In honor of Warren Beatty's Birthday (he turns 72 today) I'm revisiting (yet again) my adoration of both Ishtar and Bulworth...
According to an older edition of Robin Morgan's The Book of Film Biographies, actor Warren Beatty is "more famous for his espousal of liberal causes and his affairs with actresses from Joan Collins to Madonna -- despite his achievements." How unfortunate. But we know he's so much more than this reductive, stale statement.
This Hollywood legend has gone from pretty-boy method actor in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass to Arthur Penn's complex, intriguing Mickey One, to producer and star of the seminal anti-establishment picture Bonnie and Clyde. He created and starred in films like The Only Game in Town, a fascinating George Steven's gambling picture opposite a blousy but still beautiful Liz Taylor; The Parallax View, a superb paranoid political thriller; Shampoo, a dark satire in which he plays the only straight hairdresser in California; Robert Altman's masterful McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Heaven Can Wait, a sweet romantic comedy that, consistent with '70s cinema, manged to feel depressing. He also directed and starred in Reds, the critically acclaimed saga of John Reed and worked a violent, seductive Bugsy Siegel in Barry Levinson's smart Bugsy.
I've witnessed countless people make the sour face when I bring up both films only to learn they have usually never even seenIshtar or simply discount Bulworth as a silly mistake.How wrong they are.Some don't even know the genius Elaine May (who directed and co-starred in the sublime A New Leaf with Walter Matthau and directed both Mikey and Nicky and The Heartbreak Kid) even directedIshtar. The mind reels. But due to the press attacking the over-budget supposed turkey; it was maligned beyond the level of Gigli. This was The Heaven's Gate of comedy. Not funny.
He is humorous, in a way no other actor could have been in this big, sad-sack of a hack musician, while being absolutely heartbreaking. There's a moment on a rooftop ledge between the two men (the film's greatest scene, in fact) that makes you realize how powerful Beatty's talent can be. It's not just his soft, lost, lovely eyes, it's his vulnerability -- and how we are charmed, warmed and agonized by it that moves us. Saving his suicidal friend is saving himself too -- and watching his confused eyes piecing this together is oddly wrenching. When he says, with such deep conviction: "It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don't you understand that? Most guys'd be ashamed, but you've got the guts to just say 'to hell with it'. You say that you'd rather have nothing than settle for less, understand?" Funny yes, but darkly true. I fall in love with him every time I watch that scene.
In 1973, notorious French director and provocateur Roger Vadim said "The Don Juan of our day is a woman -- Brigitte Bardot in real life." Vadim was addressing his past muse (indeed one of the very reasons he became famous) as the ultimate feminist of the last 20 years -- and he was right!
Vadim made Bardot a woman/child in the explosive sex brilliance ...and God Created Woman (1956), and 16 years later he made her a woman/man in Don Juan (or if Don Juan were a woman). Was he successful? Yes -- but really only because Bardot, the woman and star, was the true auteur of the picture. And Vadim allowed this -- smart man that he was. She was Don Juan, or rather, Warren Beatty at that point of her life -- preferring flings to marriage, sunning in Saint Tropez, allowing her second husband custody of their child (unthinkable!) and letting herself age (how dare she!). You see some of that age in a movie shot with unremarkable, almost soft-core sensibilities, though boasting some terrific 70s sets and BB nude -- and older BB is ever-sexy, ever-powerful, ever-Bardot.
Following her character Jeanne on a series of sexual conquests as she relays them to her cousin/priest (lucky priest); she coolly discusses her dalliances, first with Pierre (Maurice Ronet), a married, influential government man. When she gleefully watches a photographer snap his picture at a drunken student orgy, his personal and professional life is ruined. Next is the humiliation of the boorish Prevost (Robert Hossein), married to the young, vulnerable Clara (Jane Birkin-- yes! Two Serge girls together!). She ensnares him through Clara, enticing the girl to bed, setting it up so Prevost discovers such a dreamy scenario, only to reject his gluttonous desire to join them. Take that, punk! I'm with Jane, thank you very much (I would be too).
A woman whom Simone de Beauvoir claimed could tempt a saint, it's not surprising that Bardot, with the assistance of her ex husband Vadim, the pimp-like svengali he's unfairly purported to be by some (I bless the lord for him -- no Vadim, perhaps no BB and no Barbarella for that matter) make Don Juan such an intriguing look at female power and one's desire to be a man. And yes, there are women who would like to be a man, at least a few days a week -- this writer being one of them. A summation of just how feminist (in the better sense of the word) Bardot really was, the film is interesting when viewed as her bawdy last gasp before cinematic retirement. She's still lovely, still forceful and still Bardot, through and through -- and one convincing Don Juan at that. She really did come a long way, baby.
