very merrie mel- Good riddance, some Warners veterans narrator's every phrase). In Thugs With ody. As the director told his biographer Joe must have said; Clampett was notorious Dirty Mugs the detective shouts, 'Take Adamson, in Tex Avery: King of Car- for his reluctance to share credits and that, you rat!\" and a pan reveals him toons, \"It was fun, you know, to get away profits. (It's said that You Ought To Be in feeding an oversize rodent. ('That's all you from all the damn chases and explosions:' Pictures is a veiled metaphor for the get;' he snarls anon. \"I need the rest for It was also funny. Clampett-Jones relationship, with the lunch:, How hot and parched is the family daffy Clampett maljciously provoking farm in Porky the Rainmaker? The And while I'm passing out consolation Porky-Jones into losing battles with Schle- eggplants (egg plants) crack and boil their prizes, I will note with pleasure Avery's singer.) From this Olympian distance, yolks. Honestly, this stuff isn't as clever opening up, breaking through, and arrant however, we have to be grateful that he when you sit through it. The one-gag-per- demolishing of the academy frame-and stayed around as long as he did. In the sequence pace is too measured. Anyone thus of the cozy relationship of moviegoer decade that saw Warners mature from a wise to comedy construction can see the to that fourth-wall painting in front of him. clone of the Disney style into a master- yolks coming seconds in advance. If Freleng sawall the cartoon world as a piece factory, Clampett was best in show. vaudeville stage, Avery saw it as a prism Before Chuck (Summit) Jones rushes from which any sensible convict would It's not just the man's spastic-elastic back down to the MoMA basement to plot his escape. Nothing new here, style, which could send the flea-bit dog exactly; the Fleischers propelled their of An Itch in Time (1943) into sado- sketch Bugs Bunny angrily hoisting a rotoscoped clown Ko-Ko through such masochistic acrobatics-or, as Greg Ford CORLISS UNFAIR TO AVERY sign, I should anti-illusionist hoops a decade or two thh Manny Farber of Warners exegetes, admit that it's a tad captious to hold Tex earlier. But Avery's storylines and charac- de~cribed Clampett's style in FILM COM- arcana (Ronnie Scheib's comely phrase) MENT a decade ago, his \"most undisci- up to the light cast years later by Clampett, ters were more solid, and so was the plined sproinging rubbery character- Jones, and other Warners directors who comedy punch. Egghead, in Cinderella motion gave him some of the most learned much from him. It's like looking Meets Fella, visits Cinderella's neon- eminently stretchable-bendable charac- only at D.W Griffith's pioneering one- festooned home to find a note saying she's ters in Cartoon History:' Clampett's comic reelers and then declaring, \"Fine, but he's gone to a Warner Bros. movie, and a ingenuity was no less limber, his gag no Lubitsch:' Besides, when Avery silhouetted Cindy waves at him from the architecture both classical and radical, his relaxed his literal-minded grip and let his fifth row and runs up onscreen to retrieve tempo so headlong that he could get characters stop in their tracks for a little him. After being yanked from their gullible laughs (and thanks) just by stopping a singalong, his pictures could be downright passivity by these shenanigans, movie pursuit scene in the middle-as in The (koff!) charming. Four natives and Fats audiences of 1938 must have fbund it Old Grey Hare (1944), when baby Bugs calls out, \"Time for widdle babies' nap!\" and he and baby Elmer snuggle up in complementary fetal positions for a three- second snooze, then recommence in medias chase. In so many Clampetts, the bedizened scholar sets down his over- worked pencil and surrenders in stitches. Gag, movement, character, design, rhythm: it is all too much and, In Clainpett's cartoons, exactly right. C lampett made movies; Avery illus- trated puns and detonated film-form devices. Which is why Avery routines (at least in his Warners years) are funnier described than experienced. And which is why Avery 1936-42 (at least in this essay) ranks below Clampett 1942-46 and Jones 1948-58. Those who propound the doctrine of Averyan Supremacy are allow- ing the gilt from his sensational MGM cartoons to rub off retroactively on his 17
tough to shift back into neutral for the \"You meet such in-teresting people:' Con- bluster. A reliable equation: Earned laughs feature attraction and convince them- fronted with McKimson's Tasmanian in a cartoon increase in inverse proportion selves that, say, Bette Davis' Jezebel Devil, Bugs manages to get the creature to carnage wreaked. Open the arsenal couldn't get a date for the cotillion - that a squnched all slivery inside a tree: \"Hmm, I (bombs, firecrackers. bludgeons, shot- silhouetted Egghead wouldn't invade the wonder what Tasmanian Devil Little Thin guns) and sink the imagination. It took a screen and drawl, \"Hey, Bette, I'll dance Pancakes would taste like?\" He's a Zen con special \"actor;' like Daffy, or a surreal and with ya:' artist, a sly mandarin of pre-emptive may- restless spirit, like Clampett, to get fmesse hem. He stands there, sheathed in self- out of a bang. Otherwise it was about as Avery also deserves some credit for esteem, while his antagonists exhaust edifyng and entertaining as a brawl at a refining Warners' star of cartoon stars. themselves in meaningless rage and move- truck-stop diner. Sappy humanist that I That tweachewous widdiw gway wabbit ment. He is his own auteur, the cartoon am, I prefer those quiet moments when made his debut in the 1938 Porky sHare director's alter ego. He knows what's going only Sylvester's pride is getting Hunt. The director was Ben \"Bugs\" to happen, in the next frame or three shitkicked - in McKimson's Who s Kitten Hardaway, member of the Kansas City scenes away, and he knows how to control Who? (1952), e.g., where Dad is deter- Mafia of cartoon aces (Walt and Roy it. He's the boss. mined to show Sylvester Jr. the fine art of catching a mouse who happens to be a Disney, Vb Iwerks, Freleng, Harman and Bugs also knows how to hurt a guy by strapping young kangaroo. As with all arousing expectations. Or is it just that he Warners cartoon losers, Sylvester grows Ising, and Carl Stalling all got their start in loves the sensuous snugness of black more determined, and more desperate, K.C., Mo.). 'jiggers, fell as\" are the first mesh stockings on his hind legs? A favorite with each defeat. Belligerent persever- words spoken by this creature who looks leitmotif of the Warners cartoons is the ance-oh, the shame of it! like a rabbit-long ears, fluffy tail-and hare in drag, usually to the google-eyed, scampers about like a wicked hyperactive A nd oh, the glory! when all the cli- child. Though he claims, \"I never done ultimately frustrated ecstasy of E.]. Fudd. ches - the chases and the explosions, nothin' to no one that never done nothin' to Bugs may be a can-can danseuse with a the straitjacket personalities, the demand me;' the hare's behavior is so aggressive cotton tail under his ruffles (Stage Door for boffola every 23 seconds, the 5400 feet one wants Porky to blast him tout suite Cartoon), or a Rhinemaiden with centipe- of mandatory canvas, eyen those dumb into rabbit stew. The primordial Bugs dal eyelashes and a chic helmet (Herr reminds us today more of young Daffy, Meets Hare and, 13 years later, Jones' three-fingered gloves Disney invented to with his mad pirouettes and giggles, and of Whats Opera, Doc?), or a lipsticked bob- torture cartoon animals and humans-fell Woody Woodpecker (created by Harda- bysoxer abashing Elmer into murmuring, into the hands of an artist working the way and \"voiced\" by Mel Blanc), than of \"Isn't she wuvwy?\" (Long Haired Hare, Saturday-matinee shift. Such a one was the mature Bunny. In Jones' Elmer's Jones, 1949, and Rabbit Seasoning), or a Chuck (A & P) Jones, who worked as Candid Camera (1940) and Elmer s Pet singing senorita who doffs her dress about Clampett's animator and occasional co- Rabbit (1941), Bugs can look canine, not the time Elmer dons his, and the two get director, started directing his own films in leporine, and speak in the rube voice of 1938, and hit his stride about the time Disney's Goofy (\"hyulk hyulk\"). It took married (Rabbit of Seville, Jones, 1950), Clampett left the studio, in 1946. That Avery, with A Wild Hare (1940), to or a B~rbara Stanwyck seductress in Lady was the year of Hair Raising Hare, a deft streamline Bugs and establish his charac- Eve riding togs (Rabbit Fire,Jones, 1951), anthology of Warners directorial styles: ter: a reactive tough guy for whom every or even a Tasmanian she-devil. Frelengian role-playing (Bugs as the mani- death threat is an opportunity for bravado. curist), Clampetty overstatement (the Groucho meets Chaplin. A star is drawn. Whatever the ruse, however outre the monster runs hysterically away from Bugs couture, Elmer is likely to fall for it. through a dozen walls, leaving his silhou- Whoever sculRted Bugs' personality Elmer had evolved from Egghead (simi- ette in each one), Averyan formalism (Bugs: realized that the rabbit would be a lot more lar to Popeye's Wimpy), through an Oli- Is there a doctor in the house? Rotos- appealing if he was depicted as a resource- ver Hardy phase, into a final blend of the coped Silhouette: I'm a doctor. Bugs: Eh, ful guy defending his turf with the odds what's up, doc?), and Jones' own unique stacked against him: \"I was a rabbit in a dwarfs Grumpy and Dopey), but his chol- and budding sense of a character's person- human woild;' as he once noted. Half the eric impotence make him a foil for any ality as expressed through the way he time he emerges from his warren to find assault on his propriety. Or his haber- walks, the distribution of weight, his plac- Elmer's or Yosemite Sam's shotgun parting dashery. In Clampett's The Big Snooze ing in the frame, and, most important, his his hair, and Bugs' response is a chillingly (1946) Elmer even finds himself in Lily eye contact with other characters and with blithe \"Eh, what's up, doc?\" The other half Langtree finery being howled at by some the movie audience. With the flick of a he pops out of the ground in Nazi Ger- Avery-style wolves. Elmer looks out at the lash, Bugs could implicate the viewer in many (Herr Meets Hare, Freleng, 1944) audience and asks, 'i\\ny of you girls ever the next devastating practical joke; Elmer or Spain (Bully for Bugs, Jones, 1953) or had an expewience wike this?\" The whole could communicate bamboozled delight Tasmania (Bedeviled Rabbit, McKimson, sorry episode serves to underline the in that beguiling female with the tight 1957), consults a pocket map, and dead- poignance of Elmer's plight: He is a dress and ... rabbit ears!?; Daffy could pans, \"I knew I should've made a left turn human in a cartoon animal woild. share his horrified anticipation of the end at Albuquerque:l of world as he knows it. In Jones cartoons, When Warners arranged that world to the eyes always had it. Either way, Bugs is the blase new world accommodate more traditional match- outwitting the old; he's cool beating hot, ups - say, cat (Sylvester) and mouse Like all Warners directors, Jones made and intellect flummoxing emotion. He (Speedy Gonzales), or cat (Sylvester) and plenty of one-shot cartoons, none more ought to be scared, but he's just thinking. bird (Tweetie), or rooster (Foghorn Leg- revered than One Froggy Evening (1955), Faced (in Jones' Hair Raising Hare, horn) and chicken hawk (Henery)-the a cautionary fable about entrepreneurial 1946) with a monster that looks like a big results could be pretty familiar. Because ugly haystack, Bugs turns quick-like-a- the combatants were of different sizes, the bunny into a gossipy female manicurist: chase scenes had little comic or character zing to them; they were often all dust and 18
greed vs. art for frog's sake, and surely buzzboy!'') and forces him to bail out also to hear them articulated by Mel Blanc. none more captivating than Feed the Kitty (\"Uh-oh, time to hit the old thilk! It can be said that Blanc. was the man of a (1952). A gruff bulldog named Marc Geronimo!''). This time, though, the para- thousand voices-all of them the same. Anthony meets a cuddly kitten, and- chute is quickly repainted as a huge anvil. Daffy and Sylvester originally had the wham! - the dog's in love. Marc Anthony's Result: pressed duck. human mistress refuses to let a cat in the same lisping, sputtering voice, with Daffy's house, so the dog goes to extravagant And still he soldiers on, always a game slightly speeded up. Bugs and Tweetie lenghts to disguise the kitten: as a powder- bird, a team player on a suicide squad. \"It's both came from the Bronx and had ade- puff, a windup toy. When the lady of the not as though I haven't lived up to my noid trouble. Tweetie and Elmer shared house makes cookies in the shape of kit- contract, goodness knows ;' he plaints in the dyslaliac tendency to turn each \"I\" and tens, Marc Anthony believes his little pal Duck Amuck. ';t\\nd goodness knows, it has been baked to death. In an amazing isn't as though I haven't kept myself trim, \"e\" into an impotent-cute \"w:' But it doesn't display of Method bereavement, he goodness knows , I've always done that:' clutches his paws , rocks back and forth, Daffy is a supporting actor who doesn't matter much if Blanc lacked the chame- and howls; he places the kitty cookie on understand why he's not a star. Yet it is his leon mimetic talents of a Daws Butler or Bill his back and trots in a crestfallen, one- doughty-forlorn response to the vagaries of Scott or June Foray, for he was a great moguls, directors, and cartoon rabbits that vocal actor. In Jones' Rabbit Seasoning, dog funeral procession. The performance earned him something better than star- Bugs, hiding in a burrow from Elmer, asks is worthy of Brando in its dangerous ten- dom - immortality. His persona em- the duck to stick his head up and see if the derness. Only at the THATS ALL FOLKS! is braced multitudes: greed (\"I can taste all hunter is nearby. Daffy does so. Blam! one forced to realize that this was no those doubloons and tribloons and qua- Daffy drops back into the frame , his beak Brando, not even a bulldog, but a sheaf droons and quintublooflS;' in Beanstalk wildly serrated, and affirms: \"Sthtill lurk- of drawings flipped past the eyes at 24 Bunny, 1954), unwarranted braggadocio ing about!\" The voice is broken, but ma- frames per second. nicacally chipper, defeated but indomi- (''You may be big, but I'm thmaU;' he table. Rich Little couldn't do that. As the house liberal, a figure of venera- snorts to a mass murderer in the 1956 tion and fun at Termite Terrace, Jones Deduce, lVu Say; \"I'm brown ath a nut N obody could do what Jones did for shone in films that anchored comedy not an' fit ath a lathp''), derision (\"Thankth for the animated cartoon either. After to realism but to character. And Jones' the thour perthimmonth, couthin!\" in 1963, though, people tried. When great character-indeed, the sovereign Duck Amuck) swordsman's savvy (\"Ho! Warners closed its shop, the studio farmed creation in cartoon pictures-was Daffy Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Thpin! out its characters to a company headed by Ha! Thrutht!\" and boinggg! as his beak Freleng, who directed only six of the films Duck. In the begining, in Avery's Porky s snaps due up in Robin Hood Daffy, 1958), himself. These 75 cartoons should not be impish evil (\"Thurvival of the fittetht, and considered part of the canon. Seeing Coy- Duck Hunt (1937) and Clampett's The bethideth, it'th pfun!\" in Rabbit Fire), ote and Roadrunner treadmill their rou- Daffy Doc (1938) , he was 'Just a crazy darkest rage (\"You're dethpickable!\"), tines, in films directed not by Chuck darn-fool duck;' capering across a pond and a googolplex of other emotions. Mas- (Acme) Jones but by Rudy (Nadir) Lar- ter of the fast burn, plucky pawn of the riva, is like watching Garbo , all seamed woo-wooing like Hugh Herbert on gods, nonpareil trouper, Daffy is indubita- and rusty, making her comeback in Can- helium, knocking himself on the head boobilaboobily the best. nibal Holocaust. While Jones cruised with a mallet so he could \"consult\" with through the next decade with his Dr. two of his afterimages. He was a kid , To read the lines quoted above is to Seuss films Horton Hears a Who and but an exuberant, ingratiating one, ca- appreciate the dialoguing gifts of Michael How the Grinch Stole Christmas - half- vorting o'er hill and dale with his Duck Maltese, who wrote exclusively for Jones hour cartoons that cushion their acute Twacey comic book in Clampett's nifty The from 1948 to 1958; neither man ever did comic timing in billowy poignance-the Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946). Briefly in dandier work alone. To read the lines is new Warners staff turned out TV-style car- the Forties, he was even a resourceful win- toons for the big screen. No sass, no art. ner, like Bugs. In Plane Daffy (Tashlin, And after 1969, no more. 1944), the Axis spy Hatta Mari keeps blasting away at our hero, but Daffy (The One of the gratifications of the Warners Refrigerator) Duck brazens his way out of show at MoMA , as Leonard Maltin noted, an icebox with ''Well whaddaya know? The is that audiences got a rare chance to see little light- it stays on!\" Great stuff. the cartoons as they were meant to be seen: in a movie theater, on a big screen, Just as Bugs became gradually less with a community of entranced specta- buggy, Daffy became less daffy. The dif- tors. That theater was packed on another ference is that Bugs remained in control of recent Saturday afternoon; you couldn't every perilous situation; Daffy, by meeting bully or bribe your way in. Seven Bugs the real world halfway, found himself crushed by its capricious cruelty. You can Bunny cartoons, from Porky s Hare Hunt see the change in two gags a decade apart. In Yankee Doodle Daffy, Porky tries to to Whats Up , Doc?, elicit~d bigyoks and escape Daffy by bailing out of a plane- applause at the end of each one. After the but Daffy is the parachute, and both final short, the house lights came up, and descend, uninjured, to earth. In Duck the audience, as if robbed of a half-eaten Amuck, which has Daffy trying to make an candy bar, let out a disappointed old-fashioned Looney Tune in a modernist ';t\\wwww:' They wanted the show to keep going, all day, every day, past 1963 and dystopia ruled by \"director\" Bugs Bunny, into forever. the prankster cartoonist thrusts Daffy into WWI aerial-ace togs (\"Oh brother, I'm a Me, too. ® 19
