Norman, That Is You
Just like I warned, after reading Walter Mirisch's autobiography, I read the autobiography of one of his favorite directors, Norman Jewison. Pretty good. As I predicted, coming from a director rather than his producer, it was a lot more personal. He mentions Mirisch a few times, but his concentration is on making films, not deals.
He has a basic story problem, though. The first half of his life works great. He's raised in Canada, has formative youthful experiences, becomes a major TV director and then breaks into film. After making a handful of minor comedies, he hits his stride in the mid-6os, creating, consecutively, The Cincinnati Kid, The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, In The Heat Of The Night and The Thomas Crown Affair. A few years later, he made Fiddler On The Roof. (He figures the producers mistakenly thought, based on his name, he was Jewish.)
After that, however, he made a bunch of films that couldn't match the critical or commercial successes of the past. They're a varied lot, with some intriguing titles (Rollerball, ...And Justice For All, A Soldier's Story, The Hurricane), but the only one that really compares to his old glory is Moonstruck. So the story peters off. There are some decent anecdotes, but no narrative drive.
PS He spells a few names wrong and is off with some numbers. I'm often surprised at how weak book editing can be these days.
PPS I forgot he was the guy Spike Lee mau-maued out of directing Malcolm X. Based on Lee's final product, I'm guessing Jewison would have done a better job.
PPPS No one who's seen Jewison's films could doubt he's a proud liberal. But it got a little tiring to hear him complain in one sentence about corporate profits and in the next explain about a juicy deal he made for gross participation.
Much worse was when he defended Mao's China. It's such an ugly statement I have to quote it or you might not believe me:
I also had great respect and admiration for Mao Zedung, who united China into a world power during my lifetime. Despite human rights violation and heavy-handed politics, he did succeed in freeing one billion people from famine and serfdom.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:02 AM
4 Comments:
How is that ugly? Wouldn't you expect a majority of Americans to approve the sentiment if polled and asked only "approve" or "disapprove"? And certainly Obama would agree with it, he might even do so openly, although I doubt it.
Do I really have to explain that Mao is one of the great villains of the 20th century, up there with Stalin and Hitler? That he enslaved a nation, that he brutally persecuted millions and ensured that tens of millions starved to death? This shouldn't be a liberal/conservative split. Mao is one of the nastiest tyrants in history.
I don't know if Obama would say nice things about Mao, but certainly Richard Nixon did. Remember they called it "realism"
Nixon dealt with Mao, FDR dealt with Stalin. You do what you think is best. But you don't honor Mao by saying, with no prompting, "he did succeed in freeing one billion people from famine and serfdom," especially when he responsible for many millons dying from famine.
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