Best Defense

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day. Best Defense is one of the very few films I have actually walked out on.

Best Defense (Willard Huyck, 1984) Time to pull the pin of this grenade, light the fuse on this bomb, pull the switch, and send it down the ol' chute. Actually it doesn't need my help at all. Best Defense, a comedy about incompetence in military contractors, * does its own job for it by self-destructing. 

 

Spear-headed by the husband-wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (they wrote American Graffiti, but are also responsible for the nasty screenplays for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Lucky Lady and, disastrously, writing-directing Howard the Duck.), this clunking, clanking film tells the story of Wylie Cooper (Dudley Moore), an engineer for a defense contractor going out of business. By complications of circumstance, he acquires the plans for a missile system, which his company then proceeds to nickle and dime into inoperability—yes, this is a movie supporting inflating defense contracts and profits to the expense of the soldiers who use the armaments. Hilarious. So funny, it kills. Sadly, it doesn't stray too far from the truth. The best comedic aspect to the sorry show is that Paramount Pictures evidently operates under the same philosophy.

Not sure what the story is, but, according to legend, audience previews for this cluster-bomb were so bad that Paramount—which must be blamed for shelling out the 18 mil' it cost to produce this—brought in then-as-hot-as-could-be Eddie Murphy as "Strategic Guest Star" to film comedic sequences (that was the intent, anyway) of him coping with the system in a conflict in Kuwait,** in an effort to salvage their investment.

Didn't work. It cost 18 million to produce, and got back 19 million in revenue, not counting publicity and promotion costs. One wishes one could say it was funny, but I didn't laugh once during the amount of time I watched it.

Confession time: This is the only time I have ever walked out of a movie (It was a free preview, so I had nothing to lose but time) before it was over. I couldn't endure one more second of it, and losing any more of my life...or my love of movies...to it.***

Best Defense was the worst offence.

Moore and Murphy, looking sheepish.

 

* Potentially, a good source for black comedy, but might have been funnier if just done as a documentary about "The Bradley."

 

** The only interesting thing about this film is that it shows sequences taking place during a fictional invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, seven years before the Gulf War took place. Defenders of this film—both of them—insist that this makes the movie special in that it "predicted" The Gulf War. In reality, it didn't predict anything. It just made a safe guess where a conflict could occur. It might not occur to those defenders that it is conceivable that Saddam Hussein might have gotten the idea from watching this movie; Patton inspired Nixon to invade Cambodia. Hell, Saddam Hussein might have LIKED this movie.

 

*** There was one other movie I walked out on, truth be told—Hollywoodland, starring Adrien Brody, supposedly about the death of George Reeves, but was so full of falsehoods that I didn't stay for the very end of the film, which would have depicted Reeves' suicide after several sequences that suggested it was murder.

Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman has a new film—I'm Thinking of Ending Things—coming out on Netflix September 4th.

This was written at the time of this film's release.

"And the Truth Is..."

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare "As You Like It" 2/7

Director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wakes up every morning with a fresh pain to fuss about in the morning and a malady that he saves for the afternoon. He's a mess. So's his life, and the only time he feels comfortable is telling actors how to play their parts. But he frets about everything else. "I have 650 lighting changes! Why does it have to be so complicated?" "Because you make it complicated," says his wife Adele Lack (Catherine Keener), whose own art is to make paintings so small you need magnifying specs to look at them in the gallery. She's reductive. He likes to blow things out of proportion, which sometimes manifests itself, physically, as sycosis. "It's spelled differently," he tells his daughter Olive. "P-s-y 'psychosis' is when you're crazy, like Mommy is sometimes."

Welcome back to the World of Charlie Kaufman (and yes, after all the success you can still call him "Charlie"). Kaufman's screenplays are expanded "Twilight Zone" episodes where reality is warped and woofed through the gray matter of Kaufman's mind and some basic axiom of the human condition comes shining through like sunlight through cheese-cloth. Synecdoche New York is the same sort of Möbius-loop swirl like Kaufman's scripts for Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Adaptation.* (and his puppet-film, Anomalisa).** And as with those scripts, you not only get the story as it stands, but also a look into the soul of Kaufman, as well. Malkovich was the story of an street-artist who dreamed of being more than a puppeteer and ended up becoming a director of another man's life--a grander-scale puppet-master. Eternal Sunshine explored relationships and the hopeless act of putting one behind you. Adaptation. was a look at obsession, disguised as Kaufman's own frustrations at trying to write a screenplay for an un-adaptable book. Synecdoche New York is another step altogether: Kaufman makes his directorial debut in this film about a director who can direct anything but his own life.

