The Stunt Man, USA, 1980, Richard Rush

Ben sed:

I noticed that the film is based on a novel. I wonder if the novel is equally interested in the what's-reality? theme so at the centre of the film. I suspect that the book would address this more in terms of the psychological manipulation of the cast and crew conducted by the director. This is essential to the plot so the film does attend to it, but the film also has fun with cinematic perception itself, giving us wheels within wheels with respect to action that is a fake of a fake - or is it? - and so on. It was this quasi-epistemological thrust that so attracted me to the film when I saw it years ago (that and Barbara Hersey). This time, I found it contrived and quite jive. I won't give examples and analyse details. Enough to say that that the positing of them filming on location rather than on a set is violated repeatedly in order to have some what's-reality? fun; but then, resorting to obvious set pieces necessarily undermines the very grey area which is absolutely essential for this fun. In short, we know what's phoney and what's real so all the jokes based on not being sure about this fall flat.

What's left? Ironically, the remaining substance is precisely those elements of story-telling that are not specifically cinematic but are instead those of literature. This is why I wondered about the novel previously. That the plot is far-fetched is hardly a problem. This is comedy after all. Once the premise is accepted, the tale has genuine momentum and resolves itself accordingly. More delightful, given the dynamic of the plot, the psychological manipulation of the cast and crew by the director is throughly entertaining and O'Toole is marvelous. He was nominated for his performance and thinking of the film as a whole rather than his work in particular, I used to wonder why. But seeing him do his thing again, he just eats the part with a spoon, giving a wonderful mixture of clownish exaggeration and subtle sincerity. That the movie he is making is clearly a piece of shit - now that's funny! Connected to this lovely star turn, and unlike the stunts within stunts business, much is added by the high-technological throne in which O'Toole's character resides, be it the helicopter (good) or the boom-crane seat (great). This too is very funny but even more, it raises certain questions about - not the social power of a movie director, how boring - no, the quasi-epistemological stuff so botched by the stunts within the stunts. Because guess what? He really does appear from out of nowhere. We really do wonder which way is up. His is a sort of motorized magic and we are compelled to scratch our heads for a second to wonder, what's reality?

What every happened to the actor who played the leading role? I never saw him before and haven't seen him since?

And Dan:

I loved The Stunt Man back when it was released (what, 1979? Nope, looked it up: 1980. It was filmed in 1978, but Fox wouldn't release it unti '80) It was a hip, sardonic, flippant, fourth wall-busting blast. But what happened to it over the years? Is it that others have figured out how to do it so much better, or simply that it wasn't really all that great in the first place, and I was merely too inexperienced a filmgoer to pick up on it at the time?

Alas, despite a snazzy performance by Peter O'Toole, who apparently modeled his character on David Lean (one can only wonder what kinda torture it musta been to film Lawrence of Arabia with him if this is the case) the film has not aged terribly well. As you noted, one of the biggest problems are the set pieces, which need to be completely convincing in order to lure us into the magic of movie land, but which come off as cheesy out-takes from a bad tv movie. This undercuts the energy of nearly every scene on the movie set and proves debilitating to the plausibility of the character's (especially the lead character, Cameron, played by Steve Railsback) reactions. Shit, I'm starting to sound like the kids today who complain that "old" movies action sequences aren't cool the way they are today. I hope that's not how it comes off.

Anyways, I wasn't able to get past about the 45m mark of the film. The damn thing just fell apart on me. How depressing. I bet O'Toole salvaged some of the second half of the film, because I do remember him being an absolute hoot in the part, but alas and alack, I never far enough to find out.

Did you know that Francois Truffault was an early contender to film the novel's adaptation? While I didn't know Truffault from a truffle back then, I'd sure pay to see that film today.

And that Ryan O'Neal was supposed to play the lead, but he dropped out. Steve Railsback snagged the lead away from Martin Sheen when the director caught Railsback performance as Charlie Manson in the TV miniseries Helter Skelter (which is the only other work of Railsback that I've ever seen as well, though he continues to work in TV and film to this very day).

