"Art Now and Then" does not mean art occasionally. It means art NOW as opposed to art THEN. It means art in 2020 as compared to art many years ago...sometimes many, many, MANY years ago. It is an attempt to make that art relevant now, letting artists back then speak to us now in the hope that we may better understand them, and in so doing, better understand ourselves and the art produced today.
Al Pacino's most famous line from Godfather II. Most of the really memorable Godfather lines came from the original Godfather and the original godfather, Marlon Brando.
A little over a year ago (06-17-12) I enumerated a list of the "Top Ten American Movies of All Time." Both before and since then, I've been doing individual items on each of the films I listed. The Godfather Part II is the final film in that series. I listed it as number five, just ahead of Titanic (#6) and just behind Ben Hur (#4). That placement was based mostly on the film's critical reputation and its ranking on numerous other hierarchical lists on which it fell both above and below my ranking. The reason for this is that, I must confess, I have never seen this film in its entirety. Gangster films are among my least favorite genres, along with horror films, sports films, and the whole "chick-flick" milieu of lighthearted romantic comedies (which my wife adores). Yet in each of these film categories there have been outstanding masterpieces such as On the Waterfront, The French Connection, Poltergeist, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and one or two of the Rocky series. Therefore, just to let you know I wasn't doting on personal favorites in creating my top-ten list, there sets Francis Ford Coppola's (and Mario Puzo's)The Godfather Part II right smack in the middle of it.
Unlike many classic films, The Godfather Part II is not rife with iconic images. This is one of the few.
As with many outstanding film classics, the excellence of The Godfather Part II largely derives from the nearly absolute control of the film by its producer, director, and co-writer. Mr. Coppola and Mr. Puzo, the author of the book, not only worked well together, they created a work of art that was actually better than the original film and the original novel. Today we take sequels pouring out of Hollywood for granted. For better or worse (usually the latter) they are an integral part of the industry's business economics (if the original does well, milk it for all its worth--ala Rocky/Stallone). That was not the case back in the olden days of 1974 when Paramount believed audiences would not pursue an "add-on" story. They may have been right. At the box office, The Godfather Part II has not done as well as the original, grossing only $193-million (from a $13-million budget) as compared to $286-million to date for the original. And, though the original Godfather was critically acclaimed (winning three Oscars out of eight nominations), most film critics agree The Godfather Part II surpassed it on every level (winning six Academy Awards out of nine nominations).
Perhaps the most famous shot from The Godfather Part II (cinematically speaking, of course).
The other half of the exemplary Godfather II equation was the cast. Marlon Brando was absent this time (front office politics--it's a long story) and James Caan was paid exorbitantly for his single flashback scene as Sonny Corleone. Otherwise, Al Pacino, Robert Duval, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg, Abe Vigoda, Roger Corman, virtually the whole case reprised their roles from the original film. Moreover, these people were no dramatic lightweights. They knew their characters and responded well to Coppola's dictatorial style of direction. For a production so massive (and a budget to match), filming is said to have gone quite smoothly, finishing on schedule and on budget. Filming began the first of October, 1973 and ended nine-and-a-half months later in mid-June of the following year. The movie has the distinction of having been the last film ever shot in Technicolor. However, it was the first sequel to win an Academy Award, and in fact, the first modern-day film to be overtly marketed as a sequel (but not the last, unfortunately).
I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that when we're young, time seems to crawl by quite slowly. Just one school year seems like an eternity. Then, stranger still, once we get old, how quickly time passes. I'm usually pretty good at placing past events in our family within a few months of when they happened. But as I was preparing to write about the art of the 1980s, l started to draw a blank. Then I recalled that our son was born on July, 5th, 1982, having held off his entry into this world for a day so I could complete a successful art show the day before. In thinking back, I recall our family went on our first of fourteen (so far) cruises just after Christmas, 1988. Later, I realized that during the decade of the 80s, I completed my own first decade in teaching art (1982).
Margaret Thatcher (said to be anti-art) was a big name in England. In the United States, Andy Warhol was a big name in art. Despite her attitude, he painted her anyway.
