For the past couple months as I pondered what my next film project would be (or whether to even make a film at all and possibly get involved in the productions others were making) I considered a great number of possibilities. Up until recently I had been struggling with not being sure what idea or genre type I wanted to go with. As this frustration was going on I found myself watching a collection of great older films - which often serves to jump start my mind and get me thinking a little bit deeper and harder about where I'm going.
Over these past weeks I've watched a few Hitchcock classics including "North By Northwest", "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "Vertigo". I've seen just about every film he's ever done and there are many obvious parallels between them all, especially in the films he shot during the 1950s when his popularity had a massive upswing. After a period of struggle in the late 40s films like "Strangers on a Train" and "Rear Window" turned everything around for Hitch and he maintained a high level of popularity into the mid-60s when criticism of his works rose again and, in all fairness, his heath was beginning to decline.
In addition to a few Hitchcock films I also watched a few Billy Wilder films, mostly later works of his. "Double Indemnity", his 1944 film noir classic, is one of my most favorite films and my most favorite film of that genre. But he's done so much more, many films that people have heard of but I don't think realize he was the director on. I tend to be more partial however to his later works in that I think he thrived in doing legitimate comedy work. I stormed through "Some Like It Hot" yet again and also took in some of his later works like "Irma La Douce" (another underrated piece of work from Wilder) and I also saw his 1972 film "Avanti!" for the first time. While I wasn't exactly crazy about the ending I thought it to be a very entertaining and charming piece of work. Then again, it was a pairing of Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon, so how could it not be charming?
If I had to pick three directors that were to top my list there would definitely be some honorable mentions such as George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and as far as contemporary film goes, Christopher Nolan and Clint Eastwood are right up there. I really have the highest respect for those directors who were consistently successful in their work because there's so many directors out there that either come and go or remain fairly obscure because they either never or seldom did any film work that was worthy of remembering. But with Hitchcock and Wilder likely in my top three, I know it sounds like a fairly conventional list, but I would probably ad Steven Spielberg as my third and final director (and no, not because we have the same name).
Now the reasons why I would likely choose these three are many, but directly there is one specific correlation between them that I really admire and it ended up effecting my decision on what type of film project to do next. There is a definite and powerful correlation specifically between Hitchcock and Spielberg's work. They were both known for doing "epic" style films; films that poured the story out with great visual and cinematic power. While so many films, especially today, try and take a more passive and realistic approach to things, I still have a certain level of admiration for this style of filmmaking (it's true filmmaking at its artistic core). But something else they are incredibly well known for, probably because they were so successful doing it, is they were able to create dramatic and suspenseful pieces of work that were charmingly laced with comedy. For Hitchcock in particular, a film like "North By Northwest" has Cary Grant playing a character that is every bit as charming as those screwball characters he played in years past in films such as "The Awful Truth", "Bringing Up Baby", and "Arsenic and Old Lace". It's a classic mystery/suspense film, but the comedy truly brings everything together. Spielberg on the other hand was known for making great leaps with his comedy, often using comedy elements that loomed outside of realism, such as the famous scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when Harrison Ford had taken ill and instead of having a duel with a rather large Middle Eastern gentleman with a large sword he just pulled his gun out and shot the guy. Now while that moment wasn't originally scripted, the decision to change it to something so outlandish and unexpected was all Spielberg.
Of course Billy Wilder is a great compliment between the two because he knew how to make hard-hitting serious pieces of film work that completely lacked comedy of any kind and at the same time the last 25 years or so of his career his did practically nothing but comedy work. And he was great with mixing the serious and the comedic. All of the escapades surrounding the story of "Some Like It Hot" revolve around the fact that Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis' characters witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, one of the most brutal killings in the history of Chicago. He took tragedy and made it part of a comedy film that still ranks number one as the greatest comedy ever done according to the American Film Institute.
The balance between drama and comedy is key in making this three directors so successful and so significant in the annals of film. They have had a certain expectation placed on them before they even started their next film production. And it can be of little surprise then, especially in the cases of Hitchcock and Spielberg, that in the films they done that lacked sufficient humor they were less successful. I think of films like "Torn Curtain" and "Topaz", both later Hitchcock works that were mercilessly criticized for their lack of "Hitchcockian" quality. Some people who previewed these movies honestly believed they had been duped because they were so convinced that these were not Hitchcock films. Their greatest criticisms too were that films such as these lacked those witty and comedic elements that made his previous works so successful. However, one must realize that in later works such as these Hitchcock was dealing with much more serious subject matter, much of it involving international intrigue and Cold War attitudes. For Spielberg, even though it successfully received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture a few years back, one film I think of as far not being one of Spielberg's greatest was "Munich". Granted, again we have film dealing with very serious subject matter, but the film lacks those classic Spielberg moments of wit and comedy. The moments of softness and comedy almost feel forced as though they had to be put somewhere so they just conveniently stuck it in places. I really like the film myself, but I feel a lack of light-heartedness played a key part in not making the film more successful to others.
I also find it interesting with reputations such as this that Hitchcock and Spielberg have been sometimes their least successful in trying to do full on comedies. People love their comedy it seems as long as it's interwoven into a more serious storyline. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", directed by Hitchcock back in 1941, primarily as a favor to Carole Lombard, is hardly considered a classic by many (and honestly, as a major classic comedy/screwball comedy fan, it's not one of my favorites either). He also did a black comedy in the mid-50s called "The Trouble With Harry", which, while being a fairly well respected film, even as a quirky comedy did not belong in the league of other films Hitchcock was doing at that time. This one is easily lost in the mix as it was done around other productions such as "Rear Window", "To Catch a Thief" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much". On the other end of things, Spielberg's only real full on foray into comedy was his 1979 film "1941", which revolves around the insanity that grasped the city of Los Angeles after the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor, when everyone felt that L.A. would be the next to be attacked. This is another film I enjoy, but more for its absurdity than its cinematic relevance. Like Hitchcock's 1950s effort into comedy, "1941" is easily lost in the shuffle as it was done around films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial". This is still a very interesting concept that when it comes to doing a straight up comedy these directors seem to disappoint the viewers whether their works were good or not. But much less comedic, and more subtle humor inserted into a serious film and they are kings of cinema.
All in all it was taking notice of that fact that these great directors found such great success in their abilities to blend drama and comedy together into one storyline. It finally popped into my head to give that a serious shot as most of my dramatic work was just that... drama. I wanted to do something a little more true to humanity, something that people could watch and connect with better as we can be comedic even in times of strife and trouble. Thus, my new film which I will be posting about frequently, especially now that I am trying to collect funds for it, will be following a similar line to that. It's a very serious film, but laced with honest and legitimate comedic moments to keep the mood from being constantly swayed too far in any one direction.
Having mentioned my funding, I may as well do a little asking... I am hoping to make an additional $750 by February 15th to go towards my production and help to make it the best I possibly can. If any of you reading this or future posts from me can make a donation of any amount to my Indiegogo campaign I would truly appreciate it! The link to it is: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/short-film-my-inspiration/x/1211654.
Thank you so much and see you all later!
No comments:
Post a Comment