The Razor's Edge

After starring in several successful comedies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bill Murray wanted to try something different. He wanted to flex his acting chops and do something more dramatic. He wanted to make a passion project of his, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel The Razor’s Edge, the spiritual journey of its protagonist Larry Darrell. The book had already been adapted into a well-respected film in 1946, starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. Not surprisingly, no Hollywood studio was interested in making the modestly budgeted film until Murray’s former Saturday Night Live cast member, Dan Aykroyd, cut a deal with Columbia Pictures. They would bankroll The Razor’s Edge (1984) if Murray would star in their summer blockbuster Ghostbusters (1984) alongside Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. Murray agreed and got to make his film, but the big question – would anyone want to see it was quickly answered upon its theatrical release. It received mixed to negative reviews and flopped at the box office, only making half of its $12 million budget while Ghostbusters was a massive success.
 
It is the early days of World War I and the United States has yet to throw their hat in the ring but gear and supplies are being donated to aid their future allies. Best friends Gray Mautrin (James Keach) and Larry Darrell (Murray) have volunteered to accompany an ambulance overseas and help the cause. When we meet Larry he’s the sarcastic wisecracker we’ve come to expect from Murray as he dabbles in bits of physical comedy, flirting with longtime sweetheart Isabel Bradley (Catherine Hicks) and close friend Sophie MacDonald (Theresa Russell) – two women that will feature prominently in his life.
 
There is a feeling of hopeful idealism in these scenes as we see the idyllic home he’s leaving behind for the grim, meat hook reality of the war. The tone of the film changes immediately once Gray and Larry arrive at the battlefront and meet their no-nonsense commanding officer Piedmont (Brian Doyle-Murray). They are told that their squad has been depleted and are given sidearms even though they are neutral participants in the war. Murray doesn’t say anything – no witty, snarky comments a la Stripes (1981) – just a worried expression on his face that seems to say, what the hell did I sign up for?

He says very little for most of the WWI sequences as we see Larry take everything in and get the lay of the land thanks to Piedmont’s tough love approach. He also experiences the horrifying effects, transporting the wounded and the dying from the battlefield to a nearby first aid station. Gone is the wisecracking Murray as Larry does everything he can just to survive. The actor does an excellent job of conveying the utter despair Larry feels after what he’s seen.
 
The war sequences are among the strongest in The Razor’s Edge, especially the last one where Larry and his squad are caught out in the battlefield and find themselves facing insurmountable odds. Larry is wounded and Piedmont is killed saving his life. After the danger has passed, Larry delivers a stirring anti-eulogy for his fallen comrade that is the one Murray gave his SNL castmate John Belushi when he died. It is a powerful and moving moment as it is something real and authentic captured on film.
 
Larry returns home from the war and finds himself adrift in life after being deeply affected by his experiences overseas. He spends the rest of the film finding himself by shedding his trappings of wealth, by working menial jobs and living in modest accommodations in Paris. This comes at a cost as his friends and family reject his new bohemian lifestyle, including Isabel who cannot understand why he is willing giving up his wealthy life of privilege. He tells her, “I got a second chance at life. I am not going to waste it on a big house, a new car every year and a bunch of friends who want a big house and new car every year!” She returns to the States and marries Gray while Larry continues his spiritual journey, gaining life experiences such as working in a coal mine where he meets a man that extols the virtues of India, which becomes Larry’s ultimate destination and the source of the spiritual enlightenment he seeks.

The always reliable Theresa Russell is excellent as one of Larry’s closest friends that goes on her own harrowing journey. There is a scene where a grief-stricken Sophie tearfully tells Isabel about her husband and son dying in an automobile accident that is raw as she chastises the nuns at the hospital in an understandable outpouring of grief. How does she find the will to live after such a horrible event? As a result, she numbs the pain that comes from a catastrophic loss by losing herself in alcohol and prostitution. Russell and Murray have wonderful chemistry together and her impressive dramatic chops forces him to up his game in their scenes together. The sequence where Larry gets Isabel to quit drinking and prostitution are well done as Murray uses his easy-going charm to incredible effect. This is the film at its most romantic as we see these two characters falling in love in Paris. Larry brings her back from the brink in a way that is quite moving.
 
One must give Murray credit, he gives the role everything he has in what was obviously a labor of love but he wasn’t a good enough actor back then to know when to tone down his comedic shtick and this results in an uneven performance. At times, he can’t quite cut loose of the broad physical comedy that made him a star, such as a scene where Larry runs from a gaggle of poor children begging for money on the streets of India. It must’ve been hard to let go of comedic tendencies that came so naturally to him. It would be years before he’d try it again and was more successful as the scary mob boss in Mad Dog and Glory (1993), but it wasn’t until he made Rushmore (1998) with Wes Anderson that he was experienced enough as an actor to modulate his performance to accommodate the tone of a given scene.
 
