The Screengrab : ian mckellen

Screengrab Salutes: The Top Biopics of All Time! (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER (1993)

If you’re ever standing around awkwardly at a cocktail party with my father, just mention this movie and watch his eyes light up: you’ll instantly have a new friend and at least half an hour of fresh conversation fodder. Before he retired, you see, my father was a public school teacher who worked with “gifted and talented” students – and no, despite the beliefs of every pushy parent in America, not all of their little darlings are technically “gifted” – but Joshua Waitzkin, the real-life chess prodigy at the heart of screenwriter Steve Zaillian’s directorial debut, would definitely qualify. And that’s the character’s problem: as the saying goes, “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.” Waitzkin (portrayed with believable, naturalistic grace by a then-eight-year-old Max Pomeranc) has undeniable talent, but worries his gift will ultimately rob him of a normal, happy life. The movie comes down to a battle for Waitzkin’s soul, with Ben Kingsley’s joyless mentor on one side, urging the boy to use his abilities to win at all costs (like World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer), and Laurence Fishburne’s laid-back speed chess guru on the other, reminding Waitzkin that Fischer’s exclusive focus on winning eventually drove him into bitter seclusion. The notion that winning and happiness aren’t necessarily the same thing is a rare theme in Hollywood (and the U.S. in general)...which is exactly why my Dad and me both dig this film so much.

HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

Before he came to Hollywood with dreams of elves, walking trees, and ancient CGI hobbits dancing in his head, Peter Jackson made a few films best described as ‘muppet porn’...and then he made Heavenly Creatures. Heavenly Creatures is the true (or true-ish) story of one of the most notorious murders in New Zealand, in which two teenage girls murdered one of their mothers in 1954. Jackson chooses to focus on the relationship between the girls, an obsessive closed-circuit of fantasy and romance that is surprisingly mundane and normal to modern eyes. Many people have intense friendships in their early teen years that involve storytelling and attachments to pop culture and so forth. Well, okay, these girls begin exploring their sexuality with each other at some point, which was extra-freaky for their parents – products of their times – once they start to catch on. Jackson shows how the girls’ fantasies have idealized the parents of the richer one (who’s played by a young Kate Winslet, by the way, just starting her career of cinematic nakedness), thus adding an interesting class dimension to their decision of which parent to murder for standing in their way. And Jackson brings their fantasy world to life with a deftness that helps to explain – if not forgive – how the girls came to choose murder as the solution to their problems. I should point out that I’m pretty fond of the elf movies, actually, and Heavenly Creatures has the wit and humanity to illustrate how Jackson brought those books to filmic life without embarrassing everyone involved. Well, okay, there’s a little embarrassment (for instance, all of the hobbits jumping on the bed towards the end, for 17 straight hours in dreadful slo-mo), but it’s minimal in the grand scheme.

GODS & MONSTERS (1999)

I don’t know how true this story is, but it’s better than a lot of biopics of creative people. The subject is James Whale (Ian McKellen, who also appeared in Peter Jackson’s elf movies), a director of 20 movies between 1930 and 1941 – most notably Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein – and only one thereafter. Whale was openly gay at the time, which is remarkable considering the contemporary horror of homosexuality. The movie runs with the idea by focusing only on his last days, after a stroke has left him lost in his memories. Whale is constantly flashing back to his time in the trenches in WWI, where he lost someone he loved, and to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. He becomes attached to his new gardener, played soberly by Brendan Fraser. Fraser comes to realize that the Frankenstein movies are a metaphor for the isolation Whale felt throughout his life because of his sexual orientation. All of this is a little overblown, naturally (this is a biopic, after all), but it fares fairly well when compared to the hoke-fests of Ray, Walk The Line, A Beautiful Mind, and their ilk. One of the best moments comes near the end, when Whale is walking in silhouette with a hulking figure that appears to be Frankenstein’s monster, but a flash of light shows it to be Fraser. Quite nicely done.

QUIZ SHOW (1994)

Robert Redford has a blunt directorial hand. The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Horse Whisperer, Ordinary People, and even (and this is hard for me, because I love to fly-fish) A River Runs Through It: all pushy where they should be gentle and preachy where they should be guileless. With two movies, though, Redford’s insistence that his audience agree with him is subsumed into his narrative, making them far more enjoyable viewing experiences: The Milagro Beanfield War and Quiz Show. Quiz Show is the true(-ish) story of the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, which led to congressional hearings into whether or not the shows were rigged. Amazingly, these hearings somehow failed to stamp out producer-rigged game shows for good. So the movie has a classic competition between a not-ready-for-prime-time slob (the “ethnic” ex-GI Herb Stempel, played by John Turturro, who is apparently all ethnicities in one) and an elite pantywaist (Columbia professor of English Charles Van Doren, played by the cinematic face of privilege, Ralph Fiennes). The producers rig the show (spoiler!) so that Stempel loses to Van Doren, but then renege on their promise to keep Stempel flush with TV work. There’s certainly some bluntness in this movie, but Redford does take the time to murky the waters by making Stempel a little unlikeable and Van Doren a little charming and regretful. Not too shabby.

