MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
The Coen Brothers create a quirky though lackadaisical love letter to old Hollywood that is more remarkable for the things it takes seriously than anything it might ever so slightly poke fun at. People here at the Lounge will probably enjoy this film as much as any audience because it takes time to immerse you in the costumes, locations, cars and film making of Hollywood in the studio days.
Following a day (or so) in the life of "Head of Physical Production" Eddie Mannix the audience watches him attempt to sort out some of the many personal and personnel problems on the lot. In doing so the Coens get to have fun recreating a number of the styles of late 1940s early 1950s movies and play around offering cameo parts to some great known and unknown modern actors. It's goofy and fun, though very mild stuff. I don't think I'd tell most people they should rush right out to see it, although I enjoyed myself.
I am not too demanding of well made films if I enjoy the "world" they exist in and this world was pretty good. On the other hand, if someone made me studio head and in charge of the Coen Brothers during this production I probably would have locked them in a screening room running Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three," until they admitted that they got the message. This movie needs Stakes and Pace. Given those two absolute requirements it could probably have been one of their better efforts with just one rewrite.
Film makers AND Studio Heads live their lives on the clock and there is a sense of this in the film but no DEADLINE. Even in TV you could be spending the era's equivalent of $10,000 an hour, $170 a minute, day and night while a film is in production. If the fictional film, "Hail, Ceasar!" had been referred to as an over budget Cleopatra-like bomb in the making, Eddie Mannix's constantly glancing at his watch would have powered the film. Music like "One, Two, Three's" Saber Dance and perhaps the imminent arrival from New York of the Big Boss, Mr. Skank, would have completed the effect.
There are VERY few films that take the process of film making seriously. In fact, other than Elia Kazan's "The Last Tycoon," I can't at this moment think of one. Usually, the films being made are idiotic and the process dreadfully misrepresented. In this area, for sort of a silly movie, "Hail, Ceaser!" isn't too bad ... but not that great either. Certainly it could have shown Mr. Mannix doing what would have been the lion's share his job ... fixing actual, physical production problems like improving the edit of a scene or saving a producer's day through his understanding of the film making process. Few film makers are in as good a position to quickly demonstrate this sort of thing as the Coen Brothers. They are fine, fine, film makers but the prejudice against showing how it's really done still seems to lurk in this work.
A thing that the film really does get right is that in the "Jewish Empire" that was Hollywood, many of motion picture crafts people, technicians, assistant directors and "production executives" like our "Head of Physical Production" Mr. Mannix were often devout Catholics.
As usual many of the performances, mannered though a few are, are a great deal of fun. Ralph Fiennes shows again (following up on his channeling of Peter Sellers in The Grand Budapest Hotel) that he is as good a comic actor as anyone, maybe ever. Is it just me or is this guy really really funny when he isn't in a film that takes itself too seriously?
There is also a bizarre and amusing scene with Francis McDormand (Joel Coen's wife) that at least suggests that, once upon a time, there were female editors. Actually, in the silent days there were quite a few ... some saw this discipline, easily the most important and artful in the process, as the equivalent of sewing!
Finally the film accepts that some in the business were real actual verifiable communists who worked to control the content of movies at the party's behest. This is presented in a sort of harmless and amusing manner (and truthfully many of them were harmless and amusing) but it is VERY common in Hollywood circles even today to claim that virtually everyone labeled a "communist" had somehow just gone to the wrong person's dinner party or had accidentally "attended a meeting" without knowing what was up.
I'm guessing that if you've studied the era from outside Hollywood the reality of actual communists is not too surprising but dealing with the "communist question" in Los Angeles is still kind of a verboten subject. Interesting to see it dealt with without excuses here ... possibly it's because it's ostensibly a comedy and it's all pretty light and fluffy even when it's not trying to be funny.
Following a day (or so) in the life of "Head of Physical Production" Eddie Mannix the audience watches him attempt to sort out some of the many personal and personnel problems on the lot. In doing so the Coens get to have fun recreating a number of the styles of late 1940s early 1950s movies and play around offering cameo parts to some great known and unknown modern actors. It's goofy and fun, though very mild stuff. I don't think I'd tell most people they should rush right out to see it, although I enjoyed myself.
I am not too demanding of well made films if I enjoy the "world" they exist in and this world was pretty good. On the other hand, if someone made me studio head and in charge of the Coen Brothers during this production I probably would have locked them in a screening room running Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three," until they admitted that they got the message. This movie needs Stakes and Pace. Given those two absolute requirements it could probably have been one of their better efforts with just one rewrite.
Film makers AND Studio Heads live their lives on the clock and there is a sense of this in the film but no DEADLINE. Even in TV you could be spending the era's equivalent of $10,000 an hour, $170 a minute, day and night while a film is in production. If the fictional film, "Hail, Ceasar!" had been referred to as an over budget Cleopatra-like bomb in the making, Eddie Mannix's constantly glancing at his watch would have powered the film. Music like "One, Two, Three's" Saber Dance and perhaps the imminent arrival from New York of the Big Boss, Mr. Skank, would have completed the effect.
There are VERY few films that take the process of film making seriously. In fact, other than Elia Kazan's "The Last Tycoon," I can't at this moment think of one. Usually, the films being made are idiotic and the process dreadfully misrepresented. In this area, for sort of a silly movie, "Hail, Ceaser!" isn't too bad ... but not that great either. Certainly it could have shown Mr. Mannix doing what would have been the lion's share his job ... fixing actual, physical production problems like improving the edit of a scene or saving a producer's day through his understanding of the film making process. Few film makers are in as good a position to quickly demonstrate this sort of thing as the Coen Brothers. They are fine, fine, film makers but the prejudice against showing how it's really done still seems to lurk in this work.
A thing that the film really does get right is that in the "Jewish Empire" that was Hollywood, many of motion picture crafts people, technicians, assistant directors and "production executives" like our "Head of Physical Production" Mr. Mannix were often devout Catholics.
As usual many of the performances, mannered though a few are, are a great deal of fun. Ralph Fiennes shows again (following up on his channeling of Peter Sellers in The Grand Budapest Hotel) that he is as good a comic actor as anyone, maybe ever. Is it just me or is this guy really really funny when he isn't in a film that takes itself too seriously?
There is also a bizarre and amusing scene with Francis McDormand (Joel Coen's wife) that at least suggests that, once upon a time, there were female editors. Actually, in the silent days there were quite a few ... some saw this discipline, easily the most important and artful in the process, as the equivalent of sewing!
Finally the film accepts that some in the business were real actual verifiable communists who worked to control the content of movies at the party's behest. This is presented in a sort of harmless and amusing manner (and truthfully many of them were harmless and amusing) but it is VERY common in Hollywood circles even today to claim that virtually everyone labeled a "communist" had somehow just gone to the wrong person's dinner party or had accidentally "attended a meeting" without knowing what was up.
I'm guessing that if you've studied the era from outside Hollywood the reality of actual communists is not too surprising but dealing with the "communist question" in Los Angeles is still kind of a verboten subject. Interesting to see it dealt with without excuses here ... possibly it's because it's ostensibly a comedy and it's all pretty light and fluffy even when it's not trying to be funny.
