The Coen Brothers: The Hudsucker Proxy

This is the one Coen brothers film that is generally no well liked.   It is quirky to be sure, and I think is charming--I love the fantasy element woven into the story.  When it was released, however, it was panned by many critics and flopped (utterly) at the box office.  Over the years though, it's stock has gone up and now garners an IMDb rating of 7.4 out of 10 with well over 34,000 votes.

Though it shares a lot in common with Raising Arizona (1987) in terms of comedic silliness, the film remains unique in the Coen's catalog.  For one thing, aside from Charles Durning and John Mahoney, it doesn't really have any of the Coen's "regular actors."  It is also meant to be a parable, which most other Coen brothers films do not approach at all.  The Coen's are known for having an "old man role" in their films, this is the only  one that begins with the "old man" offing himself--and in such a spectacular way!  One of the things that makes this movie look so much different from other Coen films is the exclusive use of Ariflex cameras (a Stanley Kubrick favorite) and Ziess Lenses--no panavision here.  It gives them film a big but intemeinte feel.

I like it for two reasons:  1) it's about high finance, stocks, etc--it's a financial fantasy; 2) it is set during New Year's--so it's also a holiday selection.  I work as a independent stock trader myself, so I appreciate the evils of stock manipulation and market fomenting.  And, honestly, I can't for a minute figure out how a section that was entitled "The Hudsucker Proxy" that was intended as segment in Evil Dead II (1987), morphed into giddy business flick starring Tim Robibns and the late great Paul Newman!  But somehow it did!

Trivia:

The amusing suicide of Warring Hudsucker (Charles Derning) was inspired by a real event.  On Feb. 3 1975 United Fruit Company CEO Eli Black busted a window in his 44th floor office on the Pan Am Building with his briefcase and jumped.

In Raising Arizona factory workers can be seen wearing uniforms bearing the name "Hudsucker Industries."

John Goodman, a favorite actor of the Coen's, plays a character in Barton Fink (1991) that sometimes goes by the name Karl Mundt, Goodman makes a cameo in this film as an announcer, he credited as Karl Mundt.

As mentioned above, "hudsucker proxy" was part of an incantation in the Book of the Dead in Evil Dead II.

Specs:

Runtime:  111 min.

Rated:  PG

Release Date:  11 March 1994

Color & Black and White

Language:  English

Filming Location:  Chicago (but it's supposed to be New York)

Tagline:  A Comedy of Invention

"You know, for kids"

Link

Al%20Capone%20and%20Prohibition

The History Channel has some pretty good slide shows of gangster on their website. Here is one of Al Capone.

The Coen Brothers: Miller's Crossing

We are getting started early, as this Friday Fright focus is the Coen brothers--and we are attempting to watch every film the two ever made.

I've been on a bit of crime wave recently, movie wise that is, and I personally think that this is one of the best fictional movies ever made about organized crime in Chicago roughly set during the "reign" of Al Capone.  It does a great job of showing the serious rub between 3 major ethnic groups within Midwestern mobs:  Italian, Irish and Jewish, all the while doing a very good job of depicting the actually dirty business, day to day, of the criminal grind.  The script is subtle enough to turn one mobster's bugging the hell out of another to be allowed to kill yet another, into a whine fest that comes off as rather banal considering the subject matter.  The Coen's are extremely good a constructing scripts where death and murder are not sensationalized at all--in fact, some scenes, like as in Blood Simple are even a bit funny.  In Miller's Crossing, the talk of murder is very adeptly contrasted by extreme violence of real murder.

I admit to a fascination with organized crime, fictional or not.  Making period films on the subject can easily fall flat; if the violence is over the top, it will look cartoonish.  If there is not enough violence, the movie will just be boring; too "talky."  In Miller's Crossing a smart and well written script allows all the shooting not to seem at all forced; there is no glorification of killing.  Somehow, they even get away with a gun battle with "Danny Boy" playing in the background!  

With an all star cast that includes Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, and Coen "perennial" actors John Turturro,  John Polito, and Steve Buscemi--with many, many capable actors filling the numerous roles--the movie is one the biggest that the Coen's have produced thus far.  The sets are intricate, the shots perfectly framed (meticulously so) and the cast is huge.  And the score by Carter Burwell, the Coen's often used film composer, is well themed and even though it is slightly more upbeat than the characters themselves, it still works some how.

At a point of trivia:  the character of Eddie Dane was specifically written for Peter Stormare, and was to be called "The Suede," as Storemare is actually Swedish.  When he declined to take the role, because he had a chance to produce and star in a stage production of "Hamlet," the part went to J. E. Freeeman, and was renamed "The Dane."

Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) is repeatedly called "the Schmatte."  It is a Yiddish term for an old rag.

This was the last Coen Brothers movie that Barry Sonnenfeld was the director of cinematography for.

Although the city is never named, and many fans suppose it to be in New York, many of the acts written  into the script actually took place in the 1920's and 30's in Chicago by various real life mobsters (quite a lot of Al Capone's acts of violence made it into the film).

Specs:

Runtime:  115 min.

Rated:  R

Color (Panavision Cameras and Lenses)

Release Date:  1990

Filming Location:  New Orleans

Language(s):  English, Irish, Italian, Yiddish

There's nothing more pathetic than a man chasing his hat--Tom Reagan

Recipe: Good Gravy

Although there a few nsauseating moments in Goodfellas, overwhelmingly it tended to make viewers hungry.  After audiences had a chance to see the movie for themselves, the trend was spotted by morning shows.  Scorcese's mother, who not only made an appearance in the film, she personally cooked all the food shown, or even discussed, in the film.  She went on Entertainment Weekly to share her recipe for real traditional "Spaghetti and Meatballs." [recipe below]  Apparently this prompted Henry Hill to write a perfectly competent cookbook of his own.  It seems like a gimmick, but really, it's a good cookbook.

Here's Mrs. Scorcese's recipe, razor blades can be used as needed!

MRS. SCORCESE'S MEAT SAUCE (ITALIAN GRAVY)

Meat Sauce:

1/2 lb. veal shank, left whole

1/2 lb. pork sausage

Light olive oil

1 (that's one not 3--my snarky comment) onion, minced small

5 large garlic cloves, left whole

6 oz. can tomato paste

2 cans Italian style tomatoes 28 oz. each (Mrs. Scorcese prefers Redpak)

Meatballs:

1 lb. ground mixture of beef, pork and veal

1 egg

grated Locatelli AND Sardo cheese

Fresh parsley

Garlic Salt, optional (that's right garlic salt!  It's OK)

Finely ground red pepper and salt to taste

2 tbsp. tomato sauce (from the gravy above)

Bread crumbs to hold together.

For the Gravy:

1.  Heat the oil.  Saute the sausage and veal in a pot until "a little brown."  Put aside.  Add the onion and garlic to the same pan and saute until golden.  Add the tomato paste to the pot, along with 3 cans of water.  

2.  Put the canned tomatoes through of sieve to remove seeds (or hand squeeze them into a bowl--my note), add to pot.  Cook on low flame.  When the sauce starts to bubble, add the salt and red pepper and simmer a while.  Mrs. Scorcese says "don't put in any oregano, it keeps repeating on you."  Add the browned veal and sausage and cook until meat comes apart with a fork

For the Meatballs

4.  Mix meatballs ingredients together and roll into egg sized balls.  Put meatballs raw into the sauce (do not fry them).  When meatballs float to the top (don't stir until they do), they should be done.  Serve over spaghetti or whatever pasta you like.

Casino

Before Scorcese made Goodfellas, he said that he didn't want to make anymore films about gangsters, but he made one anyway.  Then in 1995 he did it again.  It seems that he had become "addicted" to Nichola Pileggi's true crime books on the mob as source material.  Of course, many movies have been made about the history of Las Vegas, it's founding by criminals and it's mob culture that was only recently run out of town by greedy corporations.  Pileggi, though, has always been a true crime novelist that prefers to focus on lesser known figures in the mafia (like Henry Hill).  Here he decided to focus on Frank Rosenthal, a Jewish mobster who ran the Hacienda, Fremont, & Stardust casinos.  His character is transformend into "Sam 'Ace' Rothstein" in the film and is played by Scocese's perennial actor:  Robert De Niro.  

"Lefty" Rosenthal was a gangster that born in Chicago in 1929; by the 1960's he was one of the biggest bookmakers in the central US.  According to his Wikipedia page, by 1961, had made quite a name for himself as a very talented sports bettor, handicapper and oddsmaker.  Now, Vegas was controlled by the mid western mob out of Kansas City and Saint Louis--the big bosses couldn't go to Vegas, so they hired lower level gangsters talented in gambling and bookmaking to run Vegas for them.  Almost all the casinos had legitimate boards; keeping them in dark about who was really in charge--which where guys like Rosenthal came in.  Those guys would run the show, "enforce" casino cheating (and I mean really Enforce!), and made sure the proper amount was skimmed in the count room to go back to Kansas to the bosses:  all under the noses of the board members.

