Last night I read, in one sitting, Spielberg, Truffaut & Me: An Actor’s Diary
Any time there were kids around, Truffaut would gravitate towards them. He loved children, he loved them for their spontanaeity and how in the moment they always were. There’s that one scene where Balaban and Truffaut talk to the army major – a cigar-chomping military man – and they hadn’t had times to really learn their lines for the scene, and Truffaut was terrified of forgetting – so he taped his lines TO THE MAJOR’S CHEST. You can see Army Major kind of from the back, and he’s talking to them – and they’re talking back (anyone remember the scene?) And I just love the image of this big strapping dude having Francois Truffaut’s lines TAPED TO HIS CHEST.
Many other great stories – especially about the little 6 year old girls who were hired to play all the extraterrestrials. They had all of these dance classes and training days – where they were taught to move like that – to glide around like that (with these huge heads put on them) – but, you know, they were still 6 year old girls – so there was much fooling around. At one point, during the shooting of that scene – one of the little girls, obviously annoyed with one of her fellow ETs, whipped off her rubber hand and started beating the ET next to her over the head with it. Spielberg, exhausted, calls: “CUT.” hahaha Back to the beginning. Also, they had some issues because the 6 year old girls were apparently really into disco dancing (hahahaha) – remember it was 1976 during filming, 1977 – and so there were many times when the girls, getting slap-happy from the long hours, of having to stand around and wait, of having to wear these huge rubber heads and hands – would start to do the hustle. Sometimes when the cameras were rolling. Please imagine that scene – the glowing Mothership – the door opening – the gliding ETs appearing – and then suddenly … it’s like Saturday Night Fever and they start to do the hustle down the loading ramp. Again, Spielberg calls out, exhausted, “CUT! LET’S DO IT AGAIN.”
Amazing insights into Spielberg as a director, too. I just fell in love with him.
No one can make me want to read something like you can, Sheila!
Balaban love! I was starting to think that I was the only one. One of the most exciting backstage signings EVER was when I went to see the A Mighty Wind concert. People were all waiting around for the Big Names like Jennifer Coolidge to come out of the dressing room and get on the bus, so the other actors were just kind of hanging around schmoozing. We schmoozed up Paul Dooley (!) and Mr. Balaban (which was odd b/c he was standing on the curb and I was in the street and we were still eye-to-eye) and Christophew Moynihan, who was very nice and gave us a few clues about the nature of the next movie which turned out to be For Your Consideration. What an great night. *nostalgia sigh*
Marti – how cool!!!
Yeah, I just love the guy. I think he’s perfect in everything he does. Gosford Park? LOVE HIM.
He’s just had such an interesting career – stage, screen, TV, he’s written books … I love him!!
I think it was on the Independent Film Channel or Sundance, or whatever, but a couple of years ago there was a short-lived show called “Celebrity Charades” and Bob Balaban was one of the hosts. It was so good, and I remember thinking he would be the most Perfect Dinner Party Guest Ever. So erudite! So funny! And I bet he would bring great wine.
BTW, I’m very jealous of you, Marti. Jealous jealous jealous.
He just does the guy who takes himself too seriously SO WELL.
I think my favorite is his tight-ass music director in Waiting for Guffman – he’s just brilliant!
My three favorite Balaban performances:
1 – “Prince of the City,” where he played the somewhat dorky and idealistic U.S. Attorney. He has a wonderful moment in the penultimate scene of the movie, where the attorneys are gathered to render a decision on whether to prosecute Danny Ciello, and he is making his speech and tells the assembled group that the real issue at hand is “narCOTICS!!” Everyone just looks at him and you can hear them thinking, “what a dork!”
2 – Absence of Malice. I saw this again sometime during the Fall. I had forgotten how lightweight Sally Field was in this, how good Paul Newman, Melinda Dillon and Wilford Brimley were, but especially now fantastic Balaban was, again playing an attorney – this one very slimy and manipulative.
3 – The Seinfeld arc where Jerry and George go to L.A. to sell their TV show…Balaban was just classic as the NBC executive.
Sheila (and any other Balaban fans out there),
If you haven’t already, don’t ever, ever see Lady in the Water. Ordinarily, I’d recommend it for it’s unintentionally hilarious badness, almost on par with Battlefield Earth, but in this case, it will actually make you *angry* to see Balaban’s talent wasted on this deliciously crap movie.
Jeff – Absence of Malice, that’s right!! I think Melinda Dillon (also his co-star in Close Encounters) was nominated for an Oscar for that.
And yes, his gig on Seinfeld was HILARIOUS.
I think one of my favorite moments he has is the fight with Christopher Guest in Waiting for Guffman where Guest keeps telling him to speak up (“talk like a normal person”) and Balaban is so passive aggressive that he just keeps whispering – and then Guest has that insane line:
“It’s like that Zen thing, you know … like how many babies you can fit in a tire.”
WHAT? That’s Zen? WHAT?
And Balaban says, nodding seriously, “That’s a good point.”
hahahahaha
Emily – let’s hope he got a nice big paycheck which then allows him to do off-broadway shows, and the Guest movies, and all that.
Oh and here’s another funny moment:
Truffaut said one of his lines. And of course he had all that technical language – which would be difficult for a native English speaker to memorize – but really hard for a French speaker! Anyway – he said his big long technical monologue. Spielberg, watching the dailies later that night, said something like, “Since he’s speaking in French there – we should use subtitles.” And someone informed him, “Uhm … Truffaut is speaking English there.” hahahaha But his English was so strongly French-accented that Spielberg couldn’t tell.