Some critics complained that Bardot appeared bored and uninspired, and amidst Vadim's somewhat flat landscape, she is a little sullen, but pouty annoyance is one of her strong points. She remains gorgeous and charismatic and cunning in her conclusion to Bardotlatry. As Vadim noted, "It was probably her last chance to keep making movies because she'd grown too old to continue playing Brigitte Bardot. But she understood that too. That's why she stopped making movies." She did. And she let herself age without surgery. And now everyone thinks she's nutty. And some even recoil at her face, even though it was that very lifestyle men so desired -- bikini on the beach, ciggies, wine, sex and song, that lined it so. Again, this is a feminist -- not whiny Naomi Wolf and her boring "Beauty Myth," or all those sensitive men who lust on and on about Helen Mirren (who is hot, don’t get me wrong) but to the point where they simply want women to pat them on the back for digging an older gal. Mirren’s easy. Tell me you want some Judi Dench action and I’ll give you credit. And like Ms. Dench (though never a raving beauty and one whose career flourishes) in that bathtub scene during her genius performance in Notes on a Scandal, BB says, fuck you, this is me. She may be harder to view these days, but she handles it.
I’d just love to see her all smoker’s cough smiling a la Keith Richards, enjoying her age and wisdom and past beauty. Bikers gracefully grow old -- or rather into calmer versions of craggy, kicking and screaming spitfires, and as controversial as she is, so should BB. With that in mind, I wonder what a BB, Keith reprise of the great Bardot biker ode “Harley Davidson” would be like? For now, let us take in the original (written by Gainsbourg for her off-the-charts fantastic TV special). Watching this again, and fueled with BB inspiration, if I could be a man, and Don Juan in particular, I would burn villages to know this woman on that bike. And really, I don’t need to be a man. For BB, I’d commit these sins myself.
Roman Polanski knows women because he understands men. He knows both sexes because he understands the games both genders play, either consciously or instinctively. He understands the perversions formed from such relations and translates them into visions that are erotic, disturbing, humorous and, most important, allegorical in their potency. One should not (as so many did with his misunderstood Bitter Moon) take Polanski's films literally, for they are often heightened versions of what occurs naturally in our world: desire, perversion, repulsion.
Film writer Molly Haskell said that at the core of Polanski's work is the "image of the anesthetized woman, the beautiful, inarticulate, and possibly even murderous somnambulate." Her observation is astute, but it's followed by the tired criticism that in all of Polanski's films, including Repulsion, "the titillations of torture are stronger than the bonds of empathy." Of course. Polanski's removed morality is exactly why he is often brilliant: He is so empathetic to his characters that, like a trauma victim floating above the pain, he is personally impersonal. He insightfully scrutinizes what is so frightening about being human, yet he doesn't feel the need to be resolute or sentimental about his cognizance. He is also, consciously or subconsciously, aware of the darkness he explores, especially in his female characters, who could be seen as extensions of himself. 1965's Repulsion proves as much.
Starring ice goddess Catherine Deneuve, Repulsion is one of the most frightening studies of madness ever filmed. Deneuve plays Carol, a nervous young manicurist who shares an apartment with her sexually active sister (Yvonne Furneaux). At first Carol goes about her days in the salon, where she quietly tends to bossy old ladies' fleshy cuticles; walking outside, where she unsuccessfully avoids the leering glances and advances of men; and languishing about the apartment, where, with disgust, she listens to the noises of her sister's lovemaking and silently despises the men who visit. She exhibits a pathological shyness and repression that slowly spiral into madness after her sister leaves on holiday. Carol's dementia creates perplexing hallucinations: sexual acts with a greasy man whom she simultaneously loathes and lusts after; greedy hands poking through walls and kneading her soft flesh; and the moving and cracking of walls. Left alone, she is able to act out what she is so afraid of: the dark sludge of desire.
The obscure, slippery and decayed complexities of such desire are conveyed brilliantly in Repulsion. The diseased atmosphere of Carol's womb is meticulously created with Polanski's use of camera angles, sound effects and images of clutter. Though music is used effectively, Polanski relies more on amplifying the sounds of everyday life -- the ticking of a clock, the voices of nuns playing catch in the convent garden, the dripping of a faucet -- to convey the acute awareness Carol acquires in response to her fear. Polanski also dresses the film with pertinent details that further exemplify both Carol's madness and the aching passage of time: Potatoes sprout in the kitchen, meat (rabbit meat, no less) rots on a plate and eventually collects flies, various debris of blood, food and liquids form naturally around Carol. The film's inventive use of black-and-white film, wide-angle lenses and close-ups creates an unsparing vision of sickness, and Deneuve's performance is effectively mysterious. The viewer, however, is able to empathize with Carol, which is how she lures us into her web in the first place. As Polanski cameraman Gil Taylor muttered during filming, "I hate doing this to a beautiful woman."
