Reviving “Shaun of the Dead”

As we all know from movies as varied as Dracula and Twilight, vampires can be sexy. Zombies, though, not so much. A zombie apocalypse means a large (and growing) contingent of slobbering undead humanoids staggering through the streets, on the trail of human victims who are fated (once bitten) to turn into zombies themselves. Yuck! 

 I’ve learned that the concept of a zombie developed out of Haitian folklore, involving the resurrection of dead souls. The word “zombie,” adapted from African languages, entered English in 1819, via poet Robert Southey’s history of Brazil. But our current obsession with zombies can be credited mostly to filmmaker George A. Romero, whose spooky 1954 low-budget horror flick, Night of the Living Dead, was followed by two equally popular sequels. Michael Jackson helped too: in his 1983 music video, “Thriller,” ghoulish creatures rise from their graves and foot-drag down the sidewalk in pursuit of potential victims.

 Clearly, zombies are not a lot of fun. Except when it comes to an unlikely zombie comedy that borrows the title of Romero’s second film, Dawn of the Dead. In that 1978 drama, zombies take over an all-American suburban shopping mall, with bloody results. In 2004, director Zack Snyder came up with a Dawn of the Dead remake: he assembled an all-star cast (Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Ty Burrell) as mall clerks and shoppers fending off the inevitable carnage. That same year brought a British film that gave “stiff upper lip” a new meaning. Comic writer/performers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set their story in the Crouch End section of London. In their telling, vividly directed by Wright, the zombie apocalypse challenges the laid-back lifestyle of two slackers (vividly played by Pegg and comedian Nick Frost) who are mostly oblivious to the world around them. Belatedly getting their cues from a newsreader on their big-screen TV, they try staving off the marauders by flinging disks from their record collection (like, for instance, the Batman soundtrack), but discover that a cricket bat works better. Still, while Shaun discovers in himself some unexpected leadership qualities, the easily distracted Ed keeps ducking out to eat ice cream and play video games. Eventually a cluster of survivors ends up inside Shaun and Ed’s favorite pub, with zombies trying to break down the windows.

 Though it’s impossible to take any of the above too seriously, there’s still some real pathos in Shaun’s valiant attempts to protect his ex-girlfriend (who eventually finds new respect for this doofus) and his mother (who does her best to accept some dramatic changes in her comfortable life). I’ve read that none other than Helen Mirren was offered the mother’s rather surprisingly poignant role, though she turned it down; veteran actress Penelope Wilton (of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is a fine substitute. But perhaps the single most vivid performance is turned in by the always memorable Bill Nighy, who plays Shaun’s stepdad. At first he’s a grouchy middle-class type, proud of his Jaguar and carpingly critical of his stepson. But as the supernatural invaders close in, his deeply-felt apology to Shaun is touching . . . and then, well, Nighy is singularly creepy when he’s undead.

  I won’t spoil any more of the plot. But it’s worth noting that George Romero—Mr. Zombie himself—was delighted by Shaun of the Dead, to the point that he offered Wright and Pegg roles in his 2005 Land of the Dead. Both turned down the parts he had reserved for them and insisted on appearing as zombies, among hordes of others. They wanted, I’m guessing, to know how the other half “lives.”  

 

Helen Mirren Slams The Door Shut

My women’s book group has recently been bypassing American pop novels (see, for instance, the enjoyable but thin Lessons in Chemistry) to focus on complex works by female authors like Maylis de Kerangal (from France) and Jenny Erpenbeck (from Germany). Of course we’re reading in translation, but the works of these women open up to us worlds we may never before have contemplated. I was particularly taken by Erpenbeck’s Visitation, an eerie recap of recent history, as seen from the perspective of a luxurious lakeside house deep in the German countryside. I had never previously heard of Erpenbeck, who’s considered a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature. No question: her canon is worth exploring.

