April 19, 2004 - Beyond Tragic Consequences

The movie, which featured celebrity voice talent in the form of Ed Begley Jr., David and Keith Carradine, Beverly D'Angelo, Matt Groening, Dermot Mulroney and Martha Plimpton (a distant relation), has the same surrealistic elements as his short films, where people's emotions are played out visually.

For example, when Spud and Cherri kiss for the first time, their bodies fill with circulating rainbows of color, their heads float off their heads and circle the neighborhood, and flowers swirl up under their feet.

Overall, the movie really captured the spirit of the 1950s teen movie while having its own creative edge.

Much to my surprise, Bill Plympton was there to introduce the movie and take questions from the audience afterwards. For example, he told us his idea for the movie came from a dream where he'd seen two skeletons sitting in a car with their hair flowing up. From that image, he built the entire story.

Afterwards, Bill signed autographs for people. While in line, a documentary camera crew who is following Bill Plympton talked to us, on camera, about our thoughts on the film.

When they'd finished, I gave my card to the guy who seemed to be heading the project, one Robert Lyons, and told him I'd be happy to interview him for Wild Violet some time.

The Gryphon said to me, "Hey, Bill Plympton's here, too. Why don't you ask him?"

The idea had crossed my mind, and it sounded like a good idea. When we got to the head of the line, I purchased a book and had him sign it.

Bill actually drew cartoons in each book, and as he was drawing one of the character Rod, I introduced myself, told him about Wild Violet and expressed an interest in interviewing him by phone at his convenience. He said he'd be interested, so I gave him my card.

Next up for The Gryphon and I was another movie, at the same theater, the Prince Music Theater. This one was Piccadilly, which is a 1929 film starring Anna May Wong. The film had been restored, with live music performed by a keyboardist.

The movie was very much a product of its time. While I'd always heard good things about Anna May Wong, who was one of the first well-known Asian American actresses in Hollywood, I had never seen her perform.

Piccadilly's plot was very simple. Jameson Thomas plays Valentine Wilmot, who owns the Piccadilly Club in London.

He has been the sugar daddy of his featured dancer, Mabel Greenfield (played by Gilda Gray). When we first meet Mabel, she's flouncing around in feathers and sequins, clearly the queen of the club.

Mabel's dance partner, Victor Smiles (played by Cyril Ritchard), on the other hand, is too much in love with her for Valentine's comfort, so he fires him.

In the meantime, due to a complaint about a dirty dish, Valentine enters the scullery, where he sees for the first time Sho-Sho (played by Anna May Wong), dancing on a table for the admiring workers.

His first instinct is to fire her, but something about her sticks in his mind. So when he runs into her as they're leaving that night, he asks her to demonstrate her dancing for him, privately in his office. We don't follow them in and don't know exactly what happens, but the result is he offers her a job to dance in the club.

Instead of making her the opening act, he makes her the featured dancer. Of course, Mabel has a problem with this. As it becomes more and more clear that she's losing her sugar daddy, she tracks them down to Sho-Sho's apartment one night and, after Valentine leaves, confronts her and shoots her.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about the history of Asians in American film knows that a romance between an Asian and a Westerner frequently ends with similarly tragic consequences.

Suspicion falls on Valentine until a surprising twist in the trial sets him free.

The movie was a bit melodramatic in points, particularly when Mabel was on screen. She was a real drama queen. Anna May Wong was mesmerizing, with a range of emotions, especially in comparison to the haughty, overwrought Mabel and the stiff Valentine.

At times the audience laughed with the movie and at times they laughed at it. At points, there were moments where the filmmakers had clearly wanted us to laugh, such as when Anna May Wong refuses to try on a costume in front of Valentine but instead has her male friend Jim do it.

And of course, because of the earlier time period, some moments in the movie were unintentionally funny. The strange camera work during Mabel's extended dance sequence in the beginning, for example, where instead of using cuts, the camera swooped around from audience member to audience member to get their reaction.

Between movies, The Gryphon and I decided to eat at an Italian place downtown, Pietro's. As we were walking back, I got a phone call on my cell phone from Mom, who told me our close friend Dottie had died. I'll be attending that funeral this week. It put a little bit of a damper on the rest of the weekend for me, but we still attended the movies for which we'd purchased tickets.

The third and last Saturday evening was the Russ Myers classic, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, unbelievably, scripted by respected film critic Roger Ebert in his young, bohemian days.

Having never seen the movie, a sequel to Valley of the Dolls in name only, I thought the best way to see it would be on the big screen with a lot of people. I was right; it was an extremely campy film about what happens to a group of young female rock singers when they move to L.A. and fall into a world of casual sex and drugs, ultimately leading to tragic consequences. It was just that kind of a day.