\"Wby Marlaine Glicksman their members with supportive, educa- breathing, the lead anchorman turned to hy does a nice girl like me with a smile on his face and said, 'You you want to make a tional, and \"networking\" services. And a know what that is, don't you?' film about war?\" That place to talk about \"it:' Perhaps, by the is one of the running time the next article on women working in \"Then there were the job interviews. I jokes among women working in the the fum industry appears, women will feel can't tell you how many 1went on where I'd industry today. It is also a standard reply to free to link their names to their words. have to listen to really stupid dirty jokes. the question 'Why aren't more women And there was a Catch-22: If you took it making films?\" Women are making JANE, 26, DIRECTOR: 'When I got out well, you got more, and if you couldn't take inroads via the industrial and independent of college and into the industry, it was it, you didn't get the job. Once a TV ftIm routes, but they remain largely token made very clear to me-by industry producer said he was really interested in figures in feature filmmaking. Despite the people-that there were two ways you hiring me as associate producer and asked hard won eminence of Susan Seidelman, could work your way up: on your back or me to meet his staff. So the photographer Karen Arthur, or Amy Heckerling, since on your feet. There was a very clear-cut comes in with these stills from his last 1980, of 986 directing assignments , only decision that had to be made. It was often picture, and the producer tells me to look 32 have gone to women. Statistics such as a topic of conversation as to 'who did' and at them. Turns out his last picture was a these are now the basis for a discrimina- 'who didn't: porn film-and these were all close-ups. tion suit filed by the DGA on behalf of its He kept asking me what my artistic female members. \"I contacted a fairly prestigious person oplOlon was. in the industry. He was very powerful, but Yet women, many of whom may have he was also a real slob - if he wasn't who he '''Then I went on an interview for a once dreamed of directing, make the was, you would stay away. I trusted him feature. I spent quite a while talking with industry run. They work in script supervi- because he was a friend of a relative, and the producer, and I had to listen to his set sion and editing or in the less traditional they often did favors for each other. He of dirty jokes. But I listened with patience jobs of sound recordist, grip, gaffer, pretended to do all these favors for me, to and a smile on my face because I thought, cinematographer and producer. be my friend, but they were really just a Hell, this is a comedy; he wants to see if I normal part of his job, routine administra- have a sense of humor: Also because I Still, all women hear it when a woman tion. He'd often invite me places because needed a job and 1wanted to eat. So at the makes it to the top in the industry: She his wife couldn't go - screenings, meet- end of the interview he tells me, 'I really slept her way up. Why would an essen- ings, and things. The first few times it was like you. I'd like to give you something: I tially liberal, empathic art remain the all new to me and I was grateful, but it thought he meant some sort of position, bastion of puritanical, exploitive treatment became all too clear that I was going as his so 1 asked him what. He said, ~ hickey, of women, while more conservative indus- arm-piece. It was always very innocent, but you're wearing a turtleneck: ~nd a tries surpass it in the integration of women very borderline behavior, a kiss here or scarf; 1said. into the mainstream? It's ironic that an art there goodbye, or an arm to guide me. I form that depicts women pumping iron felt very uncomfortable about it. I never \"Next, 1got an interview at the United still opts for its own women to carry coffee encouraged him. I always kept a distance. Nations. A man spoke with me, cups. But it was precarious: If I made waves, he could make it difficult for me. He always and 1thought the interview went wonder- The issue of sexism is a subtle and emphasized how small the industry was , fully. He showed me around, introduced sensitive one, but in its subtlety lies its how quickly word got around, how bad it me to people, took me for a drink in the power. It is not only an issue of men was to be a troublemaker. Then he started delegates lounge. The job was a real against women, but also , and most calling me at home. Just to chat. I couldn't dream job: great salary, a chance to use disturbingly, women against women. It afford to be unfriendly but I also didn't both my film and intellectual skills for a affects women not only on the set, but off want him as a friend, not that kind of a change, a lot of time off, and a lot of travel. the set as well. It affects how women feel friend. So I stopped taking his calls. At the end of the interview, he told me to about themselves as women. be in constant touch with'- hirn. When I \"I should have expected this . I had been called him, he said that there wasn't I spoke with women about working in a college intern for a TV news crew at a anything open yet, but was positive. He the film industry. As they spoke, forgotten network station. I used to do a lot of concluded by saying, 'I was looking over experiences and frustrations surfaced. running back and forth between the your resume, and 1 see that we're Some would deny having had a problem, newsroom and the studio, down a lot of neighbors. [We lived over 20 blocks then would spend five minutes justifying dark halls and stairways. Barely a day went apart.) Why don't you come to my house why they thought there were no problems, by when I wasn't poked in the stomach, or for dinner.. : 1 was stunned; it was so then acquiesce and admit yes, maybe pinched, or grabbed by one the anchor- obvious. Somehow, 1expected the UN to there is a problem. But still they didn't men - always accompanied by a cute be more low key. After an awkward want to talk about it. remark. It was my first job in the industry, moment he added, 'I guess that wouldn't it really upset me, and I'd go home and Fictitious names are used in the scrutinize my behavior and my clothing. interviews, after those who initially agreed I'd try to be as asexual and professional as to identification retracted their offer by the possible, but there seemed no way to end of the interview. Some also requested avoid it. The newsroom was generally safe their age be omitted. They often regis- territory because it was an open area, but I tered surprise that I would use my byline. remember going out on one assignment Often it was recommended that I didn't. and a Donna Summer song came on the radio and when she began her usual heavy Organizations such as WOMEN IN FILM and WOMEN BEHIND THE LENS provide 20
Dorothy Arzner (right) directs as Esther Ralston cranks the camera for Fashions For Women, 1927. be such a good idea if you're applying for a his office a lot to apologize. Then he it was finished. He kept bringing up ·my job here, huh?' That was the end of that began calling me in 'to look at my notes: refusal to ask him for help. At the end of job. He'd sort of glance at my notes and chat. the year, he failed me in a few classes, And the chats weren't about anything. including his. I don't know how: I got a '~t last I got some steady work with a hundred on his final exam, I had perfect TV series as a production assistant. I really 'When it came time for me to do a film , attendance, and he personally supervised liked it, despite the usual putting-the-P.A.- he insisted he would help me 'make it into my note-taking. I know that I didn't fail the to-the-test problems. But there was this a masterpiece: I really didn't want this other classes - I had given my notes to half incredible schizophrenia: On the set, the man's help. I didn't like him, and it put me the class, and they came through with assistant director would test me to see how in a very awkward position with the other flying colors on the final. Later I took a much of a man I could be. But every students. But he insisted I come to lunch more advanced class on the same subject morning at breakfast - and the producer with a script. So I brought it to lunch, and and got an A-plus on the final. I didn't stick used to give us these wonderful big we talked about everything but the script around there too long, but several students breakfasts-the A.D. would chase me and mostly about me. It was obvious what and teachers from the school expressed around the production office with a sau- the dynamic was. Then he revealed to their disbelief to me over what happened. sage. That was the extent of our relation- me-as my 'friend'-aLl the scholarships I That was later, though. At the time, no ship. My taking orders on the set and his was up for. I didn't want any favors from one said anything:' routine in the morning. Not only was I him. I didn't want any special attention or upset about it, but it didn't help me with revelations and didn't like being singled SANDRA, 26, SOUND RECORDIST: \"I the other women in the production office. out. Later, he told me I was up for a certain always thought idealistically that talent will scholarship and that I should come into his prove in the end, and that once you prove \"Finally, I enrolled in film school, office to see how comfortable I was with yours that's all that you need. But about because I wanted to make my own films. the equipment. So he shuts the door of his two years ago, when I worked for a transfer First semester went great- I was doing office and says, 'Now, my head is the house, we were going out on an lATSE exactly what I wanted and receiving camera... : And he had me demonstrate all [International Ass'n of Theatrical Stage recognition for it. Then the dean of the these shots with his head. Employees] shoot to work with a woman school, who had been away on sabbatical, sound recordist. I pretty much knew that returned. The flfst day of his class he '~fter I shot the film, I had a heavy there weren't many of them. I had to call called me up on stage to demonstrate deadline to finish it. He couldn't under- this woman up to make arrangements with something. After class he apologized for stand why I had to go edit and not have a putting me through all that, but that was glass of champagne with him in his office. just the beginning. He would call me into He gave me a hard time with the fum when 21
her, coordinate a meeting, stuff like that. me off. I said, 'What difference does it mentor-sponsor relationships, but this can So I call up the IATSE local to get her make? If I have to lift a big I-ten -that's a be difficult. These people want to pre- phone number and said, 'I'd like the name 10,000 watt light-no guy's going to do serve their own jobs. of a sound recordist, her name is .. : And that alone, so what's the difference, two of before I could finish, the man who us are going to do it: I gained a lot of weight \"If comments are made to me, I tend to answered the phone said, 'Oh, you must trying to make it as a gaffer. Unconciously, ignore them. I don't think I'm blocking it, I mean blah, blah, blah; and I said, 'Yes, how I was denying my femininty. I felt just ignore it. But I'm not faced with a did you know?', and he said, 'Well, there's uncomfortable as a woman , so I took my casting-couch situation. Sometimes, I only two of them, and she's the only one anger out on my body. stoop low enough to respond. But usually I that's working: That was very disappoint- don't even notice them anymore. ing. It wasn't like, 'Oh, you mean so and \"It's very disturbing to see fewer young so, and she just finished working on.. :Just women entering the business now. Some ~RGO, FILM SCHOOL STUDENT:'~t to be known for your gender. of them are smart enough to say, This is crazy. I might as well produce or direct: \"I school, the males stick together as a \"The transfer house also liked what I think that they're a lot less conflicted than group, and the females seem to flit from was doing. I was apprenticing with the women of my generation about having a group to group, working as individuals. It's engineers, but I was also a messenger. The profession. They've had more role mod- a bit like the football team: The Boys get production manager, who was nice and els, they've got a lot more chutzpah. It's together to tackle a movie. They consider very sympathetic, called me into his office harder for me to discuss money, salary. it a bit of a risk to include a woman-we're one day to tell me that while I was very What if you fuck up, what if you do a bad 'unpredictable: right and serious about what I did, the job? God forbid you should be demanding boss would never hire a female engineer. about salary. \"I went up to an equipment house to Not because he himself was prejudiced speak to the manager about a job. I was but because his clients might not have 'New York is much fairer than L.A. told, 'Oh no, the manager would never confidence in a woman engineer-they're Look at the people out there-the men take women: I asked why not? And he used to dealing with male engineers. I was with their chest hair, their gold chains, and said, 'Oh, it would distract all of us from outraged by it. And I have always had the their cars-how can they relate to women working: So I asked a male friend who outlook of a male WASP- that nothing is technicians? They're into what sells in worked there about that, and he said the closed to me. Hollywood. Sex and all that crap. There is manager wouldn't like the idea because it nothing worse than being introduced as a would distract the customers! And that I \"I don't know what motivated an cinematographer, which is a very macho would have to be kept in the back! incident I had with my union sponsor. profession, and they just kind of giggle. First, he tried to kiss me, and when I That is just so degrading. They think that \"In a way, I am playing at being one of rejected his advances, he stopped. We just it's the funniest thing in the world. The Boys. I feel I have to prove a certain said goodbye. Then when we got together toughness. I do weight training just to another time, he suggested that I come ''You know it's sexually pointed. It increase my arm muscles so that I can back to his place for 'a little cuddling: angers me no end. Why should I hit my carry things . That's the dilemma: assert- Later, he let my refusal interfere with his head against the wall if they are going to ing myself my way or proving that I'm sponsorship of me as a union applicant. have these sexist attitudes? Countless tough to The Boys. I think there definitely times when I was a gaffer, I was working is discrimination, a subconcious attitude ~RIAN , 35,. PROP and ART DIREC- with building electricians, who'd say, that encourages a male to doubt whether a 'Look at the little lady, isn't she strong; and female is capable of something. He has to TOR'S ASSISTANT: \"I brought in some work I'd just have to close my ears to it. I don't be shown that she is capable. If a female that I did for the art director of a feature comment on it. You can't even get angry. gets respect from the crew, other men film - and he was really happy with it- You hold the anger inside. But they have respect her. But if she is in competition and he said to me, 'You know, I could lick the power to hire you. God forbid any of us with the males in a crew, they become you: should be difficult. We have to watch over-domineering. ourselves every minute. We have to be ''When I was first getting started, I asked better. We cannot make mistakes . We \"In the commercial house where I an art director who I studied under and cannot fail, ever. \" worked , you'd walk on the set and respected what were my chances for wouldn't see any women gaffing or around succeeding. 'There's only one woman art BETTE, UNION LAWYER: ''Women con- the camera. Maybe you'd see women as director who's made it; he said, 'and that's P.A.s doing food. As a P.A., I would do the onJy because she sleeps with all the tribute to their own problems with a little jobs-costumes, or props, or food- directors: I happen to know who he defeatist attitude. Women need to realize and the guys who were P.A.s would be meant, and I know that's not true at aU:' that if they are chosen it is because they meeting the teamsters or loading equip- are qualified. ment. One day, we were clearing the set, SONJA, CINEMATOGRAPHER: \"I joined everybody had gone, and I was left on the NABET (National Ass'n of Broadcast \"In Hollywood, there are loads of set to wait for the teamsters to pick up Employees and Technicians) in '72. There hangers-on. Women turn out to be conve- camera equipment. Union rules say the were two other women technicians in the niences. They make themselves available. stuff must be loaded by the grips or the union then. A lot of women in those days So when the time comes and the women technical P.A.s. So the teamsters came and got in through boyfriends. I remember are part of the work force, men don't know said, 'Isn't there anyone here?' And I said, being very annoyed when I went up to the what to do with them:' 'Yes, I'm here: And they said, 'We're not committee that some older guy asked me . \"Features are the hardest for commer- allowed to lift any of that equipment: So I how much I weighed. That really pissed cial camerawomen. Women must go for said, 'No problem, I'll lift it into the the mainstream. Yet how do you get into elevator to go into the truck: And they the Old Boy network? You develop said, 'No, isn't there anyone proper here?\" 22
sIt disturbing to see fewer young women entering the business now. Some are smart enough to say, 'This is crazy.' -Cinematographer I had a dream that I had poison on my hair, and everybody who patted me on the head got poisoned. - Story Editor He told me, 'The only way you'll be working on this film will be ifyou are sharing my room.' That exact line. -Production Assistant \"There was an extremely successful then he told me, 'The only way you'll be CLAIRE, EXECUTIVE STDRY EDlTDR: alumnus of my school who came to give a working on this film is if you are sharing \"It's rampant , it's everywhere. I've been lecture. After, we were introduced by the my room: That exact line. 'The only way patted on the head and told, 'She's a really lucky little girl: I'm 31 years old. dean, he said when I moved to New York I you'll be working on this shoot is if you are \"Even if I get a lot of money, I still can be should call him up. I didn't call him right sharil'l:g my room: This came after know- treated abysmally. I was introduced to a big muckamuck in the networks. He away-I first had to get situated. So he ing him only a month. He went on to tell patted me on the head and said, 'This is the little girl who came up with the called me-I was very surprised-and me that he was attracted to me, and I told project: Then he quickly pushed me behind him. I went home that night and said, 'You've been in Nev\" York for a month' him , 'I'm not attracted to you at all: And so had a dream that I had poison on my hair, and everybody who patted me on my head and you haven't called me. What is this?' he said, 'Oh yes, you are: got poisoned. Now I call my company The Poison Hair Production Company, When I finally went to see him I had to 'i'\\.fter that, I talked to a therapist. Now and when they ask me why, I tell them. No one pats me on the head anymore:' wait five hours. After he looked at my I've gotten really good at ignoring it. I'm NELL, 54, EDlTDR: 'Women face yet resume and gave me some good pointers pretty but I'm not provocative. I was upset another problem in the industry-age discrimination. Older men feel it, but and suggestions, he said, 'So, you're at ftrst, but trungs are getting better, and older women feel it more. Age makes it difficult. Being a woman only makes it having an affair with so-and-so:' It wasn't I'm dealing with it:' harder. Directing is definjtely a men's club. Women are working five and ten years and true, but I thought he was just saying that not going anywhere. Look at the net- works. All the men are producers. Women to see if it was. are kept associate producers for years. \"Next he said to me, 'Do yo u know so- LIBBY, 39, ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: \"In editing, women haven't been too dis- criminated against. But you must learn and-so?' A female. And I said, 'Yeah: And 'When I came in , I was older. I was 37 and how to play the game. Women feel so threatened , they don't help each other. A he said, 'You wouldn't believe what she did. I came in through the back door, as a well-known female editor made a lot of men feature editors but no women: ' She wanted a job from me so bad that she writer. Women told me to lie about my DOROTHY, DIRECTDR: 'Working in came up to speak with me after a lecture, age. I couldn't believe it. They said, 'You're film , like working in theater, often means working very long hours in an intense, but I told her I didn't have time. So she just starting out and you don't want anyone emotional atmosphere. Relationships are taken for granted between male directors went back to my hotel and was leaning to know that you're 37. Never. You can and female actresses. But the view toward female directors is absolutely puritanical. against the door waiting for me, and ... : I pass: It's an industry that relies upon No way should she have a relationship with one of her male actors:' looked at him and said, i'\\.nd what?' Well; young people, because you stay up 24 SYLVIA, 25, PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: he said, 'you can imagine what happened hours a day. What do you do? 'You do after that. It was three in the morning: industrials : That is what everybody said to ''Then he told me that he was going out me. of town, that he would take me on a shoot \"It is conceivable for a man to explain in California, and that I could work as a P.A. having had another career, to be older and for three weeks to try me out. So, I told starting at a later point. But an older him that my brother lives in California and woman is seen as a threat. I asked, Why I could stay with him. Then he told me would people perceive it that way?' And that he couldn't use me for that shoot. they said, 'Because no younger man wants Later, he told me to call him about another an older woman working for him: So I shoot. I called him , and he wasn't in. I said, Why not?' And they said, 'Because called him 200 times , and he was always they're embarassed to have you get their busy. Two jobs and he never came coffee: I said, Well, they should be getting through. It was all ' very subtle-he their own coffee: And so they said, 'They definitely played with my head . don't want to have someone old enough to tell them that. They want a 21-year-old ''Then, I met this guy who has worked who is so happy to have gotten a break that on many big films and was developing his own script wruch he said a Hollywood they can treat her anyway they want to. major was interested in. He said he would You have more opinions and say them hire me as production manager. The shoot more readily. And you're not going to be is on location in a foreign country, and I manipulated: I said, Why should younger was very excited. After several meetings, I women be meat in the industry?' And they asked him what the accommodations said, 'Because that is just the way it is: would be, and he said, Well, so-and-so will be here, and so-and-so will be there: And \"I also couldn't believe the amount of flirting that went on, the sophisticated 23