This past month, the book on our reading list was The Door, a newly translated 1987 short novel by veteran Hungarian author Magda Szabó. The narrator, a middle-aged Hungarian author much like Szabó herself, has moved to a small town, where she and her husband teach and pursue literary goals. In need of housekeeping help, the narrator approaches Emerence, an ageing woman who has accepted  household chores for a number of neighbors, while also taking upon herself the thankless drudgery of sweeping snowy sidewalks with a broom. It’s soon crystal-clear that Emerence has a mind of her own, accepting only those clients who suit her and being quick to voice opinions (usually negative ones) about the neighbors’ life choices at every turn.

I bring all this up because in 2012 the internationally acclaimed novel was made into a film which I recently watched, just after reading the novel on which it was based. Though the director, the screenwriters, and the vast majority of cast members are Hungarian, the film was shot in English. Partly this was (I assume) to facilitate international distribution; partly it was also a way of accommodating its star, the formidable Helen Mirren. Mirren, whose father was Russian-born, seems to have a real affinity for eastern European roles (see such films as White Nights and The Last Station, in which she plays the wife of the ailing author Tolstoy). And surely it takes someone with Mirren’s charisma to hold down the role of a woman who is proudly cantankerous,  as well as anti-intellectual and anti-social. The crux of the film is her give-and-take relationship with the narrator-figure, named Magda after the novel’s author. Magda, over the years, comes to appreciate the generosity behind Emerence’s tough exterior. She sees how much of herself Emerence gives to those in need, and appreciates in particular Emerence’s almost mystic bond with animals. Still, she can’t easily swallow Emerence’s unrelenting sense of her own rightness on every issue. She can’t bear dealing with a woman incapable of seeing herself in the wrong. Gradually, Magda comes to understand Emmerence’s inflexibility better and is able to see her forbidding nature as evolving out of the slings and errors of the history she’s endured. Still, the relationship remains a troubled one, even unto death.

The film version of The Door strips out some major plot details from the novel. And the key moment when Magda feels impelled to force open the door to an ailing Emerence’s flat doesn’t linger in the mind the way it does when we read about it. By way of compensation, the film makes many of the circumstances of Emerence’s past more compelling, especially those presented through vivid flashbacks. There’s also a small but key change at the film’s conclusion—the arrival of a long-sought visitor—that leaves us with poignancy but not anguish. The film’s worth recommending, though it’s not an easy journey.

A one-day-early salute to my former boss and biography subject, the ageless Roger Corman, on his 98th birthday.

A Portrait of “The Duke” (No, NOT John Wayne)

That’s the great thing about British actors: you can always count on them to put on a jolly good show, especially when they’re portraying common folk from the provinces. The unfortunate thing is that you can’t always understand what they’re saying. Those working-class North of England accents are just too thick to allow an American to catch every delightful word.

 It’s worth it, though, to see Jim Broadbent portray a cranky taxi driver from Newcastle upon Tyne, with Dame Helen Mirren shedding her usual glamour to play his exasperated wife. Broadbent’s Kempton Bunton is a World War II vet, circa 1961. Neglecting his job, he’s now spending most of his energy on a quixotic campaign to end government laws that require citizens to purchase a license in order to watch the telly. While his wife Dorothy scrimps and scrubs as a housekeeper for a more upper-crust family, he continues his fiery one-man crusade, eventually getting thrown in the clink. It’s not that he can’t personally afford a license, he insists. He’s campaigning on behalf of the common folk, especially the elderly and military veterans, who haven’t the wherewithal to tune into the BBC.

 Behind his shenanigans (he’s also taken up playwriting) is a sad family story: a teenage daughter has died in a bicycle accident, and he blames himself for gifting her the bike. So what may seem like a quirky comedy is in many ways a film about grief and the different ways it affects those who’ve suffered terrible losses. That’s part of what’s pulling husband and wife apart, making her angrily stoic and him expansively emotional.

 The story as we see it on-screen hinges on a late Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington, on temporary exhibit at London’s National Gallery. When this art treasure ends up in Bunton’s hands, he hides it in the back bedroom of his row house, planning to use the reward money to carry on his activism. Instead he’s hauled into court, charged with grand theft and a host of other major crimes, and faces a serious prison sentence.