Filmmaker John Byrum met Bill Murray in New York City in 1974. The two men hit it off and wanted to work together but the opportunity wouldn’t arise until almost 10 years later. Byrum was interested in adapting W. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge but assumed that 20th Century Fox, the studio that released the 1946 adaptation, still had the rights. When he approached the studio, they wouldn’t even take a meeting with him and after doing more digging found out that the rights had reverted to the Maugham estate. Unfortunately, recording industry executive Bob Marcucci had already acquired them. Byrum struck a deal – he would write the screenplay for no fee, for a 50-50 partnership and the right to direct. Marcucci agreed and in 1982, Murray joined the project after Byrum gave him a copy of the book. He wanted to make the film after reading 50 pages, drawn to the project as he was getting offered the same kind of scripts repeatedly and wanted to try something new.

Byrum asked Murray to write the script with him and the two men worked on it for a year-and-a-half. Murray suggested writing in bars and restaurants as he believed “that good things come from difficult conditions, and I thought that no matter how badly we did, at least we’d have the experience of trying to concentrate on one thing while being distracted all the time.” To this end, they went to all kinds of places in Manhattan, New Jersey and upstate, southern New York. They wrote in spas near San Francisco and even a monastery in Ladakh, India during a religious war!
 
Byrum and Murray approached several studios but none were interested as they felt that no one wanted to see the comedian in a serious role. Dan Aykroyd was working on a script for an ambitious comedy called Ghostbusters that was generating a lot of interest around Hollywood and Columbia Pictures made a deal to bankroll The Razor’s Edge if Murray also starred in Ghostbusters. Murray agreed and started filming the former soon after.
 
It was a tough shoot lasting five months. The production fell behind schedule while shooting the war sequences. As Byrum said at the time, “To set up an explosion takes time. Then the wind might shift and destroy the shot, and you have to rewire all the explosives and organize the extras.” They shot for a month in Paris and then three hard weeks in India. At one point, a crew member attempted suicide and another developed such a crippling drinking problem they had to be sent home. Many got food poisoning with Byrum himself losing 12 pounds. While all of this was going on, the studio kept asking when they would be finished as they were eager for Murray to start shooting Ghostbusters.

As soon as principal photography was finished, Murray flew to London where he saw a rough cut of the film and then got on the Concord where he flew to New York City. He got off the plane, went straight to Madison Avenue and 62nd Street, and donned his Ghostbusters outfit. “A week before I had worked with yellow-hat lamas in the Himalayas,” he remarked in an interview.
 
Most film critics at the time were not kind to The Razor’s Edge. Roger Ebert gave it two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, “I didn't feel that the hero's attention had been quite focused during his quest for the meaning of life. He didn't seem to be a searcher, but more of a bystander, shoulders thrown back, deadpan expression in place, waiting to see if life could make him care.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin called it, “slow, overlong and ridiculously overproduced.” The Washington Post’s Paul Attanasio wrote, “Murray's style into the '20s is jarringly bizarre. Murray puts his comedy together with riffs drawn from contemporary popular culture, in the way a modernist sculptor welds fragments found in a junkyard. Much of the humor of The Razor's Edge simply isn't intelligible within the context of the period; he's a Connecticut hipster in President Hoover's court.” Finally, in his review for the Chicago Tribune, Gene Siskel gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "If Murray's young Ghostbusters fans do go to see The Razor's Edge, they will receive a pleasant, thought-provoking surprise, a film that gently asks us to consider lifestyles other than the one into which we were born."
 
The Razor’s Edge is an impressively staged and beautifully shot period film directed by John Byrum (Heart Beat) and shot by Peter Hannan (Withnail and I) that gives a real sense of place. The film juxtaposes the opulent wealth of Larry’s friends back home with the physical limits he pushes himself for spiritual enlightenment. He makes an arduous journey through punishing environments, constantly pushing himself, testing his limits.

While hardly the cinematic disaster that it has been regard as over the years, it isn't that successful either. Chalk this up as a noble failure. Murray's heart was in the right place but he miscast himself in the lead role of Larry Darrell, a man who finds himself thrust from the upper crust of society to the battlefields of WWI where he is forever changed by the horrors he witnesses, motivating him to find personal enlightenment in India. Timing is everything and at the time of its release mainstream moviegoing audiences did not want to see Murray in a serious role. As a result, The Razor’s Edge tanked at the box office the same year that the crowd-pleasing Ghostbusters was a huge hit. To be fair, Murray hadn’t developed the dramatic acting chops to pull off a role like Larry Darrell. He delivers an uneven performance in an uneven film. Understandably, disappointed with its reception and disenchanted with making movies, Murray