And yet, one loves doing this to a beautiful woman, especially one like Deneuve. Deneuve's loveliness makes Carol's madness more palatable (her unfortunate suitor thinks she is odd, but he can't help but "love" this gorgeous woman), but eventually it becomes horrifying. Carol is not simply a Hitchcockian aberration of what lies beneath the "perfect woman," she is the reflection of what lies beneath repressed desire -- in men and women. Polanski has a knack for casting women who are nervously exciting (Faye Dunaway in Chinatown is a blinking, twitching mess), and therefore dangerous to desire. He makes one insecure about longing for them.
And Deneuve is certainly nerve-racking. She is so physically flawless that she often seems half human: An anemic girl, she can barely lift up her arm, yet at the same time she is highly sensual, an ample, heavily breathing woman with more than a glint of carnality in her dreamily vacant eyes. Deneuve makes one feel the confusion of a corrupted child: She is an arrested adolescent who, like an anorexic, cannot face her womanliness without visions of perverse opulence and violence. Carol is the personification of sexual mystery -- she is what lurks beneath the orgasms of pleasure and pain. What Polanski finds intriguing and revolting is perceptively female, making Repulsion a woman's picture more than women may want to know, or care to face.
I like screwed up women. Apologies. To many a friend's annoyance, I have sympathy for all those young Hollywood starlets and their myriad "problems" clogging the gossip pages -- no matter how shallow and stupid they can be. And though women/girls like Britney, Paris and my beloved Lindsay and Sienna may sometimes court their internet tabloid appeal, and in some ways, deviate from the path of my hero Camille Paglia, and her revolutionary, pro-sex stance of the 1990's (don't ever apologize girls!), I'm sick of a square public and their finger wagging, scarlet letter-like judgment. At the same time, I wish these girls would watch out for themselves. I wish for them a mentor, and perhaps, when things get really rough (as with Lindsay), a Scared Straight scenario in which an older starlet, a gal who really lived hard, to take one of these young ladies aside and just shake them. Shake them good. And who would I like to push Lindsay against a wall, sit her ass down and tell her what's what? Barbara Payton.
Sadly, Ms. Payton is no longer with us, but through her gripping 1963 memoir (most likely all ghost written, but who cares? I love those lurid half truths like Hedy Lamar's Ecstasy and Me) aptly titled I Am Not Ashamed, she lives on. I've written about Payton in the past but I always return to her when I think of our new crop of starlets, celebutants and pop tarts and their cushy lives compared to Ms. Payton's (it could be a hell of a lot worse girls!). And then simply staring out of my window -- pondering Hollywood Blvd. and the zombies who walk among us. Some beautiful, some hideous, some benign, some dangerous and some...Barbara. She, like many new celebrities, made a lot of mistakes -- a lot. But instead of rambling inane excuses, she laid it down in all her gory, runny makeup glory. No sex tape needed. And though I've heard much of what is written in I Am Not Ashamed is apocryphal, I'm also sure just as much is true -- and that so much more is left out!
When it comes to train wrecks, few hold a candle to the beautiful, later ravaged, Payton. A gorgeous blonde who starred alongside James Cagney in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbyeand Lloyd Bridges in the impressive noir Trapped, her real life was not only stranger, but more dramatic and certainly seamier than any fiction she starred in.
Chronicled in I Am Not Ashamed (which has to be THE greatest star bio title EVER), Payton tells of a life so tumultuous, you can't believe she got out of it alive. Well, in actuality, she didn't. Affairs with actors to producers to shrinks to pimps; violent, troubled marriages to Tom Neal (star of the seminal, masterfully sleazy noir Detour who later served time for offing his third wife) and Franchot Tone (whom Neal memorably brawled with), shoplifting, prostitution (she was arrested in a bar on Sunset Boulevard -- so perfect) and loads of drinking -- the gal did it all.