As I prepared to write this, I chose at random a year and a week from the 1980s--May 24th to the 31st, 1989. In that one week, the Exxon Valdez spilled its guts--11.3-million gallons of Alaskan crude. Two days later, Boris Yeltsin, former mayor of Moscow, was elected the first president of the Russian Federation (in a landslide). In the arts, Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) and Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs) won Academy Awards at Hollywood's sixty-first annual self-congratulatory shindig. Meanwhile in Paris, I. M. Pei's pyramidal entrance to the Louvre opened to the public. Then, a couple days later some New York millionaire bought bankrupt Eastern Airline's Northeast Shuttle, a step toward becoming the CEO of the United States. All that in just one week. I guess the 80s were more eventful than I remembered.
The Berlin Wall east gallery--the biggest art happening of the decade.
In the spring of 2014, I toured Berlin. The highlight of the tour was an outdoor art gallery (of sorts) along the east side of what was the last remnant of the infamous Berlin Wall. The wall came tumbling down on November 9th, 1989, so my visit was just a few months short of the twenty-fifty anniversary of this world-changing event. The art I saw ranged from just a shade better than graffiti to surprisingly adept as seen in the iconic image of Leonid Brezhnev kissing East German Chancellor Erich Honecker (above). Some celebrated the fall of the wall with sledge hammers hacking off souvenirs to sell to tourists. The East and West Berlin artists joined in commemorating the event with their protest art.
The heroic Marvel Super-Stars of John Byrne.
On the home front, the biggest art happenings were not in whitewashed, SoHo art galleries but on the silver screen or the pages of heroic action comics as seen in artist John Byrne's Marvel Super-Stars (above). In movie theaters, it was the start of the sequels, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Indiana Jones (below) along with such classics as Ghost Busters, Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Dirty Dancing, Karate Kid, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Today, only the Star Wars franchise (now under Disney ownership) survives from "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
One of my personal favorite films, from 1983, is the American coming-of-age drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton. The film is noted for its cast of up-and-coming stars, including C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane (below). Set Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1966, the storyline involves a gang of tough, low-income, working-class teens. Their rivalry is with the Socs, another gang made up of wealthier kids from the other side of town. The action is crude, cruel, violent, and murderous, while, at the end, uplifting and satisfying.
The Outsiders, on film and on paper.
As motion pictures and the comics continued to replace narrative art, artist Serge Gay Jr. latched onto the stars that starred in the near avalanche of films released in the 1980s (below). His painted caricatures somehow managed to capture both the actors and their movie roles in a single image. How many can you identify?
The painted caricatures of Serge Gay Jr. Extra credit if you can name both the character and the stars.
In looking down over several lists of the top one-hundred films ever made, I was dismayed to realize I'd already written on most of the top twenty. I noticed that number 15 on the American Film Institute (AFI) list was Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope. It struck me that, for some unknown reason, I'd avoided this "one of a nine" blockbuster (number VIII is due for release in December, 2016, while the final episode is due out in 2019). So, I spent a good hour or more researching it then decided to check my archives after finding some of what I read sounded disturbingly familiar (this has happened before). To my dismay I found I'd already covered the Star Wars Saga(as a whole), Star Wars Art, as well as a biographical piece on director, George Lucas himself, not to mention his groundbreaking classic, American Graffiti. Okay, so I'd not neglected either the man, nor his art, after all. Moreover, if anything, my admiration for this American creative icon verged on outright overexposure.
The opening sequence,
Star Wars. Notice that the voice of
Darth Vader is not that of James Earl Jones.
That being the case, this is not so much about a single film, which successfully "kicked off" a multi-billion-dollar cinematic franchise, as it is about one of the exceedingly rare times when a million small points of creative genius happily came together to form a cinematic masterpiece, using Star Wars IV as a classic example and point of departure. As individual film blockbuster masterpieces go, I could just as easily cite Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, or The Godfather, only the latter of which has spawned a series. By the same token, only Citizen Kane was the conceptual work of a single writer/producer/director/actor (Orson Welles) while the others were based upon successful novels. Star Wars IV can claim both of these distinctions. Lucas not only conceived the storyline and the characters, he saw the entire effort through to completion, not just once, but six times. The final three episodes of the saga are in Disney's hands (they're even building a separate, Star Wars theme park at Disney World, Orlando).
