They'll Love Me When I'm Dead: 'Orson Around

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated TV-MA, for nudity and strong sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.10.20

Mention Orson Welles, and everybody — everybody — immediately thinks of Citizen Kane.

Film buffs are equally likely to cite The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight.

While Peter Bogdanovich (left, holding megaphone) waits to deliver his next line,
cinematographer Gary Graver adjusts lights according to the very precise instructions
given by Orson Welles (seated).

Baby-boomers are more apt to remember Welles’ ubiquitous TV commercials for Paul Masson — “We will sell no wine before its time” — which were parodied mercilessly by stand-up comics.

But in Hollywood, during his final few decades — Welles died on Oct. 10, 1985 — he was just as notorious for an expanding list of unfinished projects. They include:

• Don Quixote, filmed — off and on — between 1957 and ’69 (!), when production was halted after the death of star Francisco Reiguera, although Welles continued editing footage well into the 1970s;

• The Deep, based on Charles Williams’ novel Dead Calm, shot between 1966 and ’69, but left unfinished when financing evaporated, and completion was rendered impossible when star Laurence Harvey died in 1973 (Williams’ novel later was filmed by entirely different hands in 1989, with Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill); and

• The Dreamers, based on two short stories by Karen Blixen, which went no further than two 10-minute segments Welles filmed in 1979.

And one other, which has become the stuff of legend.

Documentarian Morgan Neville’s They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead — a Netflix original — depicts the fascinating, frustrating and ultimately heartbreaking saga of what Welles intended as his last great film: The Other Side of the Wind.

Neville’s project also gains class and dramatic heft from Alan Cumming’s arch on-camera narration, filmed in gorgeous monochrome by cinematographer Danny Grunes.

Welles’ film was cheekily autobiographical, although he repeatedly denied as much while giving cheerful interviews during the many years that production limped along. He took a “film within a film” approach; the primary action is set during a lavish party being thrown for once-famed film director Jake Hannaford (played by John Huston), who has been struggling to complete a commercially viable feature, in order to revive his faded career.

Elegy: Love among the ruins

Elegy (2008) • View trailer for Elegy
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for nudity, sexual content and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.5.08
Buy DVD: Elegy


His 1997 Pulitzer Prize and 2001 American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal notwithstanding, Philip Roth seems doomed — in certain circles, anyway — to be remembered for his scandalous third novel, 1969's Portnoy's Complaint, and for his ongoing obsessions with promiscuity and Jewish angst.

Mindful of sexual harassment issues, college professor David Kepesh (Ben
Kingsley) always waits until the end of term before throwing a party for his
students. He always hopes to find at least one who will be properly intoxicated
by his worldly presence, but gets more than he bargained for with Consuela
Castillo (Penélope Cruz), who, during their initial conversation, reduces him to
schoolboy clumsiness. Fortunately, things will improve from here...

And, more recently, for succumbing to a perfectly natural desire to explore tales of aging men indulging in affairs with much younger women, which puts Roth in the equally excellent literary company of, say, John Updike. One cannot really fault a male literary lion who, upon reaching "a certain age," worries about his increasing obsolescence. Eventually (with luck), we all will.

Elegy, exquisitely adapted by screenwriter Nicholas Meyer from Roth's short novel, 2001's The Dying Animal, is the saga of a celebrated man of letters and cultural observer who, thanks to the proximity to young people granted by his day job as a college professor, embarks on a passionate affair with a former student.

The encounter proves revealing in many respects: some anticipated, others quite surprising.

But branding this film as nothing more than an "old guy beds Penélope Cruz" fantasy is an unjust snub that overlooks some phenomenal acting, the core truths of Roth's story and director Isabel Coixet's obviously sincere desire to respect both halves of this May/December romance.

David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is, as he constantly reminds Consuela Castillo (Cruz), 30 years her senior. This seems all the explanation required to describe the apparent folly of allowing a pleasant one-night encounter to blossom into a relationship, but he's merely lying to himself; the truth of the matter — and we see this in Cruz's luminously expressive gaze — is that Consuela loves him and couldn't care less about the age gap.

