The farce be with you
Noel Vera
"Star Wars"
People have fond memories of the movie; I remember seeing it for the first time
and loving it so much I insisted on seeing it again. Just that first shot
hooked me-- the tiny ship chased by the endlessly huge Imperial cruiser; the
deafening laser blasts and lightning bolts; the grandly symphonic John Williams
music score. And I wasn't the only one who succumbed to the film-- "Star Wars"
gripped the imagination of an entire generation, from twelve to twenty, that saw
it back in 1977.
That was twenty-two years ago. I can't believe it took me twenty years to
realize that the sets in "Star Wars" are ugly beyond belief-- a mix of cheap-
looking plastic and what looks like aluminum siding. Which is forgivable;
cheaper sets have been used in better science fiction movies (John Carpenter's
"Dark Star," for example).
Less forgivable is the abominable acting, of which the three leads (Mark Hamill,
Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford) are the worse offenders-- watch them try
interact with each other and the obviously invisible special effects in the
pilot's cabin of the Millenium Falcon and you'll see what I mean. But are their
performances really their fault? The clumsiness of the human element in "Star
Wars" may stem from the film's originating human. Lucas has admitted that he's
never been comfortable about directing actors, and dealing with people at all is
a continual strain for him. Carrie Fisher reportedly said the film's dialogue
was so bad that at one point the cast was ready to tie Lucas to a chair and feed
him his script (Fisher presumably knows of what she speaks; she's developed a
lucrative second profession fixing screenplays, and has written two novels, one
of which, "Postcards From the Edge," was made into a Meryl Streep film). You
feel Lucas was more comfortable hanging out with the robots than he was with the
human crew.
And is it possible that "Star Wars" is-- oh, blasphemy of blasphemies!--
actually boring? Watching the re-issue, I had trouble staying awake during the
first hour, and wasn't the only one-- two kids sitting next to me had long since
given up and were snoring peacefully. The only explanation I can think of is
that watching it the first time, the eye-popping special effects distract you
from all that dull exposition about Rebellion and Empire: now that we're used to
more sophisticated effects, all that's left is the dull exposition.
Then there's the facile mix of John Campbell and New-Age mumbo-jumbo that passes
for a religion among the Jedi Knights. 'The Force' they call it; 'The Farce'
seems more like it. There seems to be no discipline or sacrifice involved in
cultivating this so-called power: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) barely undergoes
a session of fencing with a floating soccer ball before he develops the ability
to destroy entire Death Stars with a single shot. To be fair, "The Empire
Strikes Back" answers this criticism with some "Kung Fu"-style training, though
in "Return Of The Jedi," we find that 'The Force' can be inherited, like a royal
title.
What makes "Star Wars" work? People point out the mythic elements, the
borrowings from serials and swashbuckler flicks and World War II fighter movies,
the use of pure storytelling techniques-- actually more 'Farce'-type mumbo-
jumbo, this time by serious intellectuals trying to explain something simple.
Lucas is a far better conceptualizer than director: his previous SF film, "THX
1138" features a handful of stunning visual ideas in an otherwise lame "me
against the world" script. His one previous hit, "American Graffiti" touched a
public nerve by portraying with some honesty the adolescent American male--
which may not be much of a reach. Lucas is American and male and his adolescent
years were probably never far from his mind.
Lucas did have a genius working for him in "American Graffiti:" Haskell Wexler,
whose camera gives "Graffiti" a deeply nostalgic glow that's central to the
film's appeal. In "Star Wars" he had three: John Dykstra, John Williams, and
Lucas's former wife, Marcia Lucas. Dykstra's computerized camera gives the film
its thrills (the dizzying drop into the Death Star canyon was his doing); John
Williams' score gives it swooningly romantic soul; Marcia Lucas shapes the film
into a rapid-fire coherence that verges on the miraculous, considering Lucas'
lousy footage.
There's a fourth unacknowledged genius behind Lucas: Akira Kurosawa. Lucas
admitted that the basic structure of "Star Wars" was based on "The Hidden
Fortress:" a princess, a fortress, a rescue, a hidden treasure (gold in
"Fortress," blueprints in "Star Wars"); the whole thing told from the point of
view of two bickering peasants (or robots). Actually, entire scenes were lifted
from other Kurosawa films. The cantina sequence comes from the "search for
samurai" scene in "Seven Samurai;" Alec Guinness lops off an arm in almost
exactly the same way (and at almost exactly the same length from the wrist) that
Toshiro Mifune does in "Yojimbo." Lucas' pacing, the density of his stories the
kinetic, one-thing-after-another quality-- that's pure Kurosawa. I've always
thought that if Kurosawa were born in America, he would've been the most popular
filmmaker that ever lived. "Seven Samurai" was a monster hit when it was remade
as "The Magnificent Seven"-- the film's theme song has been playing practically
forever in Marlboro ads; "Yojimbo" became "A Fistful Of Dollars," and made Clint
Eastwood a star; Kurosawa's script for "Runaway Train" was a critical and
commercial success. Lucas continues in what turns out to have been a long and
honorable tradition.
