Drawing from Life in Today’s Iran

Marjane Satrapi died this year, at the early age of 56. I knew her originally through her landmark graphic novel (she preferred to call it a comic book) which provides a vivid picture of her own eventful life story. Persepolis became an international bestseller, launching Satrapi on a major career as a writer, illustrator, and eventually filmmaker. From her adopted home in France she pursued her art, making sure none of us forget about the brutally disrupted lives of Iranian citizens who had once suffered under the Shah’s regime and then, even more so, under the theocratic rule of the radical Islamists who took power in 1979. Today, with the current U.S. actions against Iran threatening to become a “forever war,” there’s all the more reason to pay attention to Satrapi’s artistic legacy.

 It took me until now to watch the film version of Persepolis. I was prepared for the film’s story, but not for the beauty of its artwork, much of which conveys Satrapi’s eventful younger years in stark black & white. Her drawings, often done in silhouette and from distinctive angles, capture the stark lives of Iranian citizens, weighted down by heavy garments and denied the pleasures of secular music, dance, and jokes. She depicts herself as a perceptive and bold little girl, one who is quick to question a status quo she can hardly be expected to understand. Though her parents and wise grandmother love her dearly, they see how dangerous life can become for a child who is inquisitive and sometimes defiant. That’s why, at age 14, she is sent off to Austria, where she struggles to fit into a culture that’s hardly her own.

 Satrapi’s lively drawing pen shows young Marjane seeking companionship among Austrian dissidents and weirdos, initially pretending she is French-born. As she gets older, she goes through a series of not-very-welcoming landlords, and even finds herself  homeless for a time. A love affair ends in bitter disappointment, and at last—now a young woman with a distinctive beauty spot near her nose —she begs her parents to let her come back home.

 On go the chador and hijab. Like her Iranian friends, she tries hard to conform externally, while  secretly finding fun pursuing her western-style passions (which in childhood have ranged from monster movies to Bruce Lee to punk rock). But the government goons are always around, people important to her are disappeared or killed, and eventually she finds herself—after a tearful farewell to her parents and her soon-to-depart-this-earth grandma—boarding another plane, this time to France, where the real Satrapi happily lived out the rest of her life.

Frankly, I’m in awe of the skill that went into making this film, whose story is simple but whose artistry is certainly unmatched by anything Hollywood has to offer. That’s why the movie version of Persepolis (whose title reflects the ancient ceremonial capital of Persia) is so stunning. At the 80^th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 it was nominated for Best Animated Feature, making Satrapi (who co-directed with French artist Vincent Parenmaud)) the first woman ever to receive an Oscar nomination in this category. No, it didn’t win: the statuette went to another very special—and much less disturbing—film, Pixar’s Ratatouille. In Europe, though, Persepolis earned prizes galore, at the same time that it was banned (as anti-Islamic) from several international film festivals.

 I’d love to say that Satrapi lived happily ever after. But after her Swedish husband died of cancer in 2025 she had no will to continue living. The word is that she “died of sadness.”    

 

 

 

 

The Soul of a Senator: “The Seduction of Joe Tynan”

Election Day 2026, which may prove to be the most consequential midterm contest in our nation’s history, is a good time to check back on an Alan Alda film from 1979. It was made during the period when Alda was starring on television’s M*A*S*H, and it showcases the multitalented Alda’s work as a writer as well as an actor. The Seduction of Joe Tynan is a clear-eyed look at the challenges faced by an idealistic young politician whose aspirations just might include a run for the White House.

 Alda’s hugely popular M*A*S*H role as Hawkeye Pierce, an idealistic young surgeon operating near enemy lines during the Korean War, led audiences to view him as an idealistic young actor who just might make an appealing liberal politician, in a movie or perhaps in real life. In the film, directed by Jerry Schatzberg, Joe Tynan is a U.S. Senator from New York. He’s smart, witty, and squeaky-clean, with a brainy therapist-wife  played by Barbara Harris. Early on the two are seen cuddling in bed, engaging in sexy banter. It’s clear they truly dig one another, but the fact that Joe keeps gloating over on his latest triumph in the halls of Congress hints that he has more on his mind than marital bliss. There are also two kids at home, including a teenaged daughter bent on rebellion against her parents, come what may, so clearly Joe has a lot to think about.

 Then a crusty old colleague from the other side of the aisle (a late-in-life performance by Melvyn Douglas) asks for Joe’s help regarding a rival’s nomination to the Supreme Court. In the course of deciding whether this new nominee can meet his own high-minded standards, Joe is introduced to a feisty Southern labor lawyer played by a very young Meryl Streep. Thougb she too is married, she and Joe quickly fall into a torrid affair, helped along by their mutual yen for politics as well as for one another. For a guy on the national political scene, it’s all too easy to be discreet: wife and kids are safely at home in New York, while he tools around DC, scheduling “meetings” with his pretty new “advisor.”

 Frankly, I had expected to see Senator Tynan’s political dreams come tumbling down as a result of his sexual misstep. But Alda the writer has other ideas. Joe quickly sees the error of his ways when his wayward teenaged daughter gets into a small medical crisis. (She develops hepatitis after getting her butt tattooed—and tattooing in 1979 was a REALLY big deal.) Yes, what’s been going on suddenly becomes clear to his wife, but she’s enough of a good political spouse to look past his indiscretions and keep her anger to herself.

 We end with the confetti and the hoopla of the Democratic Party’s national convention, at which Joe shakes off his jitters in order to wow the delegates with a rousing speech, while his wife does what a political spouse is supposed to do: look on proudly from the sidelines. Apparently, they’ve both been seduced by the promise of future glory. Fade out.

 The Seduction of Joe Tynan is not a great film. I believe Alda, as a writer, did better with another story about sex and marriage, The Four Seasons. (Yes, it was the source of the current Netflix miniseries, which  in its opening episode graciously gave the now elderly Alda a nice cameo role.) But I like the way Joe Tynan takes an Alda-like liberal politician and shows what makes him vulnerable . . .  and it’s not just sex.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Spice Time

Since I have a late October birthday, I’ve always had great affection for Halloween. It was always an evening of fun  and candy for American kids, but these days it seems to have much expanded, and drawn in a great many more people of all ages.

In the U.S., Halloween hijinks generally involve things that go bump in the night. We’re expected to enjoy being a little bit scared, sometimes by visiting elaborate pumpkin patches, sometimes by tuning into scary movies like Halloween (of course), Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Each year seems to bring a new crop of cinematic scare-stories. But, as a new exhibit at the Academy Museum points out, horror is not exactly a recent movie phenomenon. Universal Studios, for one, made its name back in the 1930s by introducing eerie horror films like Frankenstein and Dracula (both 1931). Even earlier, German Expressionists launched disturbing silent films like 1922’s Nosferatu.

