Too Late Blues

TOO LATE BLUES                C+                  

USA  (103 mi)  1961  d:  John Cassavetes

When TOO LATE BLUES was over I thought I would be over too. And then Paramount asked me if I’d like to sign a long-term contract. At that point I realized that success and failure weren’t necessarily success and failure. I had heard so much about people who fail and then get enormous contracts. I never could quite believe it, until it happened to me. Paramount upped my salary to $125,000 a picture. I subsequently learned that [Paramount’s Marty Racklin] had to go to his stockholders and tell them I was a bright guy. He’d built me up, taken a gamble on a guy who wasn’t turning out very well, and he had no real option but to go with me and hope I was smart enough to learn. And I did learn. I learned all the tricks: to get a big office and to ask for anything and everything and insist on it. I told them I wouldn’t do another film unless I wanted to do it and unless I could do it my own way.

—John Cassavetes, from the book ‘Cassavetes on Cassavetes’ by Ray Carney

After the success in Europe of SHADOWS (1959) and a short-lived TV show Johnny Staccato where Cassavetes plays a private eye who sides as a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village (though shot entirely in Los Angeles), Cassavetes was offered a chance to direct his first studio film at Paramount, which the producers (specifically Marty Racklin) felt could target the youth market.  While he signed a contract to develop his own script, it was originally conceived by Richard Carr who he met on the TV show, asking if he wouldn’t come up with something, choosing to rework the third of three stories submitted, where Cassavetes wrote the first half with Richard Carr writing the second half.  He was unable to make any changes within a month of the shoot, and certainly no revisions on the set, as everything had to be worked out ahead of time for a 6-week shooting schedule. Additionally, Cassavetes wanted Montgomery Clift and Gena Rowlands for the two leads, while the studio insisted upon pop singer Bobby Darin (somewhat stiff in his first dramatic role) and Stella Stevens, a Playmate of the Year just the year before in January 1960, also considered at the time one of the ten most photographed women in the world.  Cassavetes also lost the battle to shoot the scenes entirely in New York City’s Greenwich Village jazz scene, with the Studio opting for a nearly entirely interior studio shot film.  These little differences of opinion led to a more reserved and suffocating film, as the Hollywood system itself took all the living and breathing life out of the original conception.  What remains is a downbeat story of a jazz pianist selling out his friends for his own chance at success, one that mimics Cassavetes own career move from New York to Los Angeles to star in a TV show, with hopes of breaking into the movie industry.  While Cassavetes felt the movie got away from him, unable to do any significant rewrites to correct what he felt were script flaws, he was stuck with meeting the 6-week shoot, which meant handing in a movie he wasn’t at all happy with.

Nonetheless, from a Studio’s point of view, even though the film was a critical and box office flop, the fact that the movie was competently completed on time led to their offering him a contract and a raise, which led to his second feature, A Child Is Waiting (1963), where Cassavetes had a meltdown with producer Stanley Kramer, again over the direction of the film, disowning the film when Kramer basically fired him to finish and recut the movie himself.  Despite these run-ins, they gave Cassavetes invaluable experience in shooting a motion picture which eventually led to FACES (1968), written and shot in his own way, using his own timetable, starring his wife Gena Rowlands, and is still considered one of the more groundbreaking works in American independent film.  TOO LATE BLUES, on the other hand, is purely a product of the Studio system.  Ironically released the same year as Martin Ritt’s Paris Blues (1961), starring two American jazz musicians in Paris, Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman, also the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington who both make appearances in the film, Cassavetes was originally up for the Paul Newman role, so he was familiar with the script, which bears a few casting and nightclub similarities.  Like that film which was all about music, where the lurid romance was secondary, Cassavetes wanted to throw in 17 new jazz pieces into his film, all featured during the nightclub sequences using the musicians that he met on the Johnny Staccato TV show, some of whom are musicians used here, but this was not to be.  The opening two and a half minutes of the film may be the most inventive in the entire film, seen here:  Bobby Darin in Too Late Blues Part 1 of 12 - YouTube (7:57), similar to his realistic use of children in his next movie, and is one of the few natural scenes in the movie that literally feels unstaged and uninhibited. 

