Screenwriter »

• Farewell Ulu Grosbard

  March 27, 2012 @ 10:01 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Ulu Grosbard, who has died at the age of 83, is one of those directors who fell through the cracks. He had an awesome reputation as a theatre director — directing Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall and Jon Voight in a production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge back in 1968 — but relatively few film-goers now recognise his name. Nonetheless, he directed two undeniably great films. True Confessions (1981) and Straight Time (1978) still hold up brilliantly today. The latter stars Hoffman as a long-time crook who just can’t kick the habit. The former features Duvall and Robert De Niro as, brothers — a cop and a Monsignor– who get caught up in a murder plot in post-war Los Angeles.

  It’s hard to explain why the films never quite achieved the status of recognised classics. They were, perhaps, already relics from an earlier — although very recent — era. Coming at the point when Hollywood was waking up from its delirious post-Easy Rider dream and embracing the populist cinema of Spielberg and Lucas, the pictures never quite found a comfortable niche. By that stage, properly intelligent pictures were seen as the preserve of the arthouse crowd. Crime films were expected to be zippy genre pieces. The square peg that was Grosbard’s work never fitted into the round hole.

  He was born in Belgium in 1929. He fled the Nazis in 1943 and, after tarrying in Cuba, eventually ended up in the United States. Studies at Yale Drama School led him towards a successful theatrical career. His later career in movies was fairly hit and miss: the weepie Falling in Love, the lightweight junkie flick Georgia. But Straight Time and True Confessions hold up as classics of their time. Seek them out and honour one of the overlooked masters.

  

• Farewell Ben Gazzara

  February 4, 2012 @ 9:28 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Just look at this now-poignant Life cover from 1969. Three of the finest actors of their generations — all good pals — have got themselves dolled up for the photographer. It’s Peter Falk, John Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara. Don’t they look indescribably suave as they prpare for Cassavetes’s great Husbands? With the death of Gazzara on Friday all three are now longer with us and the world seems a tad more wan. Gazzara, who was 81, appeared in quite a few mainstream films. He was also a great theatre actor and originated the role of Brick in the first production of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. You can see him in The Big Lebowksi, Anatomy of a Murder and the enjoyable remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. He was super in Dogville. But he will, surely, be best remembered for the handful of films he made with Cassavetes. The twitchy naturalistic class of cinema the men developed has had a mighty influence on American film. When Cassavetes made Shadows in 1959, Brando and Clift had already done some mumbling, but this class of realism was, in American terms, still a preserve of outré short film-makers. Collaborations between Gazarra and Cassavetes such as Husbands, Opening Night and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie managed to combine that grittiness with real narrative drive. Chinese Bookie is probably still the best place to go to see both men at their best.

  

• Ronald Searle and Molesworth

  January 4, 2012 @ 10:20 pm | by Donald Clarke

  I return to the sad news that the great Ronald Searle has passed away at the age of 91. The artist had an eventful life. A working-class boy from Cambridge, he was captured by the Japanese during the second World War and, despite dramatic loss of weight and any number of diseases, continued to draw while under detention. The images are among the most powerful to emerge from the Asian war. The Japanese guards are rendered in clear strokes that come together in the style of cartoon. Most unusual.

  

  After the war, he was involved with the creation of two much-loved, almost certainly immortal comic entities. The first was, of course St Trinians. Searle’s cartoons depicted the school as the nightmarishly comic home of junior terrorists, apprentice bully-girls and lazy-eyed, laconic girls whose blouses were already beginning to strain beneath mature pressure. The cartoons eventually became a series of films which — though of declining quality — always offered great supporting performances. Hats off to Joyce Grenfell, George Cole and Alistair Sim. (Hats remain on when mention is made of Russell Brand in the awful updated version.)

  

  My hero.

  Searle’s greatest co-creation, was, however, the peerless, mighty, endlessly hilarious Nigel Molesworth. The near-illiterate student of St Custard’s School — who narrates his own stories in garbled, wretchedly misspelled  near-prose — is an iconoclast of the highest order. Despite an appalling record at school, he has somehow accumulated a breadth of knowledge about all matters of cultural importance.  He understands the hypocrisy of adulthood. He knows the teachers drink and play around. Credited to Searle and writer Geoffrey Willlans, the first Molesworth book, Down With Skool!, arrived in 1953. Look Back in Anger was still three years away, but Nigel already has a fairly firm grasp on the continuing decline of sleepy England. “History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse,” he wisely remarked.

