Flatliners

Flatliners (1990) may be best remembered as a film that featured a cast of young actors either on the cusp of being bonafide movie stars (William Baldwin) or who were already there (Julia Roberts). Featuring the likes of Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon, you’d be hard pressed to assemble this cast now but back then the film’s director Joel Schumacher had the Midas touch, making his name with the Brat Pack dramedy St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) and the popcorn thrill ride cum horror film The Lost Boys (1987). Flatliners was an attempt at more serious, weightier fare albeit filtered through his commercial sensibilities. It features a top notch premise: five medical students attempt to cheat death by killing themselves for several minutes so as to uncover any evidence of an afterlife. However, once they’re revived what they experienced while dead comes back to literally haunt them.


Flatliners came out at a time when Hollywood was fascinated with death and the afterlife as similarly-themed films Ghost (1990) and Jacob’s Ladder (1990) all came out in the same year. Flatliners resides somewhere in the middle as it shares some of the romantic aspirations and notions of forgiveness with Ghost while also including some of the otherworldly thriller aspects of Jacob’s Ladder. Art directed within an inch of its life by Schumacher, Flatliners was a commercial success (with that cast how could it not?) and received mostly positive notices. It has by and large disappeared from the public consciousness only to pop up occasionally on television. I’ve always been fascinated by its overtly stylish look and its thoroughly unlikable protagonist. Actually, all of the main characters typify the materialistic “me generation” that came of age in the 1980’s. I also admire Peter Filardi’s awkward attempts to tackle substantial issues, like life after death, bullying, and infidelity, in his screenplay even if he isn’t always successful or we’re distracted by Jan de Bont’s atmospheric cinematography.

Schumacher sets the right tone visually as he introduces the film’s central protagonist, Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland), clad in the ‘80s uniform of sunglasses, trenchcoat and black shirt and pants because, y’know, he’s a got a dark side. The camera zooms in on Nelson who says to no one in particular, “Today is a good day to die.” While all of this is happening, the soundtrack blasts an ominous beat straight out of a John Carpenter film only to inject a pretentious choir vocalizing over top. Fortunately, we’re spared any more of this sonic claptrap as Schumacher slam edits us right in the middle of an emergency room as David Labraccio (Kevin Bacon) frantically tries to save a poor woman in bad shape. She’s wheeled into a room so painfully stark white that it resembles the strange bedroom at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Labraccio is a brilliant but impulsive medical student who goes ahead and saves the patient’s life anyway when the doctor doesn’t show up fast enough. He is the brilliant yet angry rebel. He’s such a non-conformist that when Nelson goes looking for him he finds the guy rappelling out his dorm window and down the side of the building because, y’know, he doesn’t have time for the stairs.

Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts) is the smart med student who keeps her colleagues at a distance. She’s fascinated with life after death because her father committed suicide. Rachel does rounds in a ward with a few elderly patients whom she dotes on, hoping to get some insight into what it’s like to be so close to death. The romance between Labraccio and Rachel feels tacked on. In one scene, they’re good friends and in another they’re sleeping in bed together. It feels like a scene was edited out somewhere in post-production that showed them getting together. Joe Hurley (William Baldwin) is the ladies man with a thing for videotaping his many conquests in-between classes with his fellow med students. Joe’s past is the weakest of the bunch because of its abrupt conclusion. He only seems remorseful because he got caught.

Nelson is a master manipulator who knows exactly what to say to the four other med students so that they will help kill himself all in the name of fame and fortune – oh, and science, of course (that’s merely a side effect). We are introduced to Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt) repeatedly reciting his future job title as he is already self-mythologizing himself. The film quickly and efficiently establishes the main characters and everyone but poor Steckle gets a backstory that provides motivation for why they are willing to kill themselves for a glimpse of the afterlife. I guess, since he’s the only one who doesn’t die and is then resuscitated, he gets marginalized, which is too bad because Oliver Platt is such an intriguing actor to watch and he’s basically reduced to the role of whiney complainer with the occasional comic relief. He is the handwringing Mother Hen with a sarcastic sense of humor, like when he calls Nelson on his ulterior motives for what he’s doing: “This isn’t for mankind, this is for Nelson. Why do I suddenly see you on 60 Minutes sandwiched in-between Andy Rooney and a Subaru commercial?”