The dick rules. This is a Major Penis industry. ... The bigger the movie you make, the bigger your dick. -Producer-Director banter. You know, a little witty comment really want to do is be where the ~en \"No one speaks for women except here, a little witty comment there. Dress they're fucking are. They want their jobs. WOMEN IN FILM. Yet, people have even is extremely important. The assumption is And they never get those jobs. They are told me not to join WIF. Don't join! They that women must be noticed by men. You always a deputy to somebody else. said that it will mark you as a 'Feminist', must be tough and you must be deter- Women have to agree to a kind of sexual and everybody knows about that. A mined. You must be serious and sexy. It's a routine in order to be part of the team. woman's vision is not seen as credible. It's double whammy. You have to prove you There are women who get farther because kind of a joke. And I think that is partly are a girl and prove you are a boy. It makes they either sleep with men, or the man why it is difficult for women to say that you nuts after a while. they have a primary relationship with is a they are feminists. It's seen as kind of a man whose power in the industry let him joke, if it's not considered hostile. And \"If you are a woman, the assumption is make her the exception. And that's got feminism is considered to be extraordi- that you are going to cause more trouble, weight. And it's also a real message to narily hostile. be incapable of handling large budgets or a women about how they can put together staff, hiring what are assumed to be male their options. And being good should be \"It comes down to whether you can be technicians, supervising cameramen who the criteria. Not being good-looking. tough and not be completely discouraged. will not want to take orders from you. It is It can be very discouraging. It is very an endless list. And it always boils down to \"When I was just starting, one man I painful to hear that you have compromised every part of the business being controlled know said to me, 'Do you know what it is yourself to get where you are-if you get by men. If women attempt a man's job, going to mean for you as a woman? How anywhere at all. It doesn't exactly build men will resent it. And because the frustrated you are going to be, how little your self-confidence. It does make you projects cost so much, no one wants to you are going to affect?' And he is hate other women who cry on the shoot. It take a chance with a woman. So you are somebody who would like to see me do looks terrible for you. Men sit around biologically pre-determined a failure. the work. He was really trying to tell me saying 'That's how women are. They can't something serious about what it means to deal: Most of the women I know who are \"It's not like there never were women go up against institutional male domi- making it are workaholics. And that is who did anything-but they are always nance. And he was right. It hasn't made scary. They've given up absolutely every- considered the exceptions! And when you me decide not to do it, but I think no thing. And I don't really think that is what bring any of their names up, you get told woman can afford not to know how deeply the choice should be:' they were exceptional women, that it was affected she is going to be, so that she another historical period, the Sixties or doesn't take it out on herself all the time. SUSAN, 34, PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Seventies, and that times have changed, Most of the women I know are always \"Several years ago, after I graduated from and that's too bad but that's how it is. saying they're not as good as this person or school, and I was out at Filmex, I got a call that one, that they don't work as hard. from my agent. He said, 'You're up for an \"I'm 'out '. I'm_ 'out' at work. I'm a after-school special, and it looks really lesbian producer. It's not like it's \"I've never heard such female self-hate. good: My film was about children, so I It's incredible. It's awful. Yet it is the flip- said, 'That's perfect for me: Well, I was up something I tell people a little bit. I was side of extraordinary anger. All women against two boys who also graduated from who rap themselves also have a rant about NYU, and one of them got the film. I never also a<ivised along with the age stuff, to the male nincompoops they've seen get even had an interview. His film had job, after job, after job because they could nothing to do with kids. At all. The next never tell anybody that I was gay. But I hustle better. They could walk into places interview I had was with the head of that women had to beg their way into. So another production company, a woman. think it has a lot to do with who I am. And women are incredibly bitter because they She said, 'Oh, I'd love to take a chance have seen men who were assholes getting with you, but you don't know budgets: it has a lot to do with what interests me in in doors they couldn't get through. Then How did the guy who got that one know they refuel their own self-hate. budgets better than I? life. And in my work. I've worked very \"It became clear at a certain point to a \"First there were always reasons, then hard not to be in the closet, so I don't want lot of women that if they were going to there was a pattern: Only women who had make it, it had to be all or nothing. Them done features were given the honor of to go back in because being out makes against everybody else. And that meant doing $300,000 children's TV scripts, them against other women. Because they most of which were shot like crap because somebody else nervous. It is probably a would be vying for very few positions, they nobody gave a damn - I was on the Emmy would kill for them. So cooperation went nominating committee, I know what they little better in my case because I'm out the window. Although , God knows, it look like. Or else you could be a boy right has been women who have helped me out of college. Now, that is blatant sexism. 'femme: ! more than men. Only women give women chances. But the price that they pay for \"I had meetings with women producers \"I'm 'out', however, when the men ask doing that has been very high. of after-school specials who don't care me out. They tell me that they can't believe that I'm so good-looking and I'm a lesbian. C'mon boys. And I'm out. So if that is happening to me, and everyone knows that I'm a lesbian, what's happening to women who are heterosexual? What pressure is on them? What's their excuse? \"Sex has gotten women sometimes farther than they might have gotten otherwise. But they never break in where they hope to break in. Because what they 24
about the work - it's just a way in for them. Tisch School of the Arts They think that what they are doing is less, so they think women are less. But challenges you when they hire a boy, they think, 'Hmm- he may be a producer one day. He may be to think about photography a director: m• newways. \"I have a cousin. He's a major TV At New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, we producer. He told me that one of the believe the process of becoming a good photographer takes people who was signed to do his show the place largely in your mind. That is why we offer more than the following year was a woman. 'But I don't mechanics of the camera and the chemistry of photo develop- want a woman to direct; he said. 'It's in her contract, but we'll see when it comes up ment. We teach you to think as a creative visual artist. and then we'll deal with it: The curriculum combines rigorous technical study with an \"Hollywood is built on having the intensive examination of photographic theory and art history. biggest dick in town; the bigger the movie And It includes a wide variety of liberal arts course options as you make, the bigger your dick. The well. bigger your budget, the bigger the finagles As a·student in this B.FA. program, you will have full and maneuvering, the bigger your dick. access to: Everyone talks about their dicks. I know a guy who signed to direct his first film , and • A faculty that features nationally recognized photographers his agent looked at him and said, 'Well, and eminent scholars , including Tom Drysdale, A . D. Cole- your cock just grew three inches: So if I man, Ellen Brooks , Elaine Mayes , and Paul Owen sign, what's he going to say to me? I don't have a cock. All of a sudden Hollywood • The resources -of a major university made sense to me. • Regular shows of student and professional work at the \"The dick rules. This is a Major Penis Department of Photography's gallery industry. This is where the power and the glamour is. This is where if you make it • One of the best photo training labs in the country big, you can have the cutest 20-year old bimbos, all the drugs you want, and your • Extended visits by guest lecturers and artists wildest fantasies come true. Now, in banking, it's not cool to do that. But film • New York City-the most active photography center in the has always been a mutant. It's not really a world business, it's not an art. It's both. If people in any other industry acted out this way, NBVYORI( For more information, they'd be fired. You'd never hear from including an application, them again . Because they're crazy and you R5I1Y return the coupon or call know that they're crazy. But insanity is (212) 598-3939. permitted here. ------------------- I \"Listen, nothing is easy. I look at my I Tisch School of the Arts I face in the mirror and think this happened New York University Name_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ I so fast . But with this world out there and Address what you go through , it's crazy. And it ages I 721 Broadway, 7th Floor you. It zaps you and knocks you down. I New York, NY 10003 But you have got to know that you can fight it. This is a business for people who I Attn.: Roberta Cooper City/State/Zip Code_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ I are bent on failing. But if you know you've I 0 Please send me information Telephone II got it, and you can hold on to that, it I about the B.F.A. program in doesn't matter if you get screwed by sexism six times , by politics five times , photography. and by business deals ten times. It doesn't really matter because you'll move ahead I New York Universit y is an affi rmative action /equal opportunity institution. - I and you'll learn from the process. I think L. ------------------Fe -11/85 .J women who are soft and gentle, who are more feminine , have a harder time. 'The first step for women in the industry is to be successful women . And to stop seeing women as the les~ powerful sex. And until women stop seeing them- selves as less-our talent as less, our art as less , our ability as less- you cannot stop men from seeing women as less. That's the way to break it down . To start at home. Well, ladies, it's time. It is really time:' ® 25
Big League Teague Director's dread: Egypt us, and eucalyptus by Dan Yakir managed. I have some experience in that Teague, \"is based on realism , so as not to area. I started off working for Roger Cor- become farcical or silly. When Michael Douglas, acting as pro- man on no-time schedules and no bud- ducer, signed Lewis Teague to direct gets; I made documentaries at KCET on 'The story of Jewel picks up six months Jewel of the Nile , the $17 million sequel very quick schedules ; and I stepped in after Romancing the Stone ended-on the to Romancing the Stone, Teague had twice to replace other directors. On Fight- romantic premise that the couple would made five low-budget pictures. Risky per- ing Back it was two weeks before starting sail off into the sunset and live happily ever haps , but Teague had filmed a gangster principal photography, and Cujo had been after. In Jewel they begin to reassess the melodrama, The Lady in Red (1979); a shooting 'for two days when they inter- relationship, which they both find want- social-cum-vigilante drama, Fighting rupted production. I had to start from ing. Joan is a bit disillusioned with Jack and Back (1982); and three horror pictures, scratch with three-days of preparation .... decides to take an offer to write the bio of a Alligator (1980), Cujo (1983) , and Cat's North African leader-which lands her in Eye (1985). Each was driven by an action- \"The scary thing about Jewel ofthe Nile heap big trouble. Jack comes to the res- menace mainspring, a centered facet of is that it's a sequel to a film that grossed cue, only to realize she's already saved Jewel , leaving the question open as to $75 million, so everybody's expectations herself and together they join forces in a whether Teague could do it again-only are very high. It's one thing if a Roger cross-desert chase full of pitfalls. on a more complex scale. Douglas didn't Corman picture doesn't do very well- give him much time to doubt himself. nobody notices and you move on to the 'When I first read the script for Jewel, I next one-but here, a lot of people are found it very complicated, almost Byzan- \"Yeah , it was a bit hectic;' says Teague. going to be watching to see how well you tine , says Teague. \"I decided to tackle it \"I had eight months to prepare, shoot, and did. You have to constantly discipline your- by making the relationship between Jack edit the picture, and .two months more to self to ignore that: ' and Joan as coherent as possible. If the dub it, add sound effects , and prepare it for thread of their story made sense and was release. When we began shooting, last Jewel moves romance novelist Joan emotionally intriguing and satisfying, you April, the script had already been rewrit- Wilder (Kathleen Turner) and her dream could then attach almost any plot element ten many times, and the writers were on man and action hero, Jack Colton to that story and it would work. I think location [in the French Riviera and (Michael Douglas), from Stone's Colum- what made the first film so successful was Morocco) for the shoot. That was my big- bian jungle to the Sahara Desert. With the notion of a romance novelist whose gest problem , because it's a big picture, fluid camera movements helping to create personal life is drab and who manages to with a lot of special effects which required a fast-paced action format and warm live out a romantic adventure and meet the a certain amount of planning, story-board- (peach, lavender, rose) colors establishing man of her dreams. The story-of the mg, and special equipment built. But I a romantic mood, the bearded 47-year-old jewel that's hidden underneath a waterfall, Teague's style is visble. Action needs and the sister who's been kidnapped, and humor, but Jewel's comic line, says this little character who's chasing her 26
around-all defy explanation. Nobody showing Joan the real affection he has for \"It caused us to move around a great deal;' really understands it, but it doesn't matter, her, because he's a coward as far as senti- Teague remembers. \"After th ey got because the central relationship works. ments go. I think th at's something that a divorced, my mother kept moving away lot of men can relate to. The two of them every six months , out of habit, like a \"In Jewel , Joan realizes that the man of have to face death before he can admit to gypsy. As a result, I never stayed too long her dreams is far from perfect. In Stone , her how he feels about her. It's not that in anyone given place, never really grew Jack was charming and always came different from Cujo , where it takes a life- up in one particular area , and never was through in the end, but also had a lot of threatening thing for everybody to put exposed to anyo ne particular set of mores . character flaws. He was lazy, irresponsi- their other fears into perspective. All that made me somewhat of a loner and ble, and had a devil-may-care attitude. maybe more interested in movies, which Jack wants to continue their carefree, \"I used to go to great lengths to put were always my favorite form of escape. I uncommitted existence, keep sailing myself in physical jeopardy-rock climb- was a kid who enjoyed living in fantasy. around the world- you know while Joan ing, mountain climbing. I enjoyed the wants something more solid. Joan's expec- adrenaline rush of overcoming my fears. After dropping out of high schoo l at 17, tations of men were so high in Stone that But I subsequently discovered that the Teague joined the army and served in Ger- none of the men she knew in New York greatest fears I have are the ordinary fears many for three years. He then enrolled at could fulfill them. Jack seemed to fulfill of dealing with authority figures, talking to New York University, majoring in English, her fantasies, given the exotic locale and studio executives, and of women , of ask- when a film production course got him the circumstances in which they meet. But ing girls out on dates . . .\" hooked. \"I always was expected to be an after a while, it's inevitable that they wake artist when I grew up ;' he muses . \"I drew up-which becomes pure comic currency. _I\"\"\"'r_~ incessantly-I was never without a pen Conflict is the core of any romance, and and a drawing pad in my hand. I had no here they have to fight like cat and dog to Lewis Teague doubt that I would be an artist, because get together again. Unlike filmmakers who find their metier drawing and painting always made me feel a tool of exorcism, a cleansing experience whole as a human being. When I took that \"Whenever I read a script, I look for through which they undergo a therapy of course and made some short films, I expe- something that touches me emotionally or sorts, Teague contends that \"You must rienced the same sense of wholeness that I humorously. I'd like every film to illumi- overcome these fears first before you can felt when I was drawing. \" nate human behavior either directly or portray them on the screen. I don't think metaphorically. Somehow, I have to strug- I've ever discovered anything personal ')\\fter NYU, I went out to California, gle real hard to find that in the scripts I'm while making a movie . I put a lot of per- directed a little TV [A Man Called Sloane, working on:' sonal insights into the films, but not the Barnaby Jones , J.-egas], dropped out dur- other way around:' ing the Sixties, ran the Cinemateque 16, In Alligator, the 36-foot long, 2000- an underground movie theater in L.A., for pound reptile that breaks out of the sewer, T eague traces his first urge to make a couple of years until I got bored , and is more than simply a horror device. The films to the intense experience he had returned to filmmaking. I worked in pro- creature is the allegorical manifestation of at 14 while watching Sam Fuller's The duction and editing and started working the hero's (Robert Forster) fears: a cop Steel Helmet. \"I loved it;' he recalls. ')\\nd on documentaries, which brought me to tormented by his partner's death in a hotel after I stepped out of the movie theater, I robbery is haunted by fear that it could said, 'I could do that!' A friend and I bor- KeET in the Seventies. happen again. rowed his father's 8mm movie camera and ')\\nd then I met Roger Corman. It was planned a Little Korean War movie. Seven \"The same theme was followed through years ago, before I made my first film , I 1974. Marty Scorsese had already done in Cujo ;' says Teague, referring to the was offered to direct second unit on The Boxcar Bertha for him , and when Roger Stephen King tale about a rabid dog terror- Big Red One. It was a big thrill for me to called him and asked if he could recom- izing a mother (Dee Wallace) and her come full circle and do a World War II film mend anybody as an editor, Marty recom- young son (Danny Pintauro) . \"Unfortu- with Sam Fuller:' mended me, because we had gone to NYU nately, I was limited to how much I could together. So, I started editing films for rewrite the material to accommodate the Born in Brooklyn in 1938, Teague's par- Corman. The first was Monte Hellman's basic theme-that most of our fears are ents divorced when he was a year old. Cockfighter with Warren Oates and Harry imaginary. The only real ones are physical During the war, his mother married a Brit- Dean Stanton. Then came Avalanche, dangers that actually threaten our lives . ish army lieutenant who tried his hand Death Race 2000, and a picture by Jona- The whole family was torn apart by imagi- unsuccessfully at a number of endeavors. than Demme. I think it was Crazy Mama. nary fears. The woman is afraid of growing I can't be sure-there were so many pic- old and seeks out an affair that threatens to tures with the same title. destroy her marriage. Her husband fears that she will leave him and that he will lose \"I worked with Allan Arkush, Joe an important client. And the child is afraid Dante, and Paul Bartel. The main things of monsters in the closet, possibly because you learn by working for Corman are how of the tension and constant fighting to get every nickel on the screen , how to between his parents. All these fears are be as expedient as possible, and how to groundless. She's a vibrant, attractive work very quickly. Also, Roger is an woman. The husband still has enough extremely clever person. Even though money in the bank to pay the rent. It's in most of his material was exploitive, he the process of dealing with the real fear, always had a very intelligent approach. I inspired by Cujo;' that the family is learned a lot from the way he dealt with brought together again. directors and editors. He was extremely well-organized, very insightful, v~ry quick \"In Jewel, Jack Colton is not capable of to make decisions. I always found hiQ1 a bit 27
