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<\/a><\/p>\nNext book on the Hollywood<\/a> shelf:<\/p>\n The Devil’s Candy: The Anatomy Of A Hollywood Fiasco<\/a> \nA nervewracking book.<\/p>\n Julie Salamon was invited by director Brian De Palma to follow him around as he shot Bonfire of the Vanities<\/i>. No one could know that the project would end up being one of the most notorious Hollywood fiascoes in history, and would end up being an object lesson in “How Things Get Effed Up In an Exponentially Awful and Expensive Fashion”. Salamon, excited to get access to a director’s day to day process, ended up having a front-row seat to the unfolding disaster. There was trouble from the start, on all fronts. Tom Wolfe’s book had been like the top blowing off of the culture, exposing the paranoid raging tensions beneath the yuppie-mad cash-mad 80s. His book was not just a book. It was an event. (I wrote about it here.<\/a> Not a favorite of mine, but I certainly felt I had to read it, as I expressed in that post.) One of the most cynical books ever written, it seems that De Palma would be perfect for such material, and it is obvious why he was drawn to it. <\/p>\n As I’ve said before, nobody sets out to make a huge historic flop. Nobody sets out to say “Hey, let’s lose a shit-ton of money!” Bonfire of the Vanities<\/i> was an event of a book, and, therefore, it should be an event of a movie. Everyone went into it with those high expectations, and none of them seemed unwarranted. New York City, Brian De Palma, explosive source material … this is gonna be a winner! How could it go wrong? <\/p>\n Julie Salamon’s book shows how step by step, things can go wrong, despite good intentions. Decisions are made, small and big, that end up having huge consequences. <\/p>\n Tom Wolfe’s book is ugly. Everyone sucks. Everyone is awful. His book was brash, hilarious, unforgiving, and read like a bat out of hell. This would always have been explosive material, but it especially was so in the late 80s, early 90s, when political correctness was starting to dominate the language in our culture. Wolfe’s book said essentially, “Yes, that’s all very polite<\/i> of you, but most people on the planet will not follow by your insipid little rules because they are too PISSED.” <\/p>\n It’s been a while since I read the book, but one of the things that I remember is that the casting of Morgan Freeman as “the judge” was a major major moment. In retrospect, it is when the production lost its balls. Judge Myron Kovitsky, in the book, was based on an actual person, a friend of Tom Wolfe’s, Judge Burton Bennett Roberts, chief administrative judge in the Bronx, which, in the 80s, was a war zone. Wolfe revealed that. So indelible was the picture he gave of the Bronx in the 80s that even now, years later, when I drive on the Cross Bronx Expressway, I always think of that book. People from the Bronx were, of course, outraged by the book (and I don’t blame them: if someone wrote an angry book about how awful Rhode Island was, I know I would get my back up, too). <\/p>\n Wolfe presented all sides, the law-enforcement side, the different camps of people, the rich yuppies downtown, and the culture clash between those two worlds (something that was also revealed, devastatingly, in the Central Park Jogger rape – an ugly ugly time in New York history). There was a lot of anger towards the yuppies, and the commentary about the Central Park jogger certainly revealed that (“who does she think she is, coming to New York and expecting it to be a playground, yuppie scum … she deserved it …”), and, on the flip side, there was rage about the underclass, who just couldn’t seem to behave themselves properly, and they should all be flushed down the toilet, and where is Travis Bickle when you need him? Political correctness made the situation worse, in many ways, because people were being told that they couldn’t use certain words anymore, that their behavior was “inappropriate”, and so, of course, rage is often the result of that kind of condescension.<\/p>\n So. The Judge makes a big speech at the end of the book that shows he is the only one who has retained even a shred of human decency, but the Judge is also a tiny God unto himself, and runs his courtroom like a dictator. He is a white man, in charge of rounding up the black underclass, basically, and of course that will affect a man’s perspective on things. Judge Roberts, who was a friend of Wolfe’s, had been looking forward to the book, and was a bit pissed off at how he came across. Despite the fact that readers desperate for a glimmer of hope latched on to the Judge as a symbol of someone who still seems, well, like a human being, Judge Kovitsky is not the Great White Hope. New York will be left to explode.<\/p>\n As you read Salamon’s book, and you read about the casting decisions, you start to get the sense that the project is already being derailed. Bruce Willis was not right for his part of the rampaging tabloid journalist, but he threw himself into it with gusto. Melanie Griffith was fragile and terrified, and needed a lot of encouragement and propping-up. She also was vaguely miscast. Everyone loves Tom Hanks, and he has a great reputation, but playing a cock-of-the-walk yuppie was not really in his wheelhouse, either. However, these were all big stars, and up-and-coming stars, so of course it would all work out. Poor Kim Cattrall was badgered by De Palma to lose weight, and as the shoot kept lengthening, as the months dragged by, as she was kept waiting around for her couple of scenes, she said to someone, wistfully, “I can’t keep starving myself for much longer.” It’s a terrible moment, and you really feel for her.