George Lucas, ca. 1976--cut from the same cloth as Orson Welles
The entire process of making a movie is sometimes compared to raising a child. The baby is conceived (ideas coalesce, the project is sold to backers, and a script is hammered out); a pregnancy takes place (casting and filming ensues); the baby is born (the promotion and a premier); whereupon the child grows to adulthood enjoying some degree of financial success and critical acclaim. In the case of George Lucas (above) and Star Wars, however, this whole, complex, complicated analogy is more on the order of planting a seed, nurturing a seedling, growing it into a sapling, which becomes an entire grove of money trees. No one, not Spielberg, not Welles, not Selznick, nor Woody Allen, not even Coppola, has ever come close to pulling off such a feat, and doing it so well...no one.
An autographed final script.
Using the baby analogy, the whole Star Wars conception element breaks down immediately. With most films there is one mother and perhaps a whole host of seminal inputs (novelists, playwrights, cinematographers, producers, directors, etc.). Not so with Star Wars IV. From the very beginning, Star Wars was Lucas' baby. That's not to say there weren't outside influences, most notably the Flash Gordon sci-fi series in the 1940s and 50s, but also including the popular cowboy westerns of the same era, Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey, Tarzan, Jules Verne, and even Gulliver's Travels. Lucas began pulling all these diverse influences together in January 1973, working eight hours a day, five days a week, writing, taking notes, inventing weird names, and developing characterizations. He would discard most of these by the time the final script was written, but many names and places eventually made it into the movie or its sequels. Others were revived decades later when he wrote his prequel trilogy. All this Lucas used to compile a two-page synopsis titled Journal of the Whills, which told of the training of apprentice, CJ Thorpe, as a "Jedi-Bendu" space commando. The problem was, condensed to two pages, the whole story was almost beyond comprehension.
Carrie Fisher never looked so good.
In frustration, Lucas then began writing a 13-page treatment called The Star Wars in April of 1973. Lucas went looking for money. United Artist said thanks, but no thanks. Universal, who had fin-anced his American Graffiti, did likewise. Sci-fi just wasn't that big a deal in the mid-1970s. Even Kubrick's landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey had trouble gain-ing financial traction until later. Hollywood has always been more interested in endlessly repeating past successes than in planning future ones. Beyond that, Star Wars IV was unlike any sci-fi film ever made in the past. It was not about the future, but a space adventure having taken place "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." It was a frightening de-parture from the norm. Moreover, the budget for such a picture was frightening as well. Lucas wanted eight-million. The final budget ev-entually bloomed to eleven-mil-lion. Walt Disney also rejected the project (and has now paid through the nose to the tune of $4-billion for their shortsightedness). Finally, in June, 1973, Lucas was able to pursued Alan Ladd, Jr., then head of 20th Century Fox, to underwrite the project. A deal was completed for Lucas to write and direct the film. Although Ladd did not have much understanding of the technical side, he believed in Lucas. The deal gave George Lucas $150,000 to write and direct Star Wars.
The Death Star came relatively late in the Star Wars conceptual process.
An idea for a film that began taking shape in January 1973, had already gone through various rewrites. Lucas would write four different screenplays for Star Wars, in search of just the right ingredients, characters and storyline. By May 1974, he had expanded the film treatment into the rough draft of a screenplay, adding elements such as the Sith, the Death Star, and a general by the name of Annikin Starkiller. In the process, Lucas changed Starkiller to an adolescent boy, and he shifted the general into a supporting role as a member of a family of dwarfs. Lucas envisioned Han Solo, as a large, green-skinned monster with gills. He based Chewbacca on his Malamute dog. A full year after he'd first begun, Lucas completed a second draft of The Star Wars in which he made a number of important simplifications including the introduction of the young hero, Luke Starkiller. Annikin became Luke's father, a wise Jedi knight. "The Force" was also introduced as a mystical energy field. This second draft still had some differences from the final version as to characters and relationships. But the film, and indeed, the entire saga, was starting to take shape.
The Star Wars IV cast with Lucas and producer, Gary Kurtz.
