Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Author documents revolutionary filmmakers
BY MICHAEL MACHOSKY | There's
an infamous scene in "Pulp Fiction" where an adrenaline-filled needle
is plunged through Uma Thurman's heart, to resuscitate her from a
drug-induced coma.
For many moviegoers, "Pulp Fiction" itself was that literal shot of adrenaline, jammed into the heart of a
complacent, artistically comatose industry. It forced Hollywood to sit
bolt upright and deal with the new generation of talent percolating
beneath them in the independent film world -- and realize that movies,
moviemakers and moviegoers were going to change, with or without them.
Of course, that scene in "Pulp Fiction" was such an intense moment that
some people got sick in the aisles and stormed out of theatres.
Writer/director Quentin Tarantino's brilliant, oddly tangential
dialogue, serpentine structure, retro-cool soundtrack and unnerving
violence exploded upon a movie business that was busy looking for the
next "Dumb and Dumber."
Not everybody got it at first. But Sharon Waxman did.
"I remember almost a moment when a light bulb went off," says Waxman,
Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times and author of "Rebels on
the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How they Conquered the Studio
System." "That film was really kind of a clarion call -- 'Hey, you can
make this kind of movie and be successful, and people will get you.'"
More stylish, inventive, uncategorizable new films came barreling out of the
gate, like they had been waiting forever for the chance. Waxman's book
makes a case for creating a new film canon of this late '90s
renaissance. At its heart, she places Paul Thomas Anderson's brash
ensemble piece "Boogie Nights," Steven Soderbergh's multi-layered
drug-war saga "Traffic," and David Fincher's brutally original,
misunderstood "Fight Club."
Also, there's David O. Russell's satirical, character-driven Gulf War bombshell, "Three
Kings." And, of course, Spike Jonze's head-scratching comic cornucopia
of weirdness, "Being John Malkovich."
They opened the
door for films such as "American Beauty," "Lost in Translation" and
"Sideways," and even challenging blockbusters such as "The Matrix."
"So much of what we cover in the industry is very formulaic and not very
interesting -- basically a marketing campaign hung around a movie
star," says Waxman, on the phone from her office in Hollywood. "These
movies were so not like that -- very personal statements, so
off-the-charts in terms of the kinds of ideas, or having the storyline
all mixed up, or using really absurd kinds of humor."
"Rebels" is a quote-heavy, insider-ish account of how these movies were made,
laced with lacerating portraits of these driven young directors. It
wasn't easy to get them to talk at first. But once it became clear that
Waxman was going to write about them anyway, the "rebels" mostly
relented. They realized it usually works out better when you give your
own side of the story.
Gradually, more three-dimensional portraits of these directors begin to emerge, apart from their media-generated public images.
Tarantino's carefully constructed persona as the ultimate video store clerk --
whose compulsion to make movies took him from white trash to red carpet
-- begins to peel away. He emerges as a ruthlessly ambitious striver
who discards old friends and family for high rollers and starlets as
soon as he has the chance.
Spike Jonze is the most
colorful of the lot -- a skateboard magazine and video pioneer whose
own originality may be tied to his total ignorance of pre- "Star Wars"
film.
David O. Russell, on the other hand, was so
obnoxious and tyrannical on the set of "Three Kings" that George
Clooney grabbed him by the neck at one point. If there's a list of
Hollywood players who were not looking forward to the publication of
this book, Russell would have to be at the top.
Like
the last great wave of American filmmaking in the '70s -- the heyday of
Scorsese, Altman, Coppola and the like -- these directors were dragged,
with various degrees of kicking and screaming, into the Hollywood
establishment.
"Most of those ('70s) directors really
became hacks," Waxman says. "They became co-opted by the studio system.
Everybody makes bad movies occasionally, but they were not able to hold
onto the purity of their artistry. This generation is not tempted, I
think, by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll that marked the '70s, but the
temptations are the same -- the ego-stroking of the media machine
corrupts you."
What's amazing is how these directors
pushed their often very unmarketable ideas through a studio system that
seems designed to shoot down original ideas and sand the edges off
challenging films. After multinational corporations started buying
movie studios, the bottom line has become even more important.
"Generally,
the aversion to risk comes from the folks up top -- the pressure on the
studio to produce a profit every year ... and their panic at not
knowing exactly how to do that," Waxman says. "Because it's very hard
in the movie business -- which is an inherently creative business -- to
do anything that guarantees an audience. You have to make something new
every single time, but something familiar enough to draw an audience in
to see it.