Kiefer Sutherland is a little too good at playing a Preppie prick (also see Bright Lights, Big City) as Nelson is an egomaniac looking to make a name for himself. He has never been afraid to play unlikable characters (see Stand by Me or Mirrors) and despite his karmic comeuppance, there is no real indication that Nelson will change all that much despite gaining closure on his past. There is a delicious irony that we get to see a little kid kick the crap out of him – something I’m sure we won’t see on his career reel if the American Film Institute ever decides to celebrate his filmography. One can see what might have drawn Sutherland to this role as he gets to literally shed his pretty boy image by becoming increasingly battered and scarred over the course of the film. Kevin Bacon is good as the skeptic who goes under in order to put his atheism to the test. He plays the voice of reason. Blessed with his family’s good look, William Baldwin is well-cast as the narcissistic pretty boy. The success of this film led to him headlining Ron Howard’s ode to firefighters, Backdraft (1991) and Sliver (1993), an erotic thriller with Sharon Stone. Julia Roberts makes for a credible caregiver but I don’t quite buy her as a brilliant med student.

Flatliners features one ridiculously over-art directed set after another. For example, the room where our med student protagonists practice on cadavers resembles the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not a med school, but it does look fantastic and creates a semi-solemn mood with its impressive-looking Gothic architecture. Check out Nelson’s “apartment” with its high ceilings, ornate paneling and stunning window frames that look like it came out of an Architectural Digest magazine photoshoot. How does a med student afford a place like that? Of course, he could be a trust fund baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In case we didn’t get the whole life and death thing that the main characters wrestle with through the entire film, Schumacher makes sure we do by repeatedly lingering on statues of angels and an engraving of a man in a tug of war with Death while that damn choir sings on the soundtrack again! Hell, we even get a shot of Nelson standing right next to a statute with angel wings. Ok, Schumacher, we get it! The night scenes feature slick city streets and smoke billowing in the background for no apparent reason but it does look cool.

The film’s concept of the afterlife consists of the sins of our past – with Nelson it is accidentally killing a young boy when he was a child; Labraccio verbally abused a little girl when he was in grade school; for Rachel it was witnessing her father committing suicide; and for Joe it is all of his sexual conquests coming back to haunt him. Flatliners equates going to the afterlife with an adrenaline rush – the ultimate extreme sport. The flatline/afterlife sequences are obviously the highlight of the film and are beautifully shot by then-cinematographer, later film director, Jan de Bont who expertly utilizes the widescreen frame. He helps give the streets of Chicago a nightmarish look right out of Dante’s Inferno with alleyway fires and then switches to a cool blue look when Nelson goes through a maze of underground passages in the city subway system.

Labraccio’s afterlife sequence looks frightening enough as it takes place on an atmospherically-lit subway but becomes unintentionally funny when he is trash-talked by a little black girl. It’s supposed to be scary but illicits belly laughs as opposed to chills. Much more successful is Rachel’s nightmarish visions of her father’s suicide. She interrupts him in a bathroom saturated with hellish red light as he shoots himself up with heroin. Roberts’ reaction to this primal scene is pretty bad as her attempt at emoting fails. The most extravagant afterlife sequences are reserved for Nelson, of course, because he is the central protagonist. His childhood nemesis is much more intimidating because of his vengeful demeanor.

Then-unknown Boston screenwriter Peter Filardi got the idea for Flatliners in 1988 based on two sources of inspiration. A close friend of his had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia after an operation and had a near-death experience. Filardi was shaken up by what had happened and it “shook up my imagination too.” He realized that death hadn’t really been explored for his twentysomething generation and thought, “What is more intriguing than death itself?” He wrote the script during the Irangate scandal and the United States elections with words like “accountability” being used a lot. From this, he conceived of a group of “young, ‘90s kids who would learn a lesson,” from experimenting with death. He researched medical technology and CPR techniques. Filardi wrote the first draft in two months but wasn’t sure if it was ready to be read. He continued to work on it while writing screenplays for television.

Meanwhile, his former agent Ben Conway shopped the Flatliners script around Hollywood in January 1989 where it quickly became a hot commodity with a six-figure bidding war breaking out among several major producers. In one week, five bids were received with producer Scott Rudin, who had a production deal with Columbia Pictures, coming out on top. However, he reportedly violated protocol by bidding against another producer on the lot – Michael Douglas and his production company Stonebridge Entertainment. Then studio president Dawn Steel stepped in and gave the project to Douglas while Rudin left Columbia for Paramount Studios. Douglas sent the script to director Joel Schumacher during the summer of ’89. The director was in pre-production on his passion project, an adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera, but found himself drawn to the themes of atonement and forgiveness in Filardi’s script.

Schumacher was hired to direct and worked with Filardi to fine-tune the script, including changing the setting. The screenwriter had originally set it in his hometown of Boston but the director changed it to Chicago because he preferred the locations. Filardi also originally envisioned a more realistic approach but Schumacher went for a more Gothic look. Before the start of principal photography, Filardi asked Schumacher about this and the director told him, “I want the film to look as daring as the characters are daring.” To his credit, the director had the screenwriter on set every day doing rewrites when necessary and listening to actors’ suggestions, sometimes incorporating them into the dialogue. To prepare for the film, Schumacher read books on near-death experiences and listened to tapes of people relating their experiences. The cast did some medical research and acquired video tapes of medical procedures. There was also a doctor and a nurse on standby when the actors were on set dealing with needles and CPR equipment.