Bobby Darin plays a character named Ghost, who leads an undiscovered jazz quintet seen playing in the opening, which includes Seymour Cassel (in only his second picture) on bass, guys who have been working together for years but are still forced into taking whatever gigs come their way.  Hanging out in a neighborhood bar afterwards, much of the film is set after hours when the guys are drinking, dancing, playing cards, or goofing off, unfortunately featuring the loud overacting of the Greek bar owner Nick Dennis, who, like many of the cast, were brought over from the TV show, including the sleazy agent (Everett Chambers, a producer on the show), the owner of the recording studio (Val Avery), and the Countess (Marilyn Clark).  Ghost’s agent is quickly seen undermining the fragile esteem of the group’s female singer Jess (Stella Stevens), Ghost’s girlfriend, where he’s something of an oily double crosser throughout, always using underhanded tactics to either backstab or showcase his represented talent, who never seem to get a fair shake, but he’s the shady representative of the exclusively financial interests of the music industry, the kind of snake that seems to thrive in the sewer.  After a volatile trial number in a recording studio leads to a follow up recording the next day, the guys (and girl) are out celebrating, where a drunk customer (Vince Edwards) gets into a drunken brawl with the boys, challenging and humiliating Ghost in front of his girl, which sends him plunging into self pity, wanting nothing more to do with any of them.  In Cassavetes original script, there is a ten-minute dreamlike sequence where Ghost goes out and picks up a girl, spending the night together, but this sequence was cut by the Studio in favor of Jess going home with one of the other members of the band and sleeping with him, effectively ending their relationship.

Devastated by the change of events, Ghost shows up at the studio but walks out on the band, calling them a bunch of amateurs he picked up off the street, making a deal with his agent to find gigs showcasing his talent, where he is sponsored by an older women of means, the Countess, who receives sexual favors in return.  This sleazy road to stardom never materializes, sending Ghost back to his roots years later searching for his original band, playing in a dive somewhere in Los Angeles.  Also searching for Jess, where Stella Stevens downward spiral is one of the few superbly realized scenes, but one can easily imagine Rowlands and similar drinking scenes with men at the beginning of FACES, he finds her sadly working the customers at the bar of a flophouse, an intensely sad portrait of dreams gone awry, where she doesn’t wish to be reminded of her former life, creating a sense of hopeless melodrama and despair before Ghost hauls her off to confront the band.  One by one they reject him, rebuffing his attempts to reconcile their differences, until Jess, off to the side of the stage, starts singing the melody of  a song they shared together, bringing them back together again with a reunified sense of optimism and hope as the curtain falls. Once again, this is the Studio imposed upbeat ending, as originally Ghost rejoins the band and starts playing the piano, where the music immediately comes alive as Jess walks out of the club, as he had walked out on her years earlier, where the drive for success has a deep-seeded personal price.  One problem with the use of music in this film is the audience can’t tell the difference between the more creative, supposedly original, avant-garde jazz music and the more sell-out, commercial music that audiences tend to prefer listening to. Much of it written by David Raskin, it tends to fall in the middle somewhere of “pseudo-jazz” where there is little distinction drawn between the various styles, which diminishes the theme of an artist selling out for commercial success, as we never really hear what real art sounds like.  This is a stark contrast with Paris Blues, for instance, which features Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, where the feverish intensity of live music in jammed nightclubs couldn’t be more exhilarating.

