Life Stinks (Brooks 1991)

While I certainly don’t feel bad for filmmakers with critical and commercial success, I can imagine that often they feel trapped by the expectations that come with that success, making it harder to take chances and evolve as filmmakers. A good case can be made of this is happening to Mel Brooks, who in the 1980s was more ambitious as a producer, working without credit on films such as The Elephant Man and My Favourite Year. As a director during this period, Brooks made films such as History of the World: Part I and Spaceballs which, while fun films, were were less focused and sharp in their satire compared to his earlier work. Brooks seemed more focused on living up to his reputation as a filmmaker specializing in parodies during this time, drifting ever more in the direction of the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams’ brand of kitchen sink comedy, a type which only the Zuckers and Abrahams ever were able to master to perfection.

Life Stinks, a 1991 film by Brooks, is an attempt to reconcile these competing sides of the filmmaking legend, seeking to capture genuine emotion and exploring the relationship between the wealthy and the impoverished in a manner evocative of (though not nearly as effective as) Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931). Life Stinks stars Brooks, playing Goddard Bolt, a wealthy man who, as part of an effort to buy and redevelop a poor section of Los Angeles, agrees to a wager proposed by his rival, Vance Crasswell (Jeffery Tambor), in which Bolt will live in poverty for an entire month. During the course of the month, Bolt not only has to learn how to survive, but also deal with the meddling interference from Crasswell, all while slowly falling in love with a homeless woman named Molly (Leslie Ann Warren).

Unlike Brooks’ earlier efforts, Life Stinks does not use cinema itself as its subject matter, instead evoking elements of cinema’s past to help tell his most grounded tale. Brooks seeks to examine the issues of poverty in America, particularly in urban centers, and as such moves away from the subversive, meta jokes and slapstick that marked his classic efforts, though only to a degree: there is still plenty of broad comedy moments throughout the film. The film however is an attempt to have the viewers invest emotionally into the characters in a way Brooks never really has before, or since, while still allowing for those moments of broad comedy. Brooks is clearly moving out of his comfort zone, and it gives the film a level of energy that his latter efforts often lack: you can just feel Brooks putting his all into this one, and it makes it all the more frustrating as a viewer when the film just misses the mark.

The first real problem with Life Stinks is that Brooks’ satire is not focused. As crazed and episodic as Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein appear, those films are tightly focused efforts which know their subject matter backwards and forwards, skilfully blending social satire and cinematic lampooning. Here, Brooks has brilliant moments of satire, targeting the systemic failures in American society, but the Life Stinks never quite goes for the throat like his other efforts and explore the material in depth. Instead, Brooks relies on wealthy stereotypes and cartoonish behaviour rather than substantive criticism.

The first issue is likely the result of the second issue, which is Brooks’ unwillingness to commit to this film being something different from the rest of his body of work. While Brooks plays closer to reality, he also seems to want to hedge his bets by including moments of Brooks’ brand comedy which simply do not fit in the film, from random visual gags to forced slapstick. The entire final third of the film completely abandons any notion of grounding for a completely absurd, fairy tale ending that was probably slapped onto the film because the more natural, bittersweet ending point for the film (which I will get to in a moment) was too much of a “downer” for audiences. Thus, the film concludes with a fight between two construction vehicles, the poor of the L.A. area mingling with the wealthy, and a small man pretending that his legs are getting crushed. The ending completely undoes any investment made by the audience into the story, giving into cheap tricks, artifice, and low brow gags that had thankfully been kept in check till this point.

This total lack of faith from Brooks in making a different type of film is unfortunate, because when Life Stinks works, it works wonderfully. The highlight of the film is the relationship between Bolt and Molly, which manages to be sweet and touching without giving into the typical romantic clichés. One of the best moments of the film is a scene in which Bolt and Molly engage in a silly, fantastic, and old fashioned dance number which manages to be charming and one of the best scenes in any of Brooks’ films. Greater than this though, is a scene which should have ended then film, as Molly visits a comatose Bolt, who has suffered a massive personal setback and has ended up in the hospital (whose staff is responsible of Bolt’s state). The scene is one with Molly pouring her heart out, performed beautifully by Warren, and ends on a simply look between herself and Bolt. It is a wonderful scene, and in many ways, feels like the film’s end. It wouldn’t wrap up all of the threads of the narrative, but I don’t believe that the film really needs to offer a conclusion to everything. The issues Brooks addresses and the more grounded approach to them do not befit a fantasy ending.

