I usually leave the vintage stuff for others. I've never been much
interested in reliving the past. To paraphrase "Madison County," the old
dreams were good dreams, and I'm glad to have dreamt them, but they are
gone now, and there are new ones ahead. Reliving the past with friends at
reunions can be kind of fun because that version of the past changes as
you do, and as you need to remember it. But reviving the past by watching
old movies can be downright depressing, because those movies have not
changed with you. Many of the films you loved in your youth just don't
hold up to any objective scrutiny. You loved them because of the time and
place in which they existed, and that time is gone, as is the person you
were then. It's much nicer to leave those films as treasured memories,
where they shine unblemished, and intermingle with warm recollections of
the events that surrounded them: "I saw this on my first date with ...";
or "I remember that film - I was trapped in Oswego in a snowstorm and
there was nothing else to do, so we caught the late show in a neighborhood
theater and ate at a pizza place which only happened to be open because
the owner couldn't get home in the storm."
Unfortunately, I had to rewatch many 1967-74 films during the past
decade in order to chronicle the nudity, and I often found myself
wondering why I ever thought they were any good. Perfect example? I had
such great memories of The Graduate - until I actually watched it again.
It does have a good beginning up to the point where Benjamin is seduced by
Mrs Robinson, and it has a memorable ending. Of course, those are the only
sections anyone ever remembers about the movie. And with good reason. In
between those parts is an unbearably bad story line about a total
douchebag of a guy who is stalking a girl despite the fact that she keeps
getting more and more creeped out by him. Dustin Hoffman's character could
not be less appealing. If you saw that part without the intro, you would
assume it to be the introduction to a unpleasant grade-B slasher movie
which ends up with Katherine Ross being eviscerated in a back alley.
Sigh. Memory shattered.
That brings us back to The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer. I never saw
it in 1970, but I have heard friends speak of it warmly and often, perhaps
because it disappeared almost completely, unreleased on home video and
rarely shown on TV, and therefore existing only in their memories. It
featured the all-star team of British comedy from the second half of the
20th century. The droll comic genius Peter Cook starred and co-wrote the
script with Monty Python's Graham Chapman and John Cleese, who also play
minor roles. Other members of the cast include Denholm Eliot, one of The
Two Ronnies (the dwarfish one), and the Nobel laureate playwright Harold
Pinter, using his memorable basso profundo voice to impersonate a slimy TV
presenter, and making his only film appearance between 1967 and 1985.
And it has a great nude scene.
Sounds good, right? When it came to Region 2 DVD, I jumped on it.
Yet another disappointment. It's not a bad film, but is an unexpectedly
serious one. Expecting silly shenanigans, surreal situations, farce, and
absurdist notions, I instead found dark and deadpan social satire.
The basic problem with the film is that the authors are out of their
element. They are all excellent at writing sketch comedy with absurdist
touches and non-stop humor, but this is more or less a dark comedic story
in the Kubrick vein. That format requires both a slick narrative and
characterization, and that immediately raises two problems:
1. The film contains long stretches with exiguous wit, as the authors
establish characterization or plot.
2. Point one is bad enough, I suppose, but the problem might be
overcome if those three guys were any good at writing plots and creating
dimensional, developed characters. They are not. They are good at creating
zany caricatures, non-sequiturs, and jokes. As a result, the story drags
on and on and on in completely predictable fashion at a snail's pace, and
some scenes don't even try to be funny. Denholm Eliot and Graham Chapman
are straight men here, as they usually are. Cook is known for his wit, but
has to stay in character here and really makes no effort to be funny at
all. He is an eerily menacing and Machiavellian character who walks into a
failing advertising agency, pretends he's employed there, and works his
way up until he becomes master of the house, then of the Tory party, then
eventually absolute dictator of all the UK. He has no punch lines. In
fact, his role mostly consists of disguising his feelings by saying things
like, "Oh, yes, quite," while he smiles falsely and seems to be
reproaching the person he has just agreed with. This is the sort of
undeveloped, one-note character that works well in a short sketch, but 90
minutes of him is about 88 too many. His continuous presence on screen
means that much of the film makes no effort at verbal wit.
That's not to say the film is a complete waste of time. Several of the
minor characters are humorous, and there are moments when the film uses
the authors' considerable gifts to great advantage. Cleese even does some
silly walking (and silly dancing), and it can be hilarious, especially to
Python fans who make the association. Cook's ex-partner, Dudley Moore, did
not appear in this film, but he was represented in absentia by a
fictional place name. On his way to the top, Cook's character becomes the
MP for a remote place called "Budleigh Moor."
And the nude scene really is as good as advertised: a beautiful woman
stark naked, photographed perfectly in just the right light. That leads to
another of the film's significant plusses, one which came as a complete
surprise to me. The cinematography is uniformly excellent. And I don't
mean just kinda good, but spectacularly good. Who could have guessed? The
DP on this film was Alex Thompson, the same man who received a justly
deserved Oscar nomination for having photographed Excalibur. The interiors
of Rise and Rise include gorgeous sets which are photographed elegantly,
and many of the exteriors are highly memorable. There are many brilliant
exterior scenes from which to choose an example, but my favorite shots
came during a sub-plot in which a troop of British special forces crossed
the mountains to rob some Swiss gold. The dramatic visual presentation of
that caper would be the most impressive part of a Bond film, let alone a
silly satire of British politics. It is so stunning that it almost seems
inappropriately dramatic in a film made by Cook and some Pythonites.
The cinematography probably seemed to be the film's greatest strength
when it screened (and bombed with both moviegoers and critics), but seen
in retrospect, the film's real strength is its perceptiveness. The script
may not be all that funny, but it absolutely gets the Order of Merit for
prescience. It depicts politicians as scheming egoists clinging to power
with highly orchestrated presentations of half-truths, while presenting
the public false images sculpted from opinion polls. In a pre-Watergate
world that must have seemed like a combination of satirical exaggeration
and surrealist humor. The intervening years have taught us that it is
pretty much just a straightforward exposition of the way things really
work.
