Working Title: The Trade or… Did You Exchange a Walk On Part in the War For a Lead Role in a Cage?

This week Will Leschber looks at the age old question would you rather…

“I’d rather die drunk, broke at 34 and have people around a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remember who I was.”

So says the aspiring Jazz Drummer artist, played by Miles Teller, in this year’s electric film Whiplash. There’s something in this statement that all artists can relate to. I certainly do. Even though I personally don’t agree with the sentiments, I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about it. I’d love to have it both ways. To have my cake and eat it too.

I aways want a win-win but sometimes artistic success feels like a trade for happiness. As artists, whether we work at film or theater or writing or painting or just work at thinking about how we should make something instead of just talking about how we used to make stuff… (Sigh)…we’ve all thought about that golden ring of longevity. How long will we grasp for it? We each make up our own answer.

Is the passionate kid in music school, lead only by his desire to be great, going to succeed? The film, Whiplash, posits a very grey and muddy answer. What can we sacrifice and still consider ourselves a success? Is anyone we know going to be one of the greatest artists of the 20th century? Probably not. But who knows, anything is possible. Especially when you are young and possibility still rolls forward like a endless hallway of open doors. Will we remain bullheaded and stubbornly pursue our art above everything else? Or will we compromise and trade a little of those all consuming young dreams for some happiness and comfort? Everyone reckons with the trade eventually. Do these things really have to be poles of each other?

I remember a time in my life when all I wanted to do was act and create and live the artist dream of dedicating everything to my craft and making something of significance that would live on and shine on like a crazy diamond years beyond my lifetime. It turns out that pursuing one goal and blocking everything else out wasn’t even what I wanted. I wanted a balance and a life and a craft and job and a family and a sexy wife and a little baby girl on the way. 😉 I turns out adulthood is more about juggling than throwing a single ball as hard and fast as you can. It is for me at least. I think many young creators play with these notions of posterity, legacy and significance. Old ones too! Maybe I just thought about it more when I was younger, in college and felt that everything was ahead. Without the ever-expanding experience that comes with age, could I even tell the difference between what was most important?

Reminds me of a song that rolls back through memory.

“So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.

Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?

Did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year.

Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”

I had so many dorm room conversations about craft and what we would do if we could live off acting. I’ve also had many conversations about friends who left LA or no longer did plays or stopped making music after being burnt out by bad teachers or bills or harsh critics or time enough without successful encouragement.

In the last few weeks, I haven’t talked about much local theater and that’s poor form for a Theater Pub blogger. I’m sorry, dear audience. However, I do think there is something note worthy about the pulsing vein that is running through this year in movies. It radiates with solo artists and their struggle with their creative process and finding their place amongst meaning. Whiplash, Birdman, Boyhood, Selma, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Theory of Everything, Mr Turner, Nightcrawler, the list goes on this year. This pull between perceived significance and perceived insignificance, is a demon that not just every creative person I know thinks about, but every individual person I know thinks about. We all want to be remembered.

I’ve found a space that has no need of bullying teachers screaming and slapping my craft to make me better. I’ll soon have a sweet daughter that will challenge me in ways I can’t imagine. Those bullheaded dreams I had in younger days may not have come to pass, but I’m glad I had them. They were good dreams. They brought me to where I am today. I’m happy to look back but I’m equally happy to be here. And If I had one thing to say to that clear eyed, long haired university student that I used to be, it would be “Wish You Were Here…and don’t worry, you will be one day.”

Working Title: It’s Old! It’s New Like You’ve Never Seen!

This week Will Leschber looks back over the closing summer season so we can all then look forward to the fall.

I find myself at that much maligned crossroad. The crossroad of the job hunt. What is it about the dawn of fall that thrusts us into another phase of life whether we want to or not? Is it that we’ve been conditioned to see this time of year this way? Maybe it’s all the back to school shopping we did growing up. Or maybe it’s the habitual feeling that wraps around summer’s end and edges the nervous excitement surrounding something new: New School year, new season to see, new jobs to hunt. Summer is closing and playtime is up.