One small hint of the long-range attraction of horror is the continuing survival of the Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video. Though it was introduced in 1983, it is still very much alive almost 50 years later. For anyone who’s been living under a rock for the past few decades, here’s a brief summary.  We begin in what looks like the 1950s, as Jackson and a pony-tailed cutie (Ola Ray) drive home from a date. He runs out of gas,  and they’re forced to get out and walk through a spooky forest. Suddenly she discovers he’s turning into what one source calls a “werecat,” with eerie eyes—and he seems determined to pursue her. Cut to a contemporary (by 1983 standards) movie theatre. The two are now modern kids watching the ghoulish film, But she’s frightened and wants to leave, and he’s chivalrous enough to accompany her home. That’s when ghouls and ghosts suddenly appear, and he becomes one of them, shimmying to a creepy ditty set against the voice of Vincent Price. So we’re in a reality vs. fantasy world, and Michael’s unfortunate date is terrified by the dark possibilities ahead.

What’s amazing to me is how that ghoulish dance number has endured. A member of my family has been practicing a slightly toned-down version of it, the better to join with a lot of costumed would-be ghouls who’ll perform together Saturday night under California’s Manhattan Beach pier. From what I’ve heard, a really large performance of the number shows up annually in New York’s Times Square, with all comers welcome. On a much lower level, some distinctive moves from the routine made their appearance today at my weekly gym class, led by an instructor decked out for the occasion in a pink poodle skirt, frilly bobby socks, and pearls.

Halloween is of course also the time to remember our dead. So let me take this moment to hail two of Hollywood’s finest. Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame passed away this week at the ripe old age of 86. But I was personally more shaken by the demise of 93-year-old Tom Skerritt. Most fans will remember him from his award-winning role on TV’s Picket Fences, or from one of his many big films (like 1979’s Alien). But I worked with Tom on Roger Corman’s Big Bad Mama (1974), on which he vied with William Shatner to romance (sans clothes) a sexy Angie Dickinson. There was not much dignity to the role, but Tom told me how his brand-new agent was prepping him for better things. I guess it worked. A Halloween farewell to both men.

 

 

 

 

Five Finger Discount: “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”

I freely admit that I’m lousy with modern technology. Yes, I use a cell phone, but it’s hardly my favorite mode of communication, and the subtleties of texting sometimes baffle me. I’ve written three books on a personal computer, but I can be thrown into a panic by documents that aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Smart watches are for me a total mystery. All of which makes me feel really old.

 That’s why I’m able to identify with John Turturro’s character, Harry Lehman, at the center of the new indie, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Harry doesn’t even own a cellphone, and the electronic transfer of money via cryptocurrency is as much of a mystery to him as it is to me. (When Harry mentions that a particular computer disk might be “sick,” even I know he’s trying to indicate that perhaps it has a virus.)  Then again, I can’t pretend to know anything about Harry’s special area of expertise. He’s an old-school pickpocket, roaming the five boroughs of New York in a wonderful old salt-and-pepper overcoat, delicately relieving passers-by of their wallets and watches.

 Well, it’s a living. But time is rapidly passing him by. No one seems to carry cash these days, and expensive designer wristwatches are giving way to mysterious electronic timepieces that can perform their own complex transactions if you know the right codes. So Harry’s skilled fingers, far behind the times, are nearly as useless as a buggy whip. Which is not to say that he’s stopped trying. At home in a shabby Bronx walkup lies his comatose wife, whom he tenderly keeps trying to feed, clothe, and entertain with musical numbers from the old days.

 The Only Living Pickpocket in New York has been called a heist picture, and so it is, but not in the usual sense. Harry’s daily routine is shattered once he delicately lifts a wallet from a young man in a flashy vintage car. This hot-headed young man, Dylan, turns out to have underworld family connections, and he’ll stop at nothing to get back what he’s lost, particularly his watch and a mysterious card that turns out to be a crypto wallet. With a little help from a street surveillance camera, Dylan connects Harry with the theft, and announces there will be hell to pay if that “card” that Harry has tried fencing isn’t returned to him, pronto. So Harry is soon scurrying all over the city to locate a device whose use he never quite understands.

 While trekking to Queens, he stops to try to re-connect with his estranged daughter, and takes time to instruct an aspiring pickpocket in the best way to steal a wallet on the subway. He also calls in favors from some longtime friends, among them a pawnshop owner played by the always welcome Steve Buscemi. But the fact remains that, because he’s shaken the complacency of some very scary people, his days seem to be numbered. So there’s a poignancy to this movie; the sense of time passing him by.

 A list of Turturro’s screen accomplishments includes some fascinating portrayals: like the title role of a talented but haunted writer in Barton Fink and the part of a brainy but hangdog contestant who’s part of a rigged TV competition in Quiz Show. Turturro is immensely talented, especially in quirky material, but he’s never quite been at the epicenter of the proceedings as he is here. His Harry may be a crook, but somehow his heart remains pure. He fully deserves all the acclaim he’s likely to get for this unlikely film. 

 

Going to the Car Wash

Boy, do I need a trip to the car wash! My trusty sedan badly needs a good cleaning. A recent overseas plane flight allowed me to re-watch a 1976 comedy that’s essentially an ode to the joys and sorrows of working at an urban locale designed for the cleansing of automobiles. This was the era when young Black filmmakers seemed to take special pride in singling out the idiosyncratic venues that anchored their own communities. (The trend stuck around: see the Barbershop series that debuted in 2002.)

 Car Wash was the third feature directed by a talented young African American named Michael Schultz (his father was German), following the success of another classic of Black cinema, Cooley High. I was surprised to discover that it was written by Joel Schumacher, his third produced screenplay before he moved on to a major directing career. (See, for instance, his The Lost Boys, and a number of action hits.) Car Wash features pretty much every established Black actor of that era. Ivan Dixon, Bill Duke, Garrett Morris are some of them, along with a splashy appearance by Richard Pryor as a shyster evangelist, Daddy Rich, who shows up in a stretch limo with the Pointer Sisters in the back seat. There are familiar white faces too, like George Carlin as a taxi driver who’s been fleeced by a passenger and “Professor” Irwin Corey, as a mysterious little man who might or might not be carrying a bomb.  

 The film takes place over the course of a single Friday, from opening to closing. Dee-Luxe Car Wash, an East LA. establishment that features old-fashioned handwashing, is owned by a white man with all the troubles of the world on his shoulders. (Among them is his college-age son who has developed an affinity for Chairman Mao and keeps trying to recruit his dad’s employees to the cause.) These employees are a motley crew: among them a jokester; a cowboy; an Indian; a guy with romantic troubles; two would-be song & dance men who keep rehearsing the new opening of their act. Most memorable is a flamboyant gay cross-dresser (played by Antonio Fargas) who disses one of his co-workers, “ "Honey, I am more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever get."

 The film pokes fun at the variety of customers who show up in expensive cars, such as the Beverly Hills matron who obsesses over the paint job on her luxury sedan while her young son endures a spate of projectile vomiting. There’s also fun to be had as patrons scurry in and out of the car wash’s public bathrooms with all sorts of deviltry on their minds. The film ends, though, on a serious note. Lonnie, the car wash foreman (Ivan Dixon) has a long-ago criminal record, but he’s trying hard to stay clean while raising two young children. As he’s closing up at the end of the day, he’s suddenly confronted by Duane (Bill Duke), an angry young Black man who, looking for a new approach to his apparently dead-end life, has discovered radical Islam and insists that he be addressed as Abdullah Mohammed Akbar. I won’t go into what happens between them, but it puts into perspective the fun & games of the rest of the film.