Perhaps Life Stinks wouldn’t have been any more successful if Brooks had gone for broke with the film. However, we do know that the finished film was not a success critically or commercially, and if Brooks’ last two films are anything to go by, he took the wrong lesson away from the failure of Life Stinks, returning with a vengeance to mocking cinema in a manner that was derivative of his early successes. I’m personally sad that the ambition Brooks shows with this film was never developed further. For all its flaws, Life Stinks might have been the first step in the development of a second stage of his career as a filmmaker. Instead, it is cursed to be known as the first step in ending Brooks’ career.

Being There (Ashby 1979)

Being There, Hal Ashby’s 1979 comic-drama masterpiece is one of those films that have been discussed to the point that it is really hard to bring anything new to the table. From the satirical nature of the story, to Peter Seller’s brilliant performance, and to the notorious final shot, Being There is a film that has been talked to death, yet we still feel a need to try and say something about it. If that isn’t the mark of a brilliant film, what else is?

The film is the tale of a middle aged man named Chance, played by Peter Sellers, who has lived his entire life inside the confines of a wealthy man’s home, alternating between watching TV and working in the garden. He cannot write, cannot read, and only seems to be capable of imitating behavior presented on television. When the wealthy, elderly man dies, Chance is thrust out into the world for the first time, wearing the clothing of the deceased man. Through a series of, um, chance meetings, Chance ends up in the residence of Ben and Eve Rand (Melvyn Douglas and Shirley MacLaine), a wealthy couple with connections to the President of the United States, all whom mistake Chance for being a highly intelligent, warm and understanding individual instead of the near cipher that he is.

Right about here, I would start performing an analysis of the film, trying to grapple with some of its intellectual complexities. Perhaps talk about the playful biblical allusions in the film which give it an almost mythic feeling, all while discussing how the concept of the simulacra contextualizes this biblical inversion. Or maybe I could just rant about how brilliant Ashby and Sellers work is here, this being Sellers last fully completed film and Ashby’s last great (and even just plain solid) film. I could, if I wanted to, try and compare Being There to Ashby’s other works, or films of a similar nature.

However, I can’t help but feel I would be doing Being There a total disservice. This is a film built on observation and nuance, where Ashby fills every frame with small details that require the viewer to spend time diligently studying the film. While no film is objective, Ashby works hard to avoid dominating over the ideas put forth in the film with his own perspective, seeking to embody Roland Barthes’ concept of the writerly text (I hate the literary bias the term holds), where the viewer must truly work to bring meaning to the text. The film is filled to the brims with possibility, but it takes the viewer to bring it to living life.

For myself, I oddly find Being There a comforting experience. As much as the film is a critical reflection upon society and culture, I don’t feel that the film is entirely condemning of the society upon which it reflects. The world is one that simply is: for all its faults, for all its failings, it’s our (well, Western society’s) world and the one we are stuck with. Is Chance’s existence any more absurd than our own? And do we not project onto others our own thoughts, feelings and ideas? At some point in time, are we not a Chance to somebody? In that sense, the film is an acceptance of flawed humanity and miscommunication.

This is a much shorter review than I usually write, but I feel, just this one time, that my simply telling you to go see the film is the best thing I can do. Watch it with large groups; watch it with strangers; watch it with loved ones and, hell, even watch it with people you just plain dislike. When it is all done, start talking. I’m sure you’ll all have something fascinating to say.

Cheap (Jones 2004)

If there is one subject that cinema loves above all else, it is cinema itself. And why shouldn’t cinema have a fascination with itself? Art, commerce, industry, voyeurism, technology, ethics and politics all come together with filmmaking. Cinema has power, and it provokes both emotions and the intellect. Cinema also has the power to implicate viewers in the onscreen actions by their sheer willingness to watch the images that play out before them, a fact played with by filmmakers from Alfred Hitchcock to Spike Jonez.

Perhaps most notable is that cinema is, at its very core, a medium of exploitation. It exploits emotions; it exploits the conflicts between people and in society; and cinema exploits our own willingness to give ourselves over to manipulation. Of course, so do other mediums, but cinema, with its strong emphasis upon the visual and its need for collective participation, is particularly more pronounced in its exploitive capabilities, even in the most seemingly innocent of films. Bambi exploits murder of a parent for sheer emotional impact, lest we forget.
So it is no wonder that such focus is placed on the presence of violence and sex in film. Why do we partake in viewing scenes of violence? Why does one form of violence seem acceptable in a film, while another is not? Why is a murder presented in a film acceptable as long as there is no blood, while a gusher of blood may be viewed as wrong? If violence is ok, why do North American audiences have such a problem with sex? Even more unsettling, why do sex and violence seem to go together so often in films that mass audiences watch? Complex issues in need of complex thought.