inaccessible, but I admire him and I'll be lenge takes precedence. natural for both to become directors. John eternally grateful to him for the opportuni- is an incredibly unpretentious, earthy guy, ties he gave me;' s\"I did Cat Eye because I laughed out who hangs out wearing a T-shirt and ripped slacks. And King lives unpreten- Corman gave him his first crack at loud about 20 times when I was reading it, tiously in Maine with his family. In spite of directing with The Lady in Red, a variation and just knew it would be a lot of fun to do. all his millions. Personally, I prefer living in on the gangster film written by John Sayles Even though I knew that it was risky to the fast lane;' Teague says. \"Maybe they're and starring Pamela Sue Martin as a naive make a picture with three episodes, I was my alter egos ... ;' farm girl who goes to Chicago and interested in the techniques involved, in becomes Dillinger's girl. She gets into the special effects;' The troll sequence, If King and Sayles have left an imprint prostitution, crime and finally imprison- about a monstrous yet sympathetic crea- on his work, so, indirectly, have Louis ment in a woman's ward. Says Teague, \"I ture living inside the walls of Drew Barry- Malle (\"he had a big influence on me\"), was given that script and told to go with it. more's bedroom and \"stealing her breath;' Hitchcock, William Friedkin, Kurosawa I didn't really have a chance to mold or was done with a combination of blue (\"in terms of style\") , George Miller, and change it. It was very socially conscious for screen and overscale sets. In the 'Ledge' recently, Susan Seidelman. Like the New an action picture about the Depression. I episode, rich-and-jealous Kenneth McMil- Wave directors whose work helped shape had 20 days to shoot it, and three to edit- lan plays a vicious cat-and-mouse game by his sensibility-Godard, Truffaut, Cha- and a budget of less than a million;' having his wife's lover (Robert Hays) walk brol-Teague makes visual references in around the narrow ledge around his his films to works he likes, that are often Asked where his social consciousness highrise apartment. It called for using fea- humorous. In Alligator, a subjective cam- stems from, Teague says, \"I read the Vil- tured miniatures and background projec- era and thumping music accompany the lage Voice a lot when I was young;' He tion. carnivorous reptile, much as they did in seems reluctant to take on the title. And Jaws, while the bordello scenes in The yet, in Alligator, not only does the crea- \"I worked pretty closely with Stephen Lady in Red more than echo Pretty Baby. ture reach its distorted proportions King, who wrote the first draft on his own; An Alligator poster in French was because of industrial pollution, but when it planned for display in an Arab marketplace breaks out from the sewer it \"eats its way A little romantic conflict scene in Jewel of the Nile but somehow up the social-economic ladder;' says ended up on the cutting room floor. Says Teague, from the inner city to the upper- then I gave him notes with my reactions Teague, \"I have a lot of fun doing a Malle class suburbs. There he devours the pom- and he'd react to the reactions .. ..We had a shot, or a Kurosawa shot, or a George pous industrialist who created him in the few sessions together, and he always came Miller shot. They can also be quite useful first place in divine retribution against up with the answer to every problem. at times;' urban polluters. The sewer becomes a Stephen had nothing to do with the script metaphor for all the ills the city can't hide for Cujo and I, in fact, accepted Cat's Eye But What he had to cultivate on his own beneath its skin of organization: tamper- on condition that I could work with him. was a method of working with actors. ing with nature, disregard for human and Teague's own experience acting, which he animal life, etc. '?\\ similar thing happened with John tried before directing, helped him. \"Dee Sayles. I met him when I did The Lady in Wallace in Cujo was an extremely instinc- \"Fighting Back was supposed to be the Red, and when I was offered Alligator, the tual actress. I always let her do things her story of Anthony Imperiale, a City Coun- script was by somebody else. I accepted it own way first and then see where it took cilman in Newark before he organized a on condition that I could bring John in and her. If I wanted her to change something, vigilante team in his neighborhood;' says work with him on the rewrite. I told him I'd talk about the material as if I were Teague. \" But aSlhe story took more and how I'd like to make the material an alle- telling a story, to get her enthused about it more fictional license, it became the story gory for the hero's fears , as manifested and relate to it emotionally. of an Italian-American who organizes a through nightmares. citizen's committee against crime and \"Michael Douglas was a different case. becomes so good at it that he becomes a \"Both Stephen and John have wit, He and I worked on the script a lot and, in petty fascist. I'm afraid the picture was humor, and incredible imaginations. the process of writing, had a great deal of just a little bit schizophrenic, because I They're similar in a lot of ways-both pro- discussions and were in agreement about wanted to take a pretty hard look at that lific, intelligent people who don't care a each scene prior to the shoot. So with kind of character and the personal price great deal about material things. It was him, directing would always take the form that he'd have to pay. But Dino [De of specific suggestions: 'Why don't you Laurentiis, the producer) was more inter- give me a little more enthusiasm here?', or ested in doing a Death Wish-type film, 'Why don't you jump up and down a little where the audience automatically roots for more there?' It was minimal. I have to the hero;' admit that I gave him much freer rein because he was also the producer, but it Teague stresses that he prefers sub- worked out pretty well. He's a swift and stance over style. \"I love filmmakers who precise actor. With Kathleen, too my make stylistically interesting films ;' he direction was minimal. They're both says, \"and I enjoy working with camera extremely strong-willed people who are movement, but it all has to be at the serv- intent on having their way. When they ice of the material;' His future projects come upon each other, they're volatile, may test his preferences. They include a and sparks fly;' teen horror flick, an urban melodrama, a love story, and an action-adventure pic- At that moment, Teague smiled the ture. \"I like to play with all these genres;' smile of the keeper of the Jewel of the he says. But sometimes the technical chal- Nile. ® 28
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ection The 1985 Bool{Revue 31
Preston Sturges: Alien Dreamer by Richard Schickel fit Sturges into the preexistent, overar- nity to start fresh on Sturges, unburdened ching Hollywood canard of the day, in by preconceptions. Four decades have I t is time to set aside all those pop-Freu- which the man of talent goes west and is now passed since Sturges' great run of dian explanations of the life and art of corrupted by the town's vulgar values. Paramount successes, beginning with Preston Sturges. Enough about the giddy Sturges, it seemed, was a prime candidate McGinty (1940) and abruptly halted with aesthete mother dragging him around the for yet another reenactment of this cau- Hero (1944). It ought now to be possible galleries and theaters of Europe, thereby tionary yarn. There is some evidence that not only to correct Agees misapprehen- instilling in him a lifelong distrust of high , he welcomed the casting. sions but also to abandon some of the formal culture. Enough about the down- estimable, but entirely inappropriate, criti- to-earth stepfather in Chicago, the athlete- Agee being Agee-a \"great\" critic who cal principles with which people have inventor-businessman whose values- never got around to creating a great or even been yes-butting SturgeS fo~ years. principally his definition of success in a sustained body of work, but who had a purely economic terms - Sturges so des- silky, confidential style, approachably There is, for example, the question of perately tried to emulate. Enough about middlebrow tastes , and the good sense to whether or not Sturges was truly a satirist how Little Preston's psyche was split down die young, with several promises unful- and if not, why not? (He wasn't, but who the middle by their conflicting demands , filled - everyone who has since written cares?) And the matter of whether his fail- and how that split affected his films , about Sturges has had to contend with his ure to aq.:ede to the formal demands of the mostly adversely. f1y-by-the-slicks psychologizing. Evell genres in which he seemed to be working those critics who have disputed it, such as was willful or careless. (It was neither; he How did we get off on this sidetrack, Manny Farber, Andrew Sarris, and just didn't give a damn.) Nor could the anyway? Brian Henderson, in his introduc- Richard Corliss, find some of Agees the- critics abandon their worried clucking tion to Five Screenplays by Preston ory sticking to their revisionisms. But about his sudden descents into broad Sturges (University of California Press, Henderson, having done his best to strike farce, which looked to them like failures of $35), says it's all James Agees fault. In the down Agee on Sturges, offers nothing in the imagination or, worse, evidence of early Forties, Sturges had become Holly- the way of a replacement. His perform- pandering to the lowest tastes of his audi- wood's hottest director and one of the first ance, both in the introduction and in his ence. (They were neither; they were inte- in the sound era who wrote all his own essays on each script (The Great Mc- gral to his vision, and they worked bril- pictures single-handed. When the inter- Ginty, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, Sulli- liantly as often as they failed miserably.) It viewers from the popular magazin~s van's Travels, Hail the Conquering was the same with his happy endings, started coming around to do their standard Hero) , is exceeding strange. He seems to which Corliss in particular finds to be eccentric-movie-genius numbers, the have mislaid his critical sensibility among \"cop-outs:' I think they express Sturges' filmmaker reali:ted that there was good the Sturges papers to which he had access. true, and utterly singular, auteurial nature copy for them in his admittedly curious in roughly the same degree that his discon- background. It would be diverting for their It is interesting, to be sure, to learn that certing black passages (notably in Sul- readers and diversionary for him. In those the seemingly profligate Sturges never days, it did not do for an American movie really abandoned even his half-developed slivan Travels) also express that natures director to wear his art on his sleave; much ideas; he was always hauling them out of more comforting to the bosses and to the his trunk, refurbishing them and using mercurial qualities. typical moviegoer to playa little dumb. them as the basis for new projects. But it is All of this is easy enough for me to say- And so Sturges alleged that he shared neither interesting nor profitable to follow none of his mother's high aspirations, that his progress on a script from one stage of easier, anyway, than it was for most of the all he wanted to do was make funny, revision to the next. The main thing we critics who have preceeded me. When knockabout comedies that turned a tidy learn from Henderson's dogged pursuit of profit - the goal to which Daddy had various ideas as they expanded and con- Sturges was at the height of his Hollywood taught him all real American men must tracted from draft to draft (with the final celebrity, I was in the depths of preadoles- aspire. In the course of retailing this tale, polish occurring when Sturges was on his cence. His was a name I heard around, and Sturges permitted it to grow lush and pur- feet, directing) i~ that this was a very I think I watched one or two of his movies ple. He was never a man to prune back his craftsmartlike screenwriter and an intelli- sail over my head, but he was not a movie- inventions. gent, reasonably ruthless self-editor. maker I could appreciate at all. Then there Given the overall quality of Sturges' work, was a long period in the Fifties and Sixties The legend, or myth, served Agee well. one suspected this anyway. As it happens, when he became a kind of legend of the He used it to explain why Sturges' fums , the welter of information, presented in lost, his work hard to find even in the more which he seems to have admired more mind-bending detail , argues neither for esoteric revival houses. It was not until the than he could bring himself to admit, so nor against Agees reading of Sturges' char- Seventies, when his repute slowly began often failed to meet the formal standards acter. But then Henderson appears to be a to revive, that I came delightedly to his one was supposed to apply to well-made scholar in pursuit of an \"edition:' not a films. Finally I was old enough to appreci- comedies. Moreover, it permitted Agee to critic in pursuit of an insight. ate them , and sufficiently detached from the issues that had not only agitated and He therefore misses a timely opportu- distracted his contemporary reviewers, but had conditioned so much of the dis- cussion that followed in cinephile circles. 32
Sturges was not, and never intended to two up-and-down decades as a Broadway can language that one can best see the way be, the satirist that Agee and the rest playwright and a Hollywood screen- his partial alienation shaped his sensibility. wanted him to be. James Curtis' rcent writer-to catalogue his anthropological He reminds me of certain emigre artists biography Between Flops (which should finds and to discover a manner of present- (Nabokov comes to mind) for whom have been subtitled A Fan's Notes) at least ing them that was worthy of, and fully American cliches and slang, which the rest makes it clear that Sturges was an utterly expressive of, their value. But then he was of us are too familiar with to hear, ring apolitical character without an ideological like a man possessed. Everyone speaks, sharply, comically. Sturges' fascination bone in his body. Which explains why his correctly, of his movies' verbal and visual with common speech extends to our pro- politician characters (in McGinty and density. Sturges packed his often inelegant motional sloganeering- mere existential Hero) are so enduringly funny. Sturges but highly practical frames with American wallpaper to most of us growing up in a saw the Typical American Pol for what he eccentrics-the kind of faces the fully heavily commercial culture. For him it timelessly is-a venal windbag-and was acculturated native passes without notic- provides more than just a source for an odd utterly undistracted by the thought that a ing, but which apparently stopped Sturges gag or two; it is one of the major motifs of true liberal (or conservative) commitment in his tracks. And his dialogue resounded his work. The entire plot of Christmas in might cure that condition. He was not, with the character's relentlessly articulate July , you will recall, revolves around the and never meant to be, a critic of society. expression of their wayward, passionately hopes for rising out of the slums and his Rather, he was an uncommitted observer, held ideas , right down to the one-line bit dead-end job that Jimmy the clerk, its bemused and compassionate, but without players, whose one line was almost sure to central character, has staked on winning a any cures in mind for the conditions he be a beaut. coffee company's contest for a new catch- observed. These were, he seemed to say, phrase. His awful, wonderf~1 entry, the specifically American adjustments to, It is in Sturges' concern for the Ameri- and evasions of, dull reality. The best we could hope for was the temporary pallia- tive of a good laugh. This is, of course, the spoint of Sullivan Travels, which may be emotionally autobiographical in its gentle contempt for the social-critical aspirations of his Hollywood contemporaries, but is not a statement about any frustrated ambi- tions of his own. It goes without saying that Sturges' viewpoint, his genius if you will, was deci- sively formed by his early personal his- tory - but not in the narrow sense that Agee proposed. If it had been, surely we would have seen at least one female in his movies who was a determined culture vul- ture like his mother (not exactly an unknown comic type in American movies of the time). There is none. On the con- trary, the women in Sturges movies always represent, charmingly, the reality principle stated in sweetly patient deflationary terms. Some aspects of his beloved stepfa- ther may have influenced his characteriza- tions of men-they tend to be rather quiz- zically loving when they get around to thinking about their relationships - but they are usually far goofier and less practi- cal than Solomon Sturges must have been. No, I think the influence of the film- maker's earlier years on his work is much simpler to understand. He was away from the United States so much , and his educa- tion was so oddly catch-as-catch-can, that when he returned he was mildly but per- manently an alien, no matter what his passport said. Most of the assumptions his fellow citizens had learned to take for granted, all of the premises they saw no reason to examine, struck him as strange and wondrous, very much pausing and mulling over. It took him a while-the better part of 33
designed to go with pictures of insomniac nese doctor whose theory about it being a ume of screenplays-which read enchant- citizens: \"If you can't sleep, it isn't the soporific Jimmy has read in the Sunday ingly, by the way-only Dan McGinty coffee, it's the bunk:' paper. It is their only contentious moment. comes late to the dream. It requires the This obsession is everywhere in Sturges movies. Don't forget that Sullivan sets out One of the best scenes in Hail the Con- love of a good woman to convert him to on his travels to prove his worthiness to quering Hero involves a similar dispute, reluctant idealism. But once he is caught direct the movie version of a proletarian this time involving the town mayor, who is in its grips he is willing to sacrifice every- novel hilariously entitled Oh Brother, dictating a speech to his son and commits thing for it: his governorship, his family. Where An Thou? (Has anyone observed a grammatical error. The lad corrects him. He comes not to consciousness, but to a how often leftist political fiction of the The mayor has a typically choleric fit and willed unconsciousness of venal practicali- Thirties sought to broaden its popular ends up firing the secretary, who has ties, which is why Sturges permits him to appeal by fake Biblical evocations?) Don't agreed with his son. The issue here, as it is escape to a banana republic that lacks an forget that the source of the fortune that in Jimmy's squabble with his girl, lies extradition treaty with the U.S. The oth- causes the card sharks of The Lady Eve to between the literalists and the poets, ers, of course, are far purer. Jimmy, the fIX their cheating hearts on hapless Hopsie between those who see language as purely coffee sloganeer, is convinced that he will Pike, heir to a great brewery, is a slogan: functional and those for whom it is the win this prize because he has lost so many ''The Ale That Won for Yale:' Don't ignore clothing of dreams. The mayor points out others. As he sees it, when he lost the the political rhetoric and campaign slogans that he has never run on good grammar, how-many-peanuts-in-the-window con- of Hero: A placard carried at one of its that part of his success is based on deliber- test it doubles his chances in the you-fill- rallies reads , \"Up our hero goes, down this ate misusage. \"It gives that homey quality;' zero goes.\" he says, before drifting off into rhetoric: McCrea and Lake in Travels \"horny hands and honest hearts:' Beneath in-the-missing-word contest. \"But you lost The most endearing moment in The the ancient cliches of democracy one that one, too;' says the girl. \"Fine. So I was Great McGinty arises out of wordplay, senses in this corrupt burgher the pull of eight to one when I went into the limerick which, besides being in itself a comic an ancient belief, now honored only in the contest:' \"But you didn't win it, Jimmy:' invention of rare felicity in American mov- comic breach. Bear in mind that the May- ''That's what makes me a such a cinch in ies, also reveals, with offhanded grace, or's surname is Noble. this one:' how Dan McGinty's tough character has been softened by marriage. Dan (Brian E verett Noble is only one of Sturges' And so it goes. Why can't Hopsie Pike Donlevy) is reading a story to his step- near-grotesque caricatures. But he and (Henry Fonda) see that Jean (Barbara children: \"I'll give you three guesses and the other villains are impossible to hate, Stanwyck), the card shark he falls for, is then three more and three other ones, but for they all seem once to have dreamed not what she seems to be? Similarly, when you could guess all night without guessing some American dream. Their problem is she is working her revenge plot on him who it really was, because it was none that they lost it - or never found its why can't he penetrate her transparent dis- other than ...\" His wife interrupts this redeeming implications - and are now guise as the Lady Eve? The answer is splendid parody of icky children's litera- trapped in their quotidian crassness. They simple: Hopsie has literally dreamed a ture to point out that the kids have nodded are cautionary figures as seen by Sturges' dream girl, and Jean-Eve is her living incar- off. But the semiliterate McGinty, caught heFoes, for whom the dream is still fresh, nation. He cannot and will not abandon up in what may be the first fiction he has still utterly compelling. These heroes can- that ideal image made flesh, no matter ever read, presses on: \"... none other than not imagine it having a dark downside, in what the provocations. our friend Muggledy-Wump the tor-toys:' part because they are still suffused in the That mispronouncing of \"tortoise\" is an glow of original innocence. inspiration. And so is McGinty's delighted ''That's who I thought it was:' Symboli- Yes, the opposite of original sin. cally the scene tells us that if he is capable Because Sturges operated as· a sort of of this comprehension then he is capable Henry James in reverse. James went to of comprehending political corruption, Europe and found innocence imperiled; and of turning against it. As well, this Sturges came back from Europe to dis- moment, so soft amidst the general ruckus cover that quality in blooming health. And of the movie, may be a tribute to Solomon his thesis is a variant on James'. Isolated Sturges' gentle stepfatherhood. behind our oceans' walls, untainted by the major corruptions of the Old World - high McGinty is, shall we say, incapable of culture, exquisite manners, a rigid class sustained linguistic analysis. But other system - we are permitted to dream on Sturges creations are. And they have the undisturbed. And even when we fall from spunk to wrangle determinedly over these this state of grace (which none of Sturges' heroes ever do permanently) we fall only delicate matters. In Christmas in July, for into tolerable petty crookedness, comic eccentricity, or, at worst, those farcical example, Jimmy (Dick Powell) is in love kafuffles that so distressed Sturges' early with the play on words that is the basis for critics. his slogan. But his girlfriend (Ellen Drew), faithfully supportive in all other respects, How determined he was to permit his is not. She simply does not understand American Dreamers to preserve their how he expects to win a contest with a dreams unvexed. Of the five central fig- phrase that is manifestly a lie. Everyone ures preserved for close study in this vol- knows that coffee keeps you awake-no matter what is claimed by the fancy Vien- 34
