Brian Trenchard-Smith has directed 42 movies and TV series in various genres from martial arts to comedy to horror to action adventure. He is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite directors
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August 25, 2008
Robert Downey Jr. and I share one common experience…we have both performed in blackface.
Mr. Downey’s extraordinary performance in TROPIC THUNDER, part Plantation, part Blaxploitation, is the subject of much contentious debate. Is a transracial portrayal legitimate if done just for the sake of humor, or only if it conveys points that can’t otherwise be made? The principle target of Ben Stiller’s movie is Hollywood narcissism, yet it is Downey’s bold embrace of a taboo that everyone will remember.
My performance got into trouble on legal rather than racial grounds. On a late night live-to-air show, with comedy skits bracketing commercial breaks, I appeared in blackface as Matt Black TV critic of the Daily Gutter, until Matt White, TV critic of the Daily Mirror, threatened to sue.
For me, the humor was not racial; it was wordplay, supported by make-up. The fact that its racial insensitivity did not even occur to me, in my ignorance of the context I was invoking, was reflective of white attitudes of the times. This was Australia in 1966, where the British-made Black and White Minstrel Show still aired on the government broadcasting network and would continue to air for years. In Australia’s 1967 movie JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS, the two lead characters, both Aboriginal, were played by white Ed Devereaux in blackface and the Pakistani singer Kamahl.
The late Ed Devereaux, a great Australian actor, pictured here on the left, went on to play more than 80 roles in film and television. In the background is Uluru, then called “Ayer’s Rock” by white Australians. It is probably the most sacred site for indigenous Australians. I staged a fight on top of it, flew hanggliders off it, and blew up a car in front of it, when the Northern Territory government controlled the land. It never occurred to me that I might be doing something offensive to another culture. Not then the prevailing wisdom. Uluru has now returned to Aboriginal control. Location permits are in their hands, as they should be.
Fifty years later Australia is a more racially sensitive, multicultural community. (Although there’s still a way to go, after the stubbornness of the Howard years.) I like to think my consciousness has evolved too. Yet, only when I saw Spike Lee’s MALCOLM X, one of the great educative films of the 90’s, did I realize how the word “black” has been used as a pejorative in the English language: black hearted, black sheep, etc. Make a list. How myopic was that?
Perhaps all well-intentioned white people still have a way to go to eliminate blinkered and paternalistic attitudes.
But a sea change is coming, one way or the other, in November. Americans who claim they are color blind will have to look into their hearts and decide where they really stand. In a recent US survey, 10% of respondents admitted they did not feel comfortable voting for a black President. How many others will keep their prejudice to themselves until they are alone in the polling booth is a worrying question, given that the upcoming election is the most important Americans have faced since they elected FDR.
So, in this climate, Ben Stiller’s TROPIC THUNDER is ahead of the curve in using provocative comedy to stimulate timely debate on racial issues. It seems unfair to slam TROPIC THUNDER for blackface, and yet give a pass to the Wayans brothers’ transgender, transracial comedy, WHITE CHICKS. (Made me laugh)
I offer by way of comparison an early example of a white actor in blackface employed for what was intended to be a socially redeeming purpose. Click the poster and you will be linked to 5 extracts from the 1964 movie BLACK LIKE ME, which was based on a true story of a white journalist who posed as black to experience daily prejudice first hand.
While James Whitmore, a marvelous actor with a long career, does his best with the role, the dialogue creaks with earnestness. But it was a brave project in 1964, and an interesting social studies time capsule today.
To me the race issue is simple - and I know I am hardly inventing the wheel here: there is only one race, the human race. In coming centuries, intermarriage will have obliterated racial differences for much of the world. We may chose to find other reasons to mistreat our fellow man, but pigmentation will not be one of them. So the outcome is inevitable; the sooner we all hurry along that path the better.
August 18, 2008
So I’m surfing the web and I read - via Dread Central’s Foy Wonder - that Darren Lynn Bousman (DLB) wants to reboot the pint sized Irish Meanie and get him shooting up the Old West. Popular blog /Film also reported the news.
I agreed with Dread Central’s Foy Wonder: be careful what you wish for. Then I read DLB’s strenuous denial that he was ever serious. As President Paris would say: “Whatever.”
