HA

Just finished Nick Dawson's bio of Hal Ashby.  The 70s was a time when Hollywood directors got to express themselves, and few have a resume from that decade as intriguing as Ashby's.

Ashby spent a long apprenticeship as an editor, working with William Wyler, George Stevens and, above all, Norman Jewison, a good friend who helped get him his directing gig.  Jewison's great decade was the 60s, and he fell off in the 70s--it's almost as if he passed on the torch.

Ashby was a contradiction.  A millionaire who didn't care about money.  A monumentally hard worker who spent a lot of time getting high. A sweet, loving man who had numerous wives and affairs.  But he got into directing just as Hollywood was allowing more experimental work, perfect

for his laid-back style and interest in the personal.  Ashby would play things loose--perhaps coming up as an editor he figured he could always fix things in post. And for a while, anyway, it worked.

His film of the 70s make an impressive list: The Landlord (1970), Harold And Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound For Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978) and Being There (1979).  I don't love them all (don't get the Harold And Maude cult and find Bound For Glory boring) but each one is notable.

Then, as quickly as he had it, he lost it.  All his films in the 80s were commercial and (most would say) artistic failures: Second-Hand Hearts (1981, though shot before Being There), Lookin' To Get Out (1982), The Slugger's Wife (1985) and 8 Million Ways To Die (1986).  He may have been at the top of the heap, but he got involved in projects that were ill-considered, with producers who took the final cut away from him.  Perhaps he would have recovered from this tailspin, but after a couple TV pilots (Beverly Hills Buntz and Jake's Journey) he died, not yet 60.

His artistic story isn't that uncommon.  There were a fair number of Hollywood directors who flourished in the free-flowing 70s but never reached those heights again: Bogdanovich, Lucas, Friedkin, Mazursky, Rafelson, Coppola, Altman. (Dawson notes this but then goes on to say they "hit a slump during the 'me' decade of the 1980s from which most would never recover." I'm used to easy swipes at the 80s, but the "me" decade was the 1970s.)

I think Ashby's masterpiece is Being There.  It gives Peter Sellers a chance to show what he can do, but it's an odd piece that requires perfect tone and pacing.  Without a director or editor like Ashby to keep it under control, it could easily get too silly on one side or boring on the other.  Instead, he ended up with a classic comedy, unlike any other. (Though I'm not sure of the ending, which was Ashby's idea.)