Flatliners enjoyed most positive reviews among mainstream critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “There were some hazards in this project – with the wrong note, they easily could look silly – and yet they take their chances and pull it off. Flatliners is an original, intelligent thriller, well-directed by Joel Schumacher. In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “But when taken on its own stylish terms, Flatliners is greatly entertaining. Viewers are likely to go along with this film instantly or else ridicule it to death. Its atmospheric approach doesn't admit much middle ground. The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley wrote, “Flatliners is a heart-stopping, breathtakingly sumptuous haunted house of a movie that takes off where Dracula and Dante left off and CPR began.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, “The cast is similarly exemplary, a quintet of outstanding equals, and for all the deadliness of its conservative conclusion, Peter Filardi’s script, his first to be produced, is alive with smart med school talk.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna wrote, “Director Joel Schumacher taps his strengths: the ensemble work of St. Elmo’s Fire combined with the neo-gothic scares of The Lost Boys.”

However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “D” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Julia Roberts' fans will be disappointed to see that her follow-up to Pretty Woman (this one was made before anyone knew she was a star) is such a dud, and that she has a relatively minor role in it. The part doesn't give her much of a chance — but then she doesn't do much with it except to stand around and look beautiful and concerned.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilmington felt that the cast was trapped “in this great cavernous museum of a movie, with a dry little pea of an idea rattling down echoing hallways. It almost seems a cheat that the filmmakers don't show any inkling that emptiness and flashy camp may tinge their ‘philosophy.’”

It may seem like I’m criticizing Flatliners for its unrealistic stylistic flourishes but they are an important reason why I continue to be fascinated with this film after all these years. It is such a product of its times and has a fantastic premise as well. It’s hard to sympathize with most of these characters because they are self-absorbed in nature and so it is up to the actors and their natural charisma to get us to care about what happens to them, hence the casting of people like Bacon, Roberts and Sutherland who were all popular movie stars at the time. Roberts and Sutherland in particular were front and center on the pop culture radar having recently become romantically involved during filming. Ultimately, Flatliners is about sins that must be absolved and perceived guilt that must be eliminated. Both of which stem from their respective childhoods. Once they confront the sources of these issues and apologize or get closure only then are they able to be redeemed.

 
For further reading, check out Erich Kuersten's awesome review over at his blog, Acidemic. His article is actually what inspired me to write my own.

SOURCES

Emerson, Jim. “To Sutherland Work is More Than a Job.” Orange County Register. August 7, 1990.

Fox, David J. “Flatliners Rookie Writer Hits It Big.” Los Angeles Times. August 7, 1990.

Stanley, John. “Flatliners New Writer is Dead-On.” San Francisco Chronicle. August 5, 1990.

Van Gelder, Lawrence. “At the Movies: Life and Death.” The New York Times. August 10, 1990.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

BLOGGER'S NOTE: I actually wrote two different versions of this article but wasn't happy with either one and decided to merge the two to something approximating what I wanted to convey.


The year is 1992 and David Lynch has just come off of, arguably, two of the most successful years in his career. Twin Peaks was a critics darling, revered as one of the most groundbreaking television shows in recent memory. Concurrently, Wild at Heart (1990) received the coveted Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Then, things started to go wrong. ABC canceled the show after the ratings sharply declined in the second season after the murder of Laura Palmer was solved. Two other shows that Lynch worked on, American Chronicles and On the Air did not even last a full season. The proverbial icing on this rancid cake was the film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), which debuted at Cannes Film Festival in 1992 to a hostile reaction from the audience and received an unholy critical ass-kicking. It went on to commercial and critical failure in the United States. How did Lynch go from media darling to media pariah with overwhelming negative reaction towards Fire Walk With Me from even fans of the show?


Lynch ended the T.V. show with multiple cliff hangers – most significantly, Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) was possessed by the evil spirit, BOB (Frank Silva), while his good self was trapped in a supernatural realm known as the Black Lodge. Instead of resolving this storyline (and many others), Lynch decided to make a prequel to the series. The filmmaker remembers, "At the end of the series, I felt sad. I couldn't get myself to leave the world of Twin Peaks. I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside. I wanted to see her live, move and talk." Fire Walk With Me focuses on the murder investigation of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley), who was killer BOB's first victim, and with the emphasis on the last seven days of Laura's life.


