#1260
Post
by bottlesofsmoke » Mon Jan 22, 2024 3:46 pm
I read Stephen M. Silverman's Stanley Donen bio Dancing on the Ceiling and it was very much a mixed bag. First and foremost, Donen seems to have been really involved in the book, giving a lot of access and in-depth interviews. Silverman also got to talk to a lot of people involved (it was published in '96 so a lot of people were still alive) That's good because it provides a lot of insight, and when the book is talking about things that are really personal to Donen, like Two for the Road it shines. One of the chapters on Singin' in the Rain takes the form of an oral history with new and archival contributions from lots of people involved in making the film, which is a interesting way of covering it.
The trade off is any of Donen's bad films are mostly ignored, handwaved away, or written about in such a way that makes it seem like anyone but Donen's fault. Saturn 3 is literally covered in a short footnote that is mostly an anecdote about some clever thing Donen said to an actor. Silverman also takes up Donen's ax to grind with Gene Kelly, essentially crediting Donen with almost everything good in their collaboration and blaming anything bad on Kelly. Worst of all though, Silverman seems to believe that in order to boost Donen he has to take shots at Vincente Minnelli, including negatively comparing his musical films to Donen's using biased language and unsubstantiated claims: Minnelli is "slobbered over" by auteurists while "the consensus among cineasts is that Donen is the undisputed master of the movie musical" and that "Analysts of the musical genre" prefer Donen over Minnelli. It sounds like a toothpaste commercial: "nine of ten cineasts and analysts prefer Donen to Minnelli." Who these cineasts and analysts are, he doesn't say. I'm not even saying one is better than the other, just taking issue with the way it is presented.
It's obvious that Donen felt slighted compared to Minnelli and Kelly and that bleeds through in this book, as Silverman keeps bringing it up, including saying that Minnelli was "illiterate" with CinemaScope, which is one the crazier things I've read. (He also takes several shots at Busby Berkeley and as well as Bob Fosse, calling Sweet Charity "moribund.") The "tear down this to build up that" approach to criticism is one of my least favorite, and this book is absolutely guilty of that, even worse, because you get the sense that a lot of it is coming from Donen. Much of the book is still worth reading with lots of good insight, again mostly coming straight from Donen.
Hopefully, we'll get another critical bio of Donen sometime; his works deserves it and so do movie fans.
I'm also reading Shawn Levy's Jerry Lewis bio King of Comedy, which definitely does not shy away from its subject's faults and missteps, though his movies strangely get short shrift for such a long book - it mostly focuses on his personal life and off-screen business. Generally, Lewis-directed films get more discussion and analysis, especially The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, and The Nutty Professor, but the Tashlin-directed films get a few lines about the start and end of production but little to no analysis - even his television work gets far more coverage. Part of the problem seems to be that Levy doesn't think most of Lewis' movies are very good, he says that The Nutty Professor is so far and away the best thing he's ever done and that everything else pales in comparison, which may be why they don't get much discussion.
The most interesting thing about Lewis off-screen - besides just how crazy and mercurial he was - is that he was apparently obsessed with making a film version of The Catcher in the Rye in the late 50s, early 60s, starring himself as Holden Caulfield. he even went so far as trying to befriend Salinger's sister in order to use her influence to get Salinger to sell him the rights.