This is essentitally what Casino is about.  It sounds like a pretty boring subject, unless you count the occasional ultra-violent ways that these guys "dealt" with cheaters.  Somehow, though, Pileggi managed to write a book about it that was intricate but interesting; Scorcese sweeps in with his talent for gangster direction and a wicked finger for needle drops and makes a supremely glitzy film that isn't boring and has stood the test of time.  It stars, in addition to De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, & Don Rickles to name just a few.  Most of the characters, with exception of Pesci's character, are not based on real people.  But the scenario was real enough.

Some film facts:

Pesci character was based on a particularly vicious mid western mobster by the name of Anthony Spilotro.  In 1986 filmmaker Michael Mann got a television series called "Crime Story" green lighted about a tough Chicago cop, turned fed, who goes after an infamous loose-cannon of a mobster, and chases him all the way to Vegas.  The character of Ray Luca played by "Closer" actor Tony Denison is also based on Spilotro.  At the end of the first season, Mann has him and his dim witted mafia side-kick incinerated in a nuclear test explosion--really...it's hilarious.

The film holds the Guinness Book of Records all time record for having the most swearing in any film to date.  The word "fuck" alone is uttered 422 times, that comes out to 2.4 times per minute.

Sharon Stone hounded Scorcese for the part of Ginger; it was set to go to Melanie Griffith, but in the end Stone won out.

Hilariously, Rosenthal wanted an 80 year Richard Widmark cast as him in the film.  Blown up---I don't think so!

One John Bloom as a small part in the film--to fans of horror schlock, he is much better known as Joe Bob Briggs.

The film is even infamous for some of it's violence.  Apparently at the time of it's release there was a "mom & church" backlash against it, "condemning" it for it's death scenes in particular.  And if you love horror films with any sort of gore, like we do around here, there is one scene in particular that has become a favorite amongst fans.

Oh the screams and the yells!!!  And then there is the way the film starts out--literally with a bang.


Of course, in real life Rosenthal died of old age in Miami after starting a sports betting site.

Raging Bull

Raging Bull [Blu-ray]

Scorcese's big black and white, based on the autobiography of prize fighter Jack La Motta, isn't just a straight forward sport movie.  In LaMotta's character, one of De Niro's most memorable roles--not least of which he gained 60 pounds for it--we have a man is not only a monster in the ring, he is a monster out of the ring too.  He is filled with anger, is easily enraged, is prone is completely implacable jealousy and bouts of dangerous paranoia.  These "qualities" La Motta writes in his own book helped make him into a real champion prize fighter, but the movie is clear about where it stands on the matter by it's beginning.  In the opening shot, an old La Motta (De Niro) is pathetically rehearsing his stand up role in a dressing room--alone.  So the viewer knows right away where this going to end up, and it is not pretty or easy.  The art of the telling the true story of this man, lies how he grinds his way into the painful place over two decades.

After the rather uncomfortable opening, the film quickly moves back to 1941, right the to La Motta in the ring.  He clearly wins the fight, but a fix is in by a local mob boss and the judges rule the half unconscious opponent the win; a fight quickly breaks out.  Everyone, including women, get involved, and no amount of the playing of the National Anthem by the ring organist is going to help.  This sets the tone of the film; this isn't just a movie about boxing, about punches thrown in sport; it is a movie about smaller violence amongst larger violence and how some can't distinguish sport from true harm, and easily cross the line from bread winner to criminal.

Although this is not his first black and white film, it can be argued that it is his greatest.  One thing, oddly, that gives the black and white such a lush look, ironically is that it isn't all in black and white, some parts are in color, for added emphasis.  This may sound like a cheap ploy, but done skillfully by a filmmaker of Scorcese's caliber, it works.  The color home movies, for example, help lend an air that everything is fine, but they are facades.  Scorcese also uses them in an unconventional way; to help move the time frame forward without making a clean skip in time.  The color movies are juxtaposed with title cards of La Motta's fights along the way,  with short action films of La Motta pounding the crap out of everyone.  The other use of color does come in the ring--to show La Motta covered in blood, signalling his downfall and the beginning of his slide into personal isolation.  It wouldn't work if it wasn't blood that needed color for emphasis, because it is blood, there is a kind of seriousness to it, that would just look kooky otherwise.  (I can only wonder if he was inspired by the strange color sequences of blood in the William Castle camp classic The Tingler!).  

