Week that Was

The Film's the Thing

This week in 1964, two titans of 20th Century culture, one from the world of theatre and one from silent film, joined together on an unlikely cinematic enterprise. In 1963, Samuel Beckett, one of the great playwrights of the modern era, was commissioned to write a film script, and concocted an avant garde project about an old man who is trying to become invisible to the world and thus cease to exist. It was called, in typically minimal style, Film. The initial casting choice for the protagonist "O" was Charlie Chaplin (who had all but retired from filmmaking), but attention then turned to comedian Zero Mostel, and Jack MacGowran, a theatre actor and veteran of Beckett's plays, who the writer favored. However, director Alan Schneider, who had previously overseen many Beckett productions, was convinced by bit player James Karen to hire Buster Keaton for the role; the legendary silent comedian was then on hard times, reduced to cameos on TV shows and films such as Pajama Party. The resulting film, shot in an anonymous looking New York City setting, owes much more to surrealist theatre and experimental cinema than to any of Keaton's best known movies, but nevertheless brilliantly showcases not only his continuing comic talents but also a profound aptitude to convey sadness and pain in the simplest of manners. For a further perspective on the film on this site — and to watch Film — you can go here.

The Other Albert Einstein

Neurotic, self-absorbed, and needing a personal trainer — that's a description that could apply to most of today's hottest movie comedians, from Will Ferrell's paunchy sports stars and newscasters to Judd Apatow's schlubby romantics. But this type in its modern formulation can be traced back to one of cinema's great comic voices, Albert Brooks, who was born July 22, 1947 as Albert Lawrence Einstein. (Wikipedia notes that he changed his name to avoid confusion with the famous scientist.) From his early television appearances on the Tonight Show, Brooks' ironic, self-aware and dissembling style created a persona that may not have been always endearing but was always funny. In 1979 he became a film director with Real Life, a picture that was similarly ahead of its time. Anticipating the debate about the relationship between filmmakers and their documentary subjects, Brooks starred as an egotistical director trying to win an Oscar by capturing the interactions of an everyday American family. Later films such as Modern Romance and Lost in America also touched on cultural nerves and generational anxieties, while his most recent film, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, was perhaps a bit flat in trying to parse the difference between Western comedy and Islam's. Alongside his filmmaking, Brooks has carved out a career as a dramatic actor. For his first role he played Cybill Shepherd's co-worker in Taxi Driver, and he received an Academy Award nomination for his part in Broadcast News. But new generations know Brooks as the voice of "Marlin" in Finding Nemo and as a variety of supporting characters on The Simpsons. This television season he joins the cast of Showtime's Weeds.

From Then to Eternity

It was 42 years ago that Montgomery Clift was found dead at the age of 45 in his New York City townhouse by his personal secretary, Lorenzo James. Although the coroner officially noted heart attack, many consider his death was, as acting teacher Robert Lewis called it, "the longest suicide in history." His first film, Red River, which placed him besides John Wayne, perfectly showcased the dichotomy between the old vanguard and the new brooding and sensitive male characters that would become so popular in the 60s. In A Place in the Sun to From Here to Eternity, Clift rose to the status of matinée idol, that is until a near-fatal car accident in 1956 permanently marred his swooning good looks. As a gay man uncomfortable with the duplicity of Hollywood, Clift moved back to New York, spiraling deeper into drugs and alcohol. Although he continued to make films (such as Suddenly, Last Summer and The Misfits), his addictions were getting the better of him. His Misfits co-star Marilyn Monroe described Clift "The only person I know who is in worse shape than I am." By 1962, when he signed on to star in John Huston's Freud, his alcoholism had become so bad that, when the film flopped, the studio attempted to sue Clift himself. He made one more film, but mostly isolated himself in his Upper East Side home, drinking himself to death.

Drugstore Director

Gus Van Sant, one of contemporary cinema's most fascinating and rewarding directors, was born on July 24, 1952. From his early movies (Mala Noche, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) through mainstream hits like Good Will Hunting and To Die For up to his recent more experimental films (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park), Van Sant has consistently challenged his audiences' expectations with regard to form, content, and careerist expectations. Zigzagging from poetic personal films to flat-out entertainments, and consistently breaking down the often unwieldy apparatus of mainstream moviemaking, Van Sant has remained a fresh and vital voice whose sheer unpredictability is a tonic for our conservative movie times. Coming off of awards in Cannes for two recent films (Elephant and Paranoid Park), Van Sant next tackles the life and death of the iconic Harvey Milk in Milk, out from Focus Features this fall and starring Sean Penn.

More on Gus Van Sant: On the event of his 56th birthday, FilmInFocus reprints an interview with Gus Van Sant from 1993 in which he talks to Graham Fuller about his working methods – and his preoccupation with the story of Harvey Milk.

Au Revoir, Clouseau

The original cast members of the legendary Goon Show - Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Peter Sellers — were due to meet up for a reunion dinner in London in the last week of July, 1980, but the dinner never took place, Instead, Milligan and Secombe attended Sellers' funeral, after his death on July 24 following a heart attack at London's Dorchester Hotel two days earlier. The fact that Sellers lived till 1980 is a miracle: in 1964, he suffered no less than 13 heart attacks over the period of just a few days and had then resisted traditional treatment to deal with his cardiac problems, instead opting for New Age therapies. Almost as if he was aware that he had limited time left, Sellers spent the last 16 years of his life in a frenzy of activity: he appeared in 32 films and a further five television shows and married three times (to Swedish actress Britt Eckland, Australian model Miranda Quarry and Lynn Fredericks, another actress). During that time, he cemented his immortality as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies and also pursued passion projects such as Being There, Hal Ashby's film version of Jerzy Kosinski's novel, in which Sellers' nuanced performance as a savant gardener turned unwitting politician won him a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Being There reminded the world that Sellers was a great actor as well as a comic genius, however at Sellers' funeral it was his sense of humor that was at the fore: he had requested the playing of Glenn Miller's theme tune, "In the Mood," at his service, a piece of music he loathed.

Odd Man Out: James Mason Dies

In 1984, James Mason died at the age of 75 of a massive heart attack in adopted hometown of Lausanne, Switzerland. Over his long career, he'd made over 100 films — even though he had originally trained to be an architect. During the Depression, getting a job as an actor was as likely as working as an architect, so he decided to give theater a chance. While cast in some sleight romantic roles, Mason found his stride playing arch, diabolic characters, made all the more vicious by his smooth and debonair demeanor. In 1947, Mason moved to Hollywood, receiving rave reviews for his thuggish role in Max Ophuls's The Reckless Moment and popping in a number of period pieces. But Mason's caddishness were to be best captured as three different, but equally memorable, rogues: as Judy Garland's self-destructive alcoholic husband, Norman Maine, in A Star is Born; as the ultra-suave villain in Hitchcock's North by Northwest; and as the literary perv Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. Despite his renown as a villain on screen, Mason was anything but in real life. As a lifelong pacifist, he refused to serve in World War II, and later he devoted his life to the care of his cats, for which he co-wrote and illustrated The Cats in Our Lives. In the end, he stayed away from the bright lights of Hollywood, preferring a quiet life in Switzerland. And he is buried just feet away from his friend and neighbor Charlie Chaplin.