The 1990s have become known as the age of irony for the horror genre. Self-reflexive humor, as epitomized by the Scream trilogy, replaced formulaic slasher franchises like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street during the 1980s. One of the few films that went against this trend was Fire Walk With Me. Lynch’s film is not usually regarded as a horror film per se, but if looked at closely, does contain many conventions of the genre (i.e. the final girl against the malevolent monster). However, the veteran filmmaker pushes these rules as far as they can possibly be stretched. Film critic Kim Newman observed in his review for Sight and Sound magazine that Lynch’s movie “demonstrates just how tidy, conventional and domesticated the generic horror movie of the 1980s and 1990s has become.”


Right from the opening credits, Lynch establishes that this film will not be like the T.V. series and also it’s horror genre credentials. A television is set to an abstract, white noise image with ominous sounding music provided by Angelo Badalamenti playing over the soundtrack. An axe comes crashing through the T.V. followed immediately by a woman’s piercing scream. This opening sequence establishes the dark, foreboding mood that will permeate the entire film. This also feels like Lynch's statement on the unfair cancellation of his show. It is easy to see why Fire Walk With Me was a shock to some fans of the show. The first third of the film sets up a sharp contrast to the series.

Like the beginning of Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood (1971), the events of Fire Walk With Me are set in motion by the murder of a woman. Lynch also presents an inhospitable world: FBI agents Chet Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) encounter resistance at every step of their investigation. They are given a cryptic briefing by their superior Gordon Cole (David Lynch); they are forced to deal with a belligerent local sheriff and his deputy (when they ask for the dead girl’s ring, the sheriff replies, “We’ve got a phone. It has a little ring.”); and the locals offer little help (“I don’t know shit from shinola!” says a man at the local diner). By and large, the detectives are unable to figure out the identity of the killer. This is certainly a far cry from the upstanding Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean) and the friendly townsfolk of Twin Peaks.


One of the criticisms leveled at Fire Walk With Me was the lack of humor. However, the first third of the film is one of the best examples of Lynch's wry, absurdist comedic sensibilities. The first appearance of Agent Desmond has him and several other agents busting a school bus full of crying kids. It is a classic, surreal Lynchian image. Other examples of his dry sense of humor are Sam's estimation of how much the sheriff's office furniture is worth and how Desmond deals with the belligerent deputy. It is not what they say rather how they say it that makes these moments funny.


Donna: Do you think if you were falling in space that you'd slow down after a while, or go faster and faster?


Laura: Faster and faster, and for a long time you wouldn't feel anything, then you'd burst into fire, forever. And the angels wouldn't help you because they've all gone away.


Once the film goes back to Twin Peaks, the mood becomes noticeably darker and foreboding as the last week of Laura's life plays out. Lynch shows an unflinching depiction of a young woman consumed by drugs, sex and, most harrowingly and disturbing of all, a victim of incest by her father, Leland (Ray Wise) under the guise of being possessed by a malevolent supernatural force known only as BOB.


Twin Peaks is a particularly atmospheric setting with indications that something ominous lurks out in the woods. Laura not only meets her demise among the trees but a grove of trees also serves as an entry point into an otherworldly dimension where the killer resides. The film's most impressive, show-stopping sequence is Laura and Donna's (Moira Kelly) trip to a Canadian roadhouse with two men. This sequence is an intense audio-visual assault on the senses. The entire frame is saturated by a hellish red color scheme, punctuated by a pulsating white strobe light. Over the soundtrack is a deafening bass-heavy song with a rockabilly guitar twang cranked up so loud that the characters have to yell over top of it. This powerful audio-visual combination fully immerses the viewer in an unpredictable setting that echoes the scene at Ben's in Blue Velvet (1986) and the introduction of Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart.

Laura Palmer is the final girl archetype but deeply flawed. She is arguably one of Lynch’s most complex and fully realized characterizations. She immerses herself in all of these vices, which distracts from the painful incestuous relationship with her father and BOB’s desire to possess her. The push and pull of these opposing forces are too much for her and this only increases her self-destructive impulses. Sheryl Lee does an incredible job conveying Laura’s overwhelming sadness at the realization that the sweet girl she once was is rapidly disappearing and try as she might there is nothing she can do to stop it. Lee is able to show the different sides of her character. There is the confident, aggressive side that picks up strangers and has sex with them. There is the scared little girl that is dominated by her father. And there is the sweet high school girl whose reserves of inner strength — that she uses to fight off BOB — are gradually being depleted. It is an intricate portrayal that requires Lee to display a staggering range of emotion.


