Werth: Wise, today's Film Gab birthday salute is to a really sassy gal.
Wise: You said it! Juliette Lewis has built an entire career on her big-hearted quirkiness.
Werth: Juliette Lewis? I'm talking about silver screen star and Cross-Your-Heart bra icon, Jane Russell.
Wise: Should we toss a coin or compare cup sizes to see who goes first?
Werth: Decades before Juliette was making lewd tongue gestures at Robert DeNiro, Minnesota native Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was one of the most talked-about women in Hollywood.
Her film debut The Outlaw (1943) is the story of Billy the Kid, but one look at the marketing and it was obvious that producer/director Howard Hughes was more interested in telling the story of Jane Russell's cleavage. It was a strategy that worked, and Jane Russell was soon one of the most recognized starlets in Hollywood. Fast forward ten years and Russell's ample talents were being showcased again in what would become another iconic "body" film.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) follows chorusgirls Dorothy Shaw (Russell) and Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) as they take a cruise to France to get Lorelei's millionaire boyfriend (Tommy Noonan) to chase her across the Atlantic.
Wise: Which is a clever strategy because most people run toward millionaires—unless it's Donald Trump.
Werth: Dorothy and Lorelei are the perfect female odd couple. Dorothy is streetwise, sensible and crass; wisecracking that she is looking for a man "who can run faster than I can" as she marches through a gym populated by Olympic athletes.
Lorelei, on the other hand, couldn't care less what a man looks like as long as his wallet is handsome. And while she might have trouble spelling "tiara," she's smart enough to get rich men to give her shiny objects of affection, even if they have to pry them off their wives' heads.
Wise: I didn't know you could use a chapeau as a safety deposit box.
Werth: Based on the popular musical, and directed by successful multi-genre director Howard Hawks, Gentlemen is a brisk, funny, tuneful romp that sustained Russell's career, and shot Monroe's into the stratosphere. Both actresses are perfect for their parts—and while that applies to their finely shaped body parts, it's important to remember that both of these gals were more than their measurements.
Russell's arch banter turns a noir-like worldliness into comic jousting. She's particularly adept at mimicry in one scene where she has to pretend to be Lorelei for a French nightcourt. And Monroe's "dumb" blonde routine was so masterful, it would become the gold standard for comedic female roles for years to come.
You could say that this is the movie that made Monroe a star, but also trapped her in a screen persona she would learn to deplore. But the sadness that would overwhelm Monroe's later career is nowhere to be found here. She is young, funny, dazzlingly beautiful, and has the whole world by the jewels. Russell and Monroe became friends and seemed genuinely to enjoy each other on the screen.
They definitely looked chummy in the photos where they are pressing their hands into the wet cement of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, memorializing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and themselves for future film buffs.
Wise: While certainly no bombshell, Juliette Lewis has had a long career playing sensitive oddballs and deploying her weird beauty to create characters both subtle and over-the-top. In What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993), she plays Becky, a teen traveling across the country with her grandmother. When their truck breaks down in the small Iowa town of Endora, she strikes up a friendship with Gilbert (Johnny Depp). Gilbert's life is consumed with caring for his mentally challenged brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio),
and complicated both by an affair with an older married woman (Mary Steenburgen) and by the depression of his severely obese mother (Darlene Cates). As Gilbert grows increasingly frustrated by life, his troubles multiply, and he risks losing Becky's steadying influence.
Werth: If Becky were as big as his mother, she'd be more steadying.
Wise: Depp brings tremendous sensitivity to the role, making Gilbert sympathetic while still acknowledging the character's faults. Revisiting the film, it can be a shock to see Depp so modulated, particularly because his current career seems dedicated to outlandishness.
He and Lewis are particularly well-matched in the film, and the halting steps they take in revealing their mutual attraction feels painfully real. Also painfully real is Darlene Cates as Gilbert's mother.
Discovered by screenwriter Peter Hedges (who adapted his own novel) on an episode of The Sally Jesse Raphael Show, Cates was an actual recluse who overcame her own insecurities about her weight to take on the role.
Werth: Cates lost 250 lbs. last year and is hoping to return to acting.
Wise: The breakout star of the film, of course, is DiCaprio who received an Best Supporting Oscar nomination for the role of Arnie. He loads the character full of verbal and gestural quirks without resorting into caricature or descending into the maudlin.
His Arnie has believable motivations and strong emotions that he expresses using the character's limited faculties. When Gilbert abandons him in the bath, Arnie is angry, and even though he is unable to articulate his frustration in words, DiCaprio communicates his character's indignation and hurt as forcefully as any speech.
Director Lasse Halström carefully integrates his cast's vibrant performances with the sweetly elegiac tone of the film, making Gilbert Grape both a showcase for some great acting as well as a beautifully rendered meditation on life.