It's the same way with Woodrow Lafay- generalizations, dragooning us into the Trying to Check a ette Pershing Truesmith of Hail the Con- conformities of class consciousness? Or, quering Hero. A medical discharge (for unromantic hayfever) has spoiled his for that matter, those of the tragic sense of 'Cahiers' Cache chances of being the Marine hero his life? All we can agree on is that everyone father was and he has dreamed of becom- ing since boyhood. But he has been unable else we meet is some kind of a weirdo. to abandon that fancy; indeed, he engages in elaborate deceptions of his mother and That is to say, we can reach agreement on by David Thomson his girlfriend back home rather than admit his failure. It is when six Marines he meets the absolute necessity of laughing at each in a bar sense that in his way Woodrow lives the corps motto (Semper FideLis: Fother-ruefully, and not unkindly. Which rom the most exciting film journal of Always Faithful) better than they do that all time;' Harvard University Press is they force him into impersonating a mili- is , of course, how we laugh at Sullivan. tary hero and accepting the acclaim of his And how we imagine he will laugh at his proud to announce on the cover of this home town. Given that Truesmith has been the true smithy of his soul, loyal to characters in the comedies he vows to book, in modest-size type, black on white. his own best self all along, and given that make after his travels have revealed to him There are three faces on the cover, too aLI his deceptions have been harmless, can one really argue that his fable requires a what the girl (Veronica Lake) knew all (Orson Welles, James Dean, Jeanne punishing ending? In Sturgesian terms the only logical ending is, I think, a happy along: that \"there's nothing like a deep dish Moreau), and one color, in minimal Bau- one. movie to send you out in the open:' haus strips and a ball that has hit enough But it is in the great SuLLivan's TraveLs that Sturges states his case most directly A las , poor Sturges. His own life of the book's spine to go foul. The color is and most daringly. Sullivan Ooel McCrea) dreams a dream, too, of using commercial ~eached the point his characters red, and that dismayed me just as much as movies idealistically to communicate what he believes to be the higher philosophical always reached at the end of his movies. the Preface's baleful \"It was planned\" truths- Marxist (i.e., European) theories about the class struggle and all that. This He pursued his dream and enjoyed its alarmed Richard Roud, when he reviewed was not, in 1941, an unknown dream for moviemakers, and there was something triumphant fulfillment. His inventions hit the book for Sight & Sound. So let us say sweet about its earnestness. And though Sully is presented as another of Sturges' the jackpot. He was famous; he was rich ; straightaway that Cahiers du Cinema, the rich nitwits-an articulate Hopsie Pike- there is something sweet as well in his lack he was honored by a grateful nation. But · 1950s: Neo-ReaLism, HoLLywood, New of cynicism and his bravery in search of direct experience of poverty. Surely abun- life is not a movie. It doesn't always end Wave ($22.50) is useful , scholarly, not dant America can provide that, too, if you ask it nicely. Everyone, from the kindly where it's supposed to. He had to go on quite as necessary as it is late, and terribly studio bosses (their humanity irritates Brian Henderson, who does not enjoy living in postwar America, when the depressing. having his mythic Hollywood disturbed) to the down-to-earth girl he meets on his America he had discovered with his inno- It was planned, apparently, by the travels , tries to dissuade him. But he must endure the film's bleak middle passage, cent emigre's eye. realized on film with a British Film Institute and the publisher, and we must endure that brutal break with comic conventions-one of the most dar- freshness unmatched by anyone, was Routledge & Kegan Paul, to make an ing strokes in American movie history - in order for Sully to learn what Sturges, at smothered by the great wet blanket of anthology of the French magazine. This least in those glory days, most deeply believed. prosperity. The price for which was a near- first volume covers the years from its Sturges' credo was not that it is impossi- universal corporatization that stunted and foundation, in 1951, to 1959 (when so ble to tell the \"truth\" in Hollywood films , but that the \"truth\" everybody was always stifled the juking, jiving waywardness that many of its writers became directors). hectoring filmmakers to tell was a lie. We are a nation of eccentric and volatile indi- Sturges, better than anyone, had Three others are threiuened , which must vidualists, each absorbed in his own pri- vate variant on the American Dream; and crammed onto the movie screen-the move forward from 1959 through terrain much of the time we cannot even agree on a language with which to express this infi- very act of cramming increasing the and language that no reading publisher nite multiplicity. Of what use, then , are energy of the work. could find exciting. The best is here, Bitter decline followed. He lived the however intemperate, dotty, and aimed at unhappy ending he refused to put on his the moment. If the project ever catches up pictures. If, now, much of the criticism with its target, then, for something close those films endured seems niggling and to $100, libraries will have a bulky namby-pamby, irrelevant to his enterprise, selection from the annals of Cahiers, one must yet admit that one's growing love edited in such a way that in one volume of for his work is in part based on nostalgia 312 pages, 92 pages are given over to for a world that, however truly he reflected introduction, commentary, notes , index, it, is now gone beyond recall. But perhaps and tasteful blankness. And the color is Sturges knew that, too. In his last sad red. years did he perhaps remember the poem If you were 18 in 1959, mad on movies of The PaLm Beach Story's Wienie King: and with a very little French, and having to CoLd are the hands oftime- adjust your swooning over Vertigo to Sight that creep along reLentLessLy & Sounds lead reviews on The Last Day of Destroying sLowLy Summer, The Unknown SoLdier, The but without pity Defiant Ones, and The Goddess, and a That which yesterday was young. pocket notice on Vertigo (by the editor) Alone our memories that said, \"One is agreeably used to resist this disintegration- Hitchcock repeating his effects, but this And grow more LoveLy time he is repeating himself in slow with the passing years. motion;' then you may begin to cackle It always gets one of the best laughs in the dementedly to find the British Film picture- because, of course, it is recited Institute, 27 years later, erecting so by a funny little man who lived and grew solemn a monument to conceal or rich in the wacky American way: with a renegotiate its former crassness. And if crackpot genius invention. But he came to you struggled with this vigorously inacces- life, and achieved immortality, through a sible French journal (taking the magazine Preston Sturges movie. ~ and a pocket dictionary on underground 35
train journeys from The Naked Dawn to us so little about how Cahiers functioned. the heart of it all. The taste turned into the On Dangerous Ground), laboring to Hillier does spell out the influence ofJean- terrorism of cults and pantheons, because translate and make sense of its lyrically George Auriol's Revue du Cinema, which so many of the writers were hero- opinionated articles, but feeling the excite- was also yellow; and he gives us basic worshipers and potential commandants. ment in the odorous sheen of the pages, information about who edited Cahiers Truffaut seems to me, still, a brilliant no matter their obscurity, then it is a fine when. But I have always wanted to know reviewer. Jacques Rivette is the most irony now to have some pieces from it so more. How many copies did the magazine ambitious and provocative as a writer. And meticulously translated that the proof at sell? What did it pay its authors? What was in Godard's taste for crammed enigmas last is in: the writing in Cahiers was often the office like? Who, beyond the editors, and oxymoron, we have the very literary awful, juvenile, and inscrutable. But its got the magazine out? Who lunched with basis for his greatest movie talent: his color was yellow. whom, and where? Where did they get overall sense of impossible montage. those amazing stills? What was the dirt, Jim Hillier has served his planners well , the infighting, and the great stories on As a whole, though, they do not read even if he was not quite convinced by the what must have been the most cultish and well, or persuasively. But I doubt if many plan; Hillier is also Joe Stefanos, one of the cliquish of movie magazines? of them wrote for the future. Still, they hipper writers on Movie, and a name lifted were right about the past, about Renoir, from a minor character in Out ofthe Past. This is not just an instinct for gossip and Kenji Mizoguchi, FW. Murnau, Max He has had large problems in anthologizing domestic trivia on my part. I'd guess that Ophuls, Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, the flfst great decade of Cahiers. He the character of the office, the small fads Hitchcock, Ray, and so many others, and wanted a self-contained volume, of newly and prejudices of the editors, and the they were mightily blessed because they translated material; he wanted it to be ronde of girl friends (how many women had a time in which large parts of film \"relevant and useful within contemporary ever wrote for Cahiers?) had a profound criticism were blind to these figures and film culture and education\" (this is coming influence on a magazine that was full of preferred to review The Defiant Ones from England, always eager to tame and bitchiness, private jokes, and upstaging. If instead of Vertigo. humiliate movie madness); and he wanted only this book could have had a little of the it to be pleasurable and accessible. mood of the time touched on in James That the critics went on to be Godard, Monaco's The New Wave or in Roud's Truffaut, Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and Well, it is self-contained, bound in black book on Henri Langlois. Claude Chabrol does not enhance or and wrapped in this mystifying jacket. But excuse what they wrote. It does help us in seeking material hitherto unavailable in It does not diminish the championing of see that their writing was thwarted and English, he faced an absurd predicament. great works by Renoir or Nicholas Ray, creative; they wanted to be making, and Much of the best of Cahiers in the Fifties the articulation of the auteur theory, the sometimes when they reviewed a picture has trickled down: in Andre Bazin's What definition of actorly presence, mise en they were describing the movie they Is Cinema?, in Godard on Godard, in scene, or the voluptuousness of 'Scope, to would have made. And so it was a Fran~ois Truffaut's The Films in My Life, say that the authors were also hustling necessary step in their taste that they had in Peter Graham's still invaluable collec- to believe in the power of the director to tion, The New »ave (which does remind their own deals, writing scripts, assisting make and control films . In Cahiers, you us that there was Positif, too , founded a big directors, making shorts, keeping their have a Utopian portrait of Hollywood in year after Cahiers), and in the brief, eye on secretaries they could turn into which the heroes roam in the verdant chaotic life of Cahiers du Cinema in stars. So many Cahiers essays and reviews pastures of genre, undeflected in their English , a noble venture edited by seem written with other things on the assured search for masterpieces, genius Andrew Sarris but translated by people authors' minds, and with a burning need to outlasting all evil and all base desires. Of whose French matched mine in 1959. impress someone else in the gang. course, none of the Cahiers writers had lived in Los Angeles, and few spoke Hillier's collection knows it has not Some reviews of this book have said, of American as well as I read French. That is done justice to the work of Bazin, Truffaut, one reason why the writing was carried on or Jean-Luc Godard, or to articles on Jean course, what the young critics had to say wings of hope and oversimplification. In Renoir, in so many ways the active model was vindicated by the films they made. It's seeing auteurs, they did great service to for the young French cinephiles who about time someone begged for that film criticism. But the damage to filmmak- wanted to be directors. The editor nonsense to end. The films only hushed ing has been immense, because in the end confesses the neglect of Jacques Doniol- Hollywood itself bowed to their inspired Vaicroze, Louis Marcorelles, Jean Dou- athe critics'. Godard's Bande Part, say, ignorance and began turning its dreadful chet, and many others. Against that, he young geniuses loose in the pastures. does offer us the round-table discussion on does not make Ray's Johnny Guitar a Hiroshima Mon Amour, Luc Moullet on better film, though it may help us see that In one light, the Cahiers critics turned Samuel Fuller, and Pierre Kast's fascinat- the same vein of fantasy runs through out well. They made it as directors. But in ing and early essay on dandyism . But that them both. Guitar is forever phenome- another light, they faced the distress of only gives this supposedly definitive nally strange, fatuous, and gorgeous, one growing older without always growing up. anthology of the Fifties a place among the of the first helplessly camp movies made Truffaut was turning into the kind of other books mentioned above. Beyond in the Fifties, and the work of a man for bourgeois entertainer he had once that, there are the yellow magazines whom the term maudit might have been deplored . Godard yielded to his misogyny, themselves, now as thin, smooth, and invented. Ray yearned to be thwarted and his misanthropy, and his urge to be a worn as old petticoats-often foolish and misunderstood in America, had to be prophet in the wilderness. He is a great incoherent, but beautiful and promising some kind of outcast here, trailing the director, but he might have been more if danger. terrible beauty of damaged art. All of this he had loved life. Chabrol has become a was fueled by the very romantic and treadmill. Rohmer plays his elegant Ping A larger complaint to level at the 92 cinematically discerning estimate of him Pong, and Rivette is the only one who still pages of editorial apparatus is that they tell at Cahiers. If Nick was Jim Stark, then Cahiers was his Plato. Cahiers had taste, amid all its posing and bombast; dandyism is very close to 36
seems to have a career and a work in the that film was dying in the hands of the making. But he does not work often. In other words, if the criticism these men middle-aged and the genteel. Yet France in Cahiers du Cinema wrote in the Fifties depends on their the Fifties had Robert Bresson, Jean- subsequent filmmaking, then we are dury- Pierrre Melville, Chris Marker, and the bound to go back and recognize that they were brilliant kids . They were right, but last great works of Renoir and Ophuls. The 1950s · Neo-Reolism, hOl\"\"1 the ITICS1 exert,ng they were not adult, and none of them Cahiers had Mizoguchi and Michelangelo Hollywood, New Wove fIlm lourno' of all lime, made it to the estate of Renoir, Mizoguchi, Antonioni to discover, and it had what may selet::fLOnS by and Luis Bunuel. prove to be the most complex and ~ T,,;ltaut. Godard, B<wn, RI.tene But they took the risk of being right in intriguing decade of American film. It had Rehmer ChObrol the late Fifties, chanting Rio Bravo under the Hitchcock that is most interesting, and others the noses of lines at the Bergman the mastery of Hawks, and it had the retrospectives, preferring Nick to Saryajit, best years of Ray, Fuller, Anthony Mann, and waving their virulent yellow flag of a magazine. I wish the yellow had been Frank Tashlin, Douglas Sirk, Otto Pre- retained, along with so many other things that seem to be vital to Cahiers. Jim minger, and so on. Today our best Hillier does have the results of some of the best-of-the-year polls. But that is his only directors may spend three years making a concession to Cahiers fillers. There is nothing of the Conseil des Dix, where failure . The commercial power of the critics gave movies star ratings or the. that meant \"inutile de se deranger. \"There are system has never been greater or less none of the short reviews, which were often pungent, wicked, and spot-on. And questioned. The. has never been more while they might be redundant now, this book does not hint at the original value of needed. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on the pioneering ftImographies compiled by Cahiers. There is no extract from the TV are our most influential critics - for memoirs of Max Ophuls, with their whimsical line drawings. There is not a which we should thank God they are so proper sense of the clash of cultures possible when Cahiers got to interview its enthusiastic and sensible. But still they are . American gods. And there are not the stills. Even at $22.50, there are no stills. not enough. It may just have been that in France We have fewer good directors than we movie distributors had different sets of stills. But to my eye, Cahiers was alive had in the Fifties, far fewer stars, and as to with shots and angles that really bespoke the films they came from. The greatest subject matter we have allowed TV to steal benefit of a magazine edited by future directors may just have been their eye in all our clothes. The problems directors choosing. So when you couldn't quite understand the text, you could look at the face in doing good work make Nicholas pictures and know the excitement. Ray's life look easygoing; fewer directors in I t was thrilling to read, and it must have been heady to write and edit. In the Fifties had to be their own producers . America, for maybe 20 years afterward, you could feel the wash. It was there in Of course, we have a movie audience and Sarris and Pauline Kael, in several Ameri- can movies, and in the adoption of film as hit pictures; we have the classics on a subject in American education, which, as Kael said, was likely the beginning of cassette and we have film schools where so New York and tied to another institution, the end. It's hard now to deny that the excitement has gone. I'm not sure that many people want to be George Lucas and but one with less to lose and more casual today's students will be able to feel what Cahiers did in the Fifties from Hillier's Steven Spielberg and no one can explain, courage. FILM COMMENT trusts writers, volume. I don't see that there's a fum magazine in the world today consumed in the face of success, that that is not a which is a way of saying it is not very much with the same passion. worthy ambition. We do not have a edited. It encourages eccentriciry, opin- Cahiers ranted against the Fifties, especially as evident in France. They said Cahiers or anything remotely like it, ion, and sryle, though it does not because there is no apparent way to be guarantee that any single issue has any of angry, let alone excited. And so film has those things. But there is the chance. become a vehicle for issues - on being There is also the oddiry of appearing six young and happy, on violence, feminism , times a year, the elaborate perversiry that problem-solving. It is only when you hear has access to the most knowledgeable some stooge saying how well the medium collector of film stills in America without is doing that you begin to wonder if it isn't really giving her her head and gaining from really dying. her eye. And it has the eclipse of being in We do not need fum magazines now, not New York. when we have box-office reports on Cahiers had Paris, which is obvious but Entertainment Tonight and the gang of crucial. Where else could a major film TV critics. Our movies deserve scorn and magazine exist in France? In America satire; they cry out for Godardian re- there are too many options (and several editing. But newspapers like the advertis- local glories, like Movietone News in ing that goes with reviews, and good- Seattle) , and no way of having the writers natured reviewers overpraise the few for a journal exist as a dining club and a things that come along with old-fashioned conversational circle that happens now sryle or ambition. There are two national and then to break into print. There is only film magazines in America. One is based one place in America that has the chance in Washington, and it is effectively a house of being the base for a dangerous movie journal, smooth, regular, and harmless. magazine, a place where one might see the You could read it to Jack Valenti. It is so American movies and the moviemakers at secure now that it has learned not to notice the same time, and deal with both in the its institutional limits and its elected same pages. That place is Los Angeles, caution. where, so far, only fan magazines and The other is this magazine, based in promotional gravure have thrived. 37
