So Fine
Andrew Bergman is
a very learned director who evidently studied films like Andrew L.
Stone’s Hi Diddle Diddle before he made So Fine. Here, in a model later refined as Big Trouble and Striptease,
is the voice of experience speaking through a mask of naivety, and calling
forth the neophyte.
Overall,
the critics were undecided about The Freshman. A real analysis of the
script reveals how much of a masterpiece it really is.
Based on Oliver
Twist, in a unified conception, it presents three broad areas of activity:
The Innocent’s Progress, beginning with a surreal image of a Komodo
Dragon breaking its shell; The Film School, comprehensively built in turn on a
correct analysis of Coppola’s The Godfather; and a formal
construction built on three levels sustained throughout, like three voices or
musical lines.
The basis is
Matthew Broderick’s open performance as the Innocent, which is joined at
the end by Penelope Ann Miller’s as the Don’s Harvard daughter. The
middle voice is given by Bruno Kirby first, joined later by Maximilian Schell
(compare his performance in Robson’s Avalanche Express for this). Finally, the upper voice is played alone by Marlon Brando
in a complicated parody of Don Corleone which has mystified some critics
(notably the irascible Hal Hinson), though it’s a trademark of
Brando’s to engage in a comic parody of his dramatic roles. He tosses in
a bit of Broderick Crawford for good measure, out of sheer virtuosity.
The first few
scenes show the elevation of this structure, and it’s evident from start
to finish how clear and distinct the several lines are. Maslin appreciated
something of this, but failed to note the ease given by it, the ideal of script
preparation derived from Capra.
Honeymoon in Vegas
The situation
(later filmed as Lyne’s Indecent Proposal)
is simple and direct as a dream or a hallucination, and piled high on both
sides to satiety (rich title, rich material). The
charm of it is the three-dimensionality, which one is the dreamer?
Of course
it’s Bergman. The actors move in this with great flexibility and
stillness, to maximum effect. James Caan outvies Jack Carter as Jack Carter,
nearly.
Striptease
There is a theory
about that Bergman was fired from Big Trouble for incompetence (Cassavetes
says he understood Bergman was “exhausted” with writing and
producing as well), the last thing he can be accused of is ineptitude. The aggressive technique here often uses the camera to set
up shots, rather than wait for the editing table. The ending is nicely adapted
from Dreyer’s Vampyr.
Bergman’s
long researches into screwball comedy tend here toward Preston Sturges, with an
actual result stylistically akin to Charles Crichton’s A Fish Called
Wanda. The prime beneficiary is Burt Reynolds,
beside himself in a Marlon Brando (or Andy Warhol) wig, also Ving Rhames rather
like Oliver Reed in Don Taylor’s The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday.
Roger
Ebert’s review contains a touching tribute to Tempest Storm.