Mean Streets, USA, Scorsese, 1973

Wherein Ben and I give Scorsese's breakthrough a good going over.


Ben:

What to say about the film that put its director on the map? And hooked him up with DeNiro and vice versa? About the latter, I forgot how good his performance is. I'm sorry, but he just brings more levels, more complexity to his character than the other performers do, although Keitel is very good too. About the latter, I forgot how he brings a sweetness to his part, a degree of decency, not just because he genuinely has religious faith and takes its morality seriously. But also in his vestiges of childhood playfulness and relative innocence. All of which is constantly threatened by his circumstances and impossible to preserve. Keitel negotiates all of this very well, his character standing in for Scorcese himself, of course, but without the intelligence and artistic option. But DiNero just radiates reality and reality ain't pretty. Just lovable enough to make you believe that Keitel could actually remain loyal to him, but the rest is pages of a pathology 101 textbook flipping by. You just know that that character is going to be a whirling dervish of violence when he grows up, if he grows up.

That these guys are just in the growing up phase is one of the strengths of the film. Not yet gangsters, there is really no genuine violence until the end. When it comes it is entirely legitimate in the story, signalling a rite of passage, albeit of the most negative and matter-of-fact sort. Hyper-Italiano aspect aside, the characters in Mean Streets are the gang in The Outsiders, half a decade latter, from a gritty realistic rather than a sanitized wholesome point of view. They have graduated into the genuinely adult violence that was inevitable for punks who would be wise guys. Any hope of escaping the hood is all but annhilated. Crime is the only open road. All that remains is to see who will survive, who will scuffle forever and who will move up the ranks of the organized. This remains because Scorcese does not give in to temptation to kill off his characters. His restraint on this score is vital to the power of the film, in my estimation. None of them are fatally wounded. No such luck. They are condemned to more violence. The end of the film is just the beginning for these people. Put this in the hyper-Italiano context I set aside before and then put this itself in the greater New York framework so vital to the Sidney Lumet led movement from which Scorcese undoubtedly drew inspiration - Mean Streets!

There are some compelling shots to be sure and some hip editing too, but sometimes it does smack of experimentalism, which is merely to state the obvious that he was still pretty fresh out of the gate. The use of existing songs rather than a composed soundtrack is remarkably effective but also done excessively and it does not achieve the ultimate synthesis that, say, Lucas does in American Graffiti. What really carries the day, though, is the down-on-the-groundness of it all, especially the overlapping dialogue and the characterizations. This film has been so imitated so often, its hard to appreciation how in-your-face and raw it was when it came on the scene. Again, not the violence of it, of which there is little. Rather, the two-bit grime of it all. Not a chance for glory, nevermind redemption.

And Dan:

You can certainly see the artist, not exactly in vitro here, he's much more close to fully realized than that here, but in chrysalis. And you can also certainly see the rudimentary forms that would finally take shape in Taxi Driver only a few short years later. Scorsese's morality, seen in his blend of Italian and specifically Catholic iconography and gangster tropes, is a complex and pretty unforgiving one. Charlie, Keitel's character, as you say, a stand in for Marty himself, certainly means well, but proves ultimately ineffectual in this seedy setting. The brutality and violence of these desperate types remains oblivious to the essentially conventional sense of right and wrong that Charlie tries to apply to the situation.

But it is deNiro who steals the show. Johnny Boy, oh boy, what a jumpin' jack flash, such a gas-gas-gas. He explodes on the screen (his first scene is the mailbox bomb, is it not?); the kid is pure energy and will. Freudians would peg him as The Id (to Charlie's Superego?), and while he's got no clue, as long as he's got Keitel around to look out for him and baby him (no wonder he's called Johnny Boy), he'll never get one, either. JB reminds me a bit of Mercutio; the kinda guy who makes for an interesting but dangerous friend, but who is always great entertainment.