Twenty years of movie-watching have uncovered for me the sources of "Star Wars"-
- the films from which it took story and details, characters and imagery-- some
of the sources standing head and shoulders above "Star Wars" itself. Twenty
years have also shown me the debased, mutant children of "Star Wars"-- the
countless wannabes (without the same innocence or drive) that have succeeded in
degrading the genre, to the point that even the original looks cheap.
At the same time, "Star Wars" has taken its toll on the past twenty years of
cinema. The film came at the tail end of the 70s, a period of unprecedented
creativity: I'm talking about films like "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver,"
"Nashville," "The Wild Bunch," "Last Tango In Paris," "The Sorrow And The Pity"
"The Story Of Adele H.," "The Battle Of Algiers;" "Insiang," "Tinimbang Ka
Ngunit Kulang," "Itim," "Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos." Personal films made by
real filmmakers-- real artists-- that actually said something. "Star Wars"
ended all that when it earned over a hundred million dollars in its first year:
like drug addicts who've had their first taste of uncut heroin, film producers
couldn't settle for a lesser high: they had to have that hundred-million-dollar
fix every year, over and over and over again. Nowadays, films like "Titanic"
and "Independence Day" swamp boxoffice records not only in America but all over
the world, while smaller, far better films like "The Blue Kite" or "Naked" or
even our own "Babae Sa Bubungang Lata" (just to name a few) barely make a dent.
That's the real legacy of this monstrous (in every sense of the word) hit of a
film-- that it killed a golden age in cinema, and hasn't stopped killing since.
"The Empire Strikes Back"
Possibly the worst thing about the film is its title, which suggests a Roman
melodrama, or a psychotic baseball game official. The film itself, however, is
easily the best of the three installments to date. Why? Several reasons.
First, Lucas had real money (after "Star Wars") to do some real special effects.
Second, he hated the strain of filmmaking, so he relegated the task of writing
and directing the second installment to other people. That those "other people"
happened to be Leigh Brackett and Irving Kershner probably held little
difference to Lucas; he just needed competent people that he can trust.
Leigh Brackett has had a long and honorable history in movies. She helped write
the screenplay of John Huston's Philip Marlowe classic "The Big Sleep" way back
in 1946 (one of her co-writers was William Faulkner), and the screenplay of
Howard Hawks' western classic "Rio Bravo" way back in 1959. As if she wasn't
satisfied writing for two of America's most legendary directors, she also did
the screenplay for Robert Altman's revisionist take on Philip Marlowe, "The Long
Goodbye." But Brackett wasn't just an expert writer on genres like Westerns or
hardboiled detective stories; she's a significant science fiction writer, her
best work probably being the science fiction novel (again, a classic) "The Long
Tomorrow." Irving Kershner started working in the 1960s on small-budget films
like "Stakeout on Dope Street" and "Loving." He went on to do "The Return of a
Man Called Horse" (a white-man-among-Indians movie in many ways superior to
Kevin Costner's fuzzy-minded "Dances With Wolves") and the stylishly seductive
"Eyes of Laura Mars."
Lucas was to provide the financing and the huge, eagerly waiting audience; all
Brackett and Kershner had to do was come up with an acceptable finished product.
But Brackett fine-tuned the characters, giving their dialogue complexity and
depth and some real human emotions; Kershner for his part fine-tuned the actors,
the result being some of them-- particularly Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher--
come up with remarkably mature performances (it probably helped that "Empire"
came two years later-- the equivalent of half a decade in Hollywood).
Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker has so much symbolic baggage riding on him that he
could easily sink under the weight (not only does he represent good and wisdom
and the Jedi's last hope, he's Lucas' alter ego in the series). As in the first
film, his Luke is still stubborn and headstrong; he still gets into trouble, but
this time his troubles aren't of the comic-strip variety-- Luke Skywalker is in
for a lot of real pain, and he has to grow up or die in the process. Skywalker
grows up under the pressure, and you can see what it costs him; where Hamill
looked young and pasty in the first film, his face has a sadder, more weathered,
more sculpted look in the second (Hamill suffered from a car accident in the
period between, but it isn't just a physical change-- there's something old and
wary in the man himself). He's a fitter vessel for everything George Lucas
pours into him, and he rewards Lucas' regard for him (or for the character he
plays) by giving what may be the performance of his career.
Kershner heightens the film with the same visual skills he poured into the
opening sequence of "Return of A Man Called Horse" (a sequence film critic
Pauline Kael compared, in terms of emotional impact, to "The Godfather, Part
II"). Not a lot of film artists get the chance to play with an almost unlimited
budget and an astonishing battery of special effects; Kershner proves that in
talented hands-- in the hands, you might say, of a real filmmaker-- special
effects can be every bit as magical today as they were at the time of Georges
Melies. The film flows from one astonishing image to the next-- from the
stalking menace of the Imperial Walkers (a glorious realization of H.G. Wells'
Martian war machines in "War of the Worlds") to the free-floating chaos of the
asteroid belt, with rocks swinging about in an insane dance, like a clockwork
factory gone haywire.