A third draft, dated August, 1975, was titled The Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller. The third draft featured only minor differences as to characters and settings from the fourth and final plot. The third draft characterized Luke as an only child (he'd had brothers, earlier), with his father already dead, to be replaced by a substitute father named Ben Kenobi. The fourth and final draft was dated January, 1976, with a title of The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. Obviously an abbreviated title was needed. Fox approved a budget of $8.25-million largely on the basis of American Graffiti's positive reception. which afforded Lucas the leverage necessary to demand the sequel rights to the film. For Lucas, it was a most fortunate arrangement in that it protected Star Wars unwritten segments and most of the merchandising profits. Fox owned only Episode IV. Lucas grew rich from all the others.
Alec Guinness (Obi-wan Kenobi) and director, George Lucas on location, of Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope, 1976.
Lucas finished writing his script in March of 1976, just before the crew started filming. What finally emerged through the many drafts of the script was obviously influenced by science-fiction and action-adventure with all the other influences working together in surprising harmony. While much of this new sci-fi genre was, indeed, unprecedented, there were also certain traditional aspects which have helped perpetuate the Star Wars saga. During production, Lucas changed Luke's name from Starkiller to Skywalker, and fortunately, the title was altered to The Star Wars, and later just Star Wars. The film debuted on May 25, 1977, in fewer than 32 theaters. Eight more came aboard two days later. Immediately box office records began to fall, causing Fox to quickly broaden its release. The film was a huge success for 20th Century Fox. Within three weeks it had more than doubled the studio's stock price and raised the company's annual profits from $37-million in 1977 to $79-million the following year. In total receipts, the film has earned over $775-million worldwide. Adjusted for inflation, Star Wars IVhas earned over $2.5 billion worldwide at 2011 prices, making it the most successful franchise film of all time.
The people who made it all possible--the Star Wars fans.
A few weeks ago as my wife and I were holed up in a hotel room in Cleveland for a night, she randomly clicked on a TV movie she'd never seen--George Lucas' American Graffiti. I'd seen it once or twice when it first came out in 1973 and long admired it as a longstanding classic of American filmmaking. It took me only a few minutes in watching it again for the first time in about forty years, to realize it was a film I dearly loved. Though not George Lucas' first film, it was his first successful film. Shot on a budget of a "mere" $777.000, it has turned out to be one of the highest grossing low-budget films ever made--well over $200 million in box office gross and home video sales, not including merchandising. Yet when Lucas was searching for financing for the film he was turned down by United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, MGM, Warner Bros., and Paramount before Universal Studios reluctantly agreed to take the risk ($4,369,471 in today's dollars). Lucas' previous film, THX 1138, a brainy, sci-fi epic, had been an unmitigated flop. Even though it had been produced by none other than Francis Ford Coppola (who also eventually produced American Graffiti), neither name carried the weight in Hollywood at the time to warrant much confidence in a teenaged cruising film with a cast of unknown kids (most of whom were no longer teenagers).
Set in Modesto, California, most of the filming took place in nearby Petaluma.
George Lucas before Star Wars.
"Where were you in '62?" became the film's nostalgic catch phrase. I was a junior in high school. Though a year younger than the recent high school graduates around whom the story revolves, I was living the cruising life, decked out in tight, white, peg-leg Levi's, a white, long-sleeve shirt (sleeves rolled up, of course), white socks and white, slip-on sneakers. My friends and I cruised the streets of the county seat, McConnelsville, Ohio, looking for girls at a time when gas was thirty cents a gallon and a hamburger was twenty-five cents at the local Dairy Queen (our less-futuristic equivalent to Mel's Drive-in). I was more or less the equivalent of the film's Terry "The Toad" Fields, played by Charles Martin Smith. American Graffiti documented the first wave of the "Baby Boom" generation coming of age, before the Vietnam war, before the Kennedy assassination, at a time when "flower power" was the effect of a fresh-cut bouquet on your girlfriend.
The American Graffiti cast. Most were unknowns. Some remained that way.
Today we'd refer to American Graffiti as having an "all-star" cast, but with the exception of "Ronny" Howard (Opie from Mayberry, R.F.D.), and the largely background presence of the popular DJ, Wolfman Jack, no one had ever heard of any of the other talented cast members. Cindy Williams (as Laurie) had yet to meet Laverne or play Shirley. Richard Dreyfus had yet to encounter a certain marine denizen with huge Jaws. Susanne Somers (in a cameo role as the blond in the T-Bird) had yet to join TV's Three's Company. Twelve-year-old Mackenzie Phillips had yet to take things One Day at a Time. Harrison Ford, back when he was still a carpenter, turned thirty during filming. Mark Hamill, of Luke Skywalker fame, tried out for a part but didn't make it. Only Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith were actually teenagers at the time.