  I suppose we should probably think of St Custard’s as a metaphor for England itself. Headmaster Grimes is every bit as hopeless as Anthony Eden, the UK’s most hapless prime minister. All life buzzes about: spivs, thugs, intellectuals, homosexuals. Well, I say “homosexuals”, but the great Basil Fotherington-Thomas may just be more polite than the oafs around him. “He reads chaterbox chiz and we suspeckt that he keeps dollies at home,” Molesworth writes. “When i sa he hav a face like a tomato he repli i forgive you molesworth for those uncouth words.” (In an aside, doesn’t the prose, written by a child remember, look depressingly like the stuff you encounter on the internet daily?)

  

  L to R: Searle and Willans, Moore and O’Neill

  Alan Moore certainly thought Basil gay and depicted him as such in an episode of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen set in the 1960s. The comic did remind one of an arresting point. Trapped among ink pots and fierce gerunds, Molesworth and his pals were among the generation that would create the 1960s. I don’t suppose Nigel would have become a rock star. After all, very few people did. But I hope that his cynicism was eventually directed in a creative direction.

  At any rate, as any fule kno, the Molesworth books are all available in a handy omnibus edition with an introduction by the admirable Philip Hensher. The volume is published by (hem, hem) Penguin Modern Classics. Quite right too. I’d rather read Molesworth any day than some fool such as that fraud Jack Kerouac or filthy D H Lawrence.  To paraphrase Nigel on Colin Wilson, the Molesworth books are ”Advanced, forthright, signifficant.” And they’re bloody funny.

• A belated word on Christopher Hitchens

  December 18, 2011 @ 7:57 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  By now, you have probably had enough of Mr Hitchens. The great polemicist had barely been transported to the mortuary before lesser writers — a category that includes almost all of the tribe — began questioning his worth and wondering whether his jottings would endure. It hardly needs to be said that Hitchens would not expect his critics to hold fire simply because he had recently passed into nothingness. The clip above, featuring priceless comments on Jerry Falwell, makes that abundantly clear.

  Happily, most sensible commentators, many of whom remained baffled by his support for the Iraq War, used the occasion to celebrate one of the greatest essayists Britain has ever produced. No other contemporary writer exhibited such talent for making elegant poetry out of strong opinions. Earlier this year, Martin Amis, perhaps his best friend, noted that he had never met another person who was so little at home to L’esprit de l’escalier. That is to say he never, hours or days after an argument, stopped up short and realised what he should have said. The correct phrase was always waiting expectantly on his epiglottis.

  He was enjoyable when he was wrong. But his work was even more pleasurable to read when it chimed with ones own opinions. I always felt on safe ground when reading him on English literature. Anybody who loved Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell and P G Wodehouse as much as he did was surely worth taking seriously.

  I have only one, fairly unimpressive story to tell of a personal interaction, but it does illustrate certain admirable aspects of the man very nicely. A few years ago, I phoned him to talk about Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. We differed on Moore’s attitude to the War on Terror. But we were both annoyed at the way the director’s fans seemed so willing to ignore the half-truths, mad speculations and outright misdirections in the film. His wife answered the phone to tell me that he was busy. I sensed a brush off. Not a bit of it. Having read my introductory  email, he was, she stressed, extremely keen to talk to me. I was ordered — on pain of death — to phone back in an hour or so.

  Mel Brooks tells a great anecdote about first meeting Cary Grant upon his arrival in Hollywood. Initially, he was immeasurably excited that Grant replied to his phone calls. A few weeks later, unable to escape Grant’s attentions, he found himself telling his assistant to inform Cary that he wasn’t in. (If you can’t understand why this might be funny then go here.)

  Well, it wasn’t very much like that. I would happily have talked to Hitchens if he’d ever phoned back. But his enthusiasm was quite daunting. I introduced myself and this newspaper. “Oh, I am well aware of your fine organ,” he replied and then got stuck into Moore, the anti-war lobby, “Islamo-fascism”, the religious mob and a dozen other subjects that passed peripherally into the conversation. His daughter offered him a slice of (I think I recall this correctly) key lime pie that she had made. Glugging and puffing noises intervened. “Never apologise for your questions, dear boy,” he said when I began in a query in half-hearted form. His wife was told he’d be along in a moment. He got on to misrepresentations of Tony Blair. More glugging and puffing. An hour and a half later, I realised that — he was in Washington DC remember — it was now getting on for two o’clock in the morning. I started to make withdrawal noises. “Ah I sense you edging towards the door,” he said, slightly disappointed. Eventually, he allowed me to lie on the couch and have my own reviving glug on the whiskey bottle. The next day he sent me an email disagreeing politely (no really) with my assertion that, for all his unreliability, Michael Moore was a hugely talented montage artist.