"Star Wars" may have stolen from pirate films and World War II aerial dogfight
films, but the sources that inspire "Empire" seem older, more primeval. A
gigantic, eyeless creature poses as a subterranean (subasterrean?) cave, perfect
for a spaceship to hide in; you think of similar stories in "A Thousand and One
Nights," where huge marine creatures were mistaken for islands-- until a ship
happened to land on them and all hell broke loose. The steaming jungles of
Yoda's world recall the steaming jungles of our own subconscious, with Luke
facing traumas as basic and terrifying as our own nightmares. The Cloud City on
Bespin is as vivid a picture of heaven as anything in motion pictures; when
Skywalker falls from its vertiginous heights, it's like Lucifer falling from
heaven's grace.
We don't know if it was Lucas' intention to make "Empire" so grim or if it's
Brackett's version of Lucas' intention, but "Empire" gains an extra sheen of
magnificence from its altogether darker emotional tone-- particularly when Darth
Vader gains the upper hand, and faces Skywalker for the first time. What
follows takes on (with the help of John Williams' music and Kershner's gorgeous
gliding shots) an almost biblical grandeur, as Vader proceeds to torment
Skywalker, pummeling him from all sides, slashing off one hand, and-- worse
injury of all-- telling him they're father and son. The term that comes to
mind is 'test to destruction,' where the subject's limits are found by testing
them beyond the point of endurance-- by finding out, in effect, at what point
the subject fails, gives out, self-destructs, dies.
Skywalker manages to avoid death-- just barely-- but his ordeal shakes your
faith in the mediocrity of Lucas' vision. It suggests there may be demons
buried deep in Lucas' subconscious after all-- hitherto unsuspected depths in
what you had assumed were relentlessly shallow waters. It suggests that Lucas'
ambitions are bigger than they seem, and that he's ready to take the "Star Wars"
series into another level entirely-- from pop storytelling to the creation of a
true mythology.
"Return of the Jedi"
The third installment sets you straight quick enough. Lucas declined to use
Kershner for a second time (Brackett had since died) and instead hired thriller
director Richard Marquand ("Eye of the Needle"), and Lawrence Kasdan (who
extensively rewrote Brackett's script for "Empire). The two proceeded to trash
whatever splendor Kershner and Brackett managed to inject into the series. The
visual style goes back to "Star Wars'" original junkiness; the storytelling is,
if anything, even more desperate-- with the plot intercutting confusingly
between Rebels battling Imperials on the forest planet of Endor, Rebels battling
Imperials in orbit around Endor, and Rebel Jedi (Skywalker) battling Emperor
(Vader standing loyally by his side) inside the new, improved Death Star. It's
as if Lucas was anticipating the yawns he knows he's going to hear from the too-
jaded audience-- as if he had profound doubts that his concepts and stories can
carry a film if they aren't supplemented by half a dozen of action sequences and
a hundred space explosions. The ending is almost embarrassingly happy, with the
Ewoks (furry Teddy-bear creatures halfway to being product placements) joining
the Rebels round the campfire and generally whooping it up. Meanwhile, all the
people who died in the series (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Darth Vader himself)
hang out behind the huts like invited but ignored guests, too polite to come in
and celebrate.
One last note: It's easy to condemn Lucas for making "Star Wars" and effectively
ending the reign of The Filmmaker With A Personal Vision, but ironically, "Star
Wars" itself was the result of a personal vision. Lucas at first had a
difficult time selling the idea to studios; their stock response was "Jedi
Knights? The Force? What's this?" When 20th Century Fox committed, it was for
a relatively small nine million dollars-- Lucas' team had to scramble to build
most of their special effects from scratch.
The film was previewed to a select audience that consisted of (among others)
filmmakers Brian DePalma and Steven Spielberg. When the picture ended everyone
was embarrassed for Lucas because the film was so bad-- except for De Palma, who
wasn't so embarrassed he could resist needling Lucas, and Spielberg, who said
that the film will make millions because it was Lucas' vision and he had been
true to his vision.
Spielberg's words proved prophetic, but what was the result of Lucas' triumph?
In an interview given after "Star Wars" Lucas said he had given up directing,
and that he was interested in producing avant-garde films. The promise has so
far proven to be as fruitful as Charles Foster Kane's 'Declaration of
Principles;' the only result of "Star Wars'" success are one great sequel, one
mediocre sequel, and mountains and mountains of toys, video games, books,
product tie-ins, etcetera, etcetera. Lucas as a producer hasn't done so well in
uplifting cinema either-- on the plus side he helped produce the fairly
entertaining Indiana Jones trilogy, on the minus side he produced "Willow,"
"Radio Days," "More American Graffiti," and "Howard the Duck."
By their fruits you'll know them, it's been said, and twenty years after making
"Star Wars," I think you have a fair measure of what Lucas is like as a fruit
tree. His one hope at becoming the filmmaker he's always claimed to be is his
latest work, "The Phantom Menace," which, aside from almost certainly making
billions of dollars worldwide, might also be a pretty good film. It's possible,
anything at all's possible; I'm just not holding my breath at the prospect.
From Menzone Magazine, June 99
(Comments? Mail me at <
noelv@...>)
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