Pinstripes and chrome, it appeared to be moving even when standing still.
There were two other major stars of American Graffiti, responsible as much as any other factors in making the film the iconic landmark of moviemaking from that era--the cars and the music. Until the 1950s, teenagers could seldom afford their own cars. Even then, they were often of the "homemade" variety gleaned from the best the local junkyard had to offer (much like John Milner's yellow hotrod roadster). By the early 1960s, however, middle-class kids, with good grades and a good job could often afford an older, breathtaking cruise-mobile such as Steve (Ron Howard) Bolander's sporty, white, '59 Chevrolet Impala (above), which even today causes me to drool in envy. Then there was the almost ghostly presence of Susanne Sommers' 1956 white Thunderbird (below) which visually serves much the same purpose as Wolfman Jack it tying together the separate, angst-filled vignettes of the four teenaged friends enjoying the brief, fragile good-life of the early 1960s.
Is she real, or just a figment of Curt Henderson's (Richard Dreyfuss) imagination.
American Graffiti has no original score. It does have some forty-one top hits from the era starting with the booming Rock Around the Clock in the opening segment to Goodnight Sweetheart as Curt boards the plane to take him off to college and the rest of his life. The Beach Boys supply the music for the closing credits with their All Summer Long. Lucas paid some $90,000 for the rights to the musical nostalgia that makes American Graffiti as much a joy to listen to as watch. And when there was no music, Lucas used its absence along with sound effects to create some of the film's most dramatic moments. Though nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Candy Clark (below). It won none, though it was the recipient of numerous other international film awards. Enjoy the two clips at the bottom.
Candy Clark and Charles Martin Smith as the worldly Debbie and the nerdy "Toad"
An era of innocence? Perhaps not, but lots of fun all the same.
Mary Ellen Mark, posing with large scale Polaroid photos from her 2012 Prom Series.
Beautiful Emine Posing, Trabzon, Turkey, 1965, Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark died about a week ago, May 25, 2015, at the age of seventy-five. As the song lyrics says: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." I don't usually do memorial pieces and I must confess, though I'd seen her work before, I had never associated a name with the deeply emotive figures she portrayed. As with so many artists, the final punctuation mark brings to prominence the lifetime message preceding it. Mary Ellen Mark has been credited with bringing to life the "haunting portraits of adults and children on the margins of society." That's not to say Ms. Mark didn't also bring to life the rich and famous notables occupying the mainstream of the political, entertainment, literary, and artistic worlds. She did. Her lifetime portfolio is peppered with such faces, but even at that, she portrayed them appearing as they were rather than as we like to think of them. Most are deeply insightful--some disarmingly so. Her work has been displayed beneath the banner of such publications as Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, Life, and Vanity Fair. Eighteen of her photo collections have been published as books. The list of accolades and awards she's garnered would lead one to think she may just have collected them all. In fact, it might be simpler to enumerate those honorary tributes she's not received. In the interest of brevity and the reader's time, I shall do neither.
Gibbs Senior High School Prom, 1976, Mary Ellen Mark
Nikka Simmons and Isiah Merrill, Newark, N.J., 2006, Mary Ellen Mark.
Born and raised in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, she first displayed an interest in photography using an old Box Brownie camera around the age of nine. With a BFA in painting and art history, Mary Ellen Mark graduated from the University of Pennsylvania before working briefly for the Philadelphia City Planning Department. She returned to her alma mater where she obtained her master's degree in photojournalism at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication in 1964. In the following months, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey for a year. While in Europe, she also photographed England, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Her Beautiful Emine Posing (above, right) resulted from this sojourn, helping to bring her name and work to the foreground of journalistic photography in 1974 with the publication of her first volume of collected work, Passport. Her Gibbs Senior High School Prom (above), from 1976, and the photo of Nikka Simmons and Isiah Merrill (left) are representative of a long term series featuring teens from around the country on their "big night." These photos were all shot with a Polaroid 20×24 [inch] camera. Her assistant, John Reuter, notes: "There are only five in existence. The camera is basically like taking pictures with a refrigerator. There are lots of moving parts and you need more than one person to operate it.”
Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Art Garfunkel “French-kissing” on the set of Carnal Knowledge, 1971, Mary Ellen Mark
Johnny Depp, 1993, Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark has often served as a unit photographer on movie sets, shooting production stills for films beginning with a Look magazine feature, in 1969 in which she photographed Federico Fellini shooting his film, Satyricon. Later such efforts have included Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant, Mike Nichols' Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge (above), as well as Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. In all, Mark has photographed the production of more than 100 movies, her most recent being director Baz Luhrmann's Australia in 2008. These opportunities to observe celebrity icons behind the scene, not being iconic, is seen in her triple portrait (above) from the Carnal Knowledge set. Their clowning around allowed Mark to capture the unwary essence rather than the external images of her famous subjects. Her intimate portrait of Johnny Depp (right) dating from 1993, is imbued with both pathos and poignancy.
Amanda and Her Cousin Amy, 1990, Mary Ellen Mark
Hillary, Frankly, Mary Ellen Mark, 2000, during Clinton's first Senate campaign.
Ellen Mark brought these same qualities to virtually all her portrait images, sometimes, shocking, sometimes, funny, sometimes simply weird. Her 1990 Amanda and her Cousin Amy (above) has been one of Mark's most famous photos--troubling at first glance, then strangely amusing as the two pint-size girls emulate the bathing beauties foisted upon them by advertising media. Mark is at her best when she portrays children, not as "cute kids" but as little adults. As the little adults grow older, her images of them become more and more disturbing, less imaginary, more real, even dangerous, as seen in her Rat, 16, and Mike, 17 (below), Seattle, 1983. At the same time, Mark was equally adept at creating public images with her camera as she was in peering through them. Her New York Magazine photo of a radiant, smiling Hillary Clinton (right) would seem to be one of the most flattering photos ever taken of the politically ambitious, former First Lady, former senator, and former Secretary of State.
Rat, 16, and Mike, 17, Seattle, 1983, Mary Ellen Mark
To the other extreme, her portrayal of Mother Teresa at the Home for the Dying, 1980, (below), is flattering only in a figurative sense, portraying Mark's subject at her best, at her work--iconic, but only in a spiritual rather than a physical sense. She was not beautiful, except in that her caring love was beautiful. In a real sense, there is this same caring love on the part of Mary Ellen Mark in virtually all her photos, whether depicting the famous, the infamous, or the would-be famous, her photos inevitably exposed the essence over the external. Incidentally, this same love manifested itself in her often amusing animal portraits as well, as in her Jesse Damm and Nick (bottom), Llano, California, from 1994, as if to suggest there is no greater love than that between a boy and his dog.
Mother Teresa at the Home for the Dying, 1980, Mary Ellen Mark
Jesse Damm and Nick, Llano, California, 1994, Mary Ellen Mark
I've long insisted that modern-day motion pictures are the most viable art form known to man (stretching the definition now to include video). In effect, this one medium encompasses virtually every other art form into one, utilizing the best each has to offer into a single, highly effective, medium of expression. Likewise I've delved into the art and artists marking the best of the best in this endeavor, from my favorite, Steven Spielberg, to perhaps my least favorite, Francis Ford Coppola. Recently in reviewing the AMC (American Movie Channel) listing of the Greatest Directors of All Time, I came face to face with a glaring omission in my coverage. There, at number one, top of the list, was a man, whom I'd mentioned often, but never really written about--Sir Alfred Hitchcock.
Hitchcock's Rebecca, his one and only Oscar.
