STRANGER THAN FICTION & Charlie Kaufman's Curse

“Dramatic irony - it’ll fuck you every time.” 



Now out on DVD:



STRANGER THAN FICTION

(Dir. Marc Forster, 2006)

When bland by-the-book IRS auditor Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) hears a disconnected voice narrating the mundane moments of his daily routine then foretelling his death, naturally a modern movie-goer would expect a full-out Ferrell freak-out. 

Well, despite some yelling at the Heavens what we get is a questioning rational note-taking far-from-frantic Ferrell. The voice he hears belongs to Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) a frazzled chain-smoking acclaimed author suffering writer’s block on how to kill off her latest main character that she is unaware actually exists. As a prisoner of an enforced narrative Ferrell enlists Literary professor Dr. Jules Hibbert’s (Dustin Hoffman) help. Hibbert breaks it down to purely a question of whether Crick is a character in a comedy or tragedy. 

At its core it’s a wake up and realize that you’re alive movie with Crick coming out of his self-created shell to declare his love for abrasive tattooed bakery shop owner Maggie Gyllenhall, shake off his dull routines, and even take up the guitar while trying to get to the heart of his daunting dilemma. 



Three years after David O. Russell’s I HEART HUCKABEES (that also featured Hoffman) was billed as an “existential comedy,” and accused of ripping off the work of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (see below), STRANGER THAN FICTION pushes the existential envelope and the Kaufmanesque approach a little further. 

It’s not a case of “life imitating art” or vice versa – it’s more like life challenging art to a duel but eventually agreeing to a stalemate. The look of the film is fitting - white-washed bare backgrounds of Ferrell’s sterile hotel room-looking apartment and his fluorescent lit workplace with cubicles and filing cabinets reaching back to infinity are contrasted with the clutter of Gyllenhall’s punk bakery and Hoffman’s wood-grain ragged book-filled university office. 

Spoon songs fill the soundtrack with the welcome exception of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World,” which Ferrell woos Gyllenhall with as the first song he learns on the guitar. 

The supporting cast is spot-on as well – Queen Latifah as Thompson’s assistant, Tony Hale (Arrested Development - TV-series 2003-2006), Linda Hunt, and an almost unrecognizable Tom Hulce (AMADEUS, ANIMAL HOUSE, PARENTHOOD) as Ferrell’s chubby bearded touchy-feely office counselor. STRANGER THAN FICTION is a fine film but one that never really gets airborne. 

It’s highly likable even as it lumbers in a state of subdued surrealism but maybe, just maybe it should have freaked out a bit.

KAUFMAN’S CURSE: Nearly every review of STRANGER THAN FICTION calls attention to the influence of writer, producer, and soon to be director Charlie Kaufman who apparently is widely acknowledged as modern cinema’s reigning meta-movie master for his films BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION, and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. 

One particular phrase really stands out : “Charlie Kaufman Lite” – Richard Corliss (TIME Magazine) 

“Zach Helm's Kaufman Lite script...” - Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly) “A cutesy, Charlie Kaufman-lite exercise in magic unrealism.” - Peter Canavese (GROUCHO Reviews) 

“Charlie Kaufman-lite but enjoyable nevertheless” – Bina007 Movie Reviews Also in the same vein : “a charming though problematic meta-movie in Charlie Kaufman mode” – Scott Tobias (Onion AV Club) 

“Zach Helm's screenplay has flagrant Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation") overtones rocketing out of it that are impossible to ignore.” – Brian Ordoff (FilmJerk.com) 

“Owes a considerable debt to the dual-reality-plane excursions of Charlie Kaufman” - Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune)

“Finally, a Charlie Kaufman movie for people who are too stupid to understand Charlie Kaufman movies.” - Sean Burns (Philadelphia Weekly) Congratulations Charlie Kaufman! You are now officially critical short-hand.



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Subterranean Homesick Redux Blues

"If you want to laugh at a movie, may I recommend A DAY AT THE RACES starring the Marx Brothers, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN starring Frankenstein, THE THIN MAN - William Powell and Myrna Loy, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, BORN YESTERDAY - Broderick Crawford and Judy Holliday, Billy Wilder's cross dressing classic SOME LIKE IT HOT and of course we can't leave out Ben Stiller in ZOOLANDER. I hear they're making a sequel." - Bob Dylan on his Theme Time Radio Hour - Laughter Edition (broadcast: 2/7/07)

Nice to have some comedy movie recommendations from Bob, isn't it? On the occasion of a release of a new Special Edition DVD of DON'T LOOK BACK, D.A. Pennebaker's ground breaking documentary of Dylan's UK solo tour in 1965, I thought it was a good time to pay tribute to it's immortal opening scene with a piece I call:




Subterranean Homesick Redux Blues

Here are 5 homages/parodies/rip-offs of Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” short film (some call the first music video ever, but I’m not going there) with it’s card dropping, back alley in the broad-daylight basking, indifferent i.e. ‘cool’ posing put-offing, and funny word playing is a major pop-point of reference as evidenced here: 




1. BOB ROBERTS (Dir. Tim Robbins, 1992)




In many ways, Right-wing folk-singing Senatorial candidate Bob Roberts's career obviously apes Bob's (for example albums titled "The Freewheelin' Bob Roberts" and "The Times Are Changin' Back") so it's no surprise that the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" scene is satirized. Re-casting it as a glitzy pro-'80s corporate greed spectacle complete with Robert Palmer dancing girls and business men carrying bags of money is pure genius though. It's the kind of song you could imagine Gordon Gekko rocking out to.