In blunt prose that reveals a con-artist's take on Hollywood (this lady knew a wolf), Payton is all at once, funny, wise, vain, humble, pathetic and very, very educational. Even if some of this story is fabricated -- no matter -- the journey remains powerful. And though a star in the late '40s and '50s, her insights remain fresh today. Her book should be required reading for all aspiring actress' placing their dreams in this dirty, lonely town. Really, any actress halfway to the top should absorb these pages. Dig her introduction:
"I went out with every big male star in town. They wanted my body and I needed their names for success. There was my picture on the front pages of every paper in the country... Today I live in a rat infested apartment with not a bean to my name and I drink too much Rose wine. I don't like what the scale tells me. The little money I do accumulate to pay the rent comes from old residuals, poetry and favors to men. I love the Negro race and will accept money only from Negroes. Does it all sound depressing to you? Queasy? Well, I'm not ashamed."
Even after the book was published, Payton remained a handful -- knifed by a trick, drinking ever-heavily and finally, tragically dying at the tender age of 39 of heart and liver failure. A sad way to go for such a stunning star, who participated in, but was nevertheless swallowed up by that sometimes monster called Hollywood. Again, it's tragic but at times Payton angers me for chucking it (it's a tough business, but why did she throw it away so early? Did she have to sleaze up every situation?) but when I read: "Well, I could do all sorts of things, and to do them right, and it might look like they would lead to fame and fortune but... down, down, I skidded with nothing to hold onto." I return to empathy. In short, this town can suck. With this, you'll leave the read respecting her brassy, noir-like take on this seamy city. And if you've lived here long enough, you might possibly relate.
To my delight, Payton's hard-boiled tome was finally re-released a few years ago after languishing out of print. And though sometimes sparse, and questionably honest, with Payton omitting enough stories and explanations to frustrate, it's a brave page turner. It's no surprise the book was an inspiration to actress Jessica Lange while she prepared for her role in the re-make of The Postman Always Rings Twice. And as much as I'd love young celebrities to actually read, say, Sexual Personae, leading to their new-found study of Emily Dickinson, Edmund Spenser, Euripides and the critical canon of Harold Bloom, I'm thinking that's not gonna happen. So why not scare some of them straight with a blast of Barbara? Hmm...again, how can I send Lindsay a copy?
Walking out of Watchmen two weeks ago, I felt awestruck, overwhelmed, moved and filled with a sort of bleary-eyed, swoony amazement. This isn't your typical graphic novel adaptation; it's a movie that skillfully approaches the level of high art, a movie filled with ideas: political, cultural, emotional, and even a bit sentimental as we watch our history wash over us in a hard-core yet frequently beautiful dreamscape populated by flawed superheroes we grow to care about. And we do care about them, even the scumbags -- sometimes the scumbags more so (I always love the scumbags).
The picture creates this rare amalgamation of graphic novel adaptation, paranoid '70s thriller, and uncompromising film noir. This is a picture Alan J. Pakula, Sam Peckinpah and Edgar G. Ulmer would get behind. And a picture that Watchmen creator Alan Moore (who refuses to see the movie or any of his adaptations) should get behind. Here, as any Watchmen fan knows, the concept of superhero is not a simple one.
But the movie goes beyond Christopher Nolan's flawed, socially maladjusted Batman. Batman isn't raping Carla Gugino or killing women pregnant with his children (like the gleefully insane, macho degenerate, newest crush, Comedian), or falling in love with his rapist, or staring down a deranged dwarf in prison and breaking a thug's fingers (like my new neo-noir hero, Rorschach), or running off to Mars for contemplation. Not that Batman should be doing such things; he's an entirely different kind of superhero. But I felt challenged by the spandexed, masked, and fedora-wearing saints and sinners of Watchmen, just as I felt challenged by the infectiously inspiring chaos of the Joker of The Dark Knight. Life is dark, life is a mess -- how can one make any sense of it all? With existential dread and a strange sort of glee, the Watchmen understand this.
The idea that director Zack Snyder could get all of these ideas across and present such subversive misdeeds in nearly two hours and 40 minutes seems amazing in itself (not to mention his playlist: Hendrix, Dylan, and two -- count them, two -- Leonard Cohen songs, all music he chose himself -- and a brilliant, funny and weirdly poignant opening credit sequence). But based on the popularity of 300 (a movie I fervently defend as a work of blood-splattered art -- watch my violent exaltation here), the now third-time director was allowed his vision. And thank God, or the devil, or whichever idol you choose to worship. All of you who hated 300 and now love Watchmen should appreciate those Spartans a little more. We'd probably never have seen such a rebellious vision had it not been for that group of half-clothed, hollering warriors.
