The esteemed director of Mank is saying that young Orson Welles never got past the burden of being over-rated — that he got lucky with the help of Gregg Toland and Herman J, Mankiewicz in the making of Citizen Kane, but in the long aftermath he more or less killed his career with hubris.
Welles “was above all a showman and a juggler with this immense talent. [His] tragedy lies in the mix between monumental talent and filthy immaturity.
“Sure, there is genius in Citizen Kane…who could argue? But when Welles says, ‘It only takes an afternoon to learn everything there is to know about cinematography’…pffft. Let’s say that this is the remark of someone who has been lucky to have Gregg Toland around him to prepare the next shot…Gregg Toland, damn it…an insane genius!”
“I say [this] without wanting to be disrespectful to Welles. I know what I owe him, like I know what I owe Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas or Hal Ashby. But at 25, you don’t know what you don’t know. Period. Neither Welles nor anyone. It doesn’t take anything away from him, and especially not his place in the pantheon of those who have influenced entire generations of filmmakers.
“But to claim that Orson Welles came out of nowhere to make Citizen Kane and that the rest of his filmography was ruined by the interventions of ill-intentioned people…it’s not serious, and it is underestimating the disastrous impact of his own delusional hubris.”
Cue Welles biographer Joseph McBride, longtime Welles pally and collaborator Peter Bogdanovich and other Welles loyalists.
Alan Pakula‘s The Parallax View (’74) is easily the spookiest and most unsettling film of his “paranoid trilogy”, the other two being Klute (’71) and All The President’s Men (’76).
Based on Loren Singer‘s 1970 novel of the same name, it reflects the vaguely haunted vibe of the early ’70s and the residue of all the assassination conspiracy theories (JFK, MLK, RFK) that had been kicking around. It’s about those three killings, mainly, and all that spilt blood.
The script by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr. and an uncredited Robert Towne is a reasonably crafty noir with perfunctory thriller elements here and there. All of which Pakula handles nicely. My favorite is a bomb-on-a-plane sequence. And the film certainly has an extra-dark ’70s ending…a bitter pill of irony thing.
The story is about Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), a second-tier investigative reporter who stumbles upon evidence of a secretive, CIA-like outfit, the Parallax Corporation, that kills political figures by contract — a kind of corporate-style Murder Incorporated. It’s a ludicrous idea when you think about it for 15 or 20 seconds, but Pakula, Beatty, cinematographer Gordon Willis and especially composer Michael Small make it into an eerie mood piece.
Not for one solitary second do you believe that Beatty is Frady. He’s obviously just winging it…playing himself, saying the lines. Each and every second all you get from his performance is “okay, I’m supposed to be this nervy, raggedy-ass journalist with a drinking history…a guy with long, perfectly cut hair who’s much too good-looking to be a journalist and who wears tight jeans and a light brown jean jacket, just like me…the jacket’s the same one I wore on The Dick Cavett Show in ’72, by the way…but I’m just playing myself playing this guy…whatever, a meta thing.”
Why is Beatty’s character called Frady, by the way? The association is with the childhood term “fraidy cat” but if anything Frady isn’t afraid enough.
The weird part of The Parallax View is when Frady visits the small town of Salmontail, Oregon, at which point the film starts to behave like a New World exploitation film — a raucous bar fight, a crazy car chase, a fight to the death in a raging river. Not to mention a waitress who asks our protagonist “how is a martini like a woman’s breast? Because one isn’t enough and three is too many.” Beatty doesn’t even crack a grin.
A Criterion Bluray version — “a new, restored 4K digital transfer” — is coming out on 2.9.21, or roughly three weeks after Joe Biden‘s inauguration. (Which Donald Trump isn’t likely to attend.)
I own a beautiful Vudu UHD HDX version, and there’s no way the Criterion is going to look any better. It’s a handsomely shot film, for sure, but the Criterion isn’t going to deliver any kind of big bump.
I have a problem with Adam Maida‘s Criterion jacket art, by the way. Who the hell is the silhouette guy with a star-spangled bullet drilling into his head? It’s obviously not Beatty but it should be. The story is about the adventures of Joe Frady so why show us a silhouette of a guy who has nothing to do with anything?
You know what they should have done? Used the original poster art, an impressionist image of William Joyce‘s Senator Charles Carroll getting shot at the top of the Seattle Space Needle along with a perfect slogan — “as American as apple pie.”