The film's really funny at times, too. There are some scenes of verbal sparring with deNiro and Charlie that verge on Abbot and Costello, and even some of the fight sequences are kinda wacky(Johnny Boy jumping up on the pool table). While you are probably right that Scorsese goes a little overboard with his use of popular music, I dig it nonetheless. At least these tunes felt somewhat justified by the action of the story, unlike, say Raindrops keep Fallin' on My Fuckin' Head, for instance. I also found the voiceover was used in an interesting manner, something that Scorsese would really ramp up for Taxi Driver. There are moments where it feels like Scorsese is showing off a bit for us--some of the attention-grabbing jump-cuts, such as those in the sex scene,and Charlie's hallucinatory trip in the bar--that kinda peg this movie for what it is, a young director finding his legs by showing off his influences. But these are minor complaints in an otherwise damn fine film.

I think that Scorsese really gets right here, and it is due mainly to the fact that he really knows these people, this place. The film feels authentic, the characters are true, the situation hopeless.

And breaking our weeks of silence, Ben and I get back at it. On the docket today David Lynch's incandescent The Elephant Man.

Ben sed:

This film is even better than I remember. More precisely, I remembered some of the great things about it but now I notice some other great things. And I have to compliment you for educating me about cinema now. I was wise enough in 1980 to grasp the deep humanity and humanism of the story. Jesus it's based on a real person. And I was struck by the performances - which truly are stupendous, not just from the major players either, everyone is spot on - and the use of music, which I already discussed in an earlier email. What I see now, however, and what you mentioned in passing in the staffroom - but what I CAN see now since you have been sharing your film knowledge and passion with me - is how beautiful the film is AS A FILM. Yes, filming in black and white immediately sends a signal, a sign that the subject matter is profound, that the film-maker wants us to take it seriously. And yes, it also give a subliminal message to see the picture as "old," with whatever associations this may bring up for us. (Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why Chinatown is such an achievement. Polansky made us access noir in colour). But most of all, black and white is the choice of those who want us to touch reality by entering a non-reality... so we can touch reality that much more deeply. The colour of real life is abstracted away in order to show us true things in shadows and light. The Elephant Man is simply beautiful. Sometimes, just sometimes, I thought a scene should have been darker, the hospital was sometimes too bright, for example. Lynch could have gone that extra Barry Lyndon step and gone for nothing but, in this case, the gas fixtures. But I am splitting hairs. The film just blew me away, to look at it. And when he edited in certain images to raise the story to a symbolic realm, it was very moving for me. It is clear that the script and the performances are what keep the film from becoming a sappy tear-jerker. (It is a tear-jerker, but in no way sappy.) But the way it is shot and cut is also vital. I am tempted to suggest that Lynch is making a meta-statement about "appearance" as such, forcing us to grapple with our understanding of beauty, ugliness and the fact that we have an ethical responsibility to enter into this aesthetic problematic... if we are to be truly human. How can a depiction of the grotesque be so sublime? Exactly! This time Lynch goes into the perversion of people not to rattle our decadent bones but to pierce our beating hearts. A beautiful film, beautiful. The first time Hopkins sees him, the long close-up, and finally the single tear that falls...

And Dan replies:

As I have mentioned to you before, Lynch is multi-faceted. Which is not to say that he's two-faced or inconsistent, but rather that he is vast, like Whitman, and able to contain multitudes. He's depraved, yet sincere. Decadent, yet humane. Even when he's bad he cannot be ignored--just try to peel yourself away from even his most dire movies (Lost Highway.) His films stick like flypaper. One things for sure, though, and that is that Lynch is an Artist, and his artistry has never been more convincingly displayed than in this film. Elephant Man, a movie I cannot watch without weeping, is a towering accomplishment, a heartbreaking monument to human dignity, which, true to the man's elusiveness, ain't something you can say of many other Lynch films.

