After reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls<\/i>, I’m going back to re-visit them all. I kept a list on the back pages of the book.<\/p>\n
This morning I watched “Shampoo”. I’ve always loved that movie. Watching it again was like running into an old friend. I mean, even the names on the credits give me a bit of a thrill. Hal Ashby, Robert Towne. And Julie Christie is so damn wonderful. Getting trashed in her backless gown, at the uppity party celebrating Nixon’s win, throwing olives at the back of her lover’s head, getting completely out of control, in this totally glammed-out way.<\/p>\n
So much has changed since then. I’m not just talking about in the world, I’m talking about movies.<\/p>\n
There’s barely a soundtrack in this film. I watch movies from the 70s, and realize: Wow. The soundtrack has completely taken over now. Soundtracks often come out before the movie opens. Sometimes it adds to the film (like in Pulp Fiction) and sometimes it’s just a crutch. Directors now rely on the SOUNDTRACK to tell the audience how to feel, as opposed to figuring out a way to let the story do it. It’s lame.<\/p>\n
If you see the movies in the 50s, and 60s – there is always a very histrionic soundtrack. Like “Rebel without a Cause”, which is supposedly a realistic film – but the color scheme and the operatic soundtrack tells you a different story.<\/p>\n
The 70s took away all the crutches. Most of the films were driven by characters, not plots. And barely any of those films have soundtracks. Either the story is on the screen, or it is not.<\/p>\n
I loved the lack of a soundtrack in “Shampoo”. When they all end up at the wacked-out party with the strobe lights, and suddenly “Sgt. Pepper” is blaring, I realized that there had been no incidental music up until that point. Nothing. Not even on the in-between scenes, where you see Warren Beatty racing from lover to lover to lover on his motorcycle. It’s just real. You basically just see a man on a bike. There is no music cluing you in on what your emotions should be. “Oooh, he’s nervous now.” “Now he’s mad.” “Now he’s horny.”<\/p>\n
No. You fill it all in yourself, because the story works on its own.<\/p>\n
Goldie Hawn is wonderful. I loved the truth-telling scene between the two of them at the end. He’s really a wonderful actor. I forget that sometimes. Because of his producer persona, and because he doesn’t really act all that much anymore. But I’ve loved him since I saw “Splendor in the Grass” when I was 15 years old. He’s got a natural-ness, every film he’s in he somehow manages to make it look like a documentary.<\/p>\n
The political undertones of the film – it’s 1968 – add a level of gravitas to the story. You can sense, even if many of the characters do not, that an era is ending.<\/p>\n
The ending of the film is perfect. Because, of course, despite the fact that Beatty is running from woman to woman to woman, you are completely on his side – and YOU can see, even if he can’t, that he has met his match in Julie Christie. <\/p>\n
The ending of the film is perfect because you are left sad for this man. You see his silhouette on the top of the hill, and suddenly – even though the rest of the movie occurs at a frenetic pace, and he seems like a madman, running from this to that, completely impulse-driven – but suddenly, seeing him up there – you feel his loneliness. You feel his sadness and isolation. Warren Beatty always managed to convey the sadness behind the womanizing maniac. He never seemed too pleased with himself – he always was able to convey the price such men pay. Without ever being self-pitying. I admire him for that.<\/p>\n
I admire him for a lot of reasons, but I definitely admire him for his ability to put that rather negative aspect of his own personality up on screen. It’s a rare quality. A lot of actors (most actors) protect their image, and always want to be right. They always want the audience to side with them. They are afraid of coming off as weak, or as flawed. That kind of acting does nothing for me, although it certainly has its place.<\/p>\n
I prefer the flaws. I relate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, I’m going back to re-visit them all. I kept a list on the back pages of the book. This morning I watched “Shampoo”. I’ve always loved that movie. Watching it again was like running … Continue reading