Small’s music is definitely the creepiest thing about this weird, in-and-out film.
…are planning a huge Thanksgiving celebration with all the family members and in-laws gathering under one big happy roof? All together now, family is forever, pass the squash, stuffing and creamed onions, etc. Talk about an historic super-spreader event, from sea to shining sea.
Most of the title changes that happened with popular mainstream films have seemed right in retrospect. Big was simplistic but a better title than When I Grow Up. Phil Robinson‘s Field of Dreams was almost called Shoeless Joe (the title of W.P. Kinsella‘s source novel), but that would have diminished audience interest. At some early point Close Encounters of the Third Kind was called Watch The Skies — a nice steal from Howard Hawks‘ The Thing but a little too passive sounding.
I’m mentioning this because I was reminded earlier today of an original title that should have been used, not because it conveyed an especially clear thought or because it made any particular sense, but because it had a great sound. I’m speaking of Adam Rifkin‘s Dog Years (’18), the Burt Reynolds swan song that was changed at the last minute to The Last Movie Star. The latter is a sucky-sounding title if I ever heard one, but Dog Years…brilliant! And I don’t even know why.
Another so-to-speak “dog” movie that underwent a title change was Karl Reisz‘s Who’ll Stop The Rain (’78). Based on Robert Stone‘s “Dog Soldiers“, it’s a tangy, complex adventure thriller that flirts with dark absurdist humor here and there. It’s surely one of the most articulate collapse-of-’60s-idealism films ever, and it features one of Nick Nolte‘s greatest-ever performances, as a reluctant drug dealer and a NealCasady stand-in whom I’ve always referred to as “Samurai” Ray Hicks.
All to say that Reisz’s film was initially titled Dog Soldiers but it tested badly with women, or so I recall reading. Distributor United Artists thought it had potential as a date movie.
“In a time where the world is as polarized as ever, there seems to be a yearning to show oppression in all cultures. With Black Lives Matter gaining significant traction, a film about a Caucasian venture capitalist’s upbringing doesn’t feel exactly well-timed in our climate.”
HE translation: “At a time of peak wokeness in Hollywood — a time in which we’re all trying to rejuvenate if not overturn the old order and introduce a new political and social heirarchy that celebrates diversity and strong women and LGBTQs — forward-thinking Hollywood professionals would be wise to think twice about liking this film, mainly because it focuses on scurvy low-rent rurals in overalls, and nobody wants to celebrate this kind of thing at this point in time…right?”
All along I’d been nursing similar thoughts about Hillbilly Elegy. How could I sympathize with people whose views and politics I consider to be totally vile if not anti-Democratic, considering their unwavering support for an authoritarian Mussolini?
But the strangest thing happened when I finally saw Ron Howard‘s film. I stopped thinking of it as a journey into a nightmare filled with no-good polecat varmint Trump supporters, and instead as a portrait of stressed-out, hardscrabble, low-income types who feel stuck and unable to escape their lives. In short I felt twinges of sympathy and even compassion from time to time.
“I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly. How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”– Joe Biden speaking earlier today about Trump’s refusal to concede or approve the traditional transition process.
“”There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, earlier today.
If there’s been one steady-drumbeat message that has thundered across the Twitterverse for several weeks now, it’s that Pete Docter‘s Soul (Disney, 12.25) is a truly exceptional animated feature…a half-emotional, half-philosophical, jazz-embroidered film so rich and resonant and full-hearted that it deserves to be in Best Picture contention. (Which of course will never happen as far as the Academy is concerned because, being animated, it belongs in Best Animated Feature contention.)
And then along comes Variety‘s award-season handicapper, a guy more or less required to not dwell on negative currents (that’s Owen Gleiberman or Peter Debruge‘s job, if and when the situation warrants) and to celebrate the celebrational and be as turn-the-other-cheeky as possible…along comes Clayton Davis with the first significant anti-Soul opinion to come down the pike.
Davis tweeted this morning that as much as he “wanted to love it”, he was unable to. Because “there’s a disconnect between story and character“, and because it feels like an Inside Out ripoff that doesn’t quite land where it’s supposed to.”