The movie was an absolute feast for the eyes: bright colors, dancing bodies, flashy camera and editing techniques. In a word, groovy.

One of the parts everyone loved was where Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell, an Oscar Wilde sort of Svengali character, takes lead singer Kelly through his party and suddenly stops and exclaims, "This is my scene, and it freaks me out!" Everyone cheered and applauded.

The other favorite quote everyone cheered was when porn actress Ashley St. Ives says, "You're a groovy boy. I'd like to strap you on sometime."

On Sunday, we did something a little different, a little unusual. It was called a film reading. A group of Philadelphia actors read the first episode of a proposed miniseries, Hoagie Alley, set in Philadelphia, with a narrator reading all the visual cues and scene settings.

Afterwards, they had a short question and answer session with the creator of the project. He's an expatriate Canadian who lived in Philadelphia for a number of years while doing theater work here.

But really, the story could have been set in any ethnic neighborhood in any city. There was a universalism to the themes and the dialogue. The first episode follows what happens within the community when a young man, a prodigal son, comes back for his abusive stepfather's funeral.

When The Gryphon and I were talking about it later, we agreed there was nothing wrong with the script. He had done his research. The dialogue was believable. The plot made sense. It just didn't seem as if it would stand out in a crowded field of similar projects.

In between, we ate at a great Thai restaurant called Taste of Thai on North 11th Street. They had a very simple decor and equally simple yet delicious food.

The last film, Sunday evening, was a documentary called Breakfast with Hunter. Filmmaker Wayne Ewing had followed Hunter for a couple years, starting with 1996, which marked the 25th anniversary of what many consider his masterwork, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, following him through the many parties and events set to honor him, through the process of making the film based on the book, and ending right about the time of the film's premiere.

At the same time, Hunter was also facing a misdemeanor charge of DUI, despite the fact that the arresting officer had no evidence. The case was eventually resolved out of court.

Most of the film was a slice of life look at Hunter's life, with the camera back in the corner as Hunter talked to people about various things. For example, you saw Johnny Depp following Hunter around and learning his character quirks in order to play him in the movie. You see Hunter meeting with Terry Gilliam, director of the movie, for the one day he was on set to do a cameo appearance. Terry, with his self-deferential good humor, put Hunter's concerns at ease.

While some narration was provided through the use of graphics, and the movie had some revealing moments, such as when Hunter met with an unknown director, Art Cox, about the project. While it seemed as if Hunter came to the meeting with the intention of working: he was at his desk and had a script and a pencil in hand, when he heard the lame ideas of the director and the writer, he became increasingly irritated.

For example, they wanted to use animation along with live action, using characters similar to those drawn by Ralph Steadman in the original book. Hunter got so mad at their lack of vision that he decided to screw with them. When they asked him if he had a better idea for how to portray the lizards in the bar, he suggested getting an alligator, dropping a bunch of Quaaludes down its throat, and nailing its tail to the bar. That, he said, would be preferable to their idea of cheapening it with "cartoons."

But because of Hunter's very perceptive objections, he pressured the producer into finding a new director, and personally spoke to Johnny Depp to get him to agree to start the project later than anticipated.

That was very enlightening for someone like myself who is a fan of not only HST but also Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam, and who is very interested in the behind-the-scenes process of film making.

And really, the movie was aimed at people like me. It's a movie for insiders; a movie for HST fans who want to see the behind-the-scenes process. But people who don't know much about him wouldn't find it as enjoyable.

To make it more accessible to a mainstream audience, the filmmaker could have done some interviews with both HST and some people close to him, and use those interviews to frame what you were seeing.

The most successful segment of the film came near the end, where he made a similar move, using a speech that HST's son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, gave at an honorary celebration in Louisville. This speech was juxtaposed with scenes which illustrated the points Juan was making about his father, and it was very artfully done. The rest of the film could have used something like that.

All in all, the Philadelphia Film Festival gave us a great opportunity to view some films we never would have seen, and left me wanting much, much more. Maybe next year I'll just blow off work for two weeks, get a press pass, and immerse myself in the wonderful world of film.

 

Other thoughts on the 2004 Philadelphia Film Festival:

April 12, 2004 - Indulging in Film

Musings on the 2005 Philadelphia Film Festival:

April 11, 2005 - Film Style 5+

April 12, 2005 - Short and Sweet

April 18, 2005 - A Different View

April 19, 2005 - Last of the Fest

 

Moral:
The best remedy for a weekend of tragic consequences, is Hunter S. Thompson talking about alligators on Quaaludes.