However, I was glad to read that /Film thinks LEP 3 is better than the original: it was the highest selling direct to video of 1995. But there are some pretty hard core LEP IN SPACE fans out there too.
The “ …In the Hood “ movies that followed were not for me. I did not feel an Anglo Australian white geezer should be poking fun at black culture. An African American director should be doing that.
Chingaw! I’m sounding politically correct…This will never do.
So what should rising director Darren Lynn Bousman do next, after SAW 2-4, and REPO, THE GENETIC OPERA, release of which is presently delayed to November? Certainly he should stay away from another pre-existing franchise. He should start one of his own. (I have a horror western script he ought to like.) Whatever project he chooses, his best next career move should be something original, with a built-in audience, that takes a shit load of coin in its first weekend.
But reactivating the LEPRECHAUN franchise is an intriguing thought. Any genre can be re-imagined. The opportunities in LEP for audience-convulsing, inspired dark hearted wackiness are boundless. How to do it - and at what budget - has no doubt been the subject of many conversations at Lionsgate.
For those interested in this discussion, some research might be helpful. Here’s the trailer for LEP 4. Understand these movies are aimed at the post pubescent male in all of us.
Actually, there is a much better trailer in the material than that. I’m an old trailer maker, so I’m picky. A great repository of LEPRECHAUN lore from all six movies can be found on the Lepconnie’s wonderful website.
Lionsgate chose to release Leprechaun 3 & 4 DVD’s without commentary or extras from the creators of the original character or from myself.
Pity; I could have provided behind the scene footage and on-set interviews. Maybe Blu Ray one day. But a Blu Ray transfer of LEP IN SPACE, shot 35mm but finished on Digi, would require matching the negative and remaking the VFX.
In other words, the studio felt the franchise had lost its heat, and saw no reason to spend more than necessary on the DVD. How to reboot the franchise, when the world wide market is currently glutted with low budget horror, is not an easy question. The LEP franchise never caught on internationally as it did in the US. Horror’s theatrical audience demands strong, plentiful gore and VFX effects. Quality costs. As does a theatrical Ad campaign.
There is of course only one Leprechaun for me. That is WARWICK DAVIS. Super smart, great sense of comedy, patient with the 3 hours plus of prosthetic make up, a director’s dream. Introduce other currently prominent little people by all means in guest roles. But Warwick is the only one to be the Leprechaun. Would he return?
Perhaps the sweetener of an added iconic horror villain would help marquee appeal. I am sure LEPRECHAUN Versus CHUCKY has been discussed. But getting two parties to share their toys is always a challenge. I loved BRIDE & SEED OF CHUCKY. Jennifer Tilly is a comedic sex goddess!
The latter CHUCKY flics and POULTRYGIEST, and ZOMBIE STRIPPERS are my kind of horror comedies. They certainly reflect the tone for a future LEPRECHAUN. Stunt cast it with every hip name you can think of, ( but only names that will sign a favored nations deal for a set guest star rate). There’ll be some cool volunteers, because it’s a cool movie to be in. It’s absurdist comedy, like any of the SCARY MOVIE/EPIC MOVIE/DISASTER MOVIE pastiches.
DLB cast Paris Hilton in REPO, which I have not seen, but I hear she is great in the role. Hitherto, I have never liked a Paris Hilton performance till her McCain Rebuttal/Paris for President TV AD. Wickedly well written and nicely delivered.
For responding as she did, my respect for her went up 1000 %. And I bet I’m not alone. We look forward to her next political AD. So come the delayed release of REPO, THE GENETIC OPERA in November, more people may want to see her in that than her last movie. The shift in release date might end up paying off.
Timing is everything. After LEPRECHAUN IN SPACE, I proposed LEPRECHAUN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. It was turned down as an unlikely source of fun. 18 months later the Monica Lewinsky matter hit the headlines. I called the relevant executive at Trimark and said: “ Wouldn’t you like to have 1200 prints of LEPRECHAUN IN THE WHITE HOUSE ready for release right now?”
Gulp!
Wait a minute! I’ve got it! PRESIDENT PARIS WEDS LEPRECHAUN IN THE WHITE HOUSE!
That’s a great scene. Where’s my pad…?
August 11, 2008
My time at the Melbourne and Brisbane International revealed that programming festivals is not as easy as it sounds. Hats off to the coordinators who deliver such diverse Cinema diet.