RESCUE DAWN (2007)/LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY (1997)

The story so amazing that Werner Herzog had to tell it twice, Rescue Dawn is the fictionalized biopic version of the story Dieter Dengler tells about his life in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. The documentary will blow you away, guaranteed. Herzog has Dengler re-enact many of his ordeals while telling the story of his capture and desperate escape from a Laotian prison camp. Dengler is a fascinating guy with a positivity and self-assurance that seem bottomless, especially in circumstances where most people would see no other options than despair. It’s no wonder that he’s so interesting to Herzog, who is clearly attracted to people who remain in thrall to their dreams even in the most extreme situations. Rescue Dawn is the Hollywood movie treatment of Dengler’s story, but since Herzog remains in the director’s chair, it has an extremity and beauty that usually don’t appear in Vietnam epics. Christian Bale captures Dengler’s spirit well, and the cast is excellent. There’s still something a little too idealized about it, though. To feel like you know Dengler, you should see the documentary. To be swept up into his life, supplement with the movie.

Click Here For Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four & Part Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs

The Top 20 Movies About Movies (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:00:00 GMT

ED WOOD (1994)

Some idiots still go into the motion picture business to get rich...but the ones who stick around long after the dreams of fame and fortune have curdled into a nasty hangover of disappointment and massive credit card debt are the genuine addicts, driven by an overpowering, irrational desire to project their inner landscapes onto the real world in search of validation, a little fun and a taste of immortality. I’m guessing Tim Burton’s the type of guy who would’ve found a way to keep making movies even if his star had never risen over Hollywood and he’d wound up shooting cable access fantasias on his days off from Applebee’s. And without a budget, an art department or professional actors, his flaws as a director would have been more obvious, his obsessions would have seemed more silly, his distinctive aesthetic would have been reduced to cheesy, ticky-tack attempts at grandeur, easily mocked by a society incapable of distinguishing between talent and success. Ed Wood, Jr. was a similar addict, and it’s definitely arguable whether he would have eventually developed into a better director if he’d ever gotten the breaks and budgets he so desperately craved, but regardless of his ultimate worth as a filmmaker, Burton clearly recognized a kindred spirit in the cross-dressing auteur’s bizarrely inimitable proto-Goth sensibility, which (combined with a perfect storm of pitch-perfect career highpoints from Johnny Depp, Martin Landau and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, working from the fascinating Wood biography Nightmare of Ecstasy by Rudolph Grey) resulted in one of the greatest films ever made about the potential for transcendence in even the shittiest art.

GODS AND MONSTERS (1998)

For the most part, this beautifully imagined story about the last days of the great cult director James Whale (Ian McKellan) is set long after Whale had retired from that Hollywood silliness and stopped setting foot on soundstages. But it remains a fine tribute to the surprising lasting power of movie images, and it does have one terrific moviemaking scene, when Whale flashes back to the experience of directing Ernest Thesiger and company in The Bride of Frankenstein. No one in a movie has better captured the appeal of making movies than McKellan when he rhapsodizes about how much fun it was, "working with your friends." And Brendan Fraser, as Mr. Jimmy's hunky new friend, contributes one of his best screen performances ever when, having watched the movie with his razzing pals, he gently feels relief wash over him as Whale reassures him that, yes, parts of it are supposed to be funny.

BOMBSHELL (1933)

Jean Harlow was an usual critter in her day, a woman who, once she had a few hits to her name and a few scandals notched in her belt, was unimaginable as anything but a movie star. Compare her to Madonna or Angelina Jolie and now it's clear that she was decades ahead of her time, but in her own decade she must have seemed quite the freak. Luckily, she knew how to laugh at herself, and this early talkie, in which she plays a glamourpuss celebrity so seedy yet so artificial that she has the Wizard of Oz for a father, remains the classic template for Hollywood's satiric take on itself in the studio-contract era. Co-starring Lee Tracy, who in the talkie era was to reporters and press agents what Seth Rogen is today to scoring out of his league.

LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (2003)

Thom Anderson's dense, meaningful masterpiece works on so many levels that, even at over three hours long, the more one sees it, the more one notices what is omitted as much as what is included. Incredibly ambitious, relentlessly formalist, and bearing both the eye of an artist and the soul of a documentarian committed to social justice, Los Angeles Plays Itself is almost totally unique among modern films. Piecing together a century of Hollywood's portrayals of its own surroundings, from the gorgeous Art Deco-tinted luxury of early films to the deliberately hazy nostalgia of Chinatown to the socialist-realist depictions of filmmakers like Charles Burnette, it's a movie that not only presents an almost complete vision of a modern city – and presents that city with love, respect, disappointment and rage, as appropriate – but also manages to do something quite profound at the same time, which is to use film as a medium for portraying how film changes the way we think, perceive and remember a place. Legal issues will likely prevent Los Angeles Plays Itself from ever getting the wide theatrical release it so richly deserves – it features footage from hundreds of films and television shows, and the clearance rights would be ruinously expensive for any production company – but it turns up occasionally at festivals and academic screenings, and the entirely of the movie was, until recently, available on YouTube. (Keep checking -- the copyright cops work slow.) Not only one of the finest movies about filmmaking imaginable, but one of the most unique films ever made, period.

Click Here for Part One, Part Two, Part Three & Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

Take Five: The Classics

Peter Smith — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:00:00 GMT

"Read the classics, sir," advises Jason Miller's Lieutenant Reno in The Ninth Configuration. "It improves the entire respiratory system." Sure, but who has time for that? When it comes to the great works of western literature, it's all well and good for academics to slog through the thousands of pages of their Penguin Classics editions, but we're busy people. We have screenings of Saw V: Saw Harder to get to. We need our classics simple, direct, stripped of poetry and obscurity, and preferably less than two hours long and starring someone who can sport a decent six-pack. Robert Zemeckis' all-star adaptation of Beowulf, opening wide this weekend, is much more our speed; if we have to sit through a bunch of crazy Old English dialogue, even brought up to speed by comics legend Neil Gaiman, it better be accompanied by some naked Angelina Jolie. Here's a handful of other cinema-clarified classics.

FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

America's middle school students have one thing to look forward to in the long slog through English classes: Frankenstein. It's part of the holy triumvirate of bona fide classics (along with Dracula and Beowulf) that spice up the prose with a good solid monster. Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his "Adam" have become such iconic figures in our culture that it's hard to imagine a time when he was perceived as anything other than Boris Karloff's shambling, neck-bolded patchwork man; and James Whale's confident direction here, remarkably sophisticated for a film that was made over seventy-five years ago, is still electric today.

TOM JONES (1963)

As school-assigned, instructive Classics of Western Literature go, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones is a relative favorite, containing as it does lots of screwing and fart jokes. Tony Richardson's big blow-out adaptation, like the novel a compelling combination of arch and earthy, tries to bring the same tastes-good-and-good-for-you sensibility to the big screen and largely succeeds, despite having been made in the early 1960s when a few of the book's raunchier moments had to be implied rather than depicted. Aided by some gorgeous photography, the film boasts a terrific cast led by young and studly Albert Finney and Susannah York, who's never looked better.

MADAME BOVARY (1991)

Though a number of adaptations of Gustave Flaubert's essential novel have been attempted over the years, perhaps the definitive version comes from the talented and prolific Claude Chabrol. In many ways, he's the perfect director to take on the project: quintessentially French, like Flaubert, but also like Flaubert, just alienated enough from his society and times to view them with a properly jaundiced eye. Given his history of making compelling films about unsatisfied women who come to a bloody end because of their frustration and lack of options, Chabrol was almost born to make Madame Bovary, and he couldn't have made a better choice to play Emma than his Violette Noziere star, the phenomenal Isabelle Huppert.

RICHARD III (1995)

When discussing the classics and their transition to film, there's no avoiding ol' Will Shakespeare. But if you're trying to get the kids on your side, forget glitzy romance and postmodernist flash; forsake the pomposities of a Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and go straight for Richard Loncraine's inventive, delightful Richard III. Nothing animates a Shakespeare play like a good villain, and Ian McKellen — who wrote the adaptation — plays the twisted, perverse, gleefully murderous Richard to the hilt. The setting is likewise outstanding, and the conceit of setting the story in an alternate England of the 1930s, overcome by fascist nationalism, works like a charm, particularly in a dynamite opening sequence.

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY (2005)

If someone tells you often enough that a great novel is unfilmable, you might just start to believe it. For the first hundred years or so of the motion picture industry, no one would tough Laurence Sterne's brilliant, hilarious, rambling Tristram Shandy — a work of postmodernist genius written at least a hundred years before there was even modernism — with a ten-foot lens. It took the arrival of Michael Winterbottom, a man who has made a career out of not listening to people when they tell him what kind of movie he should make next, for anything remotely resembling a big-screen adaptation to be made, and even then, it was more of an impression than it was a reproduction.

— Leonard Pierce