Wednesday, 13 January 1999

RANTING & RAVING

Failed art.

Is there a sadder combination of words in the world? I don't think so. It makes the heart sink and leaves the mind cloudy in an effort to grasp where things went wrong. And so it was when I walked out of Neil Jordan's new film for DreamWorks, In Dreams. It wasn't The Thin Red Line, in which there was just so much poetry some people couldn't take it. It wasn't Out of Sight, that just couldn't get a mass audience excited. It wasn't even The Butcher Boy, with its accents, gimmicks and wild rage ride. See, none if those, in my opinion, were (or are) failed art. The financial world, short of an Academy Awards miracle for The Thin Red Line (that would be deserved), will see these films as failures. But the directors all made the artistic choices to make complete, well-formed visions come to life on screen.

So, what happened to In Dreams? That is the question, isn't it? I'm telling you, there is some really remarkable work here. Neil Jordan revisits some of the fairy tale territory of his The Company of Wolves, with a sophistication that makes the earlier film, which was quite good in its own right, look like a student film. The creation of the dream world where Annette Bening's character and Robert Downey Jr.'s character meet for most of the film is one of the best ever mixtures of effects, production design and cinematography to bring you into the nightmare. And Bening is the real thing as a movie star. Anyone who has spent any time visiting mental health facilities will immediately know that she did her research in hitting all the notes that people hit as they fall into the dark comfort of being forever lost.

The movie has been held from release for quite a while. Jordan shot it in 1997. He did re-shoots in February and March with Downey, who was then living in jail. Rumors floated around that the studio was asking Jordan to make more cuts and adjustments throughout last spring and summer. DreamWorks showed a bit of footage at their ShoWest event last March, but didn't emphasize the film much. The film's October release date evaporated. Initially, the studio blamed the "surprise move" of Antz to October and they now say that they were avoiding the Michelle Pfeiffer movie The Deep End of the Ocean (which is now scheduled for February). Uh, huh. All that is indicative of the somewhat irrefutable fact that DreamWorks is unceremoniously dumping this movie in the January garbage pit. (Don't tell that to the L.A. Times, who basically gave studio execs a load of column inches to offer up every old excuse about January releases ever told.)

But did DreamWorks fix this film to death? Right now, we are too close to a release and too far away from production to get really truthful answers about what happened to this movie, but my guess is that it was studio decision-making. And this has not been DreamWorks' modus operandi. But one look at the climactic scene of the movie and you know that it isn't Jordan's or co-screenwriter Bruce Robinson. And the change of gear does a real disservice to the film. (Hint without spoiler: The real ending must have been the last time you see Bening.) And there are gaps throughout the film. Stephen Rea's part must have been cut by a ton. I'm guessing that there was just too much talking for DreamWorks, but it leaves Rea's character doing little more than acting as a meaningless functionary in the movie.

This film is not formulaic stuff of the nature of Fatal Attraction, when testing the ending gives you an edge in choosing the most popular "six one way, half-dozen the other" ending. Cutting back on Jordan and Robinson's work, even if it was flawed to begin with, has to leave an audience with neither fish or fowl, but an unsatisfying cross-breed. I say, let it rip. If the movie isn't pure genre, they're better off with a fully formed failure rather than a choppy mess with a Wes Craven ending that just doesn't fit. Hell, I say Sony should release the musical version of I'll Do Anything. An over-reaching disaster would have been more satisfying than this emasculated mess from one of my favorite writer-directors.

So, in the end, I can't recommend this film to everyone. Nor can I say stay away. There is genius at work here. Absolute genius. If they could only let weird enough be.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, a reader wrote in last week with another complaint about Roger Ebert. This one was that he was compromised by doing a pre-game show for the Academy Awards. The last one (THB 1/8/99), I sent on to Roger and he responded with grace. This one, I don't even need to ask him about. It is one of the real oddities of being an entertainment journalist that there are so many variations in the rules. One day, you are a hard-bitten cynic writing The Hot Button. The next, you are being way too nice to Robin Williams. Because Robin liked my Hawaiian shirt, I didn't like Patch Adams (remember: like, not love). And I didn't hate The Faculty because Robert Rodriguez didn't give me a cameo with Salma Hayek.

Likewise, the idea that Roger Ebert or anyone else of his stature, would be swayed by an annual gig as an Oscar pre-game host, is silly. If he suddenly liked every Disney movie (Disney produces his TV show), then you could raise a complaint, but I have never noticed such a trend. And I'm a jerk about this stuff. In this business, we all live in a community of film, and the Oscars® are the big annual party. So you go down and hang out. And like Cinderella, when the clock strikes midnight (literally, as the Oscars start at 6:00 p.m. PT), everyone goes back to work. And the beats go on.

MARCHING TO SUNDANCE: Speaking of ranting and raving, one of the films I am most looking forward to at Sundance is the latest film from the great Errol Morris, Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. Leuchter is one of the leaders of the Jewish Holocaust Denial movement, as author of the Leuchter report, which claims that there was no poisonous gas in the concentration camps. I'm a great believer in the old idea of exposing everything to light, "the greatest disinfectant." And Morris always does it with so much style.

READER OF THE DAY: Erik takes one last whack at the Mormon issue: "I hate to respond to the Mormon racism question, as this is a film site and not a religion site, but you felt like posting it, so you get the e-mail. Here's the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints response to that question (brought up by ROTD 1/9/99): 'Until 1978, black male members of the Church were not ordained to the lay priesthood. That position was changed by revelation on 8 June 1978, when Spencer W. Kimball, the 12th president of the Church, announced that the "long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood." (Official Declaration 2).'

"The Church views all humankind as children of the same Heavenly Father, literally brothers and sisters. As stated by the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in 1987: 'We repudiate efforts to deny to any person his or her inalienable dignity and rights on the abhorrent and tragic theory of the superiority of one race or color over another.' Expanding church authority in degrees is nothing new -- the early church in the New Testament started first with the Jews, then eventually expanded to the Gentiles. Would anyone call the Jews racist because they started with Jews first then expanded to the Gentiles? Of course not. Think most blacks abhor the church because they think it's racist? Tell that to the thousands around the world that have joined, especially in Africa, before and after the proclamation in 1978."

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E ME: Well, I'm on my way to Utah next week with a new understanding of the dominant religious group of the land. What movies can you think of that you suspect of being developed to death? Also, do you prefer documentaries that tell you who is evil or would you prefer to be left to your own judgement? And are any of us pure enough or all we all just a step away from media whoredom?