Werth: Since this is a birthday post, we need cake.
Wise: I'll grab my 'J'-shaped cake pan. Visit us again next week for more alphabetically delicious Film Gab!
Werth: Hello, Wise.
Wise: Howdy, Werth. Do you happen to know if there's a Hot Topic here in Manhattan, or do I need to head to a mall somewhere in New Jersey?
Werth: Are you all out of black nail polish and fishnet tights?
Wise: Of course not, but I do need some supplies to get my goth fangirl on because Tim Burton's latest stop-motion animation film Frankenweenie opens today. This calls for a new Emily the Strange lunchbox!
Werth: More than that, Wise. It calls for a Film Gab salute to the multiple stop-motion animated films in Burton's oeuvre.
Wise: I couldn't agree more. Corpse Bride (2005) relates the unlikely tale of Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), the shy son of arriviste fish merchants who is pledged to marry the daughter of a titled but broke noble family (Emily Watson as a very plucky Victoria Everglott) only to have those plans interrupted by an accidental union with the titular decomposing lady (Helena Bonham Carter).
The plot revolves around Victor's attempts to escape the underworld and reunite with his true love Victoria while Corpse Bride Emily attempts to persuade Victor of the many charms of the afterlife.
Werth: Sounds like the presidential debate this week.
Wise: The film marks Burton's first time as the director of a full-length stop-motion animation film (along with co-director Mike Johnson).
In some ways, the format seems the perfect outlet for Burton's imagination—stylized puppets sing and emote in an endearingly creepy, toy-like fantasy world—but it's also a reminder of the kind of compassionate filmmaker he can be. Unlike the high-concept pageantry without a shred of human emotion in a live-action film like Alice in Wonderland, the heart of Corpse Bride focuses on hopes and disappointments, tragedy, trickery, despair and love.
Plus, there's genuine humor, including Emily's maggot conscience that bears a striking resemblance to Peter Lorre.
Werth: Everyone should have a Peter Lorre maggot as a conscience.
Wise: Depp is marvelous as a self-doubting introvert who gradually learns to express his emotions and to fight for his passions. Watson has less to do, but is no less appealing as a damsel in distress who finds she has a lot more fortitude than anyone gave her credit for.
Bonham Carter resurrects some of the spunky innocence she displayed as an ingenue in all those Merchant and Ivory films at the beginning of her career, but marries it to a macabre sexpot glamor that makes her the darling of the black eyeliner set.
Werth: I bet her wardrobe at home looks more like the Corpse Bride's than Miss Honeychurch's.
Wise: Of course, no discussion of Corpse Bride would be complete without mentioning Danny Elfman's rollicking score. He somehow manages to make his music appropriate to both Burton's gaudy Halloween world and to the characters' emotional lives. He also provides the singing voice to Mr. Bonejangles, a one-eyed dancing skeleton (and a sly nod to Sammy Davis, Jr).
The supporting players are uniformly great, filled with a roster of British talent that includes Joanna Lumley, Richard E. Grant, Michael Gough, and Christopher Lee. But it's all these talents together, harnessed by Burton and Johnson that makes Corpse Bride such a pleasure.
Werth: Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride may be his most recent forays into the world of stop-motion animation, but Burton has been working in the world of puppets and clay from his first days as a director. One of his first shorts made for Disney which you can catch on the Special Edition DVD of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) (which Burton produced but didn't direct) shows exactly where this talented artist was going. Vincent (1982) is a darkly charming, black and white animated poem about a young boy named Vincent Malloy who wishes he was Vincent Price.
Wise: Like Bill Hader wishes he was Vincent Price.
Werth: Minus Gloria Swanson and James Mason. Vincent's imagination is a joyous trip into the macabre with little Vincent turning his mom into a waxwork, scouring dark alleys with his zombie dog, and realizing that his wife has been buried alive... all to narration spoken with a twinkle of irony by the one and only Vincent Price.
Wise: I guess Orson Welles was busy.
Werth: What really makes this piece so unique is its impeccable design, which Burton did himself. The textures of the clothing and hair, the wild expressionism-by-way-of-Dr. Seuss sets, the cinematic lighting, even the little bags under Vincent's eyes are created with painstaking attention to detail.
All of these qualities would make their way into Burton's stop-animation scenes in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Beetlejuice (1988) and his visionary production of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996) (both directed by Coraline director, Henry Selick.)
Wise: So, Werth, I've got my ironic My Little Pony t-shirt and my wallet chain, and I'm ready join you at Frankenweenie.
Werth: Who cares what you're wearing, as long as you join me next week for more Film Gab.
Wise: Hello, Werth.
Werth: Hi, Wise. Have you ever been haunted by a dream?
Wise: Only when someone desecrates the Eurythmics.