"And the Truth Is..."

"...well, like most directors, I suppose, what I really want to do is act."

Mel Gibson's Oscar speech, 1996

As life sometimes happens, when one part of your life is going great, another slides. Adele has taken Olive to Berlin for a showing of her work, and the weeks stretch into months, and Cadon can't hold his fragile state enough to have an affair with Hazel (Samantha Morton) the ticket-agent at his theater. The he gets a MacArthur grant. How's he going to spend his "genius" money? He rents a warehouse--like a monolithic Quonset hut in the middle of Schenectady, and begins a series of work-in-progress workshops, where the play will begin to take shape. But pretty soon, the play cannot be contained, and Cotard begins to wander through an increasing maze of scenarios intertwined with a phalanx of actors seeking direction and a city-scape forming inside the warehouse. He begins to lose track of his life and the play's purpose until he hires Sammy (the terrific Tom Noonan) to play himself. Sammy claims to have followed Cotard for years and says he knows the director better than he knows himself. At the time, that didn't seem like quite a stretch. For awhile the two are inseparable.

And then things start to get a little bit weird.

syn•ec•do•che (sĭ-něk'də-kē) Pronunciation Key n. A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).

To explain any more of the plot is to do two things: 1) Give away what's going on, and 2) explain what's going on; I can do the first, but not the second, which 1) is anathema to film criticism and 2) required of film criticism. The stew of Synechdoche New York is so rich that one can only pick a flavor or two, a passing impression, the overall emphasis, but I can't tell you what it tastes like, other than to say "I enjoyed it immensely, and I'd order this item on the menu again." I can understand why it would completely overwhelm a casual tasting or appear too rich to stomach, and I can certainly see the polarizing effect it has on those whose tastes don't run to such things.

But taste is an individual thing, and the structure of Synecdoche New York, which, in itself, is its own false-front, is a deliberate shout-out that "Nothing is real," so if you're looking for explanations of some basic matters, it's just not going to happen, because the connective tissue that would provide the answers not only isn't there, it's considered irrelevant to the task at hand, and manipulated to actually confront, confuse, and consternate. And make a joke of it.

Which I find hilarious.

For instance, I love that Kaufman cast two actresses—Samantha Morton and Emily Watson—who I find, frankly, a bit indistinguishable, and cast them as an important woman in Cadon's life and the woman who's playing her in the play. That the two actually do become indistinguishable is a wonderful joke that I, alone, might get, but I still enjoy it. That the background score for a poignant telephone conversation seems to travel over the telephone line, as well (with the same tinny sound), is a great joke, but might frustrate someone else looking for logic or reason. That Adele coughs in a voice-over might make someone throw up their hands and question why someone would consider doing that only makes me giggle. That Hazel, when taking a tour with a real estate agent, makes a comment that she's really nervous about buying a house, but really wants to take the plunge, so much so that she'll ignore that the house is on fire, and, oh by the way, the agent's son is living in the basement, only reminds me of the compromises I've made and the flaws I've overlooked in similar decision-making processes. It also says something about the character...yes (*sigh*) in a lunatic way...but I found it funny.

"And the Truth Is..."

"I thought I was President of the United States. Then when my daughter was born, I realized I was just the Secret Service."

Seattle actor Ken Boynton, explaining Fatherhood

What's interesting to me is that I have my own ceiling of "guff" in movies: I'll "take" Kaufman because the spirit in which he creates is playful, the ideas he expresses I find, if not profound, worthy of consideration (such as the over-uttered point of "SNY") and the work, and the path taken to get there, entertain me; I appreciate the journey, even if the destination disappoints.

Yet, as a recent post on David Lynch's Inland Empire made abundantly unclear (my fault: I'm sorry, I was being illustrative of my frustration with the piece and its artist) there's only so much obfuscation I can take. There is a difference between an artist being deliberately "difficult" to understand, and an artist with a point to make. If you want to confound, go into the puzzle-making business. If you want to communicate—and that means taking the chance that your message may be received and judged—make sure that you're communicating. Inland Empire had no "Rosetta Stone," not even the orientation of humor, to guide the viewer, so whatever "TRUTH" Lynch was aiming for got lost in the scene-shuffle.*** One can argue about the cruel economics of the film business, but every so often an indulgent artist has to give his Muse a bracing cuppa joe, black, (and amusingly, Lynch, of all artists, should know this!) and show it where the audience is sitting.****

Which brings up the philosophical question: If a theater-troupe makes a play in an empty theater, does it make a sound

And the answer is: "Who cares?" Play on.