BOB is ostensibly the monster of the film. With his disheveled, unshaven look of a dirty drifter, he is the evil side of Leland and a frightening metaphor for the incestuous relationship between father and daughter. BOB is a demon of some sort, a serial killer who delights in taking on hosts, such as Leland, and using them as instruments of evil and to indulge in his depraved appetites. Kim Newman observed that, “In the monster father figure of Leland/BOB, Lynch has a bogeyman who puts Craven’s Freddy Krueger to shame by bringing into the open incest, abuse and brutality which the Elm Street movies conceal behind MTV surrealism and flip wisecracks.”


There are some truly frightening and unsettling set pieces in Fire Walk With Me. Laura comes home for dinner and her father scolds her for not washing her hands. The scene goes from being one of typical domestic strife to one of unsettling horror when he starts questioning her about a necklace with an intensity that is not the sweet Leland Palmer we know and love from the T.V. series. It is an uncomfortable scene that is beautifully played by Ray Wise who never goes over the top with his performance. The next scene shows Leland getting ready for bed with a menacing look on his face — he is clearly under the thrall of BOB. Then, something happens. It is like something washes over him as his expression shifts to one of sadness and he starts to cry. BOB has left him temporarily and Leland is back in control again but with the knowledge of how badly he treated Laura at dinner. He goes into her room and tells her how much he loves her. It is a touching moment, one of love and compassion, in an otherwise bleak and cruel film. Wise does an incredible job at conveying the subtle shifts of personalities, from the menacing BOB to the sweet Leland and the inner turmoil that exists in his character.

There are little touches, such as the twisted wife (Grace Zabriskie) who is driven crazy by her evil husband a la Cry of the Banshee (1970) where an equally evil husband (played by Vincent Price) also drove his wife insane. There is the truly frightening moment where Laura goes to visit Harold Smith (Lenny Von Dohlen), a kindly shut-in to whom Laura delivers Meals on Wheels. She also confides in him and tries to convey the divided nature of herself and for a brief, startling moment, her evil nature makes itself visible to Harold, shocking both of them.


Even the birth of the film was beset by problems. The T.V. show had only been canceled for a month when it was announced that Lynch would be making a Twin Peaks movie. On July 11, 1991, Ken Scherer, CEO of Lynch/Frost Productions, said that the film was off because Kyle MacLachlan did not want to reprise his role as Agent Cooper. A month later, the actor changed his mind and the film was back on – albeit without cast members Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn due to scheduling conflicts.


In a 1995 interview, Fenn revealed why she really opted out of the film. "I was extremely disappointed in the way the second season got off track. As far as Fire Walk With Me, it was something that I chose not be part of." As a result, her character was cut from the script and Boyle was recast with Moira Kelly (With Honors). MacLachlan also resented what had happened during the second season. "David and Mark were only around for the first series...I think we all felt a little abandoned. So I was fairly resentful when the film, Fire Walk With Me came round." Even though MacLachlan agreed to be in the film, he wanted a smaller role (he only worked for five days on the film), forcing Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels to re-write the screenplay so that Agent Desmond investigated the murder of Teresa Banks instead of Agent Cooper.


To make matters worse, Lynch's creative partner in the series, Mark Frost opted out of the film as well. The relationship between the two men had become strained during the second season when Lynch went off to make Wild at Heart; leaving Frost with what he felt was most of the work on the show. Frost was busy with his directorial debut, Storyville (1992), but one can read between the lines. His absence on Fire Walk With Me was his way of voicing his displeasure with Lynch.

Fire Walk With Me debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992 to a hostile reaction from both audiences and critics. Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, "Mr. Lynch's taste for brain-dead grotesque has lost its novelty." Her fellow Times reviewer, Vincent Canby agreed: “It's not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.” USA Today gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it, "a morbidly joyless affair.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “In a strange way, Fire Walk With Me is tipped too far toward the dark side. What's missing is an organic vision of goodness. The movie is a true folly-almost nothing in it adds up-yet it isn't jokey and smug like Lynch's last film, Wild at Heart.” Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers wrote, "And though the movie ups the TV ante on nudity, language and violence, Lynch's control falters. But if inspiration is lacking, talent is not. Count Lynch down but never out.” The film's editor, Mary Sweeney, commented on why it was on the receiving end of such hostility: "They so badly wanted it to be like the TV show, and it wasn't. It was a David Lynch feature. And people were very angry about it. They felt betrayed."


