So this little movie you may have heard of called
The Birth of a Nation (2016) is opening today. Back in January when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival,
Birth was immediately pegged as the antidote to #Oscarssowhite. Nate Parker's telling of the Nat Turner slave revolt quickly swept the festival and had critics
ooh'ing and ahh'ing into their columns. Parker was praised for his directorial debut, the film was snatched up by Fox Searchlight for a Festival record $17.5 million, and Oscars were predicted.
Then the news came to light that Parker had been involved in a rape case whose victim had committed suicide back in 2012- and all hell broke loose. Boycotts, accusations of Hollywood racism, and Twitter wars have made the story about
Birth of a Nation less about the movie-
and more about its director and star. The question now is not just whether this is a good movie- but if going to see it (and liking it) somehow is tacit support of Parker and his past.
This story is as old as the Hollywood Hills.
Here are my Top 5 famous filmmakers whose lives got in the way of their movies:
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
You knows those times when you have a spectacular party in a hotel with lots of wine, women, and song and one of your drunk guests gets really sick and dies? Well, that's what happened to popular silent comedy star Fatty Arbuckle in 1921.
Arbuckle was relaxing with friends in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco following a grueling shooting schedule when one of his groupies, Miss Virginia Rappe, became very ill. But the party was in high gear so the hotel doctor gave her some morphine and went on his way. Two days later Rappe went to the hospital where she died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.
This sad circumstance turned into a full-on media circus when wild rumors were told to police about Arbuckle raping Rappe with a Coke bottle- or the massive star bursting her inner organs by being on top during lovemaking. Press moguls like William Randolph Hearst had a field day playing up the "hedonistic Hollywood star" angle and Arbuckle was arrested for manslaughter and put on trial. It took three trials to finally gain Arbuckle's acquital- but the damage was done.
The image of the goofy fat guy morphed into a hulking sex-hungry rapist and the public turned on Arbuckle. His films were banned and in some cases burned. He became a Hollywood pariah who could only find work as a director- and only if he used a pseudonym (William Goodrich). Arbuckle became one of the poster boys for Hollywood excess and religious organizations whipped themselves into a frenzy decrying the movies and the people who made them- ultimately leading to the rise of Will H. Hayes, the author of the code that would shape movies for decades to come.
Arbuckle would die at age 46 never able to fully resurrect his film career. It's a shame. His early silent comedy shorts are classic and are sometimes spoken of in the same breath as Charlie Chaplin's. He also proved to be a deft director- one of my favorites being the
The Red Mill (1927), starring
Marion Davies (ironically, W.R. Hearst's mistress). But Fatty was never able to live down that infamous party.
Leni Riefenstahl
This Nazi propagandist/apologist didn't start off as a director. In fact, until she was approached by Hitler in 1933 to direct a documentary about the fifth Nuremberg rally, Riefenstahl was known more as an actress and had only directed one film, 1932's
The Blue Light. But thanks to Hitler, Riefenstahl would direct two influential documentaries
, and go down in history as the Third Reich's most famous director.
Triumph of the Will (1935), which documented the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, was a huge success, and gained Riefenstahl international attention during a time when Hitler was still just that kooky, screaming European guy. When Germany hosted the 1936 Olympics, Hitler asked Riefenstahl to document the glory of athletics (hopefully German-dominated athletics) and her footage became
Olympia (1938).
Riefenstahl came to America to promote
Olympia in November of 1938, and things went well for her until a little thing called
Kristallnacht happened. Once Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Riefenstahl and her films were perosna non grata outside of Germany, and after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed, Riefenstahl had, as they say. "a lotta splainin' to do." In four trials after the war, she denied being an active propagandist for the Nazis and was never formally convicted of anything. But one look at her work and it's difficult to make the argument that this fanatical perfectionist was unaware of what was going on. The Nazi cloud hung over her the rest of her life and Riefenstahl would make only two more films:
Lowlands (1954) and the documentary
Underwater Impressions (2002)- which critics seemed to like- perhaps because it was about fish and not German dictators.
I finally forced myself to watch
Triumph and
Olympia, and I have to say, they are visually stunning. Riefenstahl's grasp of the power of perspective and scope and early technologies like slow-motion filming and tracking shots is impressive. She turns the human body into a visual artwork, whether clothed or nude, singular or massed together- creating the image of the greatness of our human selves. The problem is, it's all Nazi propaganda. And that's a crime that should stick.
