All Glory is Fleeting; Just Ask Thomas Meighan

About a month ago the Siren put up a post on movie actors she didn't like. It elicited a big response and after reading her choices I wrote a lengthy comment myself. A quick summation: I said that few of the actors she mentioned were well known to the average filmgoer today with some exceptions (Bing Crosby, Ronald Reagan). Now, of course, anyone here knows them all and everyone who visits her site knows them all and there's not an obscure name on the list but to the average filmgoer today the names Dan Dailey or Jeanette MacDonald won't ring a bell. If you don't believe me do what I did; ask any of your non-cinephile co-workers if they know either of them. The answer I got was "no" as I suspected it would be (full disclosure - I didn't ask anyone in their sixties or up - the point is to see if a star is known to someone who was not born until that star's career was either over or they were dead). Now ask your co-workers if they've heard of Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant or James Cagney. Unless they're very young, I bet you'll get a "yes."

My point on the Siren's post was that maybe the reason they're not as remembered is because they lacked something that translates through the decades that those other names don't lack and maybe that's why they don't appeal to the Siren or many other cinephiles. At any given time there are hundreds to thousands of actors working in the movies. Of that lot, many a multitude is famous. Go through the top box office winners of the week and there won't be a movie where you don't recognize at least one of the actor's names. In most cases, you should recognize at least three. If that's the average, that's thirty actors right there that are currently famous plus a couple hundred more that you and I could easily name. That's now. What about in 80 years? Who will be left? And why?

To prove I'm not crazy (without spending money on psychiatrists and expensive drugs) I turned to my old movie books. I've got quite a few. When I say "old" I don't just mean the ones I got when I was a kid from the seventies and eighties or ones that were old then, from the sixties. I mean "old" as in forties and fifties (in case you're wondering, secondhand bookstore). One that I was thumbing through after the Siren's post was Classics of the Silent Screen from the mid-fifties. At the time it was written the Silent Period hadn't been over for even thirty years yet so it would be like reading a book today on classics of the seventies and early eighties. The interesting thing is when you get to the section "The 75 Greatest Stars of the Silents." Now I'm a cinephile and have been since I was in grade school. I've watched a plethora of old movies and read through stacks and stacks of movie books and I can tell you that a good 20 percent of the names were unfamiliar to me. Of the other 80 percent I recognized, at least half I knew by name only. That is, when I see the name "Mae Murray" I know she's an actress from the early days of Hollywood and I even had a still from Circe, the Enchantress on my sidebar for the longest time several months back. But I don't really know Mae Murray. I don't know 90 percent of her movies. I just know the name.

Others, like Ben Turpin and Harry Langdon, I easily recognize by name and face because of their distinctive looks and styles (what movie book of old doesn't have a picture of Turpin's crossed-eyes?) and even know a few of their movies.

Then there's the stars that every cinephile knows: Lon Chaney, Ronald Colman, John Barrymore, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish. And of those, known to the average filmgoer, is probably Chaplin, Garbo, maybe Keaton. Think I'm wrong? Go back to your co-workers (unless you work in the movies or with other film critics that is). I am constantly amazed at people having no idea who Clara Bow is, or Ronald Colman or yes Buster Keaton and Lon Chaney. I'm serious. You follow movies your whole life and you think those people are known to everyone and, well, sad to say, they're not.

At any given time in Hollywood there are hundreds of famous names but time whittles it down until there are just a few mega stars left, stars that if not known to the average filmgoer by face are at least known by name.

One example I gave on the Siren's site of someone who has enjoyed recent fame was William Atherton. Anyone who watched movies in the seventies and eighties knows William Atherton. He starred in The Sugarland Express, Day of the Locust, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, The Hindenburg and others. Not in bit parts, he starred in them. Then he fell to supporting and minor supporting (Ghostbusters, Die Hard) then appearances on popular tv shows. His star burned out. Something about him just didn't work for enough people in enough movies and Hollywood selected him out of the lead roles. We all know him now and our kids may be familiar with him vaguely due to things like Ghostbusters but in fifty years good luck finding a thirty year old filmgoer who knows who in the hell William Atherton is.

And who will be selected out now? I have a few nominees on both ends of the spectrum. While Oscar winners tend to stay in the memory longer winning an Oscar is still no guarantee. Most filmgoers today and even some cinephiles aren't familiar with George Arliss despite his Oscar win. Nevertheless it's a definite advantage. Stars of the eighties and before are already well established and we're already seeing who will remain and who will not. Stars like Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro and Faye Dunaway are here to stay. I don't think many people will be scratching their heads over those names 80 years from now. Stars from the nineties through today like Daniel Day Lewis, Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington and Cate Blanchett will still be known in 80 years, probably. But how about Halle Berry, Hillary Swank, Jude Law, Mark Ruffalo? And you should know, if you haven't already picked up on it, none of this has to do with their respective talents as actors. I don't think Mark Ruffalo will be forgotten and Russell Crowe remembered because one is a better or worse actor than the other. I don't think William Atherton is a bad actor, in fact, I think he's very good. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood (definitely remembered forever - no doubt at all) in Unforgiven, "Talent's got nothing to do with it."