All About Mommie Damnedest by Daphne Merkin Bette Davis andfamily could fmd her as another critic, but espe- cially audiences, did , \"one of the wonders Sometime in the middle of June, a small to leave their movie stars on the screen and of Hollywood;' capable of doing justice to box was tucked between the display not addicted to following them into their roles as disparate as the strong-willed Julie advertisements in the Weekend section of homes, B.D. Hyman's story will look to be Marston in Jezebel and the cowed neurotic The New York Times. No MaTHER just another tempest in a teacup, another spirit of Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager. DESERVES THIs ran the heading, and then, case of familial StUrm und Drang, full of Then again you could fmd her, as one in smaller and fainter print, came a jumble professed love and demonstrable damage. reviewer managed to do on the occasion of of exhortations. What emerged, if you Most of us endure the embroilments of our the performance with which Davis is quin- stopped long enough to decipher it, was childhood and live to tell the tale to our tessentially identified-that of the larger- this: Gary Merrill, \"Bette's friend and for- friends, spouses, and shrinks, as often as than-life actress, Margo Channing, in All mer husband;' was sending a \"message\"- they can stand it or we are willing to pay for About Eve-confusingly both things at presumably to Bette Davis fans-not to be it. But only the progeny of the celebrated- once: ''Bette Davis;' declared this riven misled by the revelations described in \"the all the sons and daughters of well-known writer in the New York J#Jrld-Telegram, scurrilous new book\" by the actress' daugh- politicians and gangsters, actors and writ- \"for nearly two decades one of our greatest ter, B.D. Hyman (My Mother's Keeper, ers-get to haul their family skeletons out actresses and worst performers .. :' William Morrow & Co., $17.95). Prospec- of the closet and rattle their bones in print. tive readers were urged not only to boycott The rewards for this sort of exercise are What it became impossible to do, from the book (although Merrill did allow as how both fmancially and, it is to be assumed, her 1932 picture The Man Who Played God the really curious might borrow a copy from emotionally gratifying. The publishers' onward, was ignore her. a friend or local library) but also to show advances for such memoirs are large and their support for Bette by writing her law- the sales robust. To grow rich on baring the So what was it like to be the daughter of yer. burden of one's legacy! It is every wounded the ''Incomparable Bette Davis;' as the child's (and which of us have not been jacket copy on My Mother's Keeper This \"message\" struck me as more than a wounded) dream come true: spilling the describes her? It is not a question that one little odd. Misery breeds company indeed. beans on Daddy and Mommy dearest. And admits to pondering in certain circles, but Who, I wondered, was this notice meant to if you are the envied offspring of a movie still one discovers (conveniently coincident console, whose pain to assuage? Bette's? star, the son of Bing or daughter of Joan, with the publication of the book) that one (How familiar we are with our celebrities, how much more tempting the provocation, wants to know. Hyman, the 38-year-old all those glamorous \"Lizs\" and \"Ritas\" how much more eager the audience. \"keeper\" .of the title, is the actress' only denuded of their last names!) Her fans'? natural child, named for Davis' sister, Gary Merrill's? Better yet, to whom was this Bette Davis is one of those actresses Barbara. There are also two adopted chil- plea addressed? Surely not to the many who, fairly early on, was preceded by dren, Margot and Michael. Discovered to readers of The New lVrk Times who, assur- her legend. Whether you did or did not be severely brain-damaged, Margot has edly, give not a tinker's damn about either respond favorably to her distinctive screen been living in an institution for the retarded Bette Davis on so personal a level or about presence-always intense, sometimes ludi- since she was a child. When last heard the tarnishing of her image in the eyes of crously so-there was something about from, Davis'daughter, B.D., was rumored her admirers. 'Tis, as the King of Siam Davis' luminous, \"slightly exophthalmic\" to be living on a farm, indifferent to the call warbled, a puzzlement. gaze, her etched and disconsolate mouth, of press hounds and on excellent terms that stirred interest. You could fmd her, as with her mother. I envisioned this offstage And yet, if you think further, it's all too James Agee did, verging too perilously on daughter of Davis as a hale and hearty clear. The assumption underlying Merrill's self-caricature to be truly great; or you plower of fields and milker of cows, a chip notice in the Times is that even in jaded off the old Yankee block that Davis proudly New York the aura of celebrityhood claims to be carved from. engages the vicarious passions not only of the strap-hanging booboisie who regularly It's mildly alarming, then, to discover that consume those scandal rags of repute, The the farm on which B.D. Hyman lives is not Post and the News, but flicks the interest of some crickety rural outpost but a painstak- the stolid citizens who read only '1\\J.l the ingly restored house in Pennsylvania, a chic news that's fit to print:' That may strike you retreat from the suburban existence that as far-fetched or even absurd; more likely, it she and her family had been living up until is an entirely accurate reading of the zeit- 1976 in Weston, Connecticut. And it's geist. But for famous actors and actresses something of a shocker to learn that the there is no rest even after revelation: adored mother was a regular hellion, with a Whereas once a screen favorite had only devouring need for love and attention. The the prospect of the one insult- having his Bette Davis who couldn't be overlooked on- or her dirty linens hung in public-to bear screen was apparently even harder to ignore up under, now she can count on the injury at home. of having them cleaned on their behalf in public, too. How you interpret the grievances mar- shalled in My Mother's Keeper-as evi- Of course, for those hinged souls content dence against the accused parent or as an indictment of the daughter who accumula- ted them-depends ultimately on your own 38
cake, how willing you are to suspend disbe- rill's abusiveness didn't stop at his wife but rage to succeed that was fueled by the lief of any but the author's view. As in was also directed at his stepdaughter, whom conditions of Davis' own childhood: the courtroom dramas, one can only judge the he slapped around. In one startling inci- father whom Bette couldn't please and the culprits and the victims in a family drama dent, Merrill vented his rage by slashing at mother who dedicated herself to her on the basis of one's feelings, on the direc- B.D:s pet horse with a loop of wire. When daughter's career. As a pretty teenager tions of one's sympathies. B.D. was 13 , in 1960, Davis divorced her (\"When I looked in the mirror:' Hyman husband and moved her family from their writes, \"I saw a healthy-looking, California- What does or does not establish a realm base in California and beloved home in beach-type blonde with green eyes, noth- of accountability? Do temper tantrums and Maine to an apartment in New York City. ing spectacular; but to listen to Mother, a pocketful of convictions (some highly The worst would seem to have been over- idiosyncratic and some, such as Davis' except for Bette's continuing tirades against Grace Kelly would have lost to me in a belief that children should be seen and not men in general and her increasing depen- beauty contest') B.D. had two passions: heard, rather typical) a monster make? I dence upon her daughter in particular. horses and boys. While her mother pur- don't know why I believed Christina Craw- sued the elusive ftlm roles of those post- ford's Mommie Dearest and I am implicitly B.D. appears to have inherited none of stardom years , the daughter pursued the less convinced of the case for Bad-Mother- her mother's consuming ambition, the pleasures that Davis' still considerable for- of-the-Year status that B.D. Hyman makes tune and fame provided. \"I became caught for Davis in My Mother s Keeper. Perhaps it is no more than my sense that Bette Davis is too complex an actress-too multi- faceted a personality-to have been so ter- rible a mother, and that Joan Crawford seemed just monolithically driven enough onscreen to be a terror off. Or perhaps it is even based on something thinner yet, a snobbishness concerning the relative liter- ary merits of the two books, with Craw- ford's much the better. Still, I don't suppose anyone ever much thought that great actresses-great any- things-make for great mothers. There are enough plausibly hair-raising scenes of pos- sessiveness and harangue presented here to darken the picture for even the most misty- eyed of Davis fans. My Mothers Keeper opens with a glimpse of Bette's last gasp at matrimony, caught in the bind of her abu- sive union with her fourth husband-the same Gary Merrill who will come gallantly to her rescue years later: '~ .. All was quiet for a while and then I heard Mother shouting at Gary in the entry hall at the bottom of the stairs. \"You make me sick! You think you're such a hotshot with all the broads? Ha! You haven't laid me in years. The only time you touch me is when you beat me up. Bastard! That's all you're good at:' Then came Gary's evil laugh and sneering tones. 'What are you bitching about? Getting slapped around is the only thing you enjoy, you stupid cunt! If it doesn't do anything for you, why do you beg for it all the time?\" \"Oh, my God! That's what you always say and you know it isn't true. You know that violence terrifies me. All I want is to be loved like a woman:' \"Bullshit! You're no woman ... you're a frigging ice queen. Without an audience you're not worth a shit! Maybe if I knocked you on your frigid ass on the stage of the London Palladium and then jumped you, you'd perform. Outside of that, a knothole in a tree is more exciting than you:' And so on. According to Hyman, Mer- 39
up in a mad whirl of parties, dates, horse ciliation. After seeing Davis through a near- ity and dedication of this actress. A born shows, fox hunting, perpetuating my tan on fatal illness and weathering her mercurial professional, Davis never flinched at transfi- treatment of her grandsons, the put-upon guring herself into convincing facsimiles of Santa Monica Beach and more dates:' And, offspring has decided to spring free. like all good daughters, B.D. rebelled. unattractiveness for the camera. In an \"Epilogue\" to the book, Hyman Shy of being a real beauty and without Since her mother happened to be an presents her aging and ailing mother with a anti-model of femininity-or, as proved to do-or-die proposition: Drown herself in her the son of glamour-lust that obsessed other be the case, a prefiguring model of femi- career, her ''Tara;' or accept her daughter stars of her time, Davis was willing to shave nism-it fell to Davis' child to embrace all and her daughter's family on their own off her eyebrows and several inches of her that the parent rejected: domesticity and terms. Hyman works herself up to a near- hairline for her role as Elizabeth I in Private marriage, those traditional havens in a evangelical pitch at the close, calling in the lives of Elizabeth and Essex well before heartless world. Whereas Bette Davis lost sheep in wolfs clothing, her prodigal such insistence on realism became ostenta- sought to conquer a hostile environment- mother. \"It's your choice, Mother...go back tiously de rigueur (and while this insistence the abandoning father and all that he per- to Tara or hear me at last. Regard this, on being true-to-the-part branded her a sonified-through the blandishments of Mother, as my cry in the wilderness, to trouble-maker, Hoffman, De Niro , and Pa- her talent and the charm of her personality, prepare the way and make straight your cino - all men - have since made them- B.D. sought the less difficult gratifications path ... :' Naively well-meant or crassly gos- selves into heroes for it). Her obsession of hearth and home. At 16, with her moth- sip-mongering as this memoir may be (and with craft was matched only by her confi- er's reluctant consent, Barbara-as she is I suspect the truth is somewhere in dence in her own interpretations of charac- never called-married Jeremy Hyman, an between), it is hard to see how Davis is ter, and when these two qualities blended Englishman 14 years her senior. Within meant to react to it. Hyman has turned successfully, as they did on several occa- minutes, she became the consummate what should have been the most private of sions , the effect was dazzling. hnusfrau, a loyal gourmet-dinner-on-the- gestures into a public grandstanding; I can't table wife. B.D. and hubby have remained imagine any but the most superhuman Gene Ringgold, in his deftly narrated married, in spite of Bette's purponed effons (read: masochistic) of mothers responding photo-history, Bette Davis: Her Films and to break up the union (described in lavish to it with anything other than rejection. Career (Citadel, $19.95), quite rightly cites detail herein), and have two children. Buried deep down under the sloppy lan- her early performances in OfHuman Bond- It is , in its way, a trick of fate (and some- guage-even the cliches Hyman latches age and Dangerous as auspicious indica- where the gods who shuffle that pack of onto are frequently mangled-and the ama- cards labeled \"Destiny\" must be laughing) teurish constructions (\"It was a great relief tions of what she could accomplish when that without suggesting anything concretely the vehicle suited her. Ringgold's book is Sapphic, Davis brought to her roles a con- to me, for reasons 111 explain later, and filled with excellent synopses of all of Davis' sistent touch of what for lack of a better ftlms, and he has garnered a collection of phrase I shall call the feminist instinct. As would mark a turning point in Mother's fascinating snippets from critical notices of an actress in her prime, she was a bona-fide career''),is the glimmer of a truly compelling the day. Divided into sections titled woman's woman, and remains possibly the story. The love-hate dynamic between one '1\\pprenticeship;' '1\\cclaim;' '1\\dmiration;' only such. Men-from mogul Carl Laem- generation and the next is manifest with an and '1\\ftermath;' this volume is intelligently mle, who in 1932 dubbed her \"the little almost symbolic intensity in the battle- structured and goes surprisingly far in pro- brown wren;' on through all those men scarred relationship between Davis and her viding an overview of the zeniths and nadirs stuck on gumcrackers who resisted her daughter, and there is something moving in of an unusually sustained career. fierce appeal- have never been as infatu- the spectacle of their clashes, near-misses, ated with her im'age. There are women, and rare moments of genuine rappon. Had Henry Hart's two-page foreword is a too, who can't abide her. Davis' daughter, a the book been written by a psychological model of concision, raising a variety of real man's woman, seems to represent them genius, or at least by someone with more issues , including the one concerning her in her choice of life and her negation of the on the ball than Hyman appears to have, \"masculine protest:' I agree with him that aura of professional commitment that Bette there is more than a smidgen of man-hatred radiated . sMy Mother Keeper might have trans- in her blood - but how strange that there isn't a single word, like misogyny, to My Mother's Keeper is a befuddled cended the level of the merely scandalous describe this; it isn't that uncommon a book. It is strewn with testimonials to the and penetrated a bit more of the mystery of phenomenon. author's wonderful disposition (\"I know the mother-daughter bond. As it is, Hyman how difficult things must be for you with stoops to melodrama and simplification, As to the other recent publication, Bette your parents;' B.D:s Aunt Margaret is and in the process, a full comprehension of Davis, A Biography in Photographs, by quoted as saying, \"but you must never the difficult and riveting woman who is her Christopher Nickens (Dolphin/Double- despair. You're sweet and generous and mother is lost not only to her but also to us. day, $14.95), it is sheer hagiography. Less kind'), and planted with dire clues to the thoughtfully organized into sections that hidden malignancy of Davis' character F ortiter calumniari, aliquid adhaere- follow the decades, ''The Thirties;' ''The (\"Don't ever underestimate your mother, bit. Which means that if you throw a Forties;' etc., Nickens' book contains some B.D.;' Bette's sister Bobby warns. \"She's got lot of dirt, some will be sure to stick. But little-seen photographs and some intimate a mean streak a mile wide when she's not to worry, Davis fans. Like Cleopatra, tidbits that will interest only diehard Davis crossed''). And yet Hyman conceives of \"age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her groupies and fLlm cognoscenti. Otherwise this unflattering portrait, with its constant infmite variety:' Just as she has survived any it is standard star-gazing fare, with little in references to Davis' \"whining and yelping;' number of bad roles and bouts of overact- the way of critical distance. Nickens is as an open letter to her mother, a fmal ing, so Davis will survive this latest fmger- Walker Percy's Moviegoer incarnate, agog desperate attempt to make her mother real- pointing. And indeed, her iconization pro- with the romance of the silver screen, taken ize the error of her ways and effect a recon- ceeds apace. Two new coffee-table volumes in by tricks of moonlight: 'What a deal;' are just out, in time to offset the soiling of Percy wrote, \"trailing along behind a movie Davis' image. Both are long on photos and star-we might just as well be rubberneck- shon on text, and both attest to the versatil- ing in Hollywood:' ~ 40
A Kurt Post-mortem on the Generally Eclectic Theater Kurt Vonnegut interviewed by David Bianculli \"There are only t\"vo American novel- ists who should be grateful for the movies which were made from their I books;' Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1981. \"I ~ am one of them. The other one? Margaret Mitchell, of course:' Vonnegut was referring, in his own case, to Slaughterhouse-Five, which was released as a feature film in 1972. That year, Vonnegut wrote, \"I love George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughter- house-Five to the silver screen. I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book:' He certainly was not referring to Mark Robson's 1971 ftlm adaptation of the play Happy Birthday, Wanda June, which Vonnegut has also \"reviewed\" in print: ''This movie, starring Rod Steiger and Susannah York, turned out so abominably that I asked that my name be taken off it. I had heard of other writers doing that. Adapt. .. and die What could be more dignified? ''This proved to be impossible, however. Galapagos (Delacorte, New York, N.Y., Most Vonnegut characters represent I alone had done the thing the credits said $16.95), has not yet been optioned (its specific ideas, ideals, or attitudes. Mahichi I had done. I had actually written the official publication date was October, but Constant in Sirens of TItan is pure greed, thing:' the novel was available in galleys months at least at ftrst; the title character of God Between those two extremes are some before that), but that doesn't surprise Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is pure good- delightful adaptations, including two one- Vonnegut. ness. Making such characters credible on hour productions for PBS's American ''There aren't that many great movie fUm is possible (witness Ron Leibman's Playhouse. One of them, the recently offers around, and the world certainly isn't evil Paul Lazzaro in the film of Slaughter- broadcast \"Displaced Person\" (starring beating a path to my door;' he says. house-Five), but isn't easy. Mention his Stan Shaw), just won an Emmy as \"Those people out there in Hollywood are most famous and peripatetic character, Outstanding Children's Program of 1985. essentially horse players, in that you have a Kilgore Trout (who appears in some form The other, 1982's \"Who Am I This track record and there's a form sheet on in most of Vonnegut's novels), and Time?:' directed by Jonathan Demme and you. Vonnegut dismisses his fantasy-author starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher \"Slaughterhouse-Five, as a movie, was alter ego with a disinterested shrug. \"I Walken, is another Vonnegut favorite. an artistic success, but it paid for it. It don't even know who he is:' Vonnegut Although Vonnegut declines almost all earned back its cost; that's all it did. So says. \"He's a different person in each interview requests, he agreed to meet in that's the reputation my material has:' book:' his Manhattan townhouse to discuss his Another difficulty in adapting Vonnegut t Omemories of and reactions to the stage, ver the years Vonnegut's stories have is that he not only favors descriptions over dialogue, but usually includes generous screen, and TV versions of his written proved difficult to adapt to the screen helpings of \"written excerpts:\" quotations works-from his early days as a script- and have yielded not only the evident writer during television's Golden Age to misftres but a string of unproduced from Trout's novels and short stories, the disastrous 1984 fum version of his screenplay adaptations of his novels. poetry from the Book ofBokonon, letters novel Slapstick. Vonnegut pinpoints the screen weakness from one character to another, ersatz Some film projects, such as Breakfast of as the lack of depth in his characters: ''My bibliographical references, and all manner Champions, were abandoned part way books are essentially rational, built more of printed flotsam and jetsam that do not through, but interested parties still own around ideas I want to discuss than translate easily to visual media. The Sirens Player Piano and Cat's Cradle, while characters I want to analyze. I can't turn of TItan, for example, is littered with members of The Grateful Dead have characters loose and see what they're quotations from and references to such optioned The Sirens of TItan through going to do. For one thing, I'm not that bogus \"books\" as The Beatrice Rumfoord Universal Studios. Vonnegut's latest novel, interested in individual lives:' Galactic Cookbook and The . Pocket 41