My only foray into this arena was at age sixteen, when I volunteered to program the Wellington College Film Society screenings. And as has often happened in my life, a combination of errors and omissions collided one Saturday evening. I broke the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not assume!” If you break the 11th, you will surely end up breaking the 12th Commandment: “Thou shalt not get caught!”
The raked bench and desk seats of the Science Lecture Theatre was full of 120 or so pupils, their visiting parents, and school staff, awaiting the start of a 16 mm. screening of a classic from the silent era. I had booked the German expressionist THE CABINET OF DOCTOR CALIGARI (1920.) I had seen some clips of CALIGARI on TV. Looked cool. Wanted to see it.
I had also needed a short, something running under 20 minutes to screen first as was the custom. Cruising down the running time column, I found UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929) clocking in at 18 minutes. I figured it was maybe some Robert Flaherty-esqe nature study of the wild dogs of Andalusia, some canine NANOOK OF THE NORTH perhaps. Neither film was categorized adults only in the Gaumont/British 16mm catalogue, permission for screening of which would have had to be sought from school authorities. These were just titles in a column of more titles and rental prices. Somehow the two words Bunuel-Dali in the director’s column rang no warning bells for me. Perhaps because I myself have a hyphenated surname, perhaps because the film makers of my research interest at that time were Hitchcock, Kubrick, Anthony Mann, and Hammer Films, perhaps because my history class was pending, I gave it no further thought, made the booking and hurried off.
CUT TO: 3 weeks later.
Having signaled the projectionist to start, I walked to my seat in the front row, aware that many of my peers in the Film Society wondered how a silent film other than Charlie Chaplin would be fun, so why was I inflicting it on them, while the accompanying adults argued how culturally enriching the experience would be.
The lights go down and the first images appear.
“Once upon a time” reads the caption in French, Oh, it’s a fairy tale…
A man (Bunuel), smoking furiously, hones the blade of a cut throat razor on a leather strap, carefully testing its sharpness on his thumbnail…Interesting.
He goes onto the balcony and gazes at a full moon, then pries open a seated woman’s eyelids…You definitely have my attention .
A thin cloud slides across the moon.
The razor slices open the eyeball. Liquid spews.
AAAAGH! A collective gasp/intake of breath as 120 people respond to Bunuel and Dali’s symbolic statement that we have to ” look at life with new eyes”. Still alarmingly real today, it was in fact a calf’s eyeball that was slit.
A typically British hierarchical dilemma is at hand. Ambushed in front of their children by provocative imagery not discussed in polite society, every adult wants to stop the film, but is unsure of how to proceed. Every kid wants it to continue. As indecision, nervous body language and coughing reigns behind me, the film continues with more incendiary shots. A hermaphrodite pokes at a severed hand in the street. Ants pour out of the hole in its palm. A man is physically restrained from raping a woman by the weight of two priests.
And two grand pianos on which lie two dead donkeys, all of which are attached to ropes he drags behind him. Bunuel/Dali’s assault on the Catholic Church was finally too much, even for faculty of a decidedly Protestant school.
(In fact, nothing could have driven home Bunuel and Dali’s critique of bourgeois inertia better than the polite paralysis of this little British audience.)
When the hands started fondling her naked buttocks, I realized I was doomed. Been in denial a little up to then. I guess. Kept thinking the shock level had peaked with each new disturbing event. A surreal movie had become a truly surreal experience for me. Celestial chuckles from Dali and Bunuel.
The projector noisily ground to a halt. The lights came up. I felt the pressure of 240 eyeballs on the back of my head. He did it. Deliberately. A prank. No, I didn’t! It was an accident. I should have checked. I broke the 11th Commandment. That’s not like the 5th. Give me a break!
Up to this point, I had not been a popular boy. Strike One: over six foot, but disinterested in rugby - my sport was fencing which, curiously for a combat sport, was regarded by the rugger buggers as ” only for fairies”. Strike Two: obsession with films. ” When you leave school, are you planning to live at the Cinema?” a master had asked with withering scorn. “If I can. ” I had replied. In the pre-geek era, it was not cool to be obsessed by film. I was not cool. I was weird.