To this day, Fire Walk With Me remains Lynch’s most maligned and underappreciated film. Fans of the show missed the folksy humor but that is not what the film is about — it is Laura’s last dark days. By paring down many of these elements that made the show endearing to its fanbase, it ended up alienating many of them. The film has aged well and is starting to enjoy a reappraisal of its merits. Sheryl Lee is very proud of it: "I have had so many people, victims of incest, approach me since the film was released, so glad that it had been made because it helped them to release a lot." To his credit, Lynch looks back on his film with no regrets. "I feel bad that Fire Walk With Me did no business and that a lot of people hate the film. I really like the film. But it had a lot of baggage with it.” The director may have upset fans of the show but for fans of his feature film work, Fire Walk With Me is more consistent with their much darker tone. Once the film shifts focus to Laura’s descent into darkness, Lynch is relentless in his depiction of her downward spiral — one of the most harrowing depictions of a person coming apart at the seams. As a result, Fire Walk With Me is one of the best and truly terrifying horror films ever to come out of the 1990s.

SOURCES

Persons, Dan. “Son of Twin Peaks.” Cinefantastique. October 1992.

Bright Lights, Big City

In the late 1980s, Michael J. Fox attempted to break out of the typecasted roles he found himself stuck in – light, breezy comedies like Teen Wolf (1985) and The Secret of My Success (1987). He also didn’t want to be known just for his role as the ultra-conservative Alex P. Keaton on the hit television sitcom Family Ties. To this end, he tried his hand at three dramatic departures: the gritty, blue collar Paul Schrader film Light of Day (1987), playing a musician in a bar band; a naive American foot soldier faced with a tough moral dilemma in Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War (1989); and a cocaine-addicted fact checker whose life is falling apart in Bright Lights, Big City (1988). You can argue the merits of each film but clearly the mainstream moviegoing public was not interested in seeing Fox’s serious side and all three films failed to set the box office on fire. The critics were just as unforgiving and the films received mixed reactions at best, or outright savaging at worst.

Out of these three films, I find Bright Lights, Big City to be the most interesting one, especially in terms of Fox’s acting. The film is an adaptation of Jay McInerney’s best-selling novel of the same name and the production was plagued by all kinds of problems which makes the fact that the finished product is as coherent as it is that much more impressive. For all of its flaws, the constant is Fox’s excellent performance as a struggling New York writer trying to figure out why his wife Amanda (Phoebe Cates) left him and why his life is a mess.

“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning, but here you are...”

And with these words both the book and the film begin with Jamie Conway (Michael J. Fox) drunk and coked to the gills on what he calls “Bolivian Marching Powder.” With McInerney adapting his own book he is able to preserve its distinctive second person narrative which only reinforces Jamie’s self-absorbed state of mind. For example, there are several shots of Jamie looking at himself in various mirrors as he recognizes less and less of the person staring back at him. He works as a fact checker for Gotham magazine, a fictionalized version of The New Yorker. What he really wants is to be working in the fiction department. It’s interesting to see all the grunt work Jamie has to do at his job in the days before the proliferation of computers the omnipresence of the Internet. At home, he works on his novel on a clunky old typewriter. It is these things that date Bright Lights, Big City in a wonderful way, especially for those of us who can remember these things.

The film’s most glaring flaws include an ill-conceived dream sequence involving “the coma baby,” the story of an unborn child trapped in a woman in a coma as documented on a daily basis by The New York Post. In the dream, Jamie sees the baby through the mother’s transparent belly. Not only does the baby look obviously fake, Fox does its voice as well. I guess the selfish child is supposed to be him or something like that. This sequence always takes me out of the film temporarily. Then, there’s the scene where Jamie and his best friend Tad Allagash (Kiefer Sutherland) break into the Gotham offices to plant a live ferret in his ex-boss’ office. Naturally, all hell breaks loose and the film’s tone veers dangerously close to slapstick as the understandably freaked out animal bites Jamie’s hand and almost tears off Allagash’s balls. They are caught in the act by Alex (Jason Robards), the veteran staff member who spends most of his time drunk, rambling on about working with the likes of William Faulkner and Dorothy Parker. Alex is almost taken out by a suit of armor in a kind of goofy moment. This scene isn’t quite as bad as the coma baby dream sequence but both could easily be removed from the film and no one would miss them. Interestingly, both of these scenes are in the novel but some stuff just doesn’t translate as well on the big screen as it does on the page where your imagination can create its own images.

Michael J. Fox does a really good job showing the gradual spiraling of his character, like when Jamie shows up to a fashion show featuring his wife as one of the runway models. He arrives a sweaty, disheveled mess, bribes the bartender (a then-unknown David Hyde Pierce) to pour him a couple of drinks even though the bar is closed, and then tops it all off by trying to get his wife’s attention by attempting to climb up onto the catwalk only to get ejected for his troubles. During this scene, Fox has a glazed look in his eyes of someone clearly not fully in control of their faculties. If that wasn’t bad enough, when spotted on the street by his brother (Charlie Schlatter), Jamie runs away, sprinting through the streets like a madman until he loses his sibling on the subway. The end of this perfect day comes when Jamie has dinner with a kind, former co-worker (Swoosie Kurtz) and proceeds to get drunk and make a clumsy advance towards her that is intentionally awkward and uncomfortable to watch. What a shock these three sequences must’ve been for fans of Fox’s squeaky clean roles on T.V. and in film.