The thing about summer is that it’s comfortable. The weather is warm, weddings are in season and vacation is on the horizon. Sure, adult living in the Bay Area may look a little different with heightened workloads and rampant cold fronts, but you get my drift. Also we are fed a wave of comfort food in the form of summer entertainment: remounting of old classics, new installments of franchise favorites, new additions to old genres. I know, I know, so much of this recycled dreck is a fraction of the quality we’d like to see. For every Dark Knight there are twice as many Transformer entries or Amazing Spiderman 2 misfires. That being said, I’d rather focus on the surprise successes. This summer we’ve seen familiar ground retread to spectacular ends. That’s my point, There is comfort in the familiar and also hope that these retellings or new genre entries will aspire to be better than their predecessors.

Along the indie film lines we were treated to familiar genres turned on their heads. My favorites were: a stylistic and ever-cool reclaiming of the vampire genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive; The romantic comedy as you’ve never seen it before with Jenny Slate’s turn as comic misanthrope, peter-pan-adult facing abortion in Obvious Child; And Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel which takes stories within stories to package nostalgia in a superb pseudo-coming of age tale. All of these remind me how good familiar stories can be when told by a superior storyteller. Blockbuster-fare impressed as well. Here are the highlights: The spectacular sequel to an unlikely reboot in The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a rock-em-sock-em adrenaline punch in the under seen sci-fi flick Edge of Tomorrow, and the new addition to the Marvel Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy. On paper each of these films appear unlikely to succeed with characters ranging from aliens to talking apes to gun-toting raccoons to walking trees to Tom Cruise! But the filmmakers succeed threefold: they have a clear vision of the kind of movie they are, the filmmakers balance tone and pace perfectly and lastly, in the end the final product plays to our familiar taste while providing something new an exciting in the process. Hell, even my favorite theatre experience of the last few months was a classic remounted. Custom Made Theatre’s production of The Crucible reminded me how fresh and powerful an old classic can be.

The best somehow finds a way to merge the new and the familiar. We need both to move forward. It’s enriching. Contrasting ideas can enrich our general point of view. Old ideas slammed against new ones, that’s summer! The old is new again. Now that we’ve taken stock and peered back over the closing summer season, we can prepare to look ahead to fall and all that lies forward. Tune in next time for a fall preview!

~~

And as a post script shout out, I’d like to hail fellow Tpub Blogger Anthony R Miller. In his last blog entry. Anthony said, “I find conversations about the new Planet of the Apes film are just as important and stimulating to me as conversations about the role of regional theatre in America today. I need both dammit.” I agree. Keep talking theatre, keep talking Apes, keep talking my friend. I like what you have to say.

Working Title: Man You’ve Got Style!

This week Will Leschber takes a look at the stylings of Wes Anderson’s new picture and the latest offerings of Berkeley Rep.

I recently caught Berkeley Rep’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Wes Anderson’s newest film The Grand Budapest Hotel. At face value these appear two very different pieces. The common thread is how each uses style.

Both are told with a distinct and heightened style yet one uses the it to compliment the story being told and the other implements stylistic techniques that overwhelm and distract. Additionally, both pieces are concerned with the past and how it impacts the present. Anarchist attempts to allow old political concerns to remark on contemporary politics and reoccurring hypocrisy. The production falls short of realizing this aim. Grand Budapest, underneath its good story telling, great central character performance and wonderful visual flourishes, is a dissection of nostalgia as that relates to how one builds a self through one’s past personal influences. That description sounds boring, sure, but the film is so exuberant, funny and full of whimsy that each layer can be enjoyed on its own whether you are interested in analysis or just pure entertainment.

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist follows the maneuverings of a madman (his character name is listed as Maniac) who cons his way into a police station and into the guise of a judge who then interrogates three officers regarding a prisoners supposed accidental suicide. Shenanigans ensue, farce is made, and rapid fire jokes unrelated to the narrative abound. All the actors (particularly Steven Epp–Maniac, Allen Gilmore—Pissani, and Jesse J. Perez—Bertozzo) are full committed to the zany Commedia style. Their efforts are to be commended. Yet the frenetic play doesn’t congeal. High school showmanship sensibilities, mixed with Muppet Commedia caricatures, and farcical digressions serve to confound rather than entertain. Many of the individual ingredients look great but the whole just isn’t working. And I’m not sure why.