There was also a moment when Truffaut had to say, ‘They belong here more than we.’
It came out so incomprehensible that everyone thought he had said something about Mozambique. Ze belong ere in Mozambique.
One of the crew guys had T shirts made up with the Mozambique line on it. Truffaut thought it was hysterical.
OK WORLD…GET READY…
I LOVED LADY IN THE WATER. And I will defend it to the end. I went in on a lark, revved up to heap scorn on every frame, to mightily chastise shambamalam, etc.
And then the movie started. I was riveted. I can’t remember a movie where I had NO idea what was coming next. The whole notion that he casts himself as some sort of prophetic genius is actually a bit off the mark…he’s sort of a goofball going nowhere in life.
Giamatti curled up on the couch trying to get the old lady to tell him the story? And she won’t tell it unless he TRULY becomes childlike? I’m sorry to all the haters out there, but I LOVE THIS MOVIE.
But, if you want to have a really fun time hating a movie, watch The Village. Holy Crap.
Bren – hahahaha I remember you and Melody admitting to me, in such a surprised voice, that you had actually liked the movie – and how you turned to each other in the middle of it and whispered, “I am totally into this, are you?”
hahahahaha
Oh, another Bob Balaban moment I adore:
One of his interviews in Waiting for Guffman when he says, with obvious hurt beneath the passive aggressive voice and behavior:
“So … this year … Corky is going to be directing the show … which will be … different … for me …”
I laugh every time.
Brendan,
No need to apologize. Love away. It’s all a matter of taste and in my case, I hate that movie so much I adore it. I’m starting to develop a rather disturbing affection for Shammy because his films just suck so bad for me (a friend who has a compassionate understanding of my love for bad movies bought me the Lady DVD for Christmas). I think Lady had a decent premise, but Shammy just isn’t a good enough writer to pull it off.
There was one point in the movie – when Bryce Dallas Howard was talking to Giamatti over the walkie talkie and she said something about the “challenge to fight” that I broke out into complete, uncontrollable laughter that didn’t stop until the end of the movie.
Sheila,
I was just thinking about that moment and how utterly brilliant it was. Like, he’s trying so hard to mask his bitterness about being passed up for Corky and he’s just barely pulling it off.
Emily – hahahaha yeah, like: who ya think you’re fooling, music director?? You know you’re PISSED!
My favorite scene of his is the one from A Mighty Wind where the stage director is explaining the backdrops and he keeps asking stupid questions in that HORRIBLE whiny voice and the stage director ends up smacking him in the head. I laugh so hard I swear I snort.
“Can you have an actual three dimensional object that represents the thing that it actually is, can that be next to something that it’s pretending to be? Would that be okay?”
Oh my God, that scene is genius. You can so tell that that smack was not planned. SO FUNNY. And yes, he is such a cautious dolt … he doesn’t even understand a set design – so so funny
For thsoe two glorious weeks I was completely ADDICTED to Celebrity Charades. I couldn’t get enough and am absolutely kicking myself now for now saving them. Each one was a gem. I also wanted to be thereeven if just serving the dinnerjust to be able to listen in on the conversation. It was crazy and wonderful and I *really* hope BobBalaban would consider doing it again. The man is always brilliant. My hubband doesn’t at all understand my love for Gosford Park, or why my ears perk up whenever I see a movie that Bob (Mr. Balaban?) is going to be in.
I think I might stop on my way home from work this evening and pick up a copy of Lady in the Water from the grocery store vending machine. (have you seen these? $1 for 24 hours with a DVD, and all current releases. Brilliant!) Harry Knowles love Lady, so I’m going to have to give it a try, even though he also loved Sky Captain which put me to sleep not once, but thrice. I do loves me some Giamatti though. He’s one of those people whose talent is so big and crazy that he goes from shlub to strangely attractive. Steve Buscemi’s another one like that.
marti – It’s weird, I feel like I could watch Gosford Park once a week and never get tired of it. There’s always something new I notice, with each viewing.
I love him going “hunting” with all the English men – and he’s wearing that ridiculous fur coat and he looks so out of place – but he’s doing ‘research’ – and it’s just a RIOT!
Harry Knowles also wrote a good review for Attack of the Clones, which means either he a) saw the movie and genuinely liked it or b) took a kickback from Lucasfilm Ltd. to write a good review. Regardless, in any case, his opinion can’t be trusted. Besides, those folks at AICN get enough schwag to make me skeptical about the sincerity of a lot of their “opinions” on movies.
Emily – God, I hate it when you get the sense that a critic is in the pocket of the studio, or the producer, or whoever.
That’s why I have SO gotten into all the internet film critics recently – many of them are just movie fanatics, really well-versed in the history of cinema (unlike many of the jagoffs who write for the big papers – who have no CONTEXT) – and really know how to write. I love reading their reviews.
That’s what’s particularly frustrating about Knowles and company. They started out as true geeks, just guys who wrote about movies (albeit, in the case of Harry, very, very badly). Then they turned into tools after they got a little bit of attention and studios started flying Harry to premieres and “leaking” stuff to AICN to generate early publicity. They’re actually kind of sad these days (if you’re ever in a cruel mood, take a look at the Amazon reviews for Harry’s book. They’re bleak).
As much as I love those mean, merciless reviews, sometimes I get the sense that most professional film critics today are more interested in coming off as clever or snarky than just writing about the technical and artistic merits of the movies they review. I’ll usually take the advice of a blogger that loves movies over a professional critic any day.
2007 Books Read
(in the order in which I finished them, understanding that very often I read many books at the same time). I count re-read books, by the way. I’ll include links to any posts or book excerpts I might have done…