"And the Truth Is..."

I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true.

Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

* I thought I'd posted my review of Adaptation.. Guess I was wrong. I'll post it next week....and my pissy little review of Inland Empire. 

** Although nobody ever brings up his writing for "Ned and Stacey" and "The Dana Carvey Show"

*** I don't make a habit of beating up on Lynch. I love 80% of his out-put, especially The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Falls, and The Straight Story. Wild At Heart and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, pffft!

**** At the Guild 45th late show, a late-comer sat across the aisle from me, and throughout the movie we separately giggled and hooted throughout the film, laughing at the same parts. Only when the credits came up did we glance at each other and, in a perfectly synched move, raised our drink-cups in salute to the screen.

Anomalisa

I'm Your Puppet
or
Everyday's an Endless Stream/of Cigarettes and Magazines/Mm-mm-mm

Bear with me on this one: in writing this piece, the movie evolved for me—I "cracked" it in the process of writing this review, arriving late to what the movie was all about. I started writing, thinking it was about one thing, and realized about half-way in, that it was about something else far more relevant and far more universal. The tone of the piece will change, but, rather than go back and re-write with the new perspective, I thought it might be more informative to keep it as it was and let you follow me on my journey into the heart of Anomalisa.

A script by Charlie Kaufman is always something of a movie event—a mind-bending little comedrama that takes you someplace you haven't gone before, consider something you've never noticed, and stretch the capacity of the human. His scripts always remind me of early "Twilight Zone" episodes, particularly those of Charles Beaumont, that land so squarely in the "What if?" in-box of wish fulfillment: "What if I could live somebody else's life?" (Being John Malkovich); "What if I could forget a painful memory?" (The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind);"What if I could put my life in perpetual re-write?" (Synechdoche, New York); "What if I got a writing assignment I couldn't write?" (Adaptation.) Not everybody relates to that last one, but Kaufman's solution to it—write about the difficulty in writing it—has a "meta" quality to it that nicely shoe-horns into Kaufman's conceits and flights into the bizarre aspects of the ordinary...the ordinary from Kaufman's perspective.

Anomalisa (written by Kaufman and directed by him and animator Duke Johnson) is not that extraordinary a script—an author goes on a speaking engagement away from his family and spends the time seeking other relationships, mend fences, or otherwise bring some life to the travelling cog aspect of his life. The script is not much. There are some nice little ironies along the way, but it is, frankly, as ordinary and as beige a script about a business trip as you could find.

It's all in the presentation, however. This time, Kaufman the director has to bring out the best in Kaufman the writer. And the only way to do that is to take the movie out of the realm of the real and into the dream-world of make-believe and puppetry. It may be the only way the movie "plays," which is a detriment, but it does allow Kaufman the opportunity to expand beyond the words and use the image to tell the story, and the resonances that the story might not be providing.

Author Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewliss) is on his way to address a group of customer service representatives for a convention, in part to promote his book on customer relations. While on the flight to Cincinnati, he pulls out a letter from a woman he had had a fleeting affair with—in Cincinnati. The letter is a bitter, curse-punctuated screed scrawled in bitterness and pain. So, of course, he may be looking her up when he's in town. Why he might be pursuing so fool-hardy and selfish an idea will be intimated later. But, author Stone talks a good game about customer relations, preaching about treating everybody in the way they'd like to be treated, as individuals with unique backgrounds and singular experiences. It's a good thesis.

But, the practice by Stone is a little less rose-colored. Assuming that we're looking at the world through his eyes, he really doesn't see anyone as individuals. Save for himself, every single person (well, puppet-person) has the exact same face and is voiced by the exact same actor (Tom Noonan, to whom we respectfully bow. Bravo!). Everybody is the same.* One could say (practically and metaphorically) that when it comes to Stone, they broke the mold—he has a care-worn middle-aged face, he speaks with a British accent, and where most folks are at least charitable, he's a little impatient and crusty—hardly the best preacher for customer relations.

So, Stone's a hypocrite. Not much to complain about, really; everybody is hypocritical about some-thing, we all have a theoretical ideal that we might hedge a little bit for expedience.  That's part of being human. What we don't hedge on defines character. But, he is such an essential hypocrite, that he might as well be a politician—his world-view and responses being opposite to what he says and what he may believe he means. And this is not a man so debilitated that he doesn't have a choice (like, say, Scottie, in Vertigo). 