 Car Wash is hardly the sort of movie that wins Oscars. But the good folks at the Cannes Film Festival nominated it for the 1977 Palme d’Or, and director Schultz was given a Technical Grand Prize, with Norman Whitfield‘s funky musical score also hailed.

 

 

 

Saint Eva

Art by Robert Williams

Long ago, well before home computers, I lucked into a wonderful phone interview with Eva Marie Saint, who passed away recently at the remarkable age of 102. A search through my paper files has not (darn it!) turned up a copy of my published article. It appeared, I think, in the Hollywood Reporter, tied to Valentine’s Day.  But I’ve always remembered the words I chose to start the article: “Imagine kissing Cary Grant. Or being locked in a passionate embrace with Paul Newman.”  My focus was on how an actress manages to stay professional during a convincingly hot love scene. What was it like, I asked Saint, to play a mysterious Hitchcock blonde smooching Grant on a moving train in North By Northwest? With characteristic matter-of-factness she answered: her biggest concern in kissing Cary Grant was that she might accidentally step on his feet.

 Eva Marie Saint (what a wonderful name!) captivated Hollywood because she projected a unique combination of fire and ice. A natural blonde from a Quaker family, she seemed cool and reserved, but excelled at roles in which she was bowled over by passion. Her film debut, after some successful Broadway appearances, was opposite Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. The role of Edie, whose beloved brother has been killed by corrupt union bosses, won her an Oscar for best supporting actress, and gave her lifelong respect for Brando’s unique film presence. The statuette was handed to her two days before the birth of her first child, and she quipped on stage, “"I may have the baby right here!”

 Practically unique for a Hollywood star, Saint was married for sixty-five years to her first great love. TV director Jeffrey Hayden. Her career might have been even bigger if she hadn’t insisted on putting family first. I never met her son, but daughter Laurette was a Roger Corman employee in the 1980s, between my own two Corman tenures. In researching my Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers, I had a long, instructive chat with Laurette about life as a Corman assistant. Though she lacked her mother’s platinum hair, Laurette had some of Eva Marie Saint’s basic dignity. Which was why it was hard for me to imagine one facet of her job: helping with office “breast checks,” in which some leading ladies were asked to bare themselves above the waist to prove that their bosoms were suitably photogenic. For a while Laurette didn’t question the propriety of what she was being required to do.  Gradually, however, after working on Corman flicks like Slumber Party Massacre (1982), she came to feel that the New World Pictures attitude toward women and sex was tougher to justify, and that it was “harder to keep a sense of humor.” That’s why she moved on, first assuming executive posts at Lifetime Television and the USA Network, before quitting showbiz to evolve into a marriage and family therapist. Given that her father died at age 90 and her mother lived past the century mark, I send her condolences on her mother’s death and wish her long years of success in her chosen profession.

 Eva Marie Saint’s great era encompassed the years 1954 through 1960, when she was cast opposite Paul Newman as a romantic lead in Exodus. Thereafter she played smallish parts in big films like Grand Prix (1966) as well as bigger parts in smaller ones (The Stalking Moon, 1968), before taking a long break and then appearing mostly on television. (She played Cybill Shepherd’s mother for six episodes of Moonlighting.)  I’m certain she remained classy through all of it.

 

Jack Cole: The Jazz Dancer

Eons ago, when I was a small child, I was privileged to study modern dance at a West Hollywood mecca known as the Lester Horton Dance Theater. Among my early teachers was a lovely woman named Carmen de Lavallade, who would go on to have a solid career as a dancer and actress, and would take home a Kennedy Center Honor in the days before the fate of the center was headline news. I was thrilled, many decades later, to share a meal with the still-beautiful eighty-year-old Carmen in New York City. I was also thrilled that, at a reunion event in L.A., the great Alvin Ailey remembered my childhood nickname. Alvin, Carmen, and I were all, of course, huge fans of the creative work of Dance Theater’s founder, Lester Horton. So were the writers at the New York Times, one of whom wrote a rave review of the Horton troupe under the headline, “Genius on the Wrong Coast.”

 Back then I heard fleetingly about other L.A.-based dancers and choreographers, In particular I heard about Jack Cole, whom I associated with sexy movie routines. But I never considered myself knowledgeable about Cole’s contributions to the art of the dance, until now. I’ve just finished reading Debra Levine’s exhaustive (but hardly exhausting) new Jazzed: Jack Cole and Twentieth-Century American Dance, published by the University Press of Kentucky. Levine, a longtime dance writer whose lively prose contributes hugely to the success of this book, seems to have dug into every corner of Cole’s eventful life: his nightclub adventures, his years in Hollywood, his forays into choreography for the Broadway stage, where Man of La Mancha was his biggest hit. Having interviewed what appears to be everyone who ever danced under Cole’s tutelage—a group that includes Gwen Verdon, Barrie Chase, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade—she is also able to convey the complexity of Cole’s on-stage and off-stage personality. (He inspired love, fear, and pretty much everything in between.)

 Cole’s first contribution to dance lore was his invention of something called “Hindu swing,” which evolved out of his serious study of Indian dance, combined with a jazzy uptempo beat. Throughout his career he (like Lester Horton) explored dance forms from many cultures, then demanded of his dancers a grueling technique that few could master. But he also, in Hollywood, found himself obliged to create effective movement for non-dancers like Marlene Dietrich and Jane Russell. Levine credits him with significantly energizing Rita Hayworth’s portrayal of the title role in Gilda (1946): his uncredited staging of Hayworth’s “Put the Blame on Mame” in that film turned her into an unforgettable silver-screen vamp. 

 But most of all, Cole  was known for his work with Marilyn Monroe. Throughout her troubled career Marilyn trusted him implicitly as both a choreographer and a drama coach. Levine says Cole taught her how to move onscreen, and led her through her sexiest and most famous musical number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” from 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (He was responsible for every aspect of that number, including its bold red-and-shocking-pink color scheme.) Years later, he struggled to coach her through the troubled Let’s Make Love as well as Something’s Got to Give, which remains unfinished because of its star’s sudden death.

 Though Cole never won a major award for his choreography, Levine insists that such later greats as Bob Fosse learned from his stylistic experimentation. Count me as a new fan . . . of both Jack Cole and Debra Levine. Though Cole (1911-1974) is long gone, may they both keep on dancing.  

Marilyn Monroe sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

 

Visiting the Museo

The other day, I noticed in the L.A. Times an article about a major robbery at a small French museum, located in the lordly final home of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. A pair of original Renoir paintings were taken by thieves, but the article speculated that these valuable works of art were unsellable in the world’s marketplace, because they were too well known to entice any would-be buyers to lay out millions. (See, by way of a comic contrast, the secret selling of the so-called Cellini Venus in one of my favorite romantic comedies, How to Steal a Million.)

 On the same day that I read the Times piece on the Renoir thefts, I chanced to watch a Mexican heist film from 2018. It chronicles, surely with some poetic license, an actual famous theft that took place on Christmas Eve in the year 1985. The two young robbers, both veterinary students,   snuck into Mexico City’s Museo Nacional de Antropología, and made off with a number of  priceless pre-Colombian artifacts. One of the thieves was eventually caught, though the other still, after all these years, remains at large. Thankfully most, though not all, of the national treasures they stole have been recovered in good condition..  