<\/p>\n The real Judge Roberts had hopes that he would be cast as himself in the movie. He really felt it was owed him, he felt like nobody could portray the character like he could. He felt that it had been promised to him, as well, although of course once things started rolling along … he was offered a small walk-on part, and he had enough of an ego to be insulted. He had done some acting, he knew this part, who did they think he was, some wannabe?? <\/p>\n The decision was made to cast Morgan Freeman as Judge Kovitsky, which shows you how the production had lost sight of its source material. Instead of going all the way with the implications of Wolfe’s book, they cushioned the blow by casting an elegant dignified black man as the Judge, the man who gives the speech that calms everyone down, that shows us that humanity is still good. Because, of course, that is the role of the Black Man in Hollywood, to be a calm and spiritual outsider, revealing to the white man where he has gone wrong, with gentleness and firmness. Huh? Tom Wolfe very specifically did not make the Judge a black man, because he had other points to make. The patriarchal white culture making decisions about the black citizens, and how such a situation could explode the streets into violence, if the pressure cooker got hot enough. So there were many problems with the casting of Freeman, and many people in the production voiced those reservations amongst themselves. It was apparent that they were not doing Tom Wolfe’s book at all. They were going comfortable Hollywood with it. When Morgan Freeman shows up in a movie, everyone relaxes, because he is evidence that the black man is not too angry with the white man, and we can all relax because he will show us the way. He has made a career out of playing such parts. But it was totally out of place in Wolfe’s expose of the racial tensions in New York at that time. There were other problems with Freeman. He was starting up a production of Taming of the Shrew<\/i> in Central Park, and so he had limited time in which to shoot. He also demanded $4 million. Which they gave to him. The budget was already spinning out of control, and the decision to pay Freeman that crazy salary for what would amount to a couple of days of work struck pretty much everyone as utter lunacy, leaving aside for the moment the fact that Freeman was not only miscast, but seemed to be cast as some cynical ploy to relax the white audience into feeling safe again. “Oh, it’s okay, Morgan Freeman isn’t mad at us …” <\/p>\n Tom Wolfe’s book is heartless. By casting Morgan Freeman, it is apparent that De Palma and company had lost their nerve. They were trying to give the story a heart.<\/p>\n By the time Freeman was cast, however, the situation had already spun out of control, and so we are through the looking glass, in terms of logic. Nobody was outside enough to say, “Hang on. Let’s take a second to think this through.” <\/p>\n Salamon’s book details the confrontations and production meetings and asides throughout the entire shooting, and she was eyewitness to much of it. It is one of the best “Making Of” books ever made, because you never really escape the production, there is no outside editorial voice explaining, “So here’s what happened next.” It’s almost a daily journal of what everyone on the production was doing at any given moment. Second unit, extras, production assistants, De Palma, waiting actors, location scouts, the mayor’s office – The world of the movie became the entire world, with absolutely no sanity let in from the outside world. De Palma worked his ass off, of course, but you get the sense that from the beginning there was something wrong with this project. <\/p>\n Perhaps it was that Wolfe’s book was too ugly, too much of a satire (satire is notoriously difficult), to be handled in the way it was handled. Perhaps this should have been a more hard-hitting gritty production, without ego involved. But then it would have been an entirely different movie. Tom Hanks was cast. Therefore other things had to follow. Bruce Willis was cast. He had fun doing it, but he missed the point of the character Wolfe had written. Melanie Griffith comes off as a head-case who needs encouragement to do anything<\/i>. And Morgan Freeman, while I’m sure is a lovely man, does not come off well here at all. You wonder: “Dude, did you read the book? You realize that them asking you to play this particular part is the height of cynical moves … do you want to be used in that way?” I suppose $4 million for 4 days of work is a great motivator for anybody. So Freeman comes off as cynical, too. “Fine, you people obviously are in a state of chaos, so sure, I’ll take that money and run. I’m focused on doing Taming of the Shrew<\/i>, anyway. What do I care.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0306811235\")