I could list a number of reasons for this oversight, perhaps principle among them being that I've never been a great fan of suspenseful drama. But that's really no excuse and doesn't in any way diminish the influence this groundbreaking producer/director has had on the art of film making. It's a tossup as to which should be the most legendary, the man or his films. As a Hollywood legend he ranks with D.W. Griffith,Orson Wells,David O. Selznick,Stanley Kubrick, and a few others. Like the others, Hitchcock rose to the top of his profession allowing him a great deal of control (if not total control) of his films. Like the others, he still often battled the "damned studio" bosses, not to mention, in Hitchcock's case, his frequent censorship run-ins Joseph Breen of the Motion Picture Production Code office. Yet even the preeminent studio boss and "control freak" David O. Selznick "let Hitchcock be Hitchcock." As a result of this indulgence, in 1940, Selznick Studios received a second "Best Picture" award (marking two years in a row, following GWTW) for Rebecca. Inasmuch as he already had on, Selznick graciously allowed Hitchcock to keep the statuette. Ironically, Hitchcock was competing against himself, his film, Foreign Correspondent was also nominated for "Best Picture" the same year. In what may be the all-time worst sin in AMPAS history, Hitchcock never did win an Oscar as "Best Director."
Hitchcock's first hit, 1927.
Hollywood legends have often been bigger than life, though in Hitchcock's case that might be difficult. Whether discussing his persistent cameo appearances in his films, his ending "twists," his love for shooting action sequences on location at famous landmarks, or his penchant for extremely thorough preproduction planning, Hitchcock was one of a kind. Born in 1899 in a northeast suburb of London, the man literally started at the very bottom of the 1920s British film industry. Trained as a graphic artist, he started by designing silent film title cards, moving up from there to film posters, then to writing suspenseful short stories in the company newsletter, Jesse Lasky's Famous Players Productions (later to become Paramount). Later he worked as a set designer and art director. His career as a director didn't exactly get off to a roaring start. His first two film (now lost) were never completed due to financial difficulties. His third film (Pleasure Garden, 1925)while eventually completed, was a box office dud. Hitchcock's first commercial success came in 1927, with Lodger: a Story of the London Fog (above left), said to be the first truly "Hitchcockian" filmwith several elements later to become his film trademarks.
Over fifty films, some familiar, some...not so much.
David O. Selznick brought Hitchcock to Hollywood in 1939, turning him loose on Rebecca--one great talent recognizing another. Although Selznick had signed Hitchcock for seven films, he was really more talent than the perennial spendthrift, Selznick, could afford. After Rebecca, they made only one other film together, Spellbound, in 1945. Mostly Selznick "farmed out" Hitchcock to other studios where he directed such classics as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (RKO), Shadow of a Doubt (Universal), Lifeboat (Fox), and Notorious (RKO-Vanguard). However, it was during the 1950s when Hitchcock really came into his own, working intermittently as a free agent for Warner Brothers, Paramount, MGM, and Universal on such instantly recognizable suspense classics as Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much (a remake of his 1934 British film), Vertigo, North by Northwest (below), and finally, in 1960, his biggest hit of all (some would say his best film), Psycho.
Alfred Hitchcock was never shy about putting his own persona into his work, whether in his many cameo appearances or in promoting his pictures.
The scream heard round the world.
If he wasn't already, Psycho made Hitchcock a millionaire--some fifteen times over, in fact--out of a total box office take of $50-million. The budget was a measly $800,000, the shooting was in black and white on a rented, unused set with a television crew. Chocolate syrup stood in for blood in the stabbing scene. The film made Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, and John Gavin household names. It also instilled a deathly fear among women of taking showers in motels. Though Hitchcock lived and evolved as a director for another twenty years, making five more outstanding films showcasing his mature style of suspenseful drama, most people are most familiar with the Alfred Hitchcock of 1950s television. Along with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was one of the few 50s film makers to recognize television as a new medium to be embraced rather than a reckless upstart to be feared. Beginning in 1955, Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired on CBS every Sunday night (later on NBC, then back to CBS, and finally back to NBC again) for a total of 361 scary episodes. Though he was executive producer of the series, and introduced each episode with his trademark "Good Evening" over the iconic strains of Funeral March of a Marionette, Hitchcock never directed a single episode.
Hitchcock's dry, macabre sense of humor was always in the forefront. The video above is long, but fun, perhaps the best part of each night's episode.
Seldom are great directors beloved by those who work for them. Part of that can be accounted for by their perfectionist tendencies. Such masters of their craft "don't suffer fools lightly." In most cases, such film making geniuses are, at best, respected. At worst, they're hated. Tippi Hedren (star of Hitchcock's The Birds) accused Hitchcock of misogyny and of ruining her career when she resisted his sexual advances. Other actors and actresses who have worked with him defend Hitchcock, reasoning that he considered actors as "animated props." As a rising young director in England, Hitchcock is said to have referred to actors as "cattle." Years later, in an interview, when questioned about his bovine reference, Hitchcock claimed to have been misquoted. He said instead, "...actors should be treated like cattle."