 The 2018 film starring the ubiquitous Gael Garcia Bernal changes various details, but remains true to the basic thrust of the actual story.  I remember particularly the striking contrast between the two young men. Juan Núñez (Bernal) is clearly the leader, both logistically and philosophically. He comes from a large and loving extended family, but seems to resent their Christmas Eve frivolity, particularly since he’s expected to take his dead uncle’s place in wearing a Santa suit and doling out gifts. By contrast, his sidekick, Benjamin Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris) would clearly prefer to spend Christmas Eve quietly at home with his dying father. Still, at midnight, the two are on their way (in Juan’s father’s car) to the famous museum, where they remove numerous exotic treasures from their glass cases with exquisite care.

 But leaving town with their booty is only half the battle. They get some lucky breaks—like cops who pull them over but don’t realize the value of the trinkets in their possession—but it’s far more difficult than they assumed to find a buyer for priceless antiquities. Their road trip has its funny moments, including a visit to a seedy nightclub where one of the dancers is an ageing former Mexican film star. But tensions are growing between the two.

 Inevitably they end up back in Mexico City, where they need to return the car appropriated from Juan’s father. And, inevitably, the loot they’ve been spiriting around Mexico. I won’t go into detail about what happens next, except to mention a vivid moment in which Juan displays his reverence for one of the relics, the so-called Jade Mask of Pakal, as he returns it to its place of honor in the museum. It’s his salute, I feel, to the ancestors who long ago owned these treasures.

 The keepers of Mexico’s National Museum must care deeply about this story, because the magnificent museum building in Chapultepec Park is lovingly depicted on film. It’s a destination that should be part of everyone’s Mexican travel plans. And perhaps the film has the virtue of making us think, just a bit, about the complex—and sometimes bloody—history of the objects that two young men take such great pains to steal. The Aztecs and the Mayan committed their share of bad deeds, but they displayed a grandeur that these two young thieves sorely lack. 

 

The Rain Pounds in “Ponyo”

Of course I admire the films of Studio Ghibli, as led by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, That being said, although I find much of the master’s work thrilling, I believe some of it is overly complicated and occasionally downright grim. But I’ve just seen Ponyo, a story oriented toward a young audience, and found it thoroughly charming, deftly blending a lively sense of magic with the studio’s long-time commitment to the wellbeing of the natural world.

 In watching Ponyo, I found myself thinking about “The Little Mermaid,” not the Disney animated film but rather the original Hans Christian Andersen story. That’s why I was pleased to discover that Miyazaki recalled reading Andersen’s tale as a young child and being bitterly disappointed by its ending. In Ponyo, which features along with the title character a good-hearted boy and his mother, five-year-old Sōsuke truly loves his mysterious playmate, and his devotion allows her to live on in his world instead of melting into seafoam. Ponyo takes place in and near the ocean: its young heroine evolves in the course of the film from a goldfish-like sea creature into a spunky little red-headed  girl. She’s magical both because of what she’s capable of doing (like expanding a toy boat until it’s large enough to sail on) and because she has an unstoppable love of life.

 In the early 2000s, Miyazaki was such a superstar that major English-speaking actors were eager to voice the characters for his films’ international versions. In 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle, based on a British children’s novel, the central figure, Sophie, is played as a young girl by Emily Mortimer and as a much older one by the ageless Jean Simmons. Christian Bale voices the exotic Howl, and none other than Lauren Bacall is the Witch of the Waste.  

Four years later,  the English-language dub of Ponyo was directed by John Lasseter and other Pixar honchos. Ponyo herself is voiced by Miley Cyrus’s young sister, Noah, Sōsuke by Nick Jonas, and his mother by the indomitable Tina Fey. Key smaller roles are played by Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, and Cate Blanchett as an ethereal Goddess of Mercy. And the clutch of colorful oldsters (a popular element in many Ghibli films) is voiced by some of Hollywood’s finest: Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, and Betty White.

 As always in Ghibli films, characters reflect anime traditions and do not look especially Asian. For central roles, wild red hair and a tall, thin frame seem particularly popular. For instance, these traits help to identify Neeson’s character, the ambiguous semi-human Fujimoto, who considers himself Ponyo’s father as well as the protector of the natural world. But the film’s landscape, full of seaside crags. step promontories, and wild waves, unquestionably reflects Japan’s own dramatic topography. As, in the wake of Ponyo’s adoption of life on land, the natural order gets skewed, the ocean boils up into a terrifying maelstrom, threatening both ships at sea and homes on the shore. Giant waves rock tiny boats full of fleeing citizens, capturing the sense of heightened natural turmoil we know from Tokugawa-period Japanese woodblock prints (One classic example: Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic 1831 “Great Wave Off Kanagawa”). Meanwhile torrential rain pounds the land, submerging whole villages. The animation in these scenes is powerful indeed, adding hugely to the dramatic force  of what could in other hands be a sugary-sweet little tale.

 The weather gods tell us to expect intense El Niño conditions later this year. That means, at least where I live, heavy rains pounding the very dry earth. Who know? Maybe more Ghibli inspiration. 

 

When a Face Emerges from the Crowd

When I was in, perhaps, the seventh grade, I enjoyed a weekly trip to the local library with my mom and little sister. As a voracious reader with a special appreciation for stage musicals and comedies, I would curl up in the theatre section and read to my heart’s content. One day I came across a work I didn’t know: A Face in the Crowd, by Budd Schulberg. The title and the author’s  name were both unfamiliar to me. But I was well-acquainted with the star of the production. Andy Griffith, who had appeared on the Broadway stage and then the film adaptation of No Time for Sergeants. This was the comic tale of a hillbilly bumpkin drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. My father, a veteran himself, loved good-hearted humorous takes on military protocol, and so I saw—and adored—the film at an early age. With Andy Griffith as the leading man, I  assumed A Face in the Crowd would be equally lovable and funny.

 Wrong! This 1957 work (which turns out to have been a film script based on Schulberg’s original story) does star Griffith as a country boy not much used to sophisticated folk. But he’s far from good-hearted. When we first meet him, he’s drunk and disorderly in a smalltown Southern jail, one that just happens to be visited by an attractive young radio producer (Patricia Neal) searching out local color. Discovering his gift of gab and his easy way with an acoustic guitar, she christens him “Lonesome” Rhodes, and helps turn him into the star of his own local radio show. Then TV comes calling. Soon he’s attracting serious attention, especially from women of all ages. When I discovered his sexual adventuring, both with Neal and with a young high school cheerleader (Lee Remick was introduced in this role), I was seriously shocked. (Needless to say, in the late-1950s, the physical nature of these relationships was not shown on screen, but I certainly got the message. And I’ve always considered A Face in the Crowd  my jump into adult reading material.)

 Today I’m a lot less easily shocked. But A Face in the Crowd still startles in its prescience about the way demagogues get started. Lonesome Rhodes is not simply interested in pretty women. He also quickly realizes that, thanks to the new medium of television, his homespun charm is his ticket into the halls of power. We see him instinctively discovering how to spread a sponsor’s message for an essentially worthless product. And before long he’s advising a major U.S. Senate candidate on how to improve upon his stuffy image, by way of a cute nickname and some new folksy mannerisms.  