 What’s fascinating is that the story of Kempton Bunton and the Duke (the one a commonplace man, the other a powerful aristocrat) is entirely true. It was brought to the producers’ attention by Bunton’s grandson: he never knew his grand-dad, but was in possession of family artifacts as well as family secrets, and insisted that the script of The Duke stay true to what actually happened. According to an instructive article in the Los Angeles Times, every scene and every character detail of the subsequent film accurately reflect the Buntons’ own actual behavior. Family possessions, like a photo of the deceased daughter, were used as key pieces of set dressing. So I can assume that the sweet moment when husband and wife put aside their grievances and spontaneously begin to dance together in their modest kitchen did not come out of a screenwriter’s fertile imagination, but rather indicates something about the private lives of this usually warring pair.

 Why is a small film like this one worth making—and worth seeing?  We all love grand movies that unleash the power of spectacle. The big screen is possibly at its best in giving us big vistas and big emotions. But the joys and sorrows of everyday people can be equally worthy subjects. As my favorite multiplex disappears (yes, another victim of COVID), I’ll remember watching The Duke in a real movie theatre. It’s not an experience I hope to replicate anytime soon.

 

Lying at the Feet of a Good Liar

 I don’t mean to brag (yeah, right!), but I once shared the stage with Sir Ian McKellen. Touring the world in a one-man show, McKellen stopped off in L.A. for a stint at the Westwood Playhouse. The evening was called Acting Shakespeare, and he alternately emoted and conversed with the audience, discoursing on how he prepared himself for the great Shakespearean roles that crowned his brilliant stage career. At one point, he announced that he needed volunteers from the audience, the more the better. As we all turned shy, he reminded us that this was probably our only chance to serve as his acting partners. Surely the bragging rights were worth a little embarrassment? That broke the ice: about twenty of us slowly got to our feet and came down the aisles to mount the stage. 

McKellen proceeded to have the curtain lowered, cutting off the view of those still in their seats, and then privately told us what this was all about. He was going to do one of Shakespeare’s great battlefield orations, in which a king (was it a Richard or a Henry?) laments the death and destruction he’s just witnessed We, his newly minted entourage, would stand quietly behind him.  A certain line would be our cue. When it came, we were all to slump to the floor, dead. And there we’d lie, not moving, not breathing if we could help it, until his powerful oration came to an end.

 Though McKellen is renowned for his stage work, he’s also done his share of films. And what an eclectic lot they are! He’s played classical roles, of course, and nabbed a well-deserved Oscar nomination for portraying openly-gay Hollywood director James Whale in 1998’s Gods and Monsters. (McKellen has long been an “out” actor who takes pride in his activism on behalf of gender equality.)  Another Oscar nod honored his portrayal of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. He was featured as Magneto in the X-Men films, played the alarm clock, Cogsworth, in Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, and was Gus the Theatre Cat in the much-lambasted film version of the stage perennial, Cats.

 Last year, at the impressive age of 80, he took a major role that didn’t require fancy makeup. The film was The Good Liar, a thriller based on a popular novel, in which he played opposite the redoubtable Helen Mirren. Though McKellen’s character, Roy Courtnay, does not resort to screen-worthy disguises to hide his true identity, he’s in fact a nefarious con man masquerading as a pleasant but feeble old codger. Feigning a bad leg, he insinuates himself into the home (and apparently the heart) of a retired college professor named Betty. She seems surprisingly naïve, but is she? His goal is to siphon off all of her money. Her goal – well, it’s complicated, but we sense from the start that any character played by Mirren is no pushover. Best-known by moviegoers for her Oscar-winning portrayal of Elizabeth II in The Queen, she gravitates toward parts that suggest a gracious but steely intelligence.

 The Good Liar’s big reveal, which follows an apparently light-hearted trip à deux to Berlin, might read well on the page. But the long flashback that explains a previously concealed past history comes off on screen as highly unlikely, leaving viewers like me to feel manipulated. Which is perhaps why this film, despite its starry pedigree, did not wow ticket-buyers. Still, watching two of England’s greatest thespians battle for supremacy is definitely a treat. And if acting is simply an elaborate form of lying, play on!