And somehow Snyder knows that we need to watch and feel such things; we need to yell, we need to feel angry, we need to live vicariously through warriors, flawed or otherwise. In our current state of the world, many of us are like Howard Beale on Network: as mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. If we can't scream it from the rooftops, or, in my case, tell all those assholes that I don't shine no fucking shoes no more (with "Atlantis" swelling behind me), we can live it through the grim musings of Rorschach. Snyder is tapping into both personal frustration and our country's collective consciousness of helplessness and anger with entertainment and innovation, and there's something revolutionary yet strangely lovely about that. As Bowie sang, and we all sometimes wish, "We could be heroes, just for one day." Defective, messed up, degenerate heroes, but heroes nonetheless.
For some reason I am obsessed with white. I guess my life is messy and I want it to sparkle. Or I'm sick to death of earth tones. Or I yearn for a white Dodge Challenger or another white Datsun 240 Z. Or I want an Andy Warhol wig. Or one of Robin Zander's pantsuits. Or one of Nico's. Or that fantastic Tony Montana suit which I'm certain would fit me. I'd love to walk around spitting: "Say goodnight to the bad guy" with that slinky, ominous Giorgio Moroder soundtrack following me wherever I go. I'd feel love for sure.
(But please, before all this absence of color talk, check out whatever else I'm thinking at Pretty Poison which isn't all white but could be very soon.)
As for now, three white obsessions...
1. White Dog (1982)
I saw this movie a few years ago at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater and it never left me. Directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, pulp philosopher Samuel Fuller, White Dog (adapted from a Romain Gary story, that was apparently true and involved a dog he owned with wife Jean Seberg) the picture is a tough, complicated, political and incredibly poignant blast of brilliance. The story is immediately involving – an adopted German shepherd that seems like a wonderful dog is tragically uncovered as something terrifying by its new owner (Kristy McNichol) when she discovers the poor thing has been trained to attack only black people. Rather than destroy the animal, she hires a wonderful, tough Paul Winfield and the always solid Burl Ives to de-program him. The picture was famously suppressed in America, but finally came out in a terrific Criterion edition late last year, which I reviewed last year for Entertainment Weekly. This charged, soulful movie is a must see. But don’t let it turn you off from white dogs. Unless that dog is French and named Baxter.
2. Jean Harlow in Bombshell(1933)
Oh how I love Jean Harlow. Her charming elocution challenged voice, her humor, her body, her femininity yet, down to earth, one-of-the-boys demeanor and her ability to wear…white. And that hair--- that sometimes white blonde. Before Marilyn, this tough-talking but entirely sweet “Girl from Missouri” was the original platinum blonde -- and more importantly the original bombshell. What other actress has two films, Platinum Blonde and Bombshell named especially for them? Bombshell, directed by Victor Fleming, is a sensational bit of Hollywood satire with a game Harlow cheerfully making fun of her swaggering, sexy persona and the nutty people surrounding her orbit. And who can forget co-star Franchot Tone’s smitten declaration: “Your hair is like a field of silver daisies. I'd like to run barefoot through your hair!” It doesn’t get any more white-blonde-tastic than this.
3. Wearing White
I find it fitting that white is my favorite color. For one, it’s not actually a color, which means my favorite color is blue. But it is the shade of crayons, it is the paint on my walls and it is the fabric of my favorite jeans, dress, shirt and coat. For two, it’s a challenge to wear, a punishing color that reveals every dust-up of dirt that crossed your path, every stain of lipstick on your collar and every drop of blood that you dug out of your nerve addled cuticles. It’s the ultimate unattainable, a color that makes you want to be clean and sane but makes you feel filthy and crazy. Forget black being the menacing color – true freaks wear white. Alex and his Droogs of A Clockwork Orange, the sociopaths of Funny Games, sailors, Colonel Sanders. But like Lana Turner’s ivory clad femme fatale of The Postman Always Rings Twice, they do wear it well. I recently wore all white out with a friend who held my arm as we crossed the street and all I could think was, it looks like he’s escorting an escaped madwoman from the Snake Pit to lunch. Or consorting with the milkman, which is a lot nicer. I love wearing white because for about two hours in the day, I have conjured my inner clean freak -- a Joan Crawford dying to emerge, something I wish, mess that I am, would see the light of day more often. After those two hours of whiteness, I’m usually left angry, staring at the eyeliner smudge on my shirt, and glowering to myself: “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt!” Nevertheless, here I am, happy and free and locked in my apartment wearing the “color” of self obsession -- white. So it’s fitting I show it. I think those jeans got dirty about two minutes after this video was taken.