Personally, I would lament Mark Ruffalo not being remembered but so far, I don't think he has the "star power," whatever that is exactly, to translate through the ages. Hell, most people I talk to today don't know who he is so what chance does he have with history. But I want him to be remembered because I think he's one of the best actors in the movies today. When I think of other actors who will be remembered for sure that I don't like it Ruffalos my feathers even more. For instance, I know Tom Cruise is here to stay. Now I thought he was terrific as Frank "T.J." Mackey in Magnolia. I thought he was good in his breakout movie Risky Business. But I don't like him. Really, I don't. Ah hell, I'll be honest, I can't stand the guy. I'm not talking about acting talent (though judge it as you will) I'm saying I don't like him. He bugs me. He makes movies he's in unenjoyable to me (unless he's playing a dick, like in Magnolia). I want him selected out and Mark Ruffalo selected in but I know that's not going to happen.

And I want forgotten stars of the twenties and thirties to be rediscovered. I brought up Glenda Farrell both at the Siren's site and here shortly thereafter and re-submit her name for rediscovery now. As Arbogast said in the comments on my post about her, she was "a force of nature." Indeed. And how about others from the thirties and forties that have fallen away? Or the fifties and sixties? Actors that we wish more people knew, and some actors that we wish they'd just forget about. I've got quite a list but I'll wrap this up now and leave it with Ruffalo and Farrell for the time being. I'd hate to flash forward to the future and find Ruffalo's name as unfamiliar as Thomas Meighan, mentioned in the title of this post. He was one of the 75 Great Stars mentioned in that book. He made over 80 movies. And now his IMDB mini-bio begins this way: "Sadly, this once-popular silent screen star and older matinée idol for Paramount Studios, is all but forgotten today. Thomas "Tommy" Meighan was one of the rulers of the Hollywood roost, between the years 1915 and 1928." I could be wrong of course. Careers of those mentioned in this post could skyrocket or fall unexpectedly in the next century or so. But there are so many talented actors in the movies both yesterday and today that it's a shame so many of them will have the same opening to their mini-bios in a century that Meighan does now. Truly. As George C. Scott, who starred in Hindenburg with William Atherton, says at the conclusion of Patton, "All glory is fleeting."

Storyboarding Taxi Driver

From Scorsese on Scorsese by Martin Scorsese (edited by David Thompson and Ian Christie, London: Faber and Faber, 1989.).

"Travis really has the best of intentions; he believes he's doing right, just like St Paul. He wants to clean up life, clean up the mind, clean up the soul. He is very spiritual, but in a sense Charles Manson was spiritual, which doesn't mean that it's good. It's the power of the spirit on the wrong road. The key to the picture is the idea of being brave enough to admit having these feelings, and then act them out. I instinctively showed that the acting out was not the way to go, and this created even more ironic twists to what was going on. " p 62.

Below are the original storyboards for the shootout at the brothel as drawn by Martin Scorsese (pages 55-59). On the whole, the finished film follows them very closely with only minor changes as noted. I have highlighted one frame from each storyboard to compare with the corresponding shot in the completed film.

Upon hearing the gunfire Iris appears to be lifting only her head from the bed in the storyboard but in the film she sits up completely.

The shooter's gun is about two feet from Bickle's arm in the storyboard and his torso completely within the frame. In the film, he shoots from point blank range and only his arm is visible. When Travis fires back it appears in the storyboard that Scorsese planned to have his victim shot in the eye(?) but it's difficult to tell. He is shot in the forehead in the film.

Two reverses from the storyboard: In the first shot, Iris is on the left side of the room but in the storyboard she is on the right. In the second, Bickle puts his "gun" to his head with his left hand in the film, his right hand on the storyboard.

Scorsese does not elaborate in the book on the reason for any minor changes. Minor changes from storyboard to completed film occur regularly during the shooting process and many directors have been known to draw up a new storyboard during the shooting. Most of these changes probably occurred from necessity more than anything else. For instance, in the story board Scorsese has the shooter with glasses shot in the eye. Perhaps that is why he gave him glasses, to conceal the squib that would go off but it proved more difficult than thought so his forehead was used instead. When Bickle sits on the sofa in the film his right arm is bunched up against the corpse of one of his victims and so going with his left hand was probably just easier. And yet it created an iconic image: I cannot imagine Bickle's right hand at his head, it has to be the left.

Scorsese's storyboards confirm the importance of the director to the visual result of the film. True, a good cinematographer must still set up the shot, properly light it and make it work. But a good director has already shot the movie in his head and on paper before the camera ever rolls. Think of Orson Welles two masterpieces Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. They each had a different cinematographer (Gregg Tolland on Kane and Stanley Cortez on Ambersons) and yet have remarkable visual similarities as well as visual flourishes not found in other Tolland or Cortez shot films. However, a director can have all the visual ideas in the world and without the right cinematographer those ideas may end up unrealized. Tolland and Cortez were brilliant cinematographers and had the talent to give Welles what he wanted. Just as Scorsese had Michael Chapman (Invasion of the Body Snatchers 78 and Raging Bull 80) help him create one of the most stunning climaxes to any film of the seventies. It was a final brutal entry into the world of Travis Bickle but without Scorsese's storyboards and Michael Chapman's camera work, it might have been just another shootout.