A Child Is Waiting

A CHILD IS WAITING          B                     

USA  1963  (102 mi)  d:  John Cassavetes  

I've always had a sweet spot for this 1963 film, made 5 years before the release of FACES, a more conventional film using footage of handicapped children from the Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, California, one of the first State facilities for mentally impaired children.  This is a remarkable attempt at realism, using moments of documentary style in a fictional film about mental retardation that refuses to look at the children in a group home as victims, but rather as human beings, each needing the help of others.  The film attempts to give the children as much screen time as the so-called stars, which caused something of a scandal on the set.  Apparently, Cassavetes’ message was too radical at the time, as he was fired from the film by producer Stanley Kramer, who then recut the film, ordering more close-ups, making it more sentimental.  Apparently both Lancaster and Garland appealed to him for help from Cassavetes' direction, both openly defying him on the set.  In Ray Carney's book, it is described as follows:  "Cassavetes' treatment of his stars was a textbook lesson in how to alienate everyone possible."  However, in Cassavetes' view, the children were more important in this film than the stars.  Despite some overglossed musical strings on occasion, it’s still a surprisingly unflinching look at a largely ignored problem—one might say a follow up to Frank Perry’s 1962 film, DAVID AND LISA.

Burt Lancaster is appointed by the State to run the home, and at first he appears hard and ignoble with the children, especially one problem child, Reuben (played by actor Bruce Ritchey), who he believes the system has failed, but his somewhat radical intention is to treat the children as responsible individuals.  Enter Judy Garland, of all people, as a troubled, down and out spirit who is looking to find a place where she might be needed.  Having no real qualifications, other than being a Julliard Music School drop out, and having no real professional objectivity, she immediately pities the children and assumes the role of Reuben’s missing mother, so he follows her wherever she goes.  Then on false pretenses, she summons Reuben’s real mother, Gena Rowlands, as every Wednesday, Reuben gets dressed up and waits for his parents that never show up on visiting day.  This calls into question everyone’s views in an extraordinarily dramatic confrontation.  Lancaster's unbending system is challenged by Garland, whose histrionics are challenged by Rowlands, all are challenged by Reuben, enter the State bureaucrats who really want to wash their hands of the whole problem, threatening to cut finding as it’s not a feel good issue with the public.  Who wants to raise children no one wants to see? 

Largely disowned by Cassavetes for changing the entire tone of the film, the theater of the uncomfortable is really evident here with broken families, love gone awry, disturbingly flawed characters, big emotional moments, Gena Rowlands nervously smoking a cigarette while wearing gloves, as it’s hard to witness mentally impaired children being themselves, but Cassavetes raises important issues, mostly through the peppering questions of Lancaster, who refuses to let the bureaucrats decide their worth through potential employability.  The film does a good job examining society’s response to “damaged” children, where parents immediately alter their expectations, becoming disappointed, embarrassed, eventually hiding their children from public view, supposedly for their own good.   And if they allow them to interact with normal children, they’re bound to be teased and humiliated, as children can be relentlessly judgmental.  Rowlands, of course, is excellent as the disappointed parent who’s too consumed with personal anguish and shame to be able to relate with her son anymore.  Cassavetes wraps up the entire issue in a manner unique to his own particular vision, in a grand, sweeping finale that features the children in a Settlers and Indians Thanksgiving theatrical revue where they are all, at least for a moment, shining stars, continually perplexed with remembering their lines, but singing happily anyway.  In Cassavetes' view, it's the adults that label them retarded, when really, they're just children.   

Applause

APPLAUSE                                  B                     

Denmark  (85 mi)  2009  ‘Scope  d:  Martin Zandvliet

The spirit of Applause echoes films from the late 60s and 70s.  Indeed I am in search of the emotional drama you found in films back then.  Applause may also seem like it’s from a different time — a cinematic tradition centered on the human soul and on acting.

For me Applause is about betrayal.  About how we as human beings betray the ones closest to us, when we ourselves have been betrayed.  About having difficulties trusting other people and judging what is right and wrong. About the complexity of longing for something better. About reacting as extremely egocentric or extremely helpful, about varying between despondency/discouragement and spite. All in the hope of being seen, heard, and loved.   