  Okay, it’s not much of a story. But I am at least glad to have a Hitchens anecdote of my own. We shall not see his like again.

  

• Farewell, Peter Falk.

  June 26, 2011 @ 12:46 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  “Just one more thing, ma’am.” That was your catchphrase.

  Though the great man had a distinguished career — particularly in the films of John Cassavetes — Peter Falk would, almost certainly, not object to the phrase “best known for playing Lieutenant Columbo” appearing towards the top of his many obituaries. Falk clearly loved the character. In 1989, a decade after the series proper ended, he returned to the role for a perfectly decent — if still somewhat unsatisfactory — reprise of the greatest of all American mystery dramas. A few years ago, interviewed on BBC Radio 4, he explained that he was still pitching Columbo plots to producers. The notion of an octogenarian cop doesn’t sound entirely plausible. But it’s nice to know he still cared.

  Let’s go back to a phrase in the paragraph above. Yes, I think, with apologies to The Rockford Files, Columbo does stand out as the very best American mystery series. If nothing else, the show — directed by the likes of Steven Spielberg and Jonathan Demme — demonstrated the virtues of devising a strict formula and sticking closely to it. Every classic-era Columbo was the same and every one was delightfully different. We saw the crime being committed. Columbo then stumbled onto screen and began annoying — and, occasionally, befriending — the murderer. He would nag away at apparently minor quandaries. (“I’m sorry ma’am. It’s probably nothing. But my boss is a stickler for these details.”) The murderer would offer a simple solution. (“Now, why didn’t I think of that?”) He would go away for a while, before returning with some hole in the neat explanation. Eventually, the worrying problems would coalesce into a damning case against Robert Culp, William Shatner, Ruth Gordon, Janet Leigh, Anne Baxter, Johnny Cash or whoever it was that week.

  The weekly alterations in the relations between detective and murderer were what gave the show its insidious watchability. Quite often, he became quite pally with the guilty party. More often than not, he displayed ingenuous delight at learning details of their trade. Wine buff Donald Pleasence taught him about the differences between various clarets. Restaurant critic Louis Jourdan lectured him about fine dining. In one fine episode, William Shatner, who plays a suave sleuth on the telly, actually dares to explain crime detection to the macintosh-clad genius. All the while, you’re never quite sure whether Columbo is pretending to his ignorance and to his admiration of the great man or woman. (“Could you just phone my wife, ma’am. She would get such a kick out of it. She’s seen all your movies.”)

  It’s hard to pick out a favourite. But if put up against a wall, I would select the punningly titled Any Old Port in a Storm from 1973. That’s the one where Pleasence kills his useless younger brother because the rake is planning to flog the family’s vineyards. All the classic elements are in place: a super guest star, a great final dramatic gambit by Columbo, a particularly nuanced relationship between between pursuer and pursued. You can watch it a hundred times and never tire. Honest. I’ve done so.

  One final point about Columbo. Here’a a trivia question. What links Inspector Columbo, Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, Norm in  Cheers and Niles in Frasier? The answer: they all had wives who, though frequently mentioned, were never seen. What can it mean?

  As for other Falk performances, he was, of course, great in Wings of Desire. But even that role features references to Columbo. The best place to look are the films of John Cassavetes (himself a guest murderer in a fine 1972 episode). He is particularly good in both A Woman Under the Influence and Husbands. Nobody else does grimy realism like Cassavetes.

  

• The death of Tim Hetherington

  April 21, 2011 @ 2:44 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  As you may be aware, Tim Hetherington, the talented photojournalist, has been killed while working in Libya. Hetherington emerged above ground last year when he co-directed a stunning documentary about the war in Afghanistan called Restrepo. The film has already become something of a classic. Few war docs have ever got quite so close to the action and the danger. If anybody was in any doubt about his willingness to put his own life on the line, he or she should now be disabused of that notion.

  He was also admirably robust about criticism. Talking to Tara Brady in this paper, he dryly commented: “Sometimes you just can’t win,” he says. “The hard right don’t want any questions about the basis of the war. The hard left can’t understand anything that isn’t a complete condemnation of everything connected with the war. They don’t want to think about soldiers as people. The film has become a Rorschach test: some people take the film as evidence that the war in Afghanistan was completely out of control, others say it shows the soldiers are noble and brave. Very often the various critiques of the film have said more about the critic and not the film itself.”