 Essentially, the country boy is turning into a monster, one who is well aware that—thanks to the hold he has on his enormous TV audience—there’s nothing to stop him from making his own power grab in the near future. Surely we can well imagine him joking and crooning his way into the White House. Sound familiar? Back in the day, screenwriter Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan pointed to Will Rogers, Arthur Godfrey, and other media folk of the era as partial models for their central character, along with preacher Billy Graham and populist politician Huey Long. Today there are some obvious celebrity types who’ve made far bigger gains in the political world. Thanks to their street smarts as well as their ability to break all the rules and come out smiling, it sometimes seems as though nothing can stop them. 

 

Ingrid on Insta

There’s a special kick in discovering a modest indie previously unknown to me. Ingrid Goes West sounds, at the outset, like a folksy comedy tracing a young woman’s arrival in a small western town—an update on Cat Ballou, maybe. Hardly! This modest 2017 release starring Aubrey Plaza (whom I realize now was the engaging star of My Old Ass) mashes together laughs and chills in a wonderfully contemporary way. Though in 2017 Plaza herself was hardly a newcomer to showbiz, the writing/directing team of Matt Spicer and David Branson Smith were total newbies, who deservedly took home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, as well as an Independent Spirit nod for Best First Feature. As the instructor, through UCLA Extension, of many aspiring filmmakers, I love seeing what can be done with a small but talented cast and a timely premise.

 Ingrid Goes West is a darkly comic satire on the way social media feeds can ruin young lives. Ingrid, who starts out in Pittsburgh, is obsessed with the would-be celebrities who flaunt their cool lifestyles via Instagram. Following her mother’s death and an embarrassing exploit that shows her the wisdom of leaving town quickly, she takes her entire inheritance (some $60,000, as I recall) in cash and heads for the west coast. There she scores a rental near Venice Beach and focuses all her energy on befriending hot influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), who is delighted to accept her as a new (and clearly well-heeled) bestie. On long girls-day-out jaunts to Joshua Tree, they trade confidences. But Ingrid never reveals how badly she wants to be part of Taylor’s casually hip—and very well publicized—world.

 Yet Ingrid is making enemies as well as friends. She can easily get around her sweet-natured neighbor (the engaging O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a would-be screenwriter who soon loves her almost as much as he does Batman. But Taylor’s husband, who left the corporate world at Taylor’s urging to become a would-be artist, is immune to the charms of social media, and is increasingly uneasy about Ingrid’s near-constant presence. Then there’s Taylor’s hunky but slightly menacing brother, newly arrived from a sweet stay in Paris, who for understandable reasons knows a grifter when he sees one. 

 As the film gets going and the bad behavior escalates, you can hardly call it comedic. I was, frankly, disappointed when Ingrid, finally realizing the error of her ways, seems to publicly acknowledge that she’s a total fraud. But the sappy ending that appeared to be on tap at this point quickly converts—via a great shifting of gears—into a cheeky and uproarious coda that I would not want to spoil.

 Plaza (who also stepped in as one of the film’s producers) has the gift of being able to veer from sweet to scary, and from pathetic to obnoxious, at the drop of a hat. I’ll look forward to seeing her onscreen again, especially if she continues to back edgy material that suits her particular gifts. There’s a lot of smart writing too, and I love the way in-the-moment texting to one’s followers is introduced into this story from its opening scenes onward.  

 As a screenwriting instructor who teaches advanced rewrite classes through UCLA Extension, I am open to stories of all kinds, including those that require far-flung locations and casts of thousands. But I particularly appreciate the small, clever scripts that can make do with a few good actors and limited locations. Ingrid Goes West, with its tiny cast and present-day SoCal vibe, is a wonderful way to jump into the bigtime.

 

 

 

"8 Women": A French-Fried Musical

The French, as we know, are in love with old American cinema. They adore Hitchcock thrillers; they adore female-centric social comedies with couture by Edith Head; they adore what they’ve helpfully named film noir; they adore old MGM musicals. That’s why it has somehow occurred to them to combine all these genres into what Wikipedia calls “a 2002 jukebox musical comedy mystery film.” Based on a 1958 stage play, 8 Femmes (or, in English, 8 Women) is a mildly amusing entertainment that features some of France’s greatest female film stars: everyone from the still-gorgeous Catherine Deneuve to the hyper-sexy Fanny Ardent to the much-admired Isabelle Huppert to the now-octogenarian Danielle Darrieux, along with several attractive younger players.

 The set-up is familiar from many old plays and movies of this type. We’re in the great room of a large country home, where a wealthy family and its retainers are all preparing for a snowy Christmas Eve celebration. Deneuve, the lady of the house, has just arrived home with her vivacious elder daughter, newly back from college. There to greet her are the wheelchair-bound family matriarch (Darrieux), Deneuve’s neurotic sister (Huppert), and Deneuve’s plain-jane younger daughter, along with the family cook and a sexy chambermaid (Emmanuelle Béart) whom no one seems to trust. Because this is a musical, mother and daughters quickly launch into a satiric song about their homelife, "Papa t'es plus dans le coup" ("Dad, You're Out of Touch")

 But where is the pater familias about whom they sing? Upstairs in his bedchamber, with a knife in his back. Suddenly we’re in a whodunit, with everyone apparently having a motive to murder the wealthy but not exactly virtuous man. An additional suspect eventually shows up: Ardent as the victim’s sultry (and financially needy) sister. That makes eight women altogether: they all have their secrets, which get more and more lurid, and they all have musical numbers to perform, leading up to the elderly Darrieux’s solo rendition of the lugubrious “Il n’y a pas amour heureux” (“There is no happy love.”)  Eventually, the not-very-interesting mystery of Marcel’s death is solved, and we can all go home.

 I’ve read that François Ozon, who both wrote and directed this film, originally wanted to do a French remake of George Cukor’s 1939 all-female The Women, though legal issues got in the way.. Alas, the catty wit of the Cukor original (adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from the play by Claire Boothe Luce) seems to be missing here, along with The Women’s ultra-sharp delineation of social mores. And the determination to make this movie into both a murder mystery and a musical leads to a failure on both counts.

 Though I personally love musicals, I’m honestly not sure why the French are so keen to embrace them. They did have one genuine musical hit, Jacques Demy’s 1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which could hardly be mistaken for a Hollywood musical comedy. It’s a beautiful film, with gorgeous art direction and a lovely score by Michel Legrand, but there’s absolutely nothing comic about this story of love and loss. Three years later, Demy tried for a lighter tone in another musical, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort), which again stars Deneuve, along with her sister Françoise Dorléac, and even finds a place for George Chakiris and Gene Kelly. For years I wanted to see this film, but when I finally did I was sadly disappointed. It’s flat and inconsequential: no fizz, no real joy. Much like that strange hybrid, 8 Femmes. 