Another Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearance, Lifeboat, 1944
Several months ago I went out on a limb and chose the top ten paintings of the last thousand years. Well, inasmuch as the favorite topic at the moment among my friends seems to be movies, I'm going to crawl even further out on the proverbial limb and list the top ten movies of the last thousand years. I know, that sounds like a bit much, but since movies have only been around for a little over a hundred years, it's no great stretch. Speaking as one who has taught both film making and film history, I may not be the greatest expert in the world, but I do have some basis of judgment on the subject. Unfortunately, I am not conversant enough in foreign films to consider them in this list. Likewise, these are not necessarily my favorite movies; and the order of placement in the list may be arguable; but I feel firmly that these ten motion pictures are classics in every sense of the word and should be lodged in the film memory vault of every individual alive.
10. West Side Story--winner of ten Academy Awards; classic Shakespearean plot updated; still as relevant today as in 1961; young people who later became screen legends; the film boasts music and choreography as good as Broadway or Hollywood ever gets.
9. Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)--Dating from 1963, not all the great ones win Academy Awards or strut their stuff in glorious color. Stanley Kubrick's chilling little cold war farce (which he wrote, produced, and directed) just before 2001: A Space Odyssey (tough call between these two) showcases George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn (son of Ed Wynn), and the late, great Peter Sellers in three different leading roles. (I know, that sounds impossible.) James Earl Jones and Slim Pickins also put in appearances. You know a movie has made an impact when it becomes an adjective--strangelovian.
8. Birth of a Nation--Dating from the early silent era (1915), D. W. Griffith taught Hollywood how to make movies. His four-hour epic is loaded with the blatant racism of its time, but the daring scope of its content, and its cinematography rise above that to achievements unknown in its day. Even today it remains a virtual "how to" book on basic film making as well as propaganda. It's American history (albeit from a Southern point of view) as well as film history of the highest caliber (best taken in small doses or with one finger on "fast forward").
7. "Casablanca--Even 1943 "B" movies sometimes achieve greatness. This is a sentimental favorite with probably more unforgettable lines than any movie ever made. Like Strangelove, it demonstrates you can make great movies without great budgets. Bogart and Bergman--film chemistry just doesn't get any better than this.
6. Titanic--Which just goes to show, you can also make great movies in spite of great budgets. Eleven Academy Awards and a zillion dollars in box office loot can't all be wrong. And to give credit where it's due, sharp directing, editing, cutting edge special effects, another Romeo and Juliet plot rip-off, and a great score don't hurt either.
5. The Godfather (Part II)--The Mob never looked so good...or so human. Coppola's dark, mafia masterpieces are not among my favorites but I have to respect his work. Like so many great films, this 1974 sequel, is a blockbuster which could easily have gone terribly wrong, but didn't.
4. Ben-Hur (1959)--The first motion picture to ever win eleven Academy Awards, with two or three of the most memorable sequences ever put on film. Easily the best film of the 1950s, it's a biblical saga with a powerful spiritual message, which yet manages to avoid becoming a Sunday school lesson.
3. Gone With the Wind--What can I say about this 1939 epic that hasn't already been said a hundred times over? It's not a perfect movie. Selznick's pedantic paraphrasing of Margaret Mitchell's dialogue would not give Shakespeare cause for alarm; yet if movies are about greatness--pictures, music, drama, and great stories about great events told with great feeling--then this one holds up quite well now seventy-two years after it was made.
2. Citizen Kane--Considered by many to actually be the "perfect movie," it's amazing how many films on this list were virtual one-man-shows. Maybe a single individual dominating every facet of the work is one of the most important prerequisites for greatness. Whether his name is D.W. Griffith, David Selznick, Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, or James Cameron, in so many cases a single artist made the movie great despite sometimes incredible odds. This 1940 masterpiece wrote the sequel to Birth of a Nation insofar as cinematography is concerned.
1. Schindler's List--I'm not ashamed to admit it. Spielberg made me cry.