2. Weird Al Yankovic: “Bob” (Music Video, 003) 

At first glance this is like any old parody of black & white Ginsberg-era Dylan but when you realize that every card contains a palindrome it’s quite a clever treat. Some are quite funny - “Lisa Bonet ate no basil", "a dog a panic in a pagoda", "do nine men interpret? nine men I nod" and "oozy rat in a sanitary zoo". Click on the the highlighted title and enjoy before YouTube removes it.



3. INXS: “Need You Tonight/Mediate” (Music video - 1987) 



In the “Mediate” bit of this double song video Michael Hutchence and fellow band members take turns tossing off stacks of cards with the mostly one-word lines to the song with the backdrop of some industrial lot on an overcast day. 



The ‘60s revival of the '80s was in full swing - witness the peace symbol t-shirt worn by Kirk Pengilly when he comes in to give a saxophone solo at the end.




4. Curiousity Killed the Cat: “Misfit” (Music video, 1986) Couldn’t find this on YouTube but pop-art God Andy Warhol himself fills Bob’s shoes and lends his particular brand of indifference to the card-dropping shtick. This time though in the popiest-artsiest sense the cards are blank! Maybe it’s pay-back for the time Warhol gave Dylan one of his paintings and Bob traded it for a couch. Ooops!

5. LOVE ACTUALLY 
(Dir. Richard Curtis, 2003) Yep, even a rom com got in on the act. Mark (Andrew Lincoln) declares his hidden feelings for Juliet (Keira Knightley) by holding up and of course dropping cards that line-by-line (with some pictures) form a love letter. Okay, so - it’s not that subterranean…

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R.I.P. Robert Altman (1925-2006)

"Retirement? You're talking about death, right?"

- Robert Altman (1925-2006)

I just filled up my Netflix queue with Robert Altman movies I haven't seen yet. I figured out that I've seen 15 of his 40 something films plus that Tanner '88 Showtime series. Surprising to find that a number of notable movies of his are not available on DVD at the current time - BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970) (which he often said was his favorite) , HealtH (1980) ,THIEVES LIKE US (1974) ,COME BACK TO THE 5 AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN (1982), Hell even his film debut THE DELINQUENTS (1957) is missing in action. Pretty shabby treatment for movies that are constantly being referred to in various online cinema forums as cult movies.

"What is a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority."
- Robert Altman

The first Altman movie that I remember seeing was POPEYE (1980). It was at the same theater that I work at part-time now - the Varsity. I was 10 and of course had no idea who Altman was. I learned as I grew older and saw his classic work (M*A*S*H, THE LONG GOODBYE, NASHVILLE among others) how uncharacteristic POPEYE was - Altman didn't "sell out" by signing on to the ill-fated Robert Evans project but his trademark vision barely surfaced in the murk of that cartoon adaptation. Images from it clash greatly with memories of films from the same period - compare POPEYE to the sublimely confusing 3 WOMEN (1977) and it is almost impossible to process that it is the work of the same director.

Sometime in the last year I bought the Criterion Collection special edition of SHORT CUTS (1993) (my personal Altman favorite) but only in the last week did I sample the bonus material. In addition to the bonus disc of docs, deleted scenes and typical bells and whistle whatnot it came with a reprint of the 160 page book of the Raymond Carver short stories that the film was based on and was published when the film was first released. I had been saving the book for...I don't know what but I actually read it and rewatched the movie now being able to pinpoint the sources and enjoyed it more than ever.

"Movies Now More Than Ever"
- Slogan for Griffin Mill's (Tim Robbins) Studio in THE PLAYER (1992)

After watching the rest of the various extras - docs, deleted scenes, etc I lent the disc and the book to a literary-minded friend who works with me at the theater at the end of last week. No great cosmic significance here, just interesting to me that I had absorbed and passed on one of Altman's greatest works just days before his passing.

It's sad but fitting that PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION was Altman's last movie. Its sad obviously because there will be no more films - seasons will come and go without his large cast revues and the circling cameras, overlapping dialogue, and insightful interplay. It's fitting because he said in interviews that PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION was a film about death - the end of an era. Many other directors have adopted some of his techniques (though his stuff is in a satirically sillier vein Christopher Guest has been often compared to Altman - more on that and his new movie FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION in a future post) but nobody has really come close to what he did. So the man has retired but the extensive body of work he has left us with that I for one know will be discovering and re-discovering the rest of my days. He was right on the money when he once said :

"Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes."


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