 

Telling the Truth about “True Lies”

I admit I’m not a huge fan of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic. Still, I have to admire Cameron’s cleverness in combining two eternally popular film genres. Most disaster movies (as well as a stage musical, based on the Titanic’s sinking. that played on Broadway in the late nineties) rely on a broad canvas. Their goal is to cut across social lines, revealing how a single cataclysmic event upends the lives of a wide swath of people from various backgrounds and economic levels. Some survive; some die; life goes on. (In the case of the Broadway musical, there are a lot of forgettable ballads along the way. And I cannot remember a single character who actually stood out from the throng.)

 Cameron’s take on the sinking of the huge British ocean liner by an iceberg while on its 1912 maiden voyage is not entirely different from what I’ve described above. There’s a cast of what seem like thousands, and class differences are very much a part of the story. But Cameron is smart enough (as both the film’s screenwriter and its director) not to spread his gaze too wide. Instead, he combines his disaster film with a strong focus on a single couple of his own invention, two attractive young people from very different social circumstances who meet aboard the doomed ship and violate social norms by falling passionately in love.  So the disaster film is combined with a doomed romance that audiences around the world quickly took to their hearts.

 Cameron’s talent for genre-mashing did not begin with Titanic. In 1994, he released a film with a wonderfully oxymoronic title: True Lies. In its opening moments, it’s easy to think of a James Bond thriller. There’s a lordly European manor, dusted with snow. While inside well-dressed couples dance and shmooze, a man encased in what looks like a SCUBA suit is descending through the icy grounds on the perimeter. Somehow he surfaces inside the manor, where he quickly peels off the SCUBA gear and appears, sleek and slim, in a dapper tuxedo. Quickly he’s inside the party, making small-talk with guests and engaging one particular lovely in a sexy tango. OMG—it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it’s pretty clear he’s a spy in the Sean Connery mode.

 But we’re not exactly in James Bond territory. Once he’s done with the mission, which involves checking out a Middle Eastern terrorist group called the Crimson Jihad, Arnold’s Harry Tasker returns home to the DC suburbs to rejoin his wife Helen, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Knowing nothing about her husband’s days as a counter-terrorism expert working under deep cover for the U.S. government, she assumes he’s a mild-mannered computer salesman whose life is totally lacking in excitement. And, frankly, she could use some excitement. Which is why she’s vulnerable to the advances of a would-be man of mystery (he’s wonderfully played by Bill Paxton). And this of course is what prompts Harry to stop saving the world, at least temporarily, in order to focus instead on winning back his wife, by any means necessary. There’s much hilarity in this classic domestic comedy, which eventually folds in the defeat of the bad guys and a wonderfully satisfying (and sexy) ending sequence.

 Schwarzenegger, who had starred in Cameron’s career-making—and hardly funny—The Terminator (1984) shows himself here to be a polished comic actor. And I can’t say enough about Jamie Lee Curtis, whose transformation from bored housewife to would-be vamp is hilariously funny. At some moments she reminded me of the great Carol Burnett, who made awkwardness into an artform. Bravo to all! 

Sniffing The Rose

Though I’m a Baby Boomer in good standing, I was never much for rock concerts. I never saw Janis Joplin perform live, and I never (until last night) saw The Rose, the 1979 Joplin-inspired film that became the auspicious big-screen debut of Bette Midler. Yes, I knew the powerful title song, and I was certainly familiar with some of the big names in the cast, including Alan Bates as Rose’s hard-assed manager and Harry Dean Stanton as the surly singer-songwriter who puts her in her place. But I went into this film with a certain skepticism about watching yet another movie about a rocker coping with personal demons (see, for instance, the 2018 Freddy Mercury biopic starring an Oscar-winning Rami Malek). One big difference: the character of Rose is female, with all that implies about being a gifted but deeply impressionable woman in what is very much a man’s world.

 So what did I think of The Rose? I was dazzled, as almost everyone has been, by Midler’s powerfully unhinged lead performance. (She was Oscar-nominated, but lost to Sally Field as Norma Rae.) As directed by the talented Mark Rydell, himself a former Juilliard-trained jazz musician, the other actors were strong too. But I admit I was somewhat frustrated by Bo Goldman’s screenplay, which—though giving us an intimate look at the life of a touring rock star—never really explored the forces that had turned Mary Rose Foster into the talented but troubled rock star she was.

 For me perhaps the most gratifying viewing came courtesy of the second disc in my library copy of The Rose. In an interview filmed for the Criterion Collection release of The Rose in 2015, Bette Midler herself (looking none the worse for wear) candidly explained how she came to identify with a fierce on-stage performer who was not wholly unlike herself. She particularly praised costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge for providing her with floaty, sparkly garments—many of them rose-colored—that captured the character’s dynamic onstage aura. Director Mark Rydell  explained to an interviewer how his own musical background contributed to the making of this film. (Rydell, who died just a few weeks ago at the age of 97, was also responsible for directing such stellar flicks as Cinderella Liberty and On Golden Pond.) Wanting to truly capture what he called “the strain and pain of performing,” Rydell insisted to his studio bosses that his leading lady be an actual singer, not a great actress like Jane Fonda equipped with a dubbed singing voice.

 But my favorite interviewee was cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who talked at length about his stylized use of light and perspective. The several outdoor concert scenes in the film were shot with the help of some 6000 extras (who were instructed by Rydell not to clap wildly for Midler’s Rose unless she had truly won them over). To capture the onstage performances at one go, Zsigmond enlisted such ace cinematographers as Conrad Hall and Haskell Wexler to show up and help shoot the concert footage from their own chosen perspective, while cameraman David Myers, a veteran of rock ‘n’ roll documentaries, provided his own take on the onstage action.

 Though the film’s concert scenes are indeed spectacular,  Zsigmond and his interviewer (the cinematographer John Bailey) also pointed to a dynamic cinematographic moment in which Midler as Rose cruises through a gay men’s bathhouse. There’s also the essential twilight scene in which Rose—ensconced in a telephone booth at the edge of her hometown’s darkened football field—makes a fateful decision that will change her life.

 

 

Bob Mackie, Naked? (A farewell to a man of the cloth)

 

(On the occasion of Bob Mackie's passing, I can't resist re-posting this tribute to his talent and wit.) 

I met Bob Mackie circa 1981, on the fabled MGM studio lot. We were on the set for Herbert Ross’s ambitious musical, Pennies from Heaven, starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. They played dreamers who (almost) survive the Great Depression by fantasizing about living lives filled with music, dance, and luxuries like spectacular clothing. Needless to say, this was a dream assignment for Mackie, whose chief claim to fame at the time was his flamboyant duds for TV divas like Carol Burnett and Cher.

 As a big fan of the Carol Burnett Show, I asked the amiable blond Mackie (wearing a polo shirt and looking like a kid) whether he was responsible solely for the lavish gowns in which Burnett greeted her weekly studio audiences. In fact, he explained, he did everything related to costuming for the long-running weekly variety show. This meant bunny suits for the dancers, when needed, and goofy garb for Burnett in her various skits. It turns out—as Burnett herself is quick to admit—that it was Mackie who came up with the crowning sight-gag in a movie parody of Gone With the Wind that got one of the show’s all-time biggest laughs. Burnett plays Scarlett O’Hara, forced to greet a post-war Rhett Butler in a dress hastily crafted from her plantation’s green velvet curtains. When she wafts down Tara’s majestic staircase, viewers can’t help guffawing: her home-made gown still retains its original curtain rod.