This is particularly the case in the art vs. commerce debate that has existed as long as there have been film industries. Are films art, or are they product? No easy answer exists to that question. Certainly, a large number of films seek to be more than mere disposable entertainment, but often in the commercial film industry, the worst material tends to rise to the surface and succeed. Look no further than this past summer’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, with its sexist and racist politics being taken in by mass audiences, all the way to the top of the box office. What does it mean when we are willing to pay for such content, particularly if we are paying to see such material for sheer entertainment?

Cheap, a 2004 film from writer, director, and star Brad Jones, is a film which brings together these issues surrounding film production and film viewing and explores them in a section of the film industry which is at its most purely exploitive. Cheap is the story about a failed director in the porn industry named Jack, played by Jones himself, who in a desperate search for originality and profit turns to making snuff films, employing two women to act as his killers and using various individuals he finds on the street as his victims. Max Force (David Gobble), a low level distributor of online smut, begins distributing the films, oblivious to the very real nature of the murders taking place on camera, and believing the films to be the breakthrough he needs to rise in the industry. When Force’s own ego and exploitive nature begins to turn on Jack and his crew, it triggers a series of events darker than anything that precedes it.

In his introduction to the film on his site, Jones makes note that the film was a hard sell for his local audience and has been the only film he has directed not to turn a profit. This should be taken as a sign of artistic success, in part. Like Quentin Tarantino’s work, Cheap is a film that draws its aesthetic and subject matter from exploitation films. Unlike Tarantino’s work however, Jones’ film is not a celebration of cinema, but rather one that strips it down to its core manipulative and industrial natures. The world Jones presents the audience is one that is entirely repugnant and vile, with no sympathetic characters to be found. Everyone seems to know the game of the industry, to both be willing to exploit others, and to be exploited in turn. This is taken so far in the film that the line between the exploited and the exploiter ceases to exist. There is not even a relationship in the film that doesn’t somehow exist solely for convince and benefit of the parties involved: love and friendship do not exist here.

In exploring his subject matter, Jones makes a number of choices, which seem to be driven by both artistic and practical reasons. While I still am not a fan of shot on video filmmaking unless it is on crisper digital cameras, the approach is more fitting here than in his last film Freak Out. This is a low rent world, and the low level VHS look of the film fits perfectly. Furthermore, a choice in the masks worn by Jack’s murders is surprisingly effective rather than offensive as they evoke the history of exploitation in the fields of art and entertainment which sadly have not entirely been purged from society. Again, I’m looking at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen here.

Perhaps the best of the choices made by Jones is the detached irony of the film. In a world this disgusting, Jones invites the audiences to clinically observe the insanity. This approach allows Jones to switch from moments of graphic (and I do mean graphic) horror to grim humour as he satirizes the mentality of the film industry and its practices. An early example is a scene where Max shows the first film Jack produces to his wife and another filmmaker: after exclaiming the “artistic” virtues of the film as an original, he immediately orders the other filmmaker to begin working on an imitation of the film in order to beat the competition. This leads to a recurring joke in which the poor filmmaker, who only knows how to direct films by following a set formula, becomes increasingly confused as he tries to copy Jack’s work.

The film isn’t perfect though. While Jones has made great strides since Freak Out on the directing and writing ends, there are a few moments where the writing is too on the nose, having character’s spell out the themes and ideas in the work rather than having the audience themselves piece it together. Another issue on this front is a story point in which one of Jack’s stars negotiates with Max Force instead of Jack himself handling the negotiations. First, the reasoning for Jack doing this is murky at best, and only seems to serve to set up a major plot point later on. Second, this causes a major plot hole: Jack sends his proxy in disguise, but we clearly see the individual sign a contract. Max could clearly figure out who the person is from this piece of information, and furthermore, if Max is bothering with contracts, he would probably realize that without a legally binding statement that allows the proxy to negotiate for Jack, such a signature would not be legally binding.

Furthermore, while the acting is far better on the whole this time around, the acting on the part of the two masked killers is distractingly stiff. Also, though Jones is hardly any guiltier of this than large budget filmmakers, neither actress seems to fit the age that the killers supposedly are.

Still, on a whole, Cheap is an unsettling but fascinating film, and one which will benefit from being distributed on the internet rather than at a multiplex where it would be burdened with commercial expectations. Still, I think I need something much, much more cheerful next. Perhaps something by, I don’t know, a Mr. Hal Ashby...