Fox is excellent playing someone in denial that their life is falling apart. He just keeps piling on more alcohol and drugs in an attempt to deaden the pain or to forget about the reality of his situation. As the film progresses, you keep wondering when is Jamie going to hit rock bottom? It’s hard to say if he ever does but there is a scene late in the film where he finally acknowledges the reality of his situation. Whether he will finally be able to straighten out his life is left rather open-ended but there is a suggestion that he has come out on the other side of a pretty dark place and lived to tell the tale, just like the coma baby.

I’ve always admired Kiefer Sutherland’s courage to play unlikable characters that are interesting to watch. With his leading man good looks it would’ve been so easy for him to play one-dimensional romantic leads or flawless heroes but he has stubbornly refused to do so time and time again. Just think of some of his signature roles. In Stand By Me (1986), he played a vicious bully that terrorizes the film’s three teenage protagonists; in The Lost Boys (1987), he played the leader of a pack of vampires that delight in feeding off the riff raff at a California beach community; and in Flatliners (1990), he played a gloryhound medical student willing to kill and then resuscitate his classmates in order to prove life after death. In two of these three films he plays out and out villains and in the other one he plays a deeply flawed protagonist and yet we kinda like all of these characters because of Sutherland’s natural charisma. As an actor, he’s just so damn interesting to watch.

In Bright Lights, Big City, he plays Fox’s best friend Tad Allagash, the kind of Yuppie slimeball character that James Spader perfected during the ‘80s (I guess he was busy doing another film when this one was cast). On the surface, Allagash seems like a good friend to Jamie. After work, Allagash takes Jamie out clubbing and introduces him to several beautiful women in an attempt to help his friend forget about his disintegrating marriage and thankless day job. However, they really have a toxic relationship. He only pretends to listen to Jamie’s problems and always seems to be hitting him up for drugs. With the exception of a clandestine visit to Jamie’s workplace after hours, Allagash only seems interested in taking Jamie to nightclubs and parties. Sutherland uses his natural charisma to show why someone like Jamie would hang out with a guy like Allagash. He’s the kind of guy that is hard to say no to, especially when he’s offering you drugs, alcohol and women.

In 1984, Jay McInerney’s semi-autobiographical novel Bright Lights, Big City became a hot commodity. Brat packer Emilio Estevez wanted to option it and adapt it into a film. He met with the author who was working on his own screenplay version. However, it was Robert Lawrence, vice president at Columbia Pictures, who ponied up the money for the option and championed the novel despite resistance from older executives who saw it as “subversive and unconventional.” Lawrence saw it as a his generation’s The Graduate (1967) with “a little bit of Lost Weekend in there.” Columbia agreed to make it with Jerry Weintraub producing and Joel Schumacher, hot off St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), directing. Soon after McInerney started writing the screenplay, Schumacher started rewriting it. Considered for the role of Allagash were the likes of Judd Nelson, Estevez and Rob Lowe. Tom Cruise was all set to play Jamie Conway and even took a tour of the New York City night life with McInerney and Schumacher.

A year later, when Weintraub became the chief executive at United Artists, he took the project with him. Now Bright Lights, Big City needed a new producer and so Sydney Pollack and his partner Mark Rosenberg agreed to come on board. They hired Julie Hickson to write the script. Schumacher lost interest and Cruise got tired of waiting. They left and Weintraub also exited, leaving the studio. The project was tied up in a complicated settlement until late 1986 when the studio decided to start from scratch with the notion of casting a relative unknown like Charlie Sheen (pre-Platoon) as Jamie. Tom Cole, who adapted a Joyce Carol Oates story into the screenplay for Smooth Talk (1985), was hired to adapt McInerney’s novel. His wife Joyce Chopra had directed that film and her high-powered agent not only got her involved in Bright Lights but also sent the novel to another of his clients, Michael J. Fox.

Initially, Pollack and Rosenberg weren’t too crazy about the idea of Fox starring in Bright Lights but then they got worried that mainstream audiences wouldn’t relate to a selfish Yuppie like Jamie. Pollack reasoned, “there is something in the persona of Michael that makes you care what happens to him, no matter how bad the character is.” However, with the casting of Fox, Bright Lights changed from a modestly budgeted film to a major commercial feature shot on location in New York City with a top box-office movie star. Fox used his clout to request Kiefer Sutherland play the part of Tad Allagash.