 Burnett is one of many celebs interviewed by Matthew Miele for his lively 2024 documentary, Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion. Its title refers to the tantalizingly sheer sheath gowns designed by Mackie first for Mitzi Gaynor and eventually for Cher, who—with her scintillatingly slender figure—has been perhaps his ultimate muse. His glittery gowns hint at nudity but leave the wearer’s private areas discreetly covered, though oh so sexy. For Mackie, all this now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t glitz is fun to design, and has led him to costume everyone from Vegas show girls to Barbie. Another of his more unusual clients in Elton John, who encouraged Mackie’s outrageous side, allowing him to come up with a Donald Duck ensemble and an Amadeus-style frock coat, as well as a sequined baseball uniform for a sold-out concert at Dodger Stadium.

 It's clear that Mackie adores pretty women (and pretty men like RuPaul), but in fact he seems to like pretty much everyone. The documentary carefully hints at his sexual orientation, but also shows homey scenes of the now-eighty-plus-year-old Mackie (grey-haired but still boyish) cozily hanging out with his recently-discovered granddaughter and her children on a sunny patio. (His son Robin, a Hollywood make-up artist, died in 1993 at age 33 after an apparently turbulent life.) Though he dresses top stars, Mackie seems wholly comfortable—even overjoyed—to be dressing conservatively and blending into family surroundings.

 Mackie’s talent for glamour has earned him fame and fortune, as well as many accolades from his peers. (The film opens with him modestly accepting myriad awards from fellow designers and critics.) But the top Hollywood honors have eluded him. He has three long-ago Oscar nominations—for Lady Sings the Blues, Funny Lady, and Pennies from Heaven. In the documentary, Carol Burnett expresses outrage that the 1982 Oscar for costume design went not to Pennies from Heaven but to the year’s big film, Chariots of Fire. In this well-crafted period Olympic Games drama, veteran designer Milena Canonero’s cast mostly wear track suits that look like long underwear. Ah well! I guess no one can win them all. 

Bloodfist: Remembering “Body and Soul”

It’s hard to believe how many Hollywood films (and international films, for that matter) have focused on prizefighting. Such ring-set films seem to have a built-in audience: Wikipedia lists 50 boxing movies that over the years have grossed between $3 million and $300 million at the worldwide box office. At the very top of the list are five Rocky movies, as well as three Creed films that can be considered Rocky spinoffs with an African-American twist. A number of highly successful boxing movies are biopics: see Ali (2001), with “The Greatest” played by Will Smith; The Hurricane (1999), about the ringside and legal woes of Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter; The Great White Hope (1970), the slightly fictionalizing story of early Black prizefighter Jack Johnson; and of course Martin Scorsese’s great Raging Bull (1980) in which Robert De Niro plays the deeply troubled Jake La Motta. (I could name a good many more boxing biopics, but enough is enough.)

 Then there are boxing-related films that qualify as comedies. See for instance, Danny Kaye in a musical called The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), about a neighborhood milkman who accidentally becomes a boxing sensation. The high-grossing Any Which Way But Loose (1978) and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980), both star no less than Clint Eastwood as a trucker who’s also a bare-knuckles brawler, and who roams the American West along with an orangutan named Clyde. In a more sentimental vein, a desperate Charlie Chaplin tries boxing in City Lights (1931), a film that many consider his masterpiece. Even more sentimental is another 1931 flick, The Champ, starring Wallace Beery as an over-the-hill prizefighter desperately trying to care for his young son. And let’s not forget Hilary Swank as a female boxer whose dreams are shattered, along with her body, in Clint Eastwood’s poignant Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby (2004)

 My parents, who loathed John Wayne westerns as well as anything to do with boxing, made room in their hearts for John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952). It’s the rollicking story of a former pro boxer with a guilty conscience who must reluctantly fight on behalf of the lass he loves. It’s a carefree Gaelic romp just right for St. Patrick’s Day.

 On the other hand, there’s 1947’s Body and Soul, which is a great deal more somber, but is often considered one of the best boxing films of all time. This designation is partly because it was shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, who later won Oscars for both The Rose Tattoo and Hud. If part of the attraction of boxing on film is that it allows for intense close-ups of two human bodies in motion, Howe’s in-tight camerawork beautifully conveys the sport’s intensity. Meanwhile director Robert Rossen’s strong cast, led by John Garfield, punches home a powerful story about a young would-be boxer, his girl, his worried mother, and the dangerous men who control him. The film was a critical and commercial hit, accruing three Oscar nominations (it won a statuette for its editing). But its cast and crew paid a high price. The story, which specifically pointed to Jews and African Americans as victimized by powerful WASP interests, was not a safe one to be telling in an era when the House Un-American Activities Committee was on the rise. Star Garfield, screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, and director Robert Rossen all found themselves called to testify before HUAC, and only Rossen (who eventually agreed to name names) emerged unscathed. Garfield continued to make films, but was deeply scarred by the HUAC experience. He died in 1952 at age 39. 

 

Responding to an Invite

I am not the first commentator to compare The Invite to Edward Albee’s classic drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Actually, there’s a whole theatrical genre of what I call couch plays—stories that unfold almost entirely within a living-room set, featuring two married couples who meet, mingle, clash, and maybe flirt before ultimately going their separate ways. See, for example, the play and eventually the film God of Carnage, by Yasmina Reza. But that work focuses on the two couples’ status as the indignant parents of (unseen) brawling schoolboys. The Invite,  by contrast, hews much closer to Virginia Woolf territory by dedicating itself to the sexual side of marriage.

 This was originally a Spanish play and film, but it works perfectly well in its cinematic transfer to yuppie San Francisco. The first character we meet is Joe (Seth Rogen), a forty-something failed musician who now uncomfortably leads the jazz ensemble at a mediocre local music conservatory. He is, it turns out, uncomfortable about a lot of things, including a marriage that has over time become contentious. His wife Angela, played by Olivia Wilde (who also smartly directed this piece) is a stay-at-home hausfrau who has recently poured her artistic skills into an extensive renovation. She’s neurotic and controlling; he’s neurotic and wants nothing more than to be left alone. But tonight that won’t work, because she has unexpectedly invited over the rather glamorous couple upstairs, who have made a big impression at odd hours of the night with their wild sexual antics. So Angela is first seen obsessively fussing over a charcuterie arrangement and worrying about which wine to serve, while Joe bemoans his bad back and his disinclination to hobnob with strangers.

 The guests, when they arrive, seem determined to be charming. Basically, they want to charm the pants off their hosts.  Hawk and Piña (Edward Norton and a platinum-blonde Penelope Cruz) are about a decade older than their hosts, and have clearly had a more varied life experience. They apologize profusely for the noise that has disturbed their neighbors’ sleep, but explain that they might not have been the guilty parties. You see, they like to invite friendly folks over for an evening of group sex. And, hey, would Angela and Joe care to partake?

 What follows is a series of revelations in which we come to know all four of these neighbors better. Joe and Angela’s strained marriage comes in for scrutiny, but we gradually discover that Piña and Hawk—despite their freewheeling sexuality—have their own twisty past lives and are experiencing their own tensions.  