The original events that the play was satirizing took place in 1969. Does the alternate time, retro 70’s style and foreign culture of creation, remove the audience connection to the play? It shouldn’t. Themes of government hypocrisy are timeless. But the way this production is handled, unfortunately the disparate parts fray cohesive meaning and lose connection. In addition I wondered, does the sprinkling of the last three decades worth of American pop-culture references make up in any way for the disconnect. Unfortunately, no. The inserted, fourth-wall breaking diatribes in the second act of the play where the actors separate from the events of the play to enter into modern political rants got my attention. However, if the goal was to take this half-century old play and comment on the political landscape of today maybe a newer target than the Bush administration would have been a better choice. Lampooning the last big republican administration to a largely liberal audience in Berkeley, CA seems like preaching to an easy choir. Even though I agreed with some of the political rhetoric, I still thought the choice was a lazy one. In playing to a lower common denominator, for this audience at least, the effect is to neuter this work of its universal potency. These parts don’t jive, you dig.

The Grand Budapest Hotel follows the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend.

What elevates this above some other Anderson work is the synchronic matching of a deft farce performance at its core and that clicks into and heightens the visual storybook sensibilities inherent to the Wes Anderson world. It exists somewhere just a step left of reality yet we buy into and invest in the story because all the different parts surprisingly yet seamlessly work wonderfully together. Extensive model set pieces, endless visual symmetry, abundant recognizable stars, stop motion and live-action blending, cinematic aspect ratio shift, a color palate akin to a cake bakery: all of these variant elements work along side each other with ease. You wouldn’t think so, but Anderson makes them magically complementary. In the hands of another filmmaker, this could have been an unwieldy mess.

Wes Anderson is often criticized for making films that are too insulated which keeps audiences at an emotional distance. The best of which, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and I believe this film, provide a comic conduit that let’s us in to the uncanny, snow-globe world and emotional heart at its center. The lead performances are the distinguishing conduit. Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum disarmed us with his buckshot wit. His failings as a sympathetic father are made up for by his earnest desire to make amends for the harsh way he raised his children. By the end of the film we have forgiven Royal for his transgressions and love him in the complex way his family does. We laugh and then we feel.

Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer (Rushmore, 1998) paired with Bill Murray’s Herman Blume give us a glimpse of two spiraling souls looking for their place in the world. Their rivalry delights as they attempt to tear each other down. We all want to feel connected to a home and feel a part of something. Max and his rival surrogate father figure help each other figure out how to do that. We laugh and then feel.

The Grand Budapest Hotel allows all the comic and emotional weight to fall on Ralph Fiennes.

He’s endearing and pitch perfectly funny. The sidestepping style of Wes Anderson doesn’t fit with all actor sensibilities. Yet Fiennes slips right in and lifts this story to the best of the Anderson pictures with a commanding hand flourish and a puff of perfume. Fiennes proves to be a grand farceur.

His performance, like Anderson’s style, is layered and juxtaposed with parts and contradictions that shouldn’t jive. But Ralph just sells it. The old world high society etiquette followed by unexpected verbal vulgarity; the fast talking dictatorial way he engages his staff followed by a kind a light aside to one of his passing hotel guests; these contradictory things give us a picture of a real character and lock us into a unique stylistic whimsical tale.

Josh Larsen, one of the hosts of the Filmspotting podcast, had this to say, “It’s a comedy about the tragedy of nostalgia. How nostalgia can only take you so far and how that always leaves you sad in the end in someway. ” While this is true, Anderson’s brand of melancholy when at it’s best leaves the audience with a cathartic sense of a story so well told that it is crystalized in time. It’s the good kind of sad, a satisfying melancholy. Its a mirage of what was and its worth a visit.

Citations:

Larsen, Josh, Performer. ” #481 the grand budapest hotel. ” Filmspotting Podcast. , Web.

Marcus, Joan. The Accidenat Death of an Anarchist. 2014. Photograph. Berkeleyrep.orgWeb. 15 Apr 2014.

The Grand Budapest Hotel. N.d. Photograph. Fox Searchlight Pictures, IMDB.comWeb. 15 Apr 2014.