I don't want to retread too much of the ground that you have already covered in your review (great performance: check! a thoroughly humanistic story: check!), but I want to really zone in on one aspect of your review. On a purely aesthetic level, if there were not a word of dialogue, I am convinced that the movie, marvellous audio-visual accomplishment that it is, would still have the power to move me immensely. As a painter, Lynch knows very well the power of the image, and he has rarely put his talents to better use. As you note, Elephant Man is gorgeous. Lynch is notoriously impressionistic in his approach to filmmaking, following what he believes is the psychological truth of the story, not necessarily the realistic one. He's not like, say, Daivid Milch, and a scrupulous researcher who aims for some deeper truth through authentic recreations. And yet Elephant Man has the look and texture of an authentic document, elevated by the hand of a artist with a singular vision. The settings, staging, costumes, designs. Hell, right down to the use of the poetry of Tennyson. It's all spot on. If Charles Dickens had been a filmmaker, I can't imagine it would look much different. So, yeah, on a technical and aesthetic level, this is a remarkable accomplishment, and in many ways quite atypical of a Lynch film.


And thank you for the kind words regarding my role in educating you about the glorious medium of film. I suspect that you are self-taught in these matters cinematic, but appreciate your nod in my direction nonetheless. I do not take such compliments lightly.

Then Ben:

Tennyson, yes, but he works in the first kiss of Romeo and Juliet no less! Tell the truth, that scene with Anne Bancroft is the litmus test for the film; I mean, it is "something out of the movies" and the fact that it does not cross that fine line and take the film into bad schmaltz demonstrates just how delicate is the director's touch.

You make a convincing point when you say that the film would still work even if all the dialogue were removed and now that you convince me of this, I believe I was groping for a kindered thesis when I attended to the use of black and white. It's not from the silent era but it feels like it could be. I suppose this is further reinfored by the historical setting, itself the immediately pre-silent period, so to speak... or not to speak...sigh.

On this feeling of oldness, you mention Dickens and I have to disagree. I think you are getting swept up by the period authenticity but the STYLE of the film has too much theatre of cruelty, even the occasionally near-surreal sensibility to adhere to Dickens, it seems to me (never having read any - ha!), it is Lynch afterall.

Speaking of which, I don't think it's an accident that The Elephant Man is Lynch that Ben likes compared to Lynch Ben is less happy about. TEM is English to the core. (How did Bancroft sneak in? Loved her.) Seriously, though, everything about it is English whereas Blue Velvet and such is a take on America and its mythology. I suspect I am on to something.

Look, guys are squeamish about compliments so I won't compliment you again except to say that it would be pretty damn difficult for me to educate myself about cinema without your good taste and generous lending policy.

And Dan:

Of course! The Romeo and Juliet! I'd completely forgotten. It is indeed something of a marvel how Lynch manages, time and again throughout this film, to escape descent into out and out melodrama. Imagine what this film would have been in the hands of, say, Ron Howard? Ich.

As for the near-surreal not being Dickensian, well, read some of his later works. While he was a social realist/activist, Dickens also had his moments of the most uinrealistic and terribly peculiar. There's even a character who spontaneously combusts in one of his final novels (damned if I can remember which one, though!) Still, point taken. I reckon that all of that stuff implying that an elephant raped Merrick's mom would have been a bit too much for our mutual friend CD.

As for you being on to something, well, I've always suspected that you were on something. Where it takes us to is a different matter. As for Lynch's attempts to dissect American mythology, Blue Velvet is an interesting place to start (contrasting the glossy veneer of suburban dreamland with the gritty underbelly that is the American Urban nightmare) I must lend you The Straight Story. The corn is high, and the tales are tall. It's pure middle America hokiness, but as with The Elephant Man, Lynch somehow manages to avoid shmaltz and delivers something surprisingly affecting. The central performance of Richard Farnsworth has A LOT to do with this success, but it's not the only factor.