 Far be it from me to disclose how the film resolves itself. Suffice it to say that the mood keeps shifting—from distrust to fascination to hilarity to something far different—leading to a coda that leaves us at least a bit hopeful for the future of these complicated folks.

 If you’re tired of cast-of-thousands movies, and prefer those with stories that are intimate, psychologically acute, and occasionally very funny, The Invite has much to offer. All four actors are at the top of their game, and seem to be ready for anything. Seth Rogen, in particular, is both exasperating and hilarious, and I personally loved spending a fraught evening with him and the neuroses that just won’t quit. Then there is Olivia Wilde’s jittery eagerness to please, Edward Norton’s deceptively cheery bonhomie, and Penelope Cruz’s take-charge smarts. The ending of The Invite may contain a touch of Virginia Woolf, but these four are definitely not imitations of Edward Albee’s characters. Instead, they’re fully (and fascinatingly) themselves.  

 

Sybil: The Many Faces of Sally Field

It’s been a very long time since a barely twenty-one-year-old Sally Field soared as the Flying Nun. For years she was defined as a “cute” TV actress, a girl-next-door type, but her determination to be taken seriously sent her to the Actors Studio for intensive training with the noted drama coach, Lee Strasberg. Soon thereafter, she auditioned for a TV movie based on a true-life story that had mesmerized the American public. Sybil was the written account of a young teacher caught in the grip of what was then known as “multiple personality disorder.” (The condition, exceedingly rare, is now called dissociative identity disorder). Sybil, the product of a ghastly upbringing, was apt to morph without warning into one of thirteen alternate personalities. But a kindly therapist managed to help Sybil reintegrate herself into a functioning adult, so the story ultimately ended in triumph.

 Having admired Field’s work as a fairly young actress (1979’s Norma Rae).and a fairly old one (2026’s Remarkably Bright Creatures), I was curious to see her in the role that elevated her into Hollywood superstardom. The two-disc DVD edition of Sybil I got from my local library contains fascinating behind-the-scenes interviews with the film’s screenwriter and others. I was fascinated by the presence of Joanne Woodward, who had won an Oscar for starring as three distinct personalities in a 1957 film on a similar topic, The Three Faces of Eve. In Sybil, Woodward plays not the patient but the warm and nurturing psychiatrist who makes the young woman whole again. Woodward’s explanation of how she came to play this role is a fascinating example of the way Hollywood works. The TV network behind the project was apparently eager to attach a major star to it, maybe someone of the caliber of Audrey Hepburn or Natalie Wood. Woodward, as a close friend of the screenwriter, knew all about the project, and wanted to see it go forward. That’s why she proposed herself as someone with enough credentials to (perhaps) attract a viewing audience. It worked, and she gave a lovely performance.

 But of course a project called Sybil must have a really strong actress in the title role. Screenwriter Stewart Stern remembers seeing a number of young hopefuls parade through the casting office. Eventually lunchtime came and went, and everyone was more than ready to take a break. That’s when Sally Field entered, and to everyone’s total surprise BECAME the character in all her complexity. From that point on, no one else was considered, and Field’s on-screen 1976 triumph won her both an Emmy and the industry’s full respect.  Within three years she won her first Oscar for Norma Rae, and the second one—for Places in the Heart—followed eight years later. Then Steven Spielberg eventually cast her opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as Mary Todd Lincoln, surely no one’s idea of a cute ingenue. (She’s said she DEFINITELY has no desire to play Mrs. Lincoln again via Cole Escola’s outrageous Broadway hit, Oh, Mary!)    

 In reading up, after the fact, on Sybil, I had a bit of a shock. It seems that in a 2011 book called Sybil Exposed, author Debbie Nathan uncovered the fact that the real Sybil—actually named Shirley Mason— later in life admitted to deliberately concocting the multiple  personalities she claimed were taking over her body. This was, apparently, her way of keeping her therapist, Dr. Connie Wilbur, deeply involved in her case. So in a sense, we’ve all been bamboozled, right? I’d love to see Sally Field  next play the real-life Dr. Wilbur, taken in by the masquerade concocted by her patient.

 

 

Remarkably Bright Actress: Sally Field

Not long ago, I read Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus, a 2016 non-fiction study of one of the most fascinating of all sea creatures. Montgomery’s book, based on the author’s years of interaction with giant Pacific octopuses at the New England Aquarium, gave me a new respect for an undersea critter with eight limbs, several hearts, and a good deal of intelligence. One of Montgomery’s many fans is Shelby van Pelt, whose debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, became a worldwide best-seller. One of its unusual features: an octopus named Marcellus serves as its narrator.

 Van Pelt’s novel has evolved into a new Amazon made-for-TV drama that’s now nominated for two Emmy awards, including Outstanding Movie. Moreover, star Sally Field is up for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Despite her two Oscars and multiple other prizes, Field is by no means a shoo-in: also in the running are such bright—and much younger—Hollywood stars as Claire Danes (The Beast in Me) and Carey Mulligan (Beef).

 But for Emmy voters, Field will be hard to overlook. In a poignant tale that somehow avoids being cloying, she’s a widow living in a small costal town of what looks to be Washington State. Having survived her son’s death and other heartbreak, she has turned inward, taking an after-hours job as a cleaning lady at the local aquarium where she identifies with the frequently on-the-loose Marcellus. Though she resists most human relationships, she remains spunky (in that irresistible Sally Field way), even after she’s sprained her ankle and seen her janitorial job claimed by an unhappy young musician. Cameron, a drifter, is on the lookout for the father who’s missing from his life. Of course Field’s character, Tova Sullivan, ultimately gets involved with his quest; both eventually find rewards in unexpected places. At the end it all ties together, perhaps too neatly, but the sincerity of everyone involved comes through . Kudos to Alfred Molina who gives the octopus an acerbic, authoritative voice, and to all the technical wizards who make a sometimes puppet/sometimes CGI cephalopod seem to have a life of its own.  

Field’s career has been one of Hollywood’s longest, starting off when she was barely out of her teens with such lightweight TV fare as the title roles in Gidget and The Flying Nun. Trying to break away from these “cute” performances, she fought for the role of a young woman with multiple-personality disorder in the acclaimed TV film, Sybil (1976), winning her first Emmy. She went on to win two Best Actress Oscars, one for her role as a spunky union organizer in Norma Rae (1979)) and a second for her portrayal of a (yes) spunky Texas widow in Places in the Heart (1984). Always tiny and youthful-seeming, she gradually evolved into a mature on-screen wife and mother, notably as Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Spielberg’s 2012 Lincoln. For this highly dramatic performance she was yet again Oscar-nominated, but lost out to Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables.

Now almost 80, Field seems in interviews both as sweet and as spunky as ever.  Which doesn’t stop her for being convincingly crochety as Tova Sullivan. There’s an ornery side to this character that stops her from appearing overly twee, and we’re meant to recognize that at times she can be totally exasperating. No wonder that the hyper-sensitive Cameron, well-played by Bill Pullman’s son Lewis, at first considers her merely a pain in the neck. Marcellus the Octopus, though, is smart enough to see Tova as the caring friend she is.