It was Robert De Niro who read La Motta's book while filming The Godfather Part 2 in 1974. Although he thought the book was not well written and didn't like the writing style; he did find La Motta in interesting character and thought a biographical film about his life would be a good movie, and he wanted to play La Motta himself.  He took the book and the idea to everyone he could get to listen to him, including Martin Scorcese, but no one agreed with him that it would work.  He kept at Scorcese, and finally got him to agree to shoot the film in 1980.

A couple of pieces of trivia:  De Niro accidentally broke Joe Pesci's rib while they were filming one of the sparring shoots.

The unique sounds of punches and camera flashes were made by squashing melons and tomatoes in the first instance, and firing gunshots for the later.  The sound effects were so effective that the original tapes they had be recorded on were destroyed after editing.

This, remarkably, was voted 3rd greatest sport film of all time by ESPN behind Bull Durham (1988) in second place, and, of course, Rocky (1976) in first.

"You can't fucking eat and drink like an animal.  You can't keep doin' that!" --Joey La Motta (Joe Pesci) to Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro)

Actual photo of the real La Motta

After Hours: A Comedic Thriller

Martin Scorcese is not known for being a director of comedies, so it comes as no surprise that when he got around to directing one that it would be a black comedy about a nightmarish night of an ordinary New Yorker caught up in a crazy, crazy Soho world of weird art, strange women and just good old fashioned bad luck.  This is a the very first screenplay by Joseph Minnion, who went on to pen Julia and Julia (1987) and The Vampire's Kiss (1988) [he also penned the "Mirror Mirror" episode of Speilberg's Amazing Stories (TV1985-1987), also directed by Scorcese).  Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne, recognizable from his role as the dead and rotting pal in American Werewolf In London), finds himself in a world apart from anything he used to.  During the day, he's a boring word processor clerk, whose life seems to be going nowhere, then after a chance encounter with a blond in a diner (Rosanna Arquette) and a cab ride from hell to Soho, all that changes!  Of course, many of Paul's responses to the women he encounters in Soho, give the impression that he is less than ordinary in his private life--so then, he brings a lot of hilarious bad luck on himself.

Hackett also tells stories that lead the viewer to believe that he has had some pretty bad luck throughout his life.  His story about having his tonsils out when he was a kid and being taken to the burn ward instead of pediatrics never even gets finished, still it's enough to show that his life has been on the ridiculous side from some time.

Released in 1985 to rave reviews from the critics.  The film was big at the Independent Spirit Awards and was a favorite at Cannes.  Still Scorcese directing a comedy didn't exactly take Hollywood by storm, not least because it is profoundly set in and it about New York City.  So it flies a bit under the radar amongst fans of Scorcese, some of who hate the film because it's not a gritty crime thriller with teeth.  But it does have teeth, they are just quirky.  Scorcese even went so far as to through in cameos by the like of Cheech and Chong.  Another thing that is a bit different for a Scorcese film:  the music is sparse.  He is well known for needle drop soundtracks, yet here he has directed a film that is a lot like a play.  

As a point of trivia, the screenplay was actually a assignment of Minnion's in a film course that he was taking at Columbia at the time.  He was 26 years old when the script with picked up by Scorcese for direction.  Talk about luck!  The film was originally to be directed by Tim Burton.  It was also the first film that Scorcese had made in a decade without Robert De Niro (a habit he obviously did not break).

The film can be found in , a collection that includes Mean Streets.

Scorsese's Big Remake: Cape Fear

Released in 1991, this massive remake of the 1964 release was the gutsy follow up to the epic Goodfellas.  Robert Di Nero, Scorcese's most prolific actor, takes up the role of the psychotic Max Cady, attempting to pass a kind of judgement on the family of Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) of an almost Biblical nature for Bowden's handling of his rape case 14 years earlier; Bowden pleads him out to a lesser charge of battery.  Cady fashions that he should have gotten off altogether.  At the time of his trial, Cady is listed as illiterate, he tells Bowden, upon his release on parole, that in prison he learned to read--he seems to have, or claims to have found, evidence in his case file that Bowden could have gotten off completely.  That, like everything with Cady is not nearly as straight forward as he claims that it is.  He is completely psycho!

This is a movie that engenders pretty strong reactions from most:  people either love it or hate it.  I'm not talking about the professional critics, I'm talking about everyday folks like me who just love to watch movies.  I admit to being on the fence about it.  There are moments that seem over directed.  The high pitch that the family jumps into almost from the beginning of the film, makes it hard to keep sustained throughout the film; that tends to make the ending seem ridiculous and way over the top.  If the pass had built more slowly over the course of film, it would come off as a truly scary thriller.  I mean, De Niro's Cady is a really scary guy, he would scare the pants off of Louis Cyphre for heaven's sake...and he's the devil!  But all the fighting going on between Sam and Liegh Bowden (Jessica Lange) is really grating and detracts from the real fear Cady brings to the Carolina cape.  Never mind that someone of parole would have been returned to prison immediately for threatening an officer of the court.  He's on parole, he doesn't have the same rights as other citizens.