Stone is haunted by the woman he left behind in Cincy

But, there may be a "debilitation" of sorts: the name of the hotel Stone is staying at is the Fregoli. There is a mental condition called "the Fregoli delusion"** which is an aspect of paranoia, where the sufferer believes that they are encountering different people who, in their minds (I was about to say "in fact"), are one individual in various disguises (and when this was originally a play for a test-reading, Kaufman's nom de plume on the script was "Francis Fregoli"). If this is an aspect of Fregoli, it might be a misdiagnosis, because Stone sees and regards everyone the same, right down to the tenor of their voice.

There is one point of the script where he snaps out of it—he hears a different voice outside his room—and in what can be described as "needy panic" he runs out of his room trying to find that "different voice" (it is Jennifer Jason Leigh's) and when he finds it, he pursues a relationship with "Lisa" (who, actually does have a different face than everybody else). For that length of time, he is ecstatic, wanting to break out of his current situation—abandoning wife and kid and starting a whole new life with this individual in the pursuit of something new, different, less...monotonous. 

And that is the key. It isn't that Stone is suffering from paranoia or a brain lesion or a psychological trauma. It is that his life, exemplified by this business trip and the uniformity and repetitiveness of his life and surroundings—his room at the Fregoli Hotel looks like every hotel-room I've ever stayed in—is monotonous to the psyche-breaking point. So desperate is he for a change to the monotony that he will even risk a meeting with his former lover just to see her face, or see if her face is different from the ones that permeate his life, as it once used to be. He was attracted to her at one time, but at some point, the "sameness" set in and her appearance changed. Could she have changed back to what he once remembered? Could that "magic" be re-captured?

The "monotony" of the Fregoli Hotel room may be a factor.

Esquire, in its review, called this "The most human story of the year." I initially dismissed that as piffle, the magazine's attempt to make an easy, ironic blurb in that it is populated by puppets, not human actors. But, that blurb may be entirely appropriate. Most movies, this year in particular, have been all flash and burn, highlight reels of life, editing out the dull parts and featuring the desperation, rather than the quiet. Test-pilots call their jobs "long stretches of tedium punctuated by sheer terror." Anomalisa shows the terror associated with the long stretches of tedium that make up a normal life not surrounded by multi-million dollar aerodynamic engineering and that's what makes it unique among movies. What other film would even attempt it, trying to attract the attention of a dollar-spending populace looking for escapism, rather than a mirror? There's not a Jedi knight or a super-hero in view (and one suspects if they did they'd have the same bland face). Anomalisa shows the modern melancholia of a "good life" not being good enough.

And it is true that the screenplay is fairly dull...pedestrian. It is only in the presentation of the situation with stop-motion animation and its limited expression by doll-faces that the truth-by-metaphor comes out with a clarity that could not be accomplished with real actors (and hell, it couldn't be accomplished with real actors). It presents an ordinary life by extraordinary means, and in its small way, is a bit of a miracle, creating a "Prufrockian" study of the pedestrian life in a way that compels us and makes us see the drama in the very ordinary.  It is not a dull thing to make something so universal and emblematic of life of America in the 21st century. Although the situations may seem different, it is the thrown stone in calm waters that create ripples of recognition. Do not ask for whom the elevator bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

Going up or going down?

It might have been interesting, for just a fleeting moment, for Kaufman to break the subjective barrier (and he had one one very obvious place to do it) and let us see the world—and Stone—from one of the other people's perspectives: would he have the same face and voice from all the other people that they encounter? That would have been a very interesting expansion of the film, and a telling (if depressing) comment on Kaufman's life-view.***

* If that seems familiar, it's because Kaufmann and Spike Jonezz did the same thing in Being John Malkovich when Malkovich enters the secret room that puts him inside his own psyche. The feed-back loop lets him see everybody as images of himself, all expressing themselves with the single word: "Malkovich!" 

"Yes! We are all individuals!"

** It may also be a result of the inability of the brain to "read faces" as individual. There's an interesting bit on this episode of Radiolab about this condition know as "face-blindness." But, again, I don't think this has anything to do with Kaufman's thesis. 

*** And, actually, he does: in a coda to the film, we're not with Stone at all, we're with Lisa, driving back with her friend (who has her own non-monotonous face now) from the conference—a breezy, sun-dappled, hopeful affirmation of life and possibility. I guess Stone's book works, after all, despite himself.