From Owen Gleiberman‘s “The Melting Down of Donald Trump,” posted this morning: “Trump may still try to stage some sort of legal-electoral ‘coup,’ but to anyone tethered to the real world, his protests will increasingly sound like the face-saving whine of someone who can’t admit, or even compute, the prospect of his own defeat.
“On the deepest level, ‘The mail-in votes in Pennsylvania don’t count!’ is a fascist version of ‘The dog ate my homework!’ It’s Trump clinging to the presidency and trashing the rule of law, but mostly it’s Trump doing all he can to refuse his comeuppance, to deny that he’s now the loser he has spent his whole life running from being.
“[Classic villain comeuppance is] what happens, most spectacularly, in The Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch of the West is destroyed before our eyes in a catharsis of long-finger-nailed rage. ‘Look what you’ve done!’ she screams. ‘I’m melting, melting!’ And then, with a touch of despair that can almost be called tragic, she says, ‘Oh, what a world, what a world’! She’s talking about a world that has taken away her power. She then crumples like a melted crayon, a humiliated mass of thwarted ambition.
“That’s what just happened to Donald Trump. He wasn’t simply defeated, given the boot by the American people. He got melted down. And that’s why he’ll never admit it. He’s holding the entire American democratic process hostage to prop up what’s left of his broken ego.
“There’s a lot of talk about how even though Trump lost, ‘Trumpism’ is here to stay. It will be standing on the sidelines, waiting in the wings, warming up for a comeback. But what does Donald Trump stand for, as a political figure, once you take away his power? He’ll be just another fulminating talk-radio host. And, of course, the cornerstone of his brand will now become the very notion that the presidency was stolen from him. He’ll make that the centerpiece of every rally, every Fox News appearance, every talk-radio hour he presides over.
“But it will all be Trump spinning his brokenness, licking his wounds. The Trump faithful, the true believers — the cult — will tune in. But I suspect that for most of America, Trump will simply sound like the sore loser he is. So let him spin away. It’s time to say goodnight to the bad guy.”
I never suspected that a majority of homes in the Beverly Hills “flats” (north of Santa Monica Blvd. up to Sunset Blvd.) are owned by rightwing Trump supporters. I always thought the Southern California loonies mainly lived down in Orange County. But according to data compiled by the Los Angeles Times, Beverly Hills is indeed a red stronghold.
“The largest concentration of Trump support in central Los Angeles is located in the affluent residential areas of Beverly Hills and Trousdale Estates.
“Beverly Hills precincts that voted for Trump start directly across Santa Monica Boulevard from the Rodeo Drive shopping district, which has been the site of frequent pro-Trump demonstrations in recent months. Many businesses in that district had closed and boarded up in advance of Election Day as a precaution against potential unrest.”
Deranged and self-deluding as Trump has always been, you’d think that with the election called and the odds of a miracle turnaround virtually nil that a dignity impulse would kick in. That would mean summoning at least an attempt to behave in a classy manner. He wouldn’t have to mean it, and he could always revert to his natural default self after he leaves Washington for New York and Mar a Lago in late January. He must realize deep down that he’ll never pull off a reversal of fortune. And yet he continues to fret and whine and accuse the deep state of manipulating the vote, etc.
This Big Country gun duel scene is about courage and character, or the lack of. I’m not saying Joe Biden is 100% analogous to Gregory Peck‘s character in terms of behaving in a sane, sensible and steadfast way, but he’s close enough. It’s also fair to say that right now Donald Trump‘s behavior is at least somewhat similar to that of Chuck Connors, as the no-good scurvy varmint son of Burl Ives.
What well-known, present-tense figure is somewhat similar to the stern and disdainful Ives? I’d say Ives represents the attitude of nearly everyone right now…everyone except for hardcore Trump friendos, the ranks of which are slightly thinning as we speak.
With Joe Biden having taken slight leads in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Fat Donny is almost certainly finished. As in fuhgdedaboudit. As in the clouds have parted and beams of sunlight are streaming down upon the crop.
But you can pretty much take it to the bank on a 98% basis — the foulest, lying-est, and most horrific President in U.S. history has lost his bid for re-election. Thank God in heaven and may all the angels sing in harmony as we drop to our knees in gratitude.
If you think I’m being delusional or incautious, ask Vox — they called it for Biden early this morning.
Watching Real Time with Bill Maher this evening is going to be absolutely jubilant.
