Running Wild with Jonathan Demme and Friends

Ever since the untimely death of Ray Liotta four months ago, I've been trying to get hold of Liotta’s 1986 breakout performance in Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild. Three years before he played a ghostly Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, four years before he went to the mattresses as Henry Hill in Goodfellas, Liotta was indelible as a former high school classmate of Melanie Griffith’s Lulu, a man with a hair-trigger temper and a great enjoyment for mayhem. He must have made quite an impression on my fellow movie-lovers. When—after his death at age 67--I started requesting the film from my local library, it took four months for it to end up in my DVD player.

 It was worth the wait.  After Hours, shot by Demme in 1986, is described online as an “action comedy.” But that designation doesn’t begin to suggest the film’s antic impact. At first it’s indeed very funny, showing a Wall Street financial nerd (Jeff Daniels) who can boast a big and very recent promotion falling under the spell of a gaudily-dressed party girl, played by Melanie Griffith (she of the babyish voice and the body that just won’t quit). This mismatched pair embarks on suburban adventures that feature alcohol, handcuffs, reckless driving, and thrill-seeking of all varieties. But just when we’re thoroughly enjoying their unlikely fling, the tone of the movie starts to shift dramatically. Griffith’s Lulu is not quite the carefree gal she seems to be, nor is Daniels’ uptight yuppie entirely telling the truth about his own placid homelife. And then there’s Liotta, showing up as Ray Sinclair at Lulu’s Pennsylvania high school reunion. Ray is handsome, charismatic, and alarmingly volatile, and when he appears the movie takes a left turn from which there’s no going back.

 It was Demme’s goal, at this fairly early point in his directing career, to try to meld screwball comedy and film noir. His bold experiment with a midpoint shift in tone made me, when I first saw the film, slightly queasy. This time around, I enjoyed Demme’s directorial sleight of hand for what it was. The film is a wild ride, and its unpredictable quality—in an era when we can generally figure out what’s coming next on our movie screen—now strikes me as hugely refreshing. I don’t always agree with the late Roger Ebert, but I love his description of Something Wild: “This is one of those rare movies where the plot seems surprised at what the characters do.” Exactly right!

 One of the most memorable aspects of Something Wild is the role played by Griffith’s costumes and hair stylings.  Clothes, in this film, do make the man  . . . or, in this case the woman. The sexy vagabond of the early scenes—with her brunette bob and her jangling jewelry—is suddenly transformed, later in the film, into a honey blonde who favors toned-down makeup and prim white frocks. Lulu’s costume changes signify the revelation of the various layers of her complicated psyche. There’s one more major costume shift at the tail-end of the film. It’s a final twist that many critics find arbitrary and not needed, and I think they’re right. But that’s the challenge of a script as eccentric as this one: knowing when to stop.  

 The film’s score ranges from the classic to contributions by such pop icons as Laurie Anderson and David Byrne. Unsurprisingly, the featured track is “Wild Thing,” performed in various versions. .A hip surprise is the cameo appearances by indie iconoclasts John Waters and John Sayles. They too can be considered something wild.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A “Working Girl” in the Era of #MeToo

The 1988 film Working Girl begins with a huge, dramatic helicopter shot that captures the Statue of Liberty in all her glory. Liberty’s face—solemn and serene as she looms above New York Harbor—gives way to the faces of two young women riding the Staten Island ferry to their Manhattan jobs. Cyn (Joan Cusack) and Tess (Melanie Griffith) sport Big Hair and Big Makeup. What we don’t see at first are the Big Dreams that will propel Tess, after some twists and turns, into the heady world of high finance.

I re-watched Working Girl because, as the author of a new book on the implications of The Graduate, I’m fascinated by the cinema career of director Mike Nichols. Nichols, who has been accused of being cold and even bitter in his approach to art, has certainly made some dark films, with Carnal Knowledge perhaps at the head of the list. But Working Girl – something of a Cinderella romance -- taps into the sunnier side of Nichols. This film is optimistic in seeing that a smart and savvy young woman, one who keeps her wits about her and is not above a bit of strategic deceit, can make it past her working-class roots and the condescending title of  “secretary” to succeed among big-business veterans. 

Working Girl has always been a popular film. In its day it earned six Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), and brought in  an Oscar for Carly Simon’s powerful song, “Let the River Run.” And it was made with Mike Nichols’ usual careful attention to detail: locations, costumes, and casting are all impeccable. But in the wake of the #MeToo movement, it can be viewed in a slightly different light. 

The film opens with a dirty trick. Tess, whose professional aspirations have led her to take night classes and read every bit of newsprint that comes her way, badly wants to advance beyond secretarial duties at the investment bank where she works. The guys in the nearby cubicles set her up for a meet-and-greet with Bob Speck, who supposedly has an opening for a bright young newcomer. Truth is—he’s a coke-snorting slimeball who only wants to get in her pants. (The fact that he’s played by the young Kevin Spacey, who recently has had his own #MeToo problems, makes the scene seem all the more current.) 

But there’s more to come. Tess’s new boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) starts off sounding collegial and even sisterly. But she turns out to be even more of a snake than the egregious Bob. While she listens attentively to Tess’s bright business ideas, she’s secretly passing them off as her own. In the course of the film, canny  businessmen ultimately prove themselves to be on Tess’s side, while the #1 bad apple is the one female we see in an executive position. So the feminism the film seems to espouse is two-pronged. 

A further irony: handsome young Jack (Harrison Ford) comes to love Tess for her audacity and the sharpness of her mind. But he first flips over her at a social event when, clad in a fancy dress swiped from Katharine’s closet, she dazzles him with her looks. There’s a moment early on when she mildly gripes that a blue-collar Staten Island beau (Alec Baldwin!) insists on buying her Victoria’s Secret-style undies for all gift-giving occasions. But, as her hairstyle and clothing sense grow more sophisticated, she’s still got those sexy scanties on underneath, as the film makes amply clear. That’s Hollywood for you: however bright a woman may be, she’s still required to show sex appeal.