I was looking over some archived e-mail and came across three old film...well,
they're too short to be called reviews; let's call them blurbs, instead. I Shot
Andy Warhol and Vertigo were published in Real Groove, a mid-late '90s New
Zealand publication (yes, my North American freelance career was a spectacular
success) edited by Andrew Palmer, an old Radio On contributor; Almost Famous was
written for but ultimately never used in Blender, not too long after they started
up. It wasn't exactly rejected--the details are a little hazy now, other than the
whole episode was quite exasperating. It's long ago enough now to say that after
two rewrites, I still wasn't clear what they wanted, and I'm pretty sure the
editor was even less clear. (Possibly something on the order of "This is the most
important film since Citizen Kane"--like I say, I'm not sure.) Things worked out
in the end: the magazine folded a decade later, all due to bad karma over its
mistreatment of me.
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The best moment in Mary Harron's I Shot Andy Warhol is a quiet one: as the Lovin'
Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic" plays, Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor) and Andy
Warhol (Jared Harris) stare warily at each other across a roomful of frugging and
monkeying Factory-types. It's Warhol's party and Warhol's world; he's peering out
as Solanas peers in, and neither one can make sense of the other. The gulf between
them reminded me of Dustin Hoffman's mismatched presence at Midnight Cowboy's
Factory-styled party, appropriate because Taylor sometimes seems to closely model
her portrayal of Solanas on Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo. When she finally commits the
movie's title act, it's not really convincing as presented; up to that point, she
seems like someone who's more disdainfully amused by men than actually enraged by
them. Not carrying around a lot of female rage myself, this basic hollowness wasn't
a big problem for me. There's a good feeling throughout for period atmosphere,
lots of great music used intelligently (other highlights are "Walk On By," "Grazing
in the Grass," Blue Cheer and the MC5, and a pretty version of "I'll Keep It With
Mine" by Bettie Serveert), and two performances I'll remember longer than the more
acclaimed work by Taylor and Stephen Dorff (as Candy Darling). Michael Imperioli,
my favourite actor right now, is perfectly nasty as Ondine, and Harris's Warhol is
sublime. Looking over Solanas's S.C.U.M. Manifesto, he gushes, "Oh, gee, did you
type this yourself? You should come type for us." You just know that it wouldn't
have mattered if it had been the Bible or the phone book, his reaction would have
been identical.
Many critics regard Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (originally released in 1958) as one
of the greatest films ever made--enough of them that it has placed in the Top Ten
of the last two Sight and Sound polls to determine that very thing (7th in 1982's
poll, 4th in 1992's). Vertigo's standing is so immense at this point, it's hard to
explain adequately in 300 words why I don't care for it much. I've seen the film
numerous times, including this new restored print, and I've never had much of a
response beyond detached appreciation for its uniqueness and technical audacity. I
prefer Rear Window by a wide margin, and I'm also a bigger fan of Psycho and Shadow
of a Doubt. Above all else, Vertigo is an extremely cold film, even by Hitchcock's
austere standards; if it's a great romance, it's a great romance in the way that
Silence of the Lambs is, which is to say don't expect Roman Holiday. An accepted
truism about the film is that Scottie's (James Stewart) obsessive makeover of Judy
(Kim Novak) into "Madeleine" closely parallels Hitchcock's own lifelong search for
his perfect blonde leading lady (Madeleine Carroll, Grace Kelly, Novak, Eva Marie
Saint, Tippie Hedren). Seems like a reasonable interpretation, but unless you can
relate on a personal level (I can't), you have to care deeply about Hitchock's neu-
roses to find much reward in that direction. I've never liked Jimmy Stewart less,
and it doesn't matter to me that he's not supposed to be likeable. The vertiginous
reverse-tracking is spectacular, and I love the dream sequence and Bernard Herr-
mann's score. See Vertigo, of course, and if you find yourself overwhelmed, you
won't have to look far for more appreciative readings than this one.
If you watch Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous as a music fan first and a filmgoer
second, you'll get caught up in the swirl and come away happy. Crowe's autobiograph-
ical look back at his apprenticeship as Rolling Stone's resident kid rock critic
is a lively period piece with an eyewitness's insights into the essential absurdity
of his former vocation. It's less successful as a Casablanca-style love triangle
and a cautionary tale about celebrity-driven journalism, but all of that is window
dressing, there if you need it. I didn't.
Billy Crudup's Russell Hammond, "guitarist with mystique" for fictitious '70s
band Stillwater, is central to Almost Famous's period authenticity. Crudup cur-
rently owns the copyright on sleepy-eyed easy riders--a dead ringer for James Taylor
circa 1971, he's like Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" made flesh. Kate Hudson (groupie
Penny Lane) and Patrick Fugit (Crowe's alter-ego William, assigned to cover Still-
water on tour) also inhabit the era comfortably, and Crowe's lovingly programmed
soundtrack unerringly avoids the obvious: "Misty Mountain Hop" instead of "Stairway
to Heaven," "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" rather than "Heart of Gold," "Tiny
Dancer" in lieu of "Your Song."
"They are not your friends," Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs counsels
William about Stillwater; "Be truthful and merciless." But Crowe is too genial a
director to heed the same advice, so he goes mild on the expose and saves his deep-
est feelings for scenes like William flipping though a pile of his older sister's
albums. Anyone who grew up spending every last dollar on vinyl records (usually, as
with William's sister, furtively snuck into the house under mom's gaze) will feel a
pang of recognition as a wide-eyed William slowly passes his hand across Hendrix's
Axis: Bold as Love and Cream's Wheels of Fire. Basically, Crowe has cashed his
blank cheque from Jerry Maguire, taken a step back, and tried to tell his own
story with Almost Famous. For that--and notwithstanding the film's occasional
overreach--I think he deserves all the credit in the world.