— Martin P. Zandvliet 

In a surreal coincidence, on the day of actress Elizabeth Taylor's death, the movie seen that night was this Danish film featuring a bravura performance from one of Denmark's leading actresses, Paprika Sheen, where the film follows her shattered and deteriorating marriage while at the same time offers glimpses of various segments from her actual 2008 Copenhagen Theatre onstage performance as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), a role that epitomizes what’s legendary about both Ms. Taylor, who was incredibly only 33 when she played the role, and Ms. Steen who is a more mature 45.  The role is so bruisingly iconic in the dramatic repertoire that playing the part is considered a rite of passage in one’s career, as is Hamlet or King Lear for men.  With tributes to John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands listed in the end credits, what stands out is the desperately driven, all-in attitude of Steen’s performance, which mirrors Rowlands’ vital need to be loved in A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), especially the scenes with her two children, the older of which, Otto Rieks as William, is her own son.  When she bounds across the floor wearing her Viking helmet declaring she is Eric the Red, charging towards her sons who have appropriately been given giant swords and shields, she lovingly creates an imaginary world second to none.  How could any kid resist, except - - they do, thinking perhaps their mother is a little bit crazy.  She pounces on this thought, exclaiming of course she’s crazy.  “Isn’t it cool to have a crazy mother?”  They sheepishly are forced to agree with her before she leaps up declaring “I’m Eric the Red again!”

Steen is a product of the Dogme movement, the only actress to work in each of the initial three productions, THE CELEBRATION (1998), THE IDIOTS (1998), and MIFUNE (1999).  Needless to say, Steen as Thea is a drama queen in the best sense of the word, which means there’s not a moment in her life when she’s not acting, as she lives for the intensity of every moment, which not everyone can stand, including her divorced husband Christian (Michael Falch), who has custody of both sons, and who has long ago tired of her theatrical outbursts.  Thea gave away her rights to custody during an extended alcoholic binge when her behavior towards her children was worse than intolerable.  Fortunately they are still young enough that they may barely have any scars or fresh recollections.  Christian, on the other hand, is unforgiving, especially when Thea announces her interest in reestablishing custody rights.  Visits are fine, when planned and mutually agreed to ahead of time, but nothing spontaneous or improvisational, which is the life blood of her craft, namely living.  She spurts out insults about how he’s turned them into little Toys R Us Nazi children, how she barely recognizes her imprint in their personalities any more.  From her perspective, they may as well be suffering from the effects of an impersonal and demoralizing foster care system.  As Christian, one assumes, is a doctor, and his new wife a psychiatrist, Thea blurts out how the entire medical establishment has conspired against her.  The dark humor used throughout the film continually covers up the aches of loneliness and personal torment, where what must hurt most of all is having no one to blame more than herself.  That’s the real curse, which feels like a stab in the heart. 

A continuing theme of the film is her long walk from the stage to her dressing room, always helped by her young dresser (Malou Reymann) that she’s always trying to fire for the crime of being young, yet she continually shows up in exactly the same place, as pretty and perky as ever, which really must disgust the star of the show, who sulks endlessly about her “dog skin” face, loathing the body that has seemingly turned on her with age as she gulps down another shot of bourbon before she stalks down the hall to take her rightful place onstage in the boozing and brawling of Edward Albee’s play.  Thea has the sad habit of reappearing in bars, frequenting the old stomping grounds even as she refrains from taking a drink anymore, seen bored to tears at an AA meeting where she’s forced to actually have to listen to the sad plight of others.  It’s in a bar that she meets Tom from Berlin, Shanti Roney, a guy with a sick smile plastered to his face that she orders him to wipe off when they first meet, which pretty much describes their sick affair together, connected by neverending wounds of anguish and pain.  Nothing ever goes the way it’s planned, as Thea hurls herself headfirst into her new future with all the gusto and incoherence that defined her complicated past.  “I hate ordinary people,” she bellows, but realizes in the same breath that she must learn to live among them, never actually trusting any of them, as if they were a strange breed of mutants, yet continuously it falls back upon her own shoulders and the burden she must bear.  It has all come to this, as she’s seen staring at herself in the mirror, smacking her lips with a new sheen of lipstick.  There is no one left to blame, all the bridges behind have been burned, leaving her alone once more standing on that precipice, about the take the first baby steps of a new beginning.  With her, it’s always opening night.