He's the one with the hang-up, but the whole "age thing" is just an excuse.

Following an unsuccessful youthful marriage, Kepesh has spent the rest of his life trolling for deliberately short-term affairs, due — we're quickly led to believe — to his desire to live according to the sybaritic lifestyle that he believes is mankind's "normal" predilection. He repeatedly espouses this theory when interviewed, and during debates with his longtime best friend, poet George O'Hearn (Dennis Hopper).

In a film laden with revealing exchanges of dialogue, by the way, none are better than these comradely encounters between David and George. Kingsley and Hopper share a relaxed comfort that feels completely natural; we can't help wondering if this scripted familiarity is equally strong off-camera.

George obviously has David's number, and David knows it ... but puts up with it.

David fears intimacy and actual human contact, and believes himself incapable of both, because he intellectually insists mankind isn't wired for it. He admires early American hedonist Thomas Morton and has, in fact, over-analyzed the art of lovemaking to such an absurd degree that he has stripped love itself from the equation.

Swing Vote: Count on Kevin

Swing Vote (2008) • View trailer for Swing Vote
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for quite a bit of (good-natured) profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.08
Buy DVD: Swing Vote • Buy Blu-Ray: Swing Vote [Blu-ray]


Although the movie industry occasionally dabbles in politics, the results usually emerge as a comedy or a thriller: either way, nothing to be taken seriously.

And when filmmakers try to be serious, the results usually fall far short of expectations. Last year's Lions for Lambs became the most recent flop to "prove" an ancient Hollywood truism: Politics is the kiss of death to a film, as far as box office results are concerned.

Career goof-off Bud Johnson (Kevin Coster) finally gets a sense of his pivotal
place in history after confronting the sacks of mail from citizens across the
entire United States: letters that his far more sensitive daughter, Molly
(Madeline Carroll) has been answering in his name, so that all these people
don't think that her father is letting them down.

Indeed, one could cite the truly great American political films on the fingers of one hand: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, All the King's Men (the 1949 version), The Candidate and Wag the Dog come to mind, with Thirteen Days and Primary Colors perhaps ranking as recent near-misses.

Director/co-writer Joshua Michael Stern and fellow scribe Jason Richman deserve considerable credit, then, for their sharply observed screenplay in Swing Vote, a deceptively quiet little comedy-drama that takes an increasingly perceptive poke at the modern American political machine. And if the behavior of our two political parties, as this story progresses, doesn't really seem that bizarre ... well, then, more's the pity.

Swing Vote also demonstrates, yet again, the amazing resilience of star Kevin Costner. This guy's career has had more peaks and valleys than most, but every time he threatens to become known only for ill-advised projects — Dragonfly and Rumor Has It come to mind, and even last year's cleverly conceived Mr. Brooks was a financial disappointment — he rebounds with another one of his well-timed and perfectly cast Americana roles: think Bull Durham, Tin Cup, Open Range and now Swing Vote.

Costner slides comfortably into his part here as Bud Johnson, an apathetic, smart-mouthed but usually amiable loser who drinks too much and can't be bothered to do more than just slide by. He and his precocious 12-year-old daughter, Molly (Madeline Carroll, a thorough delight), live in a dilapidated mobile home, where he crashes each night after too many beers, following another demoralizing factory shift where he packages eggs on an assembly line.

Molly is Bud's "one good thing," but he takes unconscionable advantage of the girl, who too often finds herself being the parent in their family dynamic: She makes all the meals, cleans things up and hauls him out of bed each morning, so he can drive her to school ... although, as we quickly learn, she's capable of driving herself, having gotten considerable practice every time Bud goes on a bender.

Bud and Molly live in flyspeck Texico, N.M., a community so tiny that it isn't even on the map. As a result, local interest in the impending presidential election is somewhat lax, with pollworkers likely to fall asleep from sheer boredom.

But Molly takes civic duty quite seriously. A well- received school essay comes to the attention of local TV reporter Kate Madison (Paula Patton), who puts the girl on the evening news; this plays right into the most recent promise Molly has extracted from her father, who has agreed to let her write about his voting experience that same evening.