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marm0tBeing a thought which popped into my head after being dared by a legally insane friend from film school to sit through Al Pacino in Revolution. Actually, this had been stewing in one form or another in the back of my mind ever since I had an opportunity about fifteen years ago to read Towne's original (and apparently, unlocatable) script for Greystoke- recently seeing Hudson's rewritten version, in which the second half devolves into a version of Masterpiece Theater, (enlivened largely by Ralph Richardson; when he dies, so does the movie) simply drove it home all the more:
Hugh Hudson is nothing more than the British iteration of Michael Cimino. First, there's a highly overrated, Best Picture-winning early success, marketed largely on the basis of its memorable score- although I do find Chariots of Fire infinitely more palatable than The Deer Hunter. With its James Fennimore Cooper-style heroics, slapdash plotting, willfully marginalized female characters, and- most of all- its astounding racism and xenophobia, The Deer Hunter has one of the single most meretricious screenplays ever greenlit by a Hollywood studio, and that's saying quite a bit.
…and then, the summing-up: newly anointed as the messiah of the month, said auteur runs off to make his Dream Project. There’s not really much need to go on about Heaven’s Gate, which sank United Artists (why does everyone rave about the photography in this movie? With all the golden magic hour light, smoke, and dust, it looks as though Zsigmond set out to willfully parody his earlier work in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Hired Hand); Hudson, for his part, survived Greystoke- dubbed heroine (courtesy of Glenn Close) and all- and went on to make Revolution. I didn’t make it to the end of this film (which was a financial disaster as well; we haven’t heard from Hudson in about four years, or from Cimino since 1996)(edited to add- And an odd note: the most recent film for both men- Sunchaser for Cimino and I Dreamed of Africa for Hudson- was scored by Maurice Jarre), but any film in which Al Pacino responds to a British officer’s telling him to settle down and stop stirring up trouble by yelling, "My mouth belongs where I put it!" has achieved an immortality, of its kind.
Hugh Hudson is nothing more than the British iteration of Michael Cimino. First, there's a highly overrated, Best Picture-winning early success, marketed largely on the basis of its memorable score- although I do find Chariots of Fire infinitely more palatable than The Deer Hunter. With its James Fennimore Cooper-style heroics, slapdash plotting, willfully marginalized female characters, and- most of all- its astounding racism and xenophobia, The Deer Hunter has one of the single most meretricious screenplays ever greenlit by a Hollywood studio, and that's saying quite a bit.
…and then, the summing-up: newly anointed as the messiah of the month, said auteur runs off to make his Dream Project. There’s not really much need to go on about Heaven’s Gate, which sank United Artists (why does everyone rave about the photography in this movie? With all the golden magic hour light, smoke, and dust, it looks as though Zsigmond set out to willfully parody his earlier work in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Hired Hand); Hudson, for his part, survived Greystoke- dubbed heroine (courtesy of Glenn Close) and all- and went on to make Revolution. I didn’t make it to the end of this film (which was a financial disaster as well; we haven’t heard from Hudson in about four years, or from Cimino since 1996)(edited to add- And an odd note: the most recent film for both men- Sunchaser for Cimino and I Dreamed of Africa for Hudson- was scored by Maurice Jarre), but any film in which Al Pacino responds to a British officer’s telling him to settle down and stop stirring up trouble by yelling, "My mouth belongs where I put it!" has achieved an immortality, of its kind.