History ofMars . tially dramatized in PBS' Between TIme Slaughterhouse-Five This doesn't mean, however, that Sirens and TImbuktu, would make wonderful source material for the various suspense don't remember what it was ... . of TItan is unftlmable. Slaughterhouse- series currently overpopulating prime- \"I'd also published Player Piano, so Five faced many of the above challenges, time. And \"Monkey House;' with its sexy, including the presence of Kilgore Trout, kinky suicide hostesses , would fIt right in General Electric paid me extra to put with Home Box Office's prurient \"Hitch- another name (on the show's credits). whom the ftlm ignored, and the other- hiker\" series . They gave me money. As I recall, the worldly Tralfamadorians, depicted in the standard price for a TV script then was EARLY TELEVISION about $1,000. They paid me $1 ,500, movie as disembodied aliens with deep because they were not going to make me voices. Even though the movie of Slaugh- WORK any more famous than I was, because they terhouse-Five stole and incorporated the resented what I had done. But this was a central punch-line of Sirens-that the V onnegut's reputation was cemented good script-they recognized that. They universe exists solely to provide a replace- with the publication of his first novel, made up the (fake) name; I don't even ment part for a broken-down Tralfamador- Player Piano , in 1953 . It satirized the remember what it was. It was extremely ian spaceship-the novel contains so General Electric Co. , for whom Vonnegut silly. . . . many clever plot twists, outrageous char- had served as a public-relations man acters , and enticing special effects it could before quitting to pursue writing full-time. \"I did about three other scripts, and I still sustain a screenplay. It was ironic, then, that one of Vonnegut's can't remember what the others would fIrst TV jobs was for CBS's General have been. They could have been origi- Paradoxically, most Vonnegut novels- Electric Theater in 1955-and equally nals. I don't know. They didn't have to be with the exception of his fIrst , Player ironic that the host of that series was an very good. Piano - are written cinematically. Vonne- actor named Ronald Reagan, whose gut's literary vocabulary has included the current politics Vonnegut dismisses as ''That's called the Golden Age of printed-page equivalents of jump cuts, \"grotesque, silly opinions:' Television, and ...it wasn't all that good:' montages , fades , and flashbacks. And his printed pace even feels fIlmic, as he packs That story for General Electric Theater 'HAPpy BIRTHDAY, his scenes tightly together, butting them was Vonnegut's \"D.P.\"-which, as \"Dis- against each other for maximum , often placed Person\" (''They had to change it to WANDA JUNE' jarring, effect. 'Displaced Person' because nobody knows what 'D.P.' is anymore;' Vonnegut says \"I had a play that ran for a while (1970- Yet as close as the novels come to ruefully) , won an Emmy 30 years later. It 71) called Happy Birthday, Wanda printed film , and the closer Vonnegut's seemed a good starting point, therefore, June . It was a nice hit downtown; then all characters come to reality, the less for a chronological discussion of Vonnegut Off-Broadway went on strike, and we credible they become. Though Player on Vonnegut. couldn't open again until all theaters had Piano and Mother Night are set recogniz- settled. ably (the first a barely futuristic setting, the \"I was a magazine writer, and that's how latter the World War II site used in parts of I made my living, when television ca~e ':A.nyway, that thing will not work if the Slaughterhouse-Five) , the protagonists along. In the short story business, you actors imagine they are real people. If a and antagonists are pure symbols. The could operate out of a mailbox-you didn't method actor tries to dredge up from his same is true, in varying degrees, for need any business associates at all. I lived guts the emotions suitable for this occa- Vonnegut's more recent Jailbird, on Cape Cod, and I lived in Schenectady, sion\" - Vonnegut laughs - \"it's not going to Deadeye Dick, and the cartoon-laden and in several places, and you just put a work. Breakfast ofChampions. story in the mail and waited to see whether they wanted it. It paid extremely well. ''The cast we had in New York was By contrast Sirens of TItan is more superb: Kevin McCarthy, Marsha Mason, outrageous, and so the settings and ''When television started out, it was Nick Coster-just a wonderful cast. And characters mesh well. The same holds largely centered here in New York, and so they got like the Harlem Globetrotters it operated on the same basis early on. down there. If they began, during rehears- strue for Cat Cradle and God Bless You , Your mailed them a script, and they'd call you up and tell you how to fix it on the Mr. Rosewater, but only if played broadly. phone or whatever, but you could do The former chronicles the end of the business at a distance. And it was all live, world (with calypso accompaniment, no too , like Playhouse 90, Ford Theater, less), while the other records the rise and Philco Playhouse, General Electric The- fall of an incurable idealist. Both stories are ater-all those things. And it was like linear enough to work as movie plots, yet cable is, because they didn't have that bizarre enough to retain Vonnegut's much money and they didn't have that detached, sanely cracked point of view. many advertisers. It is in Vonnegut's short stories, how- \"I did 'Displaced Person' for General ever, where the author's disdain for deep Electric Theater a long time ago, when character development actually works to television was paying very little and it was his advantage. \"Report on the Barnhouse going on live. It was the flISt dramatic part Effect\" (in which a professor develops a Sammy Davis, Jr. ever had; he was a singer secret weapon that channels brain power) and tap dancer and emcee up to that point. and \"The Euphio Question\" (a wry It won a prize or something back then; I comedy about a radio signal that, when broadcast, reduces everyone receiving it to a state of bliss) are tightly written, ready- to-fIlm stories. \"Harrison Bergeron\" and ''Welcome to the Monkey House;' par- 42
Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken in ''Who Am I This Time?\" like, but I don't want to really criticize it. It was their dream to take a whole bunch of als, to dredge up these emotions, they genius of Stephen Geller that showed unrelated stories and put them together. It them how to do it. would take an extremely skillful writer to sensed from audience response how to do that, because they aren't all of a piece, play this damned thing, and then it did ''They did the Hollywood thing with and they didn't have the money for such a become like the Globetrotters. It was him. As soon as they had the script, they writer. When things go wrong, it's for want funny as hell to see them dribbling behind told the writer to get lost, so he wasn't even of a really good script, and they made it their backs and everything. It was a lot of around when they shot it. But he did me without a really good script, because they fun, and a very light-hearted experience an enormous favor, and one problem was sort of cobbled things together. ... for me:' how to do 'So it goes; which is all through the book. ''There was one wonderful thing in the Asked what went wrong with the 1971 middle of it, which was the Ethical Suicide movie version, Vonnegut says simply that '?\\nd the way they did it - I think maybe Parlor. I loved that. That sketch was great:' the actors took their roles too seriously. this was Hill's invention, I don't know-is, there's no opportunity to mourn. Every \"Between Time and Timbuktu\" was \"They're not real people. That would be time somebody's killed, WHAM: They broadcast in 1972 on public television's the case if they'd dramatized Cat's cut instantly. There's no time for anybody WNET Playhouse. In his introduction to Cradle, because those people are all to gather around the graveside or any of the printed script, Vonnegut wrote this attitudes. They're not real people ... .It that, or to weep and say, oh, what a good description of the program's filmmaking would take a very shrewd director to tell guy he was, and what a shame, and all process: ''We shot first and asked ques- these actors: 'Please be convincing, be that. Nothing. Cut to a radically different tions afterwards, which is the American sincere, but don't be real: \" situation before you even have time to - way: ' regret the death of the person:' The actress appearing as the sexy 'SLAUGHTERHOUSE- 'BETWEEN TIME AND hostess in the Ethical Suicide Parlor segment, by the way, was Susan Sullivan, FIVE' TIMBUKTU' now starring on CBS's Falcon Crest. \"I get a physiological reaction seeing a \"WGBH in Boston came to me with 'GOD BLESS YOU, good dramatization of my work, the idea of putting a whole bunch which nothing else gives me. My hair MR. ROSEWATER' actually stands on end, and there's this of my stories together. I was working on chill on the back of my neck. What that's something else, and I liked them, so they Y onnegut's daughter Edith produced all about, I don't know, but I have felt it went ahead with it. The only propositions this Off-Broadway musical adaptation from time to time. I thought Slaughter- of that sort come from public television, of his book, with music by Alan Menken house-Five (1972) was perfect, from my and they're kind of fun, so I told them to go and book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, point of view. That was a realistic book, in ahead with it. who also directed. The play opened, and a sense, and I generally deal in cartoon closed, in 1980. characters-people that exemplify atti- ''They had money from some Rockefel- tudes:' ler outfit and also from the BBC, about \"I loved it;' Vonnegut says. \"It was very $100,000. And so they shot a whole lot of good. The same guys who did that did The fluid, cinematic feel of Slaughter- it, and I got in only toward the end, Little Shop ofHorrors .... house-Five, Vonnegut says, \"is all to the because they needed some way to tie it aU credit of [screenwriter) Stephen Geller, together. So there are some marvelous ''We were closely associated with it because nobody else could see that. things in it, and some terrible things in it, business-wise, so to keep control of the George Roy Hill couldn't see it, and a and the money was gone. So that was it: whole thing, we set up my daughter as whole lot of people said, 'There was no They were out of money. producer. She did a good job, but we didn't movie here; and it was the particular have the audiences on Tuesday, Wednes- ''There were things I didn't particularly day and Thursday. We had fuU houses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but that wasn't enough. We came to the conclu- sion, we all did, that you can't have a successful show in New York with com- mercial ambitions-and we certainly had those, because we had a huge cast-that's about something:' Vonnegut laughs again, loudly. \"Little Shop of Horrors is about absolutely nothing, and it's a big hit:' TELEVISION APPEARANCES Yonnegut-watchers have seen him rarely on television, and only to talk about literature or read from his own works. He appeared once on ABC's late- 43
night Geraldo Rivera program to read from so open and nice, and it's just refreshing to his own works (Rivera would marry, then me:' divorce, Edith), guested on ARTS cable network's literary talk show, and for a while 'SLAPSTICK' TheMTV introduced a series of Mark Twain adapta- tions mounted by PBS. After taping the \"I had a fiasco with the movie of Novel Arrives first introduction, though, Vonnegut was Slapstick, which turned out to be quietly dismissed, and the show's produc- perfectly terrible:' Vonnegut says. That by John Powers ers have since acknowledged that they felt movie was Slapstick of Another Kind, Vonnegut too dull for television. starring Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn T he MTV novel is upon us. Taking and released in 1984, two years after it was their cue from the ceaseless flood of Vonnegut more or less agrees. filmed. video hype, young writers have found an \"I don't like it;' he says of television, audience in readers who are young, \"and I don't have the right personality for \"It was like World War I;' Vonnegut says urbanized , conscious of trends, and it. McLuhan would know what's wrong of the Slapstick film. \"Once mobilization starkers for stimulation. Like a beneficent with me; I'm not sure what's wrong. had begun, there's no way of calling it god, MTV has rewarded this devotion to \"I can read my own material. But with off.... You had to have a war. the short attention span, squeezing inter- Twain, for instance, I was reading other views with novelists Jay Mcinerney people's material and memorizing it, \"Steven Paul [Slapstick s producer- (Bright Lights, Big City and the recently which is very hard for me to do. I'm not an published Ransom) and Bret Easton Ellis actor. I can be funny and all that, and go on director), who had been in my play Happy (Less Than Zero) between clips of pranc- for hours, with my own material, but I Birthday, Wanda June when he was 11 or ing Prince and the Material Girl. The rea- simply can't deliver other people's mate- 12, is a show business kid with show biz sons aren't exactly literary. Music televi- rial. That material was written by Justin parents. He'd made a lot of commercials sion has zeroed in on these two because Kaplan, the great Twain scholar, and I just and all that, and any money he made when they're young, wear hipness like platinum didn't memorize it right. he appeared in a movie he invested in ftlm coke spoons-these dudes have lived \"I also had great reservations about the equipment. So he was precocious, and all their novels-and have six-figure movie series, finally, because of its failure to that. ... deals to validate their parking at the hall of communicate Twain. It was sort of a Walt celebrity. Disney extrapolation, and very sentimen- \"He was, in fact, too young to make a tal.. .. contract in New York State when he first Countless novels are optioned, of \"So anyway, that's right. I'm not tele- came up with the proposition. He said, course, and never get within a mile of a genic. Tell the world;' 'I'm gonna make a movie out of Slapstick; script, much less a camera. But Bright And I said, 'No, you're not. It'll cost you Lights, Big City (Vintage, New York, 'AMERICAN too much money;... 1984, $5.95) and Less Than Zero (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1985, $15.95) PLAYHOUSE' 'Well, he got up the money, and I said have the special aura that accompanies okay. So he wanted a good director and all can't-miss properties. To begin with, both \"I've been lucky. a couple of times, that. And he kept saying, What do you books were snapped up by savvy, powerful particularly on this Playhouse thing, think of Jerry Lewis [in the starring role]? ' producers. Jerry Weintraub (The Karate whatever it's call6d;' Vonnegut says. ''The and I don't know, what the hell is there to Kid) got Columbia to back Bright Lights, money isn't that significant. Big City, then signed Tom Cruise to star think about Jerry Lewis? And he hired and Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo's Fire) to ''They did a wonderful job on a story of him. direct. Twentieth Century-Fox is develop- mine called Who Am I This Time?; with ing Less Than Zero for Marvin Worth Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken, '~nd he couldn't find a director, and he (Falling in Love), who optioned the novel and hell, they all worked for minimum. It couldn't find a director, and Lewis was long before it left galleys; Worth has hired just seems to be the nature of public available only in this small window in time, playwright Michael Cristofer (The television. so he [Paul] said, 'Okay, I'm gonna direct it Shadow Box) to write the screenplay. Not myself Which was quite a surprise. surprisingly, industry insiders have spent ''There are certain public service activi- the last several months talking up these ties, and that seems to be one of them. '~nd he just botched it completely, books in greedy whispers. Another one is writing things for the Op- that's all. And it's too bad for him, and not Ed page. Nobody's paid much of anything. all that much too bad for me, because the To understand the vogue for these two It's nice; they're alternatives. Nobody else book still exists. I'm unusual in having all books you must consider the curious mix- on television is willing to do a really nice my books in print - I have a very good ture of demographics, deal-making, and job. ideological karma that defines moviemak- publisher who does that. ing in the Eighties. ''The people who make these things are '~n awful lot of writers get hysterical all quite gifted and trustworthy. If they I t's tempting, and partly true, to say that wanted to find some other story of mine about movies because their books are out these books are so hot because some- they want to do, I'd be glad to let them do of print and the movies become the only place you've got to find scripts for the Brat it. Pack. The largest segment of the movie- representation for their work. I'm not in going audience is that group of young men 'What I really love is the innocence of that position, so I don't take screw-ups that from roughly 15 to 25, with the average these stories. They're not based on seriously. Some people would be horrified age sliding north as the baby boomers violence or hallucinatory sex. They are and angry and all that, and with me it terribly innocent stories: Who Am I' is just wonderfully innocent. Everybody is just doesn't matter, largely because the book is what I'm responsible for. \"It would make me feel awful if you proved to me that I'd written a really bad hook- but a movie? I don't care. I'm just sorry for Steven Paul .... \"The book still exists, and the book is my artifact.\" ~ 44
