I imagine our children are going to have a very difficult time imagining how we were able to entertain ourselves in the age before online videos. Much in the same way I admire anybody over the age of 30 for getting through their college careers by only using (get this) books for their research, I'm confident the new generation of kids will invariably lionize us for our ability to sit through feature-length movies and thirty-minute sitcoms.
Viral media has provided us with countless pieces of entertainment over the last few years — southern politicians using racial slurs with reckless abandon, Harrison Ford's Kirin commercial and live performances of now-defunct Aussie indie rockers The Go-Betweens.
Still, no piece of footage to pop up on the Internet has had the unique visceral impact as the washed-out, handheld footage from the set of "I Heart Huckabees" that leaked last week. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, the footage (which appears to be shot from a camera phone) features Lily Tomlin getting into a vicious argument with director and noted headlock-enthusiast David Russell. As one might expect, it is complete with screaming and threats of physical violence. To call this an argument would be like describing World War I as a delightful misunderstanding with the Kaiser.
Tomlin, apparently exhausted from a day of re-shoots, begins badgering Russell with obscenities, most of which start with the letter F. Russell takes this opportunity to repeatedly call the elderly Tomlin a very bad word that I can't even think about writing in this space (it's the same word Larry David shouts out during a poker game full of women on "Curb Your Enthusiasm"). Finally, Russell kicks over a craft service table (which ends up drilling a PA in the grill) and barricades himself in his office. All the while, co-stars Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert, and a deliriously happy Mark Wahlberg alternate between bemusement and outright terror, especially when the feuding parties randomly take them to task for their general half-assedness.
The Russell-Tomlin fracas is disturbing and entertaining for a number of reasons, but in a way, it really should give us all hope for the future of moviemaking. Indeed, the sensation caused by the video was just the latest indication that Hollywood is ready to re-embrace the idea of the filmmaker as petulant auteur. And this is a pretty cool change.
The day the Russell video leaked, Hollywood was moderately abuzz with news of a showdown between Joe Roth, the headman at Revolution Studios (and, lest we forget, director of "Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise") and Julie Taymor, director of the upcoming "Across the Universe." Roth reportedly recut "Across the Universe" and screened it for test audiences without Taymor's knowledge.
For anybody who has seen the trailer for the movie, it seems doubtful that there is a good movie lurking within "Across the Universe," but apparently Roth felt confident enough to totally throw his director under the bus. This is not an entirely uncommon occurrence, but Taymor's reaction to the news has already become the stuff of legend. Based on various accounts, she either threw an extreme hissy fit in a restaurant while dining with her producers and threatened to disown the movie, or may have simply unhinged her jaw and devoured Roth alive.
For whatever reason, the last year has seen directors actively assert their will, perhaps over the wishes of producers, and, in some cases, actors. In early March, Jake Gyllenhaal openly complained to The New York Times about the draconian and obsessive directing-style of David Fincher — whose controlling style has alienated many an actor and frustrated many money-conscious studio executives — on the set of "Zodiac." The film also managed to go a good ten million dollars over budget, due mainly to Fincher's slow pace — he would regularly shoot a scene eighty or more times. Early last year, Michael Mann defied Universal and their insurance company by shooting a large chunk of "Miami Vice" in the slums of Santo Domingo, an area generally thought to be slightly less safe than Tikrit.
All of this behavior seems like something out an earlier era (say the 1970s) when directors called the shots and had no problem standing up to actors and executives. On the set of "Chinatown," Roman Polanski would randomly pluck out Faye Dunaway's hair and destroyed Jack Nicholson's television set because he felt like his actor was spending too much time in his trailer watching Lakers games. While filming "Aguirre: Wrath of God," Werner Herzog threatened to kill Klaus Kinski when Kinski admitted he was thinking about leaving the movie.
Things finally seem to have come full-circle, at least in the mind of many directors. Part of the change has to do with the death of the CAA-inspired package deals that were so prevalent during the 1980s and 1990s. These deals, which usually were designed to package a movie around a series of stars, removed emphasis from the work of the director. Now, as more and more actors work on single picture deals, the director has more freedom to push their actors and producers.
I'm not sure whether or not these changes are beneficial for the movies. Julie Taymor and David Russell certainly aren't on the level of Hal Ashby or Martin Scorsese, two directors who fought and clawed to try and get their way thirty years ago. And David Fincher could have filmed scenes from "Zodiac" 180 times, and the movie still would have sucked. But at the very least, it's nice to see that scrap is back in fashion this spring in Hollywood.
Ray Gustini is a sophomore majoring in English and journalism. Are you struggling to remember pre-Internet cinema? Send your questions, comments, cries of outrage to Ray at [email protected].