Until the inciting incident , that is. Weird became anti-authoritarian. I had thrown a water balloon into a gathering of parents and teachers, and drenched faculty with embarrassment. That was cool. My coolness was confirmed when I was caught using the school 8 mm camera to stage a trench warfare battle scene with blanks, thunder flash grenades and 30 members of the Cadet Corps, then filming the elite drill cadre goose stepping and doing elaborate Turkish arms drill.
Disrespectful treatment of the Armed Forces… Now that’s something young people respect. Needless to say, I no longer programmed Film Society screenings. Who cares? For a while, I was cool.
Here’s a link to the trailer for UN CHIEN ANDALOU hosted by Bunuel’s son.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=19753810
August 7, 2008
Festival films, fine food and a fiery handshake…. You do not often witness sons setting fire to their father. But in the Page family this is a regular occurrence. My early films highlighted the work of uniquely Australian stunt master Grant Page, so it was very gratifying 36 years later to see Grant spontaneously combust on opening night at the Melbourne International Film Festival, sprayed with fuel, then ignited by sons Leroy and Gulliver. Their father strode forward, a genial pillar of fire, and shook hands with a bemused Geoffrey Rush, as flames reached 4 feet above his head. Grant went on to circle the astonished crowd for maybe 20 more seconds before signaling for the family fire extinguisher. You can get a sense of Grant’s charm and total mastery of his chosen environment from the attached interview by The Age.
http://media.theage.com.au/?rid=39866
Grant’s stunt was part of the promotion for Mark Hartley’s feature documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD which premiered at MIFF to great response. The film is kind to me, so I’ll leave opinions to others. The Empire review, I think, is a good analysis.
Click here to read the Empire review
The Melbourne and Brisbane Film Festivals were a two week binge of films, fine food, Q & A panels, media interviews. If you check out their web sites, you can see what a diverse range of films and activities there were. Given the complexity of the events, I was impressed at how well organized both Festivals were. A lot of praise is due to both festival organizers, programmers, and volunteers in both cities for making everything run so smoothly.
Mark Hartley (Dir. Not Quite Hollywood), Claire Dobbin (MIFF Chair) & Richard Moore (MIFF Exec. Dir.)
Photo: Jim Lee
To international festival junkies, I recommend you add MIFF and BIFF to your annual itinerary. Melbourne might remind you of Toronto and Brisbane of Santa Barbara. You’ll have a fun time.
August 4, 2008
For the last 2 weeks, I have been a guest of both the Melbourne and Brisbane International Film Festivals here in Australia, where the feature documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD in which my early work is examined has premiered to great response. I’m prejudiced obviously, because the film is kind to me, but I can tell you honestly that NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD is very funny, and a great date movie for any couple who love cinema. More on my experiences at these two great film festivals in next weeks blog. It’s been crazy busy almost 24/7. I have to run to a radio interview soon, so this blog’s a quickie. But check out this trailer for TOKYO GORE POLICE which I saw last night. Shot in 14 days by the prosthetic make-up artist for Takashi Miike’s Tokyo shock movies, it delivers more splatter and body parts than any previous example of the genre.
The homicidal hooker with the snapping crocodile vagina has to be seen to be believed. Ouch!! ( I know, I am a sick and wicked puppy…) In fact the end result is overkill and gore burn-out for me. I want more story and character amid the mayhem, not to mention action scenes that are shot in more than just a succession of close-ups - good action needs geography - but fans of J Horror and Tokyo Shock won’t be disappointed.
The film also stars the beautiful and relentless serial killer from Miike’s AUDITION, the statuesque Eihi Shiina. I got into a taxi taking BIFF guests to the screening and found myself sitting next to her. ( This prompted a quick look around for a squirming duffel bag. Perhaps she left it at the hotel…) Eihi speaks no English so her responses at the Q&A went through an interpreter. This process did not diminish her evident intelligence and personal charm. We learned that for relaxation she writes poetry, so I asked her to recite a favourite verse. Her recitation, despite translation, revealed a beautiful spirit yearning for a better world. I hope more roles come her way that reveal the depth and range she displayed in AUDITION. In TOKYO GORE POLICE she is not asked to do much more that be a baleful Terminatrix. Many Japanese actresses have shown their ability to perform English dialogue phonetically with all the meaning and nuance the writer intends. She has a remarkable presence on the screen. Let’s hope some enterprising casting directors for western films can see her potential. More on Festival Life next week.