Werth: I had a dream the other night about hanging out in a bar with Bernadette Peters, Burt Reynolds, and George Takei.
Wise: Have you been mixing leisure suits with Harvey Wallbangers again?
Werth: I don't think it was what I drank, but what I saw before I went to bed that goosed up my dream-world. Tuesday night Film Forum screened the Terry Gilliam cult-favorite Brazil (1985). I have heard about this film for years, but I really wasn't prepared for the reality-bending, dystopic vision quest I was about to embark on.
Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a petty paper-pusher in an Orwellian bureacracy "somewhere in the 20th century" who begins to have Barbarella-like dreams about rescuing a beautiful woman (C.H.U.D. alumna Kim Greist).
While delivering a refund check to a woman whose husband was tortured to death by mistake, Lowry sees the girl he's been dreaming of and can't help but pursue her.
Wise: Just not pursue in the Lifetime movie way.
Werth: The plot quickly ratchets up to include terrorist bombings, a promotion, a seditious air-conditioning repair man (Robert De Niro), a sword fight with a giant samurai, and a face-lift obsessed mother (Katehrine Helmond) who wears hats shaped like high-heel shoes.
Wise: It sounds like Zsa Zsa's dream diary.
Werth: Indeed. Gilliam's ability to make the film's "reality" so fantastical that you can't tell what's real in this world and what's not soaks the film in a dream-like quality that alternates between whimsy and nightmare. Gilliam mines the visual motifs of film noir, art deco, traditional Japanese art, wholesome '50's propaganda and industrial grunge to come up with stunning vistas, posh restaurants and dark alleys where Lowry is forced to fight the sytem to save his girl and himself.
Oscar-nommed production designer Norman Garwood must have had a field day turning the images in Gilliam's head into physical sets and matte paintings of cityscapes, dreamworlds, and ghettos. One particular car chase scene is notable because it's hard not to accuse Tim Burton of stealing its look for one of the Batmobile chase scenes in Batman (1989).
Wise: We call it homage.
Werth: Gilliam himself creates an homage to the famous Eisenstein Battleship Potemkin "massacre on the steps" scene during Lowry's escape from work/prison, so it's clear that he is purposefully referenicng the worlds created by the cinema.
The whole film is so visually rich with cultural code and imaginative spaces and a plethora of top-notch actors including Pryce, De Niro, Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Bob Hoskins and an early slimy screen appearance by Jim Broadbent—that it's overwhelming.
With a plot that keeps going and going, accompanied by an ever-changing refrain of the famous Ary Barrosso song—Brazil is like a twisting nightmare that refuses to end. But it's a dream that I would welcome any night.
Wise: Terry Gilliam is a master of bringing dream visions to the screen. Unfortunately, that genius can sometimes devolve in nightmare. The documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002) chronicles Gilliam's failed attempt to bring Cervantes' classic Don Quixote to the multiplex.
Werth: Which was also a failed project that plagued Orson Welles.
Wise: Ever since a dispute with a producer hobbled the production of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Gilliam has allowed documentarians onto his sets to help combat the (unfair) perception that his playful production style leads inexorably toward bloated fiascoes.
In the case of La Mancha, the desire to appear responsible may have led to disaster because the tight budget and even tighter shooting schedule ultimately could not withstand the catastrophes that plagued the project. Unable to gather his actors for rehearsal before the start of filming, Gilliam spends most of his pre-production time encouraging his team to be both whimsical and mindful of the budget.
When the first day of filming does arrive, momentum is slow to build as the cast attempts to cohere, then comes to a complete halt when NATO jets running maneuvers drown out the sound followed by a flash flood that sweeps away the set.
Werth: Top Gun meets Waterworld!
Wise: The problems mount until Gilliam's Quixote, French film legend Jean Rochefort, sustains an injury that forces him to drop out of the cast. The production team decides to shelve the project, but the film's insurers refuse to pay the claim, forcing Gilliam to continue making a film that can no longer be completed until the producers and the insurers reach an agreement.
Werth: Which sounds like the plot to a Terry Gilliam film.
Wise: It's hard to know what we've lost by not having the completed picture. The rushes included are arresting (particularly a shot of three giants lumbering over a mountain), although without context.
Johnny Depp does some fun mugging as a revamped Sancho Panza, but mostly he sits at the edge of the set smoking and watching disaster unfold. The best indication of what might have been is the delight that
Gilliam takes in the creations of his production team: he battles a phalanx of life-sized marionettes and predicts Oscars for his costume designer Gabriella Pescucci. There have been occasional rumors of Gilliam reviving the project in the decade since the documentary appeared, but so far all attempts seem to be mere tilting at windmills.
Werth: So, Wise, has our salute to Terry Gilliam inspired any new dreams for you?
Wise: Well, aside from White Christmases and Jeannies, I'll be dreaming of next week's Film Gab.