On the other hand, it is a pretty decent remake, as far as remakes go.  It is pretty impressive to think that Scorcese managed to get this out there after such a massive project as Goodfellas just the year before, considering that his next two major films Age of Innocence and the epic Casino were spaced each two years apart.  And this was not small production either.  Most of the significant outdoor scenes were shot on location in Georgia and Florida.  Hollywood...the other Hollywood, the one where Seminoles get to sell really good cigars and check you into the Hard Rock, was the location for a lot of the stand in shots for Cape Fear itself.

Scorcese also managed to get 3 principle characters from the original production to come into the project.   Martin Balsam who played Mark Dutton the Police Chief assays the role of the judge is the remake.  The two principles are also back, Gregory Peck, the original Sam Bowden is Lee Heller in the newer version, and Robert Mitchum the original (and very scary in his own right) Max Kady, comes in as Lt. Elgart, who is about as helpful to the new Sam Bowden as boobs on a bull.  One of the reasons that Scorcese actually directed this in the first place, was because he was basically a hired gun.  The project was already funded and Stephen Spielberg was to direct it; when he pulled out of the project, he personally called Scorcese and asked him to take over.  So, the fact the Scorcese was able to sort "make it his own," so to speak, is also impressive.

The actual Cape Fear

The Insane Asylum, And The Insane?

One Of Scorcese's Most Well Known--The Lead In

Released on 19 September 1990, Goodfellas was a project that Scorcese had on the table for some time.  He had intended to direct it before The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).  It was a long term project for Scorcese, he was not keen on directing more stuff on the mob, though he admitted a fascination about the life.  When he read Pilleggi's book, it was "source material" that he claimed he'd been waiting for all his life.  Of course, that material was based on a (sort of) biography of Henry Hill by crime writer Nicholas Pileggi entitled Wiseguy (published in 1986) and the working title of the film was "Wise Guys".  Due to funds suddenly showing up for the filming of Christ, the project was put on hold--which allowed time for it to evolve a bit.  Work started back on the project immediately following the release of Christ.  Wise Guys the name had to go, as Brian de Palma had already used the book for, of all things, a comedy television series, so with Pileggi's blessing, the title was changed and Goodfellas was born.

It is considered at least one of Scorcese's all time best films.  Some consider it one of the best films of all times, or at least, one of the all time best crime films.  It is even considered historically significant from a social point of view.  Not sure if I would go that far, there are a lot of films about organized crime that could be called "socially revelent" by one history professor or another when it comes to the shaping of the US in the 19th and 20th century.  What I personally love about this film is it's crazy pace.  Scorcese manages to fit a lot of very important personal information about Hill and his life with his gangster friends and associates, and his troubled family life with wife Karen, in a time line that would not work in the hands of another director.  Practically Hill's whole life (with some changes, and age fudging) from adolescent to protected witness is presented, along with some other larger than life characters--but, the whole thing doesn't really feel forced.  There is also narration, what director could pull off  narration in 1990 in a major motion picture??  One thing that does help is Scorcese's impeccable talent with needle drops.  He knows his music and is able to covey what the time period is with, let's say a well placed Donovan song.

It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, but only won for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Joe Pesci).  Many thought this was a serious slight (myself amongst them), I mean this was the year of Dances With Wolves! (I am a Native American, part native, I HATE that film--really!  It's not nearly as politically correct as people think it is!  It's also just bad.)  The idea that a Kevin Costner film, that really has not aged well, beat this out for best picture is one of those "give me a break" moments with the Oscars.  Dances was considered politically correct by Academy members, Goodfellas was about mixed blooded (mostly Irish and Italian) gangsters who were really bad guys who could never get "made", and based on real people to boot--what's politically correct here?? Nothing.  Keep in mind, also, that another mob movie was up for best picture The Godfather Part III, I don't think that most fans of the genre would regard that as anywhere on par with the first two Godfather movies.  Oh and Ghost was nominated too!  Ironically it was nominated for 7 BAFTAS (Britain's Oscar), and actually won 5 of them.

Trivia:  Scorcese cold called Pileggi and stated "I've been waiting for this book all my life."  Pileggi replied "I've been waiting for this phone call all my life."