  By then, he may have been aware that A O Scott, the New York Times’s film reviewer, had delivered a more sober assessment. “Restrepo has the spare, lyrical force of an elegy, inscribing a place for its characters in a tradition of war poetry stretching back to the epics of the ancient world,” Mr Scott wrote.

  Quite right too.

• Farewell Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

  March 23, 2011 @ 1:55 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  It does not involve hyperbole to state that Elizabeth Taylor was an institution. A star for over 60 years, she represented an ideal of Hollywood glamour that died with the 1960s, but, somehow, despite relegation to TV and glorified B-movies, Liz managed to remain properly, staggeringly famous for several more decades. The shenanigans that  surrounded her marriages to Richard Burton — just two, but it felt like a dozen — were covered with the same seriousness and assiduousness newspapers brought to reports of the Six-Day War or the Three-Day week.

  It should be stressed, however, that, despite many jibes, she was a terrific actress. Sure, she was rarely subtle. But cinema needs strong women who are not afraid to bring grand theatre to their performances. Where would we be without Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford or Judy Garland? I guess her most acclaimed turn was in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but a shout should go out for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Father of the Bride and, of course, the immortal A Place in the Sun. In that last film she held her own against the new-fangled method antics of none other than Montgomery Clift. No mean feat.

  I thought she’d live forever.

  

• Farewell then John Barry

  January 31, 2011 @ 10:08 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  The urge to hum “The James Bond Theme” is almost irresistible. Dum dee dum dum, dum dum dum. Dum dee dum dum, dum dum dum. DAH DAH! DAH DOO DAH! But, of course, John Barry did not actually write that iconic piece of music.  The tune was credited to Monty Norman. Barry was officially the arranger. When queried on the matter, Barry would, however, make savage rumbling noises. Norman twice sued newspapers that claimed John was indeed the composer. Mr Norman won on both occasions. So, lest we further accelerate the death of print journalism, let’s be very clear on this matter. John Barry did not write The James Bond Theme. I trust no ambiguity remains.

  At any rate, Barry, who has died at the age of 77, was one of the most distinctive cinema composers of all time. His lush chords and slinky arrangements were unmistakable. The music for the early Bond films is unbeatable. But don’t forget the cool metallic theme to The Ipcress File and (see above, nostalgia fans) the opening tune to The Persuaders. If I had to name a favourite Barry piece it would, however, be one to a film I don’t much fancy. Dances With Wolves is, from a number of perspectives, a very questionable piece of work. The music’s bleeding great though. Daa daa doo daa. Daa doo daa daa doo daa. And so forth.

• Peter Yates’s great vehicle chase.

  January 11, 2011 @ 12:07 am | by Donald Clarke

  The versatile English director Peter Yates has died at the age of 81. Quite a number of the obituaries pointed out that he directed one of the great sequences of cinematic automotive mayhem. They are quite right. It featured cracking music, slick camera moves and an ever growing sense of dread. Here it is. (Actually, all facetiousness aside, this clip does warm the heart somewhat.)

  

• “That’s right, the Mascara Snake. Fast and bulbous.”

  December 18, 2010 @ 7:13 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  “Bulbous also tapered.”
  “Yeah, but you’ve got to wait till I say: ‘Also a tinned teardrop’”.
  “Oh, Christ!”
  “Alright, again. Beginning.”
  “Fast and bulbous.”
  “That’s right, the Mascara Snake. Fast and bulbous. Also a tinned teardrop.”
  “Bulbous also tapered.”
  “That’s right.”

  Bang! Thump! Rattle!

  Captain Beefheart is no more. It doesn’t require too much straining of the hyperbole-glands to identify Trout Mask Replica as the greatest album of all time. The excellent documentary excerpted above features a wonderful contribution from Matt Groening on the subject. He relates how, having bought the thing because it had Frank Zappa’s name upon the cover, he put it on the turntable, lowered the stylus and immediately reeled back in shock. Bang! Clatter! Clunk! “They weren’t even trying,” he laughs. Of course they were trying very hard and, after giving the album another hundred chances,  Matt became addicted to the strange entity. It is a measure of the Captain’s gift that, once you become used to his dadaist blues, you can’t remember why you found the music difficult in the first place.

  Is Trout Mask Replica the place to start? Yeah. Why not throw yourself in at the deep end? If, however, you fancy something a little less confrontational then check out the somewhat more tuneful — but still excellent — Clear Spot or The Spotlight Kid.

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