It's a shot we all saw in the trailer: Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is dressed in an elaborate costume, standing before a giant cross on a slavishly detailed film set, making a show-stopping speech about mankind and God and the meaning of life. He's gesturing, he's shouting, he's on the verge of tears, about to bring the audience to its feet...
...Aaaaaand he forgets his line.
It was precisely at this moment that student filmmakers all over the world fell in love with the Coen brothers all over again, without even seeing the complete film.
Why? Because we know how that feels. We know intimately the frustration and desperation that a cast and crew feel twenty takes in, when we're in the middle of the best take yet...and the actor forgets a line. Now, any number of things can happen that will ruin a take, I'm not blaming it all on the actors, but the point still stands. Substitute "actor forgets his line" for "a lightbulb burns out," or "the audio gets screwed up" or "the camera battery runs out." Pick a disaster, any disaster.
I saw Hail, Caesar! in its opening week and loved it. Not because it's a great film--it is, oh God, it is, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's their best yet--but because the Coens did such a fantastic job taking every directorial nightmare and putting it into a single film...no, a single scene. Oh, there are plenty of moments in the film that speak to a filmmaker's worst fears (actors mess up, gossip-rag journalists sniff around, rival studios rear their heads...communists kidnap movie stars...okay, yeah, it's a Coen film, what did you expect?), but there's one moment in Hail, Caesar! that every single director on God's green earth will respond to with a sympathetic nod and an "Oh hellz yeah I've been there."
About a quarter of the way into the film, country movie star and ultimate sweetheart Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) walks onto the set of a beautiful classic drama film, dressed in his first-ever tuxedo, with the wide-eyed eagerness of a child on his first day of school. Picture a young, untrained John Wayne wandering onto the set of Sabrina. The director, Laurence Laurentz (the incomparable Ralph Fiennes), has had little say in the casting of his leading man and was expecting Cary Grant, not a baby-faced cowboy stuntman. Over the course of three takes, Laurentz tries progressively harder and gives more specific instructions, but Doyle just can't do what his director wants him to do. It's not that he's a bad performer. It's just that he can't play the role that he's being asked to play, because he's never done it before and it's not a part that suits him. It's like trying to make Owen Wilson play the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar. It just isn't going to happen.
Naturally, as the shoot goes on, Laurentz gets progressively more frustrated. First he changes the directions, then he changes the lines, and finally he bursts into his boss' office and demands to know just what the hell was going through the studio heads' minds when they cast this clown in his movie. Of course Mr. Mannix is quite sympathetic to Laurentz's frustration, having plenty of his own disasters to contend with...but in the end, he's firm on his decision, and Laurentz is stuck with this kid, like it or not. And that's pretty much the way it ends. We don't really see Laurentz again (although there are some quite interesting rumors hinted at towards the end) and we never see Hobie Doyle on-set again. But that scene is really all we need to see to know exactly how that movie turned out.
Fellow amateur filmmakers, answer me this: who among us hasn't had to direct a scene with an actor who just plain did not fit that part--but had to play it anyway because they were our only option? When I was in film school I had to work with whatever options the theater department handed me--and in times when the school productions were in full swing, believe me, there wasn't much to go on. Sometimes, I got really, really lucky. Sometimes, I didn't. And even when I went to college and started making films without departmental supervision, I still often had to go with whatever (actually whoever) came my way. Sometimes, it worked. And other times, it didn't. But there was no frustration on earth quite like that of trying to explain to a reluctant actor exactly what I wanted them to do. So, another check for the Coens--they nail that part of filmmaking, no question.
BUT. THAT'S NOT EVEN THE BEST PART.
Quick test for fellow artists--raise your hand if anyone has ever told you that what you're doing is "just entertainment" and thus not a "real" job. That's exactly what happens to multiple characters in Hail, Caesar!--actors and studio execs alike. The Lockheed Corporation tries to snag Eddie Mannix away from his job in Hollywood by calling the movies "frivolous" and insisting that the job he offers is better because it is more "serious." The Communists who kidnap Whitlock tell him that movies are just "distractions" for the public. Even Whitlock gets in on the act at one point, telling Mannix all the things he "learned" from the Communists, telling him that movies are all fake and there's no point to making them because no one gets anything out of a film anyway.
But this is where the genius of the Coen bros kicks in. The film industry is shown, in-depth, as a busy and thriving business run by overworked people, just like, oh I don't know, every other industry on the planet. And that is brilliant, because it demonstrates just how stupid those people who say moviemaking isn't a "real" job actually are. By presenting the film industry as a business like any other, the point is driven home: making movies is a real job, and to hell with anyone who says it isn't.
I wish I could show everyone who asks me, "So, what's it like to make a movie?" Hail, Caesar! because seriously, this movie gets it right. I don't care if you're a student, an independent producer, or James Cameron himself, if you're a filmmaker, you've experienced something like the filmmakers go through in Hail, Caesar! You've had to deal with a miscast actor who just can't understand your directions. You've had to deal with something messing up your best take at the last second. You've had to put up with pissy people who derail you, either outright or by serving their own interests. And of course, you've been told "This isn't a real job, you're just playing around, you should do something more practical."
And I don't know if they mean it this way, but when I watched the Coens' latest movie, all I could hear was them telling me, "To hell with those people. This is real. This is your job. Go and do it well." If Big Eyes was Tim Burton's love letter to aspiring artists, then Hail, Caesar! is the Coen brothers'.
No comments:
Post a Comment