The producers surrounded Chopra with a crew that had worked with Pollack and were loyal to him. To make matters even more interesting, she brought James Glennon, her cinematographer on Smooth Talk, on board, thereby drawing sides with her, Glennon and Cole against the rest of the Pollack-loyal crew. To complicate matters, a Directors Guild of America strike was predicted to start early in July 1987 (that ended up never happening). Fox had to resume work in Los Angeles on Family Ties by mid-July giving Chopra ten weeks to finish her film.

Principal photography barely started and already studio executives were not happy with Chopra’s working methods. Some felt that she relied too much on Cole and Glennon and took too much time setting up shots. The director claimed that she “kept insisting that we take time each day to give the actors a chance to find their way,” and worked “collaboratively” with Glennon. Clearly, this slow, methodical approach was not going to work for the time crunch that the production was working under and something had to give. Executives did not like the footage Chopra was getting and a week into principal photography the chairman of United Artists and the president of production flew in from L.A. to New York. They had rushed the film into production without reading Cole’s script which diverged significantly from the novel. McInerney felt that Cole “was writing out all the drugs.” In his defense, Cole claimed that Pollack instructed him to do that because the producer was worried about tarnishing Fox’s squeaky clean public image.

Officially, Chopra was fired over creative differences with the studio. Fox cheekily referred to the month that Chopra was in charge as “a rehearsal period, though it wasn’t meant to be.” On the short list of replacements were Ulu Grosbard, Bruce Beresford and James Bridges. On a Friday, Bridges received a phone call from his agent telling him that Bright Lights, Big City was in trouble. He read the novel that night, flew to New York on Sunday and saw the footage Chopra shot. He agreed to take over only if he could start from scratch. Bridges was known for box office hits like The China Syndrome (1979) and Urban Cowboy (1980) but was coming into Bright Lights with back-to-back flops of Mike’s Murder (1984) and Perfect (1985). On Monday, he contacted legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis who agreed to sign on to the production. In a week, Bridges wrote a new draft of the script that had Jamie’s mother’s death as the emotional core of the film. He brought McInerney back into the fold and fired six actors, replacing them with Jason Robards, John Houseman, Swoosie Kurtz, Frances Sternhagen, Tracy Pollan, and Charlie Schlatter. They all read the novel because the script wasn’t ready. Bridges wisely kept Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest as Allagash and Jamie’s mother respectively. Before each day of shooting, Bridges worked on rewrites of his script and on weekends worked on it with McInerney. Bridges brought a much needed stability to the production and the film was shot in six weeks.

After widely reported production problems, film critics could smell blood in the water and Bright Lights, Big City received mixed to negative reviews. Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, "Bright Lights isn't an embarrassment, like Less Than Zero; it's a smooth, professional job. But when it's over you may shrug your shoulders and ask, ‘Is that all?’” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel felt that the film, "arrives, however, looking like something that has been kicking around too long in the dead-letter office.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson criticized Fox's performance, claiming that he "was the wrong actor for the job. Fox, who in The Secret of My Success showed a gift for light comedy, is too stylized a performer for the heavier stuff; he has no natural weight. In addition, Fox shows a reluctance to let the audience see him in an unflattering light.” However, Roger Ebert praised the actor's performance: "Fox is very good in the central role (he has a long drunken monologue that is the best thing he has ever done in a movie).” In her review for The New York Times, Jane Maslin wrote, “Mr. Bridges may not have breathed fire into this material, but he has preserved most of its better qualities. He has treated it with intelligence, respect and no undue reverence, assembling a coherent film that resists any hint of exploitation.”

Shooting on location in New York City gives Bright Lights, Big City a real authenticity and serves as a snapshot of a city that looks and feels quite different now. In the ‘80s, it was quite a hedonistic time with materialistic Yuppies snorting cocaine in nightclub bathrooms while holding down jobs in the publishing industry or on Wall Street. I always felt that Bright Lights was the east coast answer to Less Than Zero (1987), also a flawed adaptation of a best-selling novel about affluent twentysomethings mired in drug addiction. Bright Lights is more successful because it doesn’t soften the edges of its protagonist as much as in Less Than Zero, which feels more compromised and less faithful to its source material. It’s really a shame that audiences and critics didn’t respond more favorably to Bright Lights. I would’ve liked to have seen Fox take more chances like he did with this film. Instead, he retreated back to safe comedies like Doc Hollywood (1991). It’s a rather unfortunate case of what could have been.

This post was inspired by Mr. Peel's excellent take on this film over at his blog. Here is a good fan site dedicated to the book.

SOURCES

Blum, David. "Hollywood's Brat Pack." New York Magazine. June 10, 1985.

Godfrey, Stephen. "Some people have a terrible resentment of early success." Globe and Mail. February 26, 1988.

James, Caryn. "Big Trouble." The New York Times. January 10, 1988.