JAY MciNERNEY grow older. To keep up with this change, (and critical) cliche in the years since J.D. BRIGHT LIGHTS major studios are targeting their produc- stopped publishing and began omming in tions at collegiate and postgraduate view- New Hampshire. It's so common, in fact , ·· B I Gel r ers (call them full-grown adolescents) and that one expects to find a reference to The not at the Clearasil-spattered teens who Catcher in the Rye somewhere on the \"A rambunctious, deadly funny novel that goes didn't make hits of Explorers and U4?ird cover of Less Than Zero . One is not disap- Science. The trend-spotters agree: We are pointed. as ri~ for the marlc- the human htart:' entering the period of the \"soft\" adult film. One is apt to be disappointed by the -RAYMOND (ARVER You have seen the future, and (shudder) it's books themselves , and startled by the fuss called St. Elmo's Fire. being made about them. So far from being VINTAGE memorable or exciting works of fiction , CONTEMPORARIES Although many of this summer's young they are facile and superficial. They read adult movies did not do as well as hoped, less like novels and more like brilliant nov- life. Hollywood keeps gearing itself for that elizations of movies you wouldn't mind For most reviewers , the novel gets its very market; the Brat Pack remains as mlssmg. marketable as ever. This automatically special piquancy from its irreverent makes Bright Lights, Big City and Less B right Lights, Big City is the more glimpse inside The New Yorker (gossip, Than Zero valuable, for they boast plum enjoyable, an extremely entertaining gossip: the archivist thinks the film critic roles for many of the young stars who are book in a minor key ; one could read it has \"trashy taste\" and \" a filthy mouth\"). putting their middle-aged peers on the happily on a plane flight to the Midwest. It But the plot gets its force from being an dole. Moreover, both novels enjoy a high has a pleasurable Manhattan bounce, a adolescent's self-pitying fantasy that he. is level of visibility among the target audi- whooshing energy, a style that's ripe with too good , too talented, too sensitive for ence. extravagant description and wise-guy rif- the coarse and demeaning world around fing about New York madness , subway him, (In this, it does resemble The Such visibility is, of course, one of the grunge, the Post's delirious headlines, and Catcher in the Rye.) When it tries to oldfangled reasons why books have long the double-pronged \"meaning\" of a Hasi- express deeper feelings than youthful sass been reckoned good movie investments. dic Jew: \"He believes he is one of God's or sulk, Bright Lights, Big City becomes Like hundreds of works from Little chosen, whereas you feel like an integer in sloppy and sentimental. Women to Dune, the McInerney and Ellis a random set of numbers. Still, what a novels bring with them free (or pre-) pub- fucking haircut:' At his worst, McInerney Teenaged in its emotions, it has the licity. For another time-honored rationale, lapses into the smug put-downs of post- structure of a parental morality tale: listen to Fox production exec Larry Mark Saturday Night Live humor; at his best, McInerney's hero learns his lesson about explain, in the \"let's talk turkey\" style he shows a genuine eye for urban absurd- the wild life and becomes a decent citizen. favored by the New Hollywood, his stu- ity. This very moral obviousness makes the dio's backing for Less Than Zero: \"I could novel movie material. In describing the give you a pretentious answer, but the McInerney's penchant for description book's virtues, director Joel Schumacher truth is, Michael Cristofer wanted to write and reverie helps mask the narrative weak- remarks, \"I think it is a real piece of litera- the screenplay, and Marvin Worth wanted ness that led many in Hollywood to fear ture . I think it is not sensational. It has to produce it. And we think they're both that the novel's 182 pages didn't contain 90 redemption:' In Schumacher's pleased ref- incredibly talented. It is the people and movie minutes' worth of story. Although erence to the movies' oldest cliche (we the book that gets a deal made:' So forget such concern seems misplaced in the dec- know that our redeemer liveth, as long as about trends and cultural analysis-mov- ade of Dune and Once Upon a Time in there's a Hollywood), he shows why, ies get made because X trusts Yenough to America , it hints as the story's slimness beneath the story's Hoovering nostrils, give him money. But what makes Y and familiarity, qualities that make the Bright Lights, Big City is about as daring a \"incredibly talented\" and trustworthy is novel feel as comfortable and worn as an picture project as Rocky or Camille. the ability to create packages that will sell . old pair of Levi's. This means reading the culture, spotting T here's scarcely a whiff of redemption trends, charting values, and finding fresh For all its glitzy cover art, Bright Lights, in Less Than Zero. And even less voices to capture the changes . Big City is essentially conventional-a pleasure: 20-year-old Ellis has angst in his Yuppie Bildungsroman. As the novel pants and writes prose afflicted with In 1985, this means finding the MTV begins, its protagonist is living a madly anorexia Didiona. His turf is rich-kid novelists. When Hollywood looks at dissociated life. By day, this young writer L.A.; his theme is the Children of Cocaine McInerney and Ellis, it sees two guys who toils fecklessly in the Department of Fac- have captured the Eighties attitude- tual Verification for a magazine that is smart-talking guys on the cutting edge of obviously The New Yorker; by night, he the culture. In these voices of the new coats his nostrils with cocaine, pals around generation, it finds the poets laureate of with implausibly named friends (Tad Alla- the \"hipoisie\"; both Bright Lights, Big gash?) , and scuffs the fast lane with his City and Less Than Zero come festooned unhappy shoes. Over the course of a with boasts that they embody a genera- week, the contradictions between his tion. Not only does McInerney choose his behavior and his desires reach a crisis. epigraph from The Sun Also Rises (\"Holy After meeting the kind of fantasy woman Lost Generation, Batman!\"), but the one finds in young men's novels (she's book's cover art deliberately updates the pure, she's wise), the hero begins to regain old Signet edition of The Catcher in the himself, feeling the death of his mother Rye. Of course, to compare a book with and trading his Ray-Bans for the staff of Salinger's has been a common marketing 45
andMTV. Jay McInerney threat, no knowledge. Trend-happy Hollywood doesn't see it Patently sensational in its content, the has no real plot, no likable characters, few book is so enervated it can't muster a plot. evident emotions, and scarcely any growth this way. With the industry's traditional The hero, Clay, returns for Christmas by its hero. By novel's end, Clay has high-minded obliviousness, those from his East Coast college and enters a learned to cry and blame his parents. Less involved in these projects think the novels world with the moral dignity of a cash Than Zero brims with the self-pitying are chock-full of significance, even truth, register. Were talking corruption, guys- lugubriousness that marks the adoles- about that most fascinating and lucrative transcendental anomie. Spoiled children cent's lack of perspective. (Cf., ''When you of groups: \"the young generation:' Jerry snort coke by the cannister, discuss sun- get old, your heart dies\"- The Breakfast Weintraub says he optioned Bright tans the way theology students talk god, Club.) It has exactly the blame-every- Lights, Big City because \"it is the first and zone out in front of the music tube. In body-else values you'd expect from a book that made sense about the young the casual (unintentionally comic) nihilism gifted, inexperienced 20-year-old who, people who are successful and go through of this fictional world, a Beverly Hills reportedly, wrote his novel in one month. a change of life at an earlier age. It's a Days Nietzsche ties up a twelve-year-old girl, of Wine and Roses for the young genera- lets his friends have the run of her body, Seen from another angle, however, Less tion:' Marvin Worth makes a similar point then philosophizes, ''What's right? If you Than Zero is ideal material for screen even more strongly. Even before he picked want something you have the right to take adaptation. Like fictional pita bread, it's so up Less Than Zero, he and Michael Cris- it:' Sensitive Clay doesn't argue the point. thin and hollow that it can easily be stuffed tofer were planning to make a movie about with all sorts of Hollywood moralizing and the kinds of kids who were in it-affect- Clay is part of a fast crowd; everybody's plot shenanigans. If Bright Lights, Big less, druggy, amoral. Worth hopes Less soul is as scrawny as a Giacometti. Worst City is already a conventional Hollywood Than Zero captures \"the point of view of a of all, being wicked ain't even fun. In the story, Less Than Zero is apt to become large segment of this generation:' bummed-out world of Less Than Zero life one. Redemption, anyone? is a drag, things don't go better with coke, It's hard to believe that a \"large segment\" and the sex is so joyless it belongs in a ruor all their differences, Mcinerney and of young adults actually suffer from too Graham Greene novel. Instead of having a Ellis share the MTV sensibility, the much cocaine and too few feelings, but it's good time or actually doing worthwhile endless search for immediacy. To empha- easy to see why stories such as these things, Clay devotes his time to images of size the Hereness, the Nowness, the In Yo' would strike a chord in Hollywood, where death and decay. Every few pages a cripple Faceness of their styles, both novels are nose candy is plentiful, Porsches abound, hobbles through a trendy nightspot, or a written in the present tense. While such a and power means never having to say coyote crosses the highway with some- tack brings striking effects; it deprives the you're human. As film after film shows, the ones pet hanging from its teeth. novels of texture and resonance, it cheats world of megabuck moviemaking is small, their worlds of psychological depth, his- hermetic, and largely blind to ordinary You might figure that all this affectless torical perspective, moral complexity. gloom would make Less Than Zero an Like most rock videos, they are all about experience. With the casual narcissism extremely daring project for the movies. It surfaces. They offer field trips into deca- born of social isolation, even the smartest dence: plenty of stimulation, but no members of the film community tend to look in the mirror for their knowledge of the world. As Schumacher says of Bright Lights, Big City: \"I was attracted to it immediately because I was a New Yorker, a drug addict. .. and also because my mother died in my early twenties:' He likes it, in short, because he thinks it's his story. What's unnerving is that he and others also think it's our story. Nothing could be more typical of Holly- wood, or our culture as a whole, than to give the MTV novelists their time in the spotlight, to declare them the Voices of the Young Generation. For the last 30 years, media culture has been haplessly pursuing the chimera of youth. The Catcher in the Rye or Kerouac, Joyce Maynard or The Graduate, Ann Beattie or the Boss or Madonna or the Brat Pack- all have been offered as distilled essences of the new, the smart, the young. And why not? It may falsify the culture, reduce the many to the one, turn ripe life into sleek flat images. But it also sells records, sells magazines, sells tickets, sells Pepsi, sells all the bright ephemera of a society built on surfaces, a society that wants its Emp- tee-vee. ~ 46
Forget the Net, Love the Fall by Jay Cocks N o matter what it gets, it never gets John Boorman directing Emerald Forest. easier. Making movies is nearly impos- sible when you're young enough to handle tor's reflections. illusions, spiritual cajolery, mystiCIsm, and the heartbreak and the compromise; and, as To be sure, some of the reflections are confidences, the secret as well as the tricky shown in John Boorman's Money Into light; kind. Later, a documentary fllmmaker, Adr- The Emerald Forest, A Diary (Faber and quite vivid. Describing how he got \"a sud- ian Cowell, warns Boorman that \"Takuma is Faber, London, 1985, £ 4.95) , getting older den, electrifying charge' in a Deliverance dangerous. He [Cowellliearned to hunt with doesn't necessarily give you an edge. Nei- scene, and recalling that Samuel Fuller once him .. .and has since seen many manifesta- ther, it turns out, does making a few of the called such moments \"the one thing;' Boor- tions of his powd' None of these manifesta- best movies of the past couple of decades. man tells Jon Voight, \"When you say that tions is recorded, but Money Into light is Point Blank; Deliverance; Excalibur. line, look over your left shoulder:' Voight, dedicated to Takuma. Those last two even turned a tidy profit. along with Ned Beatty and Burt Reynolds, is Great movies, solid money: good enough. clinging to a rock in a ravaging river, but still T here are signs everywhere in this book Give the man what he wants. wants to know, \"Why would I do that?\" of more temporal kinds of power, how- Boorman vamps. \"You hear something. You ever. For every line about the applied art of It doesn't happen that way, of course, a are alert to everything:' In fact, as Boorman fllmmaking, there are pages on the hardships state of affairs to which this diary of the says, the head turn gave \"the composition a of dealmaking. For every travel diarist's entry making of The Emerald Forest bears elo- tremendous power, the eye went to Voight of ancient wonders, there are perhaps twice quent, bemused, and sometimes tattered and the power was transferred to him:' Boor- as many tales of hard-fought battles with witness. Everyone talks a lot about track man's account makes the genesis of the perfidious backers. For every pre-production record in Hollywood, but winners have to moment sound slightly mystical and emi- hassle on Emerald Forest, there is a match- run the full course every time out. Even the nently practical, but its electric impact ing story of workaday madness on a previous Mafia respects past achievement more than onscreen may defy any analysis, even the production. movietown. You can make your bones in the director's. It is closer to the kind of visceral mob, and earn a workable-if not always magic Boorman imputes to Takuma, sha- Well into the shooting, and about two livable-annuity of position and respect. In man of the Kamaira Indians in the depths of weeks behind schedule, Boorman writes, Hollywood, the sands are always shifting, the Amazon, who told the adventuring ')\\part from the lack of time, I fmd I have no and often getting washed right out to sea, auteur, ''You make visions, magic. You are a stomach or heart for this journal. Powers like the vanishing Malibu coastline Boorman paje like me:' Boothe had \"suddenly seized up in a scene writes about. Forget about making bones. under a waterfall;' and must be rescued by Making a major studio movie, each time out, This sounds-and, in the book, seems- Charley Boorman, the director's son who is more like digging your own grave. somewhat pat. This is no reason to doubt was also starring in the fIlm, and three crew that the line was delivered as rendered, but members; shortly before, the wife and two Boorman has almost buried himself a few to an outsider it has the ring of a con job. A daughters of one of the makeup men, on a times. Leo the Last. ZLlrdoz. Hell in the visit from England, had been gravely injured Pacific. Exorcist II: The Heretic. He man- bit of a cuff, a snatch of a compliment, both in a car accident en route from Rio. Such ages, however, to pull himself up out of the intimations of mortality, inevitable in such a pit and, smudged and rumpled, to start all at once. Boorman seems flattered at the life-encompassing undertaking as a fIlm over again. He reaches long for a theme, and comparison, whose subtext, in fact, may be shoot, only shadow the more imrnediately his grip is sometimes shaky, but even if he as apt as its rather romantic surface. Direc- can't bring off everything he wants to, he can tors, like tribal magicians, are good at tricks, always bring his audience with him on a headlong journey of discovery. Every frame he shoots is vibrant. He cuts with unexcelled dynamism; the scenes of shooting the rapids in Deliverance are sensory immersions and metaphysical baptisms. His movies are odd, unexpected adventures. Even if they seem to be lofted out of some perpetual left field, they are all central, indeed vital, to contem- porary film. His movies are different; he is a director who can, and has, made a differ- ence. All this edging up to putting Boorman in position has another side. Money Into light is not quite the book you would expect a great director to write. It is shrewd and witty and sometimes impassioned, but it is a pro- ducer's log more than a collection of direc- 47
weighty concerns of schedule and budget. himself for survival in the business. He not by Anne Thompson Funher details of the shooting are skimmed only does what he has to do to get the movie and scrimped. Near the end of the book, on, but seems to get off of it. He prevails The spirit ofactually making a picture Boorman simply writes, \"I have neglected throughout, as this is not simply a question this journal for the last seven weeks, too tired of getting satisfaction from being right; it is, {is} a spirit not of collaboration but of to turn my mind to it:' He does, however, fmish the film on time. The rest of the book as much, a matter of enjoying the survival armed conflict in which one antagonist rounds out briskly in a mellow glow of training, of laughing it off even as he goes to fatigue and satisfaction which lasts even the head of the class. has a contract assuring him of nuclear through some shaky sneaks of the film. Problems are carpentered and mostly re- B oorman is a romantic, even when he capability. Some reviewers make a point paired. Boorman seems pretty well satisfied. allows himself a descent into melan- choly. Shooting a special effects sequence oftrying to understand whose picture it is The Emerald Forest has, subsequent to back in England, he visits the seaside resort Boorman's journal, done very nicely with of Skegnes, and is reminded of Orwell and by \"looking at the script\": to understand press and public alike, but the book could Wigan Pier. \"'Skeggy' is bleak, windblown. make anyone balk at the effort. Boorman is a It is garish and sad... a place of surpassing whose picture it is one needs to look not very graceful raconteur, and episodes such as ugliness. [The] holiday-makers look like the the making of Hell in the Pacific have the undernourished slum dwellers of the early particularly at the script but at the deal informality and occasional true hilarity of Industrial Revolution .... I looked at my fel- after-dinner war stories directors like a swap, low countrymen and felt alien. I could fmd memo. -Joan Didion just as the meetings with fmanciers and exec- utives are summoned up like so many cau- nothing in D.H. Lawrence, not even in J.B. When United Artists put Heaven's I tionary tales for the next guy through the Gate into production, writes Steven door. Goldcrest, the tony British production Priestley, to help link me to them .... There Bach, in Final Cut: Dreams and Disas- I· company responsible for Chariots of Fire, is no grace nor dignity in these people, no ters in the Making of 'Heaven's Gate' backs off fmancing The Emerald Forest harmony in their dress, no art in their play. (William Morrow and Co., New York, almost as shooting is about to begin. Boor- Here is a tribe gone sadly wrong, mutated .... $19.95), it wanted \"an epic, an Academy- man reckons that two of his cronies, When Takuma looked at me, he must have Award-winning epic:' UA was aiming for a ''Dickie'' Attenborough arid David Puttnam, seen what I see now\" big boxoffice sundae with nuts and have deep-sixed the film by voting against it whipped cream and prestige on top. The at a board meeting. Such casual perfidy The Indians, even at their most extreme, package UA bet its money on included come off a good deal better. Describing a Oscar contender and eventual winner I real kidnapping in Adrian Cowell's documen- Michael Cimino (for The Deer Hunter), tary The Decade ofDestruction, Boorman directing his own script on a remote loca- involves the real threat of cancellation, some writes that Indians, on a revenge raid, \"killed tion, with his close friend Joanne Carelli hectic last-minute negotiating, and fmally an two youths and abducted their seven-year- acting as producer. It was an independent agreement with Embassy Pictures that old brother.... 1t eventually transpired that production budgeted at about $11 million. keeps the pressure on Boorman until the the Indians had killed the boy shortly after Under other circumstances, there might film is completed. taking him. He kept them awake with his have been a different deal, a firmer budget, crying, and fmally one of them stuck an a more commercial cast, and a less distant It is not only money men who come off as arrow in him to shut him up:' Such storytell- set. But the circumstances were what they uneasy and untrustworthy allies in these ing is curt and effective, but the language- were. pages. Boorman's old friend and frequent \"stuck;' \"shut up\"-suggests something like collaborator, the ~scenarist maudit Rospo after-school naughtiness, while Boorman's In January 1978, Arthur Krim and U~s Pallenberg, after laboring long on innumera- poor countrymen, on their humble holidays, top management left the company, aiming ble drafts and weathering, at one remove, all are made to carry the weight of post-indus- barbs and bad publicity at parent Transa- the production uncertainties, tells the direc- trial apocalypse. If the empire's sun sets on merica Corporation. Rather than search- tor that the casting of Charley is \"a disastrous Skeggy, what light is refracted on the tip of ing outside UA for a boss with Hollywood mistake...and that if I could not see it, I was that Indian arrow? Whatever it is, it blinds in-group connections, Transamerica, to either a fool or a psychotic:' In order to \"save Boorman a little, but perhaps that is the the industry's great surprise, promoted [Boorman] from myself;' Pallenberg prom- price of a poet's vision. from within a man hardly anybody knew: ises to tell Jerry Perenchio, head of Embassy, Andy Albeck, a straight arrow who had these same views, and to recommend that Boorman suggests everyone is at risk managed U~s finances for almost 30 the film not be made. \"Let Rospo do his making a movie. '10 The Heretic I shot a years. He was made the company's presi- worst;' writes Boorman, with what, consid- giddy rooftop sequence in Manhattan. I dent, while the heretofore minor, New ering the circumstances, seems unnatural wore a harness with a safety rope. This gave York-based head of East Coast and Euro- equanimity. \"I have reached the point where me great confidence in leaning out over the pean production, Danton Rissner, was I am ready to go home and forget the whole precipitous edge and climbing on and off the made senior vice president of worldwide thing. I will do it as I see it, or not at all:' camera, which was jutting out into space. It production, and moved to Los Angeles. was not until we had fmished that I discov- Rissner's youthful production aides on the And so it is done. No postscript on the ered the safety rope was not connected to West Coast were David Field and Chris relationship with Pallenberg, but reading anything:' Then he ties it up, a little too Mankiewicz Ooseph Mankiewicz' son). these words, even in retrospect, can anyone neatly. \"Perhaps you could defme ftlm direc- Meanwhile, a recent UA recruit, teacher- believe Boorman was really ready to pack it tors as people who behave as if there is a turned-producer Steven Bach, was all in? A natural outrage that an artist of safety net when there is none:' You could, if selected to fill Rissner's old post. These Boorman's gifts is made to run this gauntlet you added that it would help if they also men, with limited clout in production cir- of dim and double-dealing is tempered by an loved the free fall, and acted as their own cles, set out to refute received opinion: awareness of strength that grows as the book producers. Or shamans. ~ that the day Arthur Krim left UA, the goes on. It isn't just that Boorman has steeled company was as good as dead. It only took one film to bring the UA house of cards tumbling down. 48
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