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan's list of stage and screen successes is awe-inspiring. With the premiere stagings of such classics as
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), and
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Kazan was revered on the Great White Way. Film successes like
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Gentlemen's Agreement (1947) (Best Director Oscar)
, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954) (another Best Director Oscar)
, and
East of Eden (1955) made him equally bankable on the West Coast.
But in 1952, Kazan was called in to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities- HUAC if you're nasty. The atmosphere in the theater community in New York and the film colony in Hollywood during the McCarthy Red-Hunting was thick with fear. Naming people you believed were Communists could sink the careers of fellow artists and friends, but not naming them could get you put in jail. Those who hoped not to make that awful Sophie's Choice just prayed that they wouldn't be called to testify.
But Kazan was too big a fish to avoid the pan, and once he was in it, he wound-up naming eight former members of the Group Theater including playwright Clifford Odets. His defense was that he didn't name anyone the Committee didn't already know about- but many saw his testimony as the worst kind of betrayal. It was a stigma that lasted as late as 1999 when Kazan accepted an Honorary Oscar- and some in the audience refused to stand or clap.
Kazan keenly felt the shade from many in the theatrical community after his testimony and in
Waterfront, took the opportunity to address his critics. Marlon Brando's character Terry is tormented by the knowledge of how the crooked union-boss (the wonderfully belligerent Lee J. Cobb) has been using murder and manipulation to keep control of his dock turf. Terry has the opportunity to squeal to the authorities- both moral and legal, but should he do it? The film seems to say, yes squeal- but you are going to pay for it. Kazan's career didn't necessarily pay for his naming names, but it is an issue that haunts his work. I, for one, could never boycott Kazan's
Streetcar, Waterfront or
A Face in the Crowd (1957). They're just too damned good.
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski can't not be fucked-up. The famous director survived the Krakow ghetto in WWII as a child and then, as an adult, lost his wife and unborn child to the vicious knives of Charlie Manson's murder gang. But even before the tragedy of the Manson killings, Polanski's films like
Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) (Oscar-nommed for Best Director) reflected a dark sensibility- an acceptance of violence, deception, and delusion as a part of life.
Then in 1977, Polanski was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old girl. There is no question about guilt in the matter. He pled guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" as part of a plea bargain. But when Polanski got wind that the judge on the case was going to sentence him to fifty years in prison instead of psychiatric evaluation and probation, Polanski jumped on a plane to Europe and he's never come back. He currently lives in Paris and is fighting an ongoing
extradition battle.
Polanski has made eleven films since his departure from the U.S.
The Pianist (2002) won him a Best Director Oscar, but like Kazan, some in the audience did not stand to applaud. Conspicuous was old friend Jack Nicholson who remained seated. But in all honesty, his post-exile work can't hold a candle to his earlier films. It's hard to make Hollywood films when you can't set foot in the country I guess.
I know some people give me side-eye when I talk about how much I love Polanski's earlier films, but I can't help it.
Repulsion,
Rosemary, and
Chinatown (1974) are brilliant- despite the fact they were made by a justice-dodging sex offender.
Woody Allen
Nothing can spoil a dinner/cocktail party faster than bringing up the personal life of Woody Allen. The two camps are pretty clear- and pretty righteous. Either you believe that Allen is a child molester or he's the victim of his vengeful ex. But no matter what camp you reside in, it doesn't change the fact that Allen is one of the best American film directors ever. Ever.
I could spend all day talking about my favorite Allen films:
Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Another Woman (1988), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), and
Midnight in Paris (2011). And those are just my favorites of the ones I've seen. I'm curious about whether I'll like
Interiors (1978), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Match Point (2005) and anything he's put out after
Blue Jasmine (2013).
I would write a blog post about my Top 5 Woodys if it was possible for me to do so without having to either defend or condemn him. I don't intend to engage in that conversation- well at least not until I've had a couple glasses of chardonnay. Let's just say that in this case, I am separating the artist from his art. And if there's a room in Hell for me for doing that, I hope it's full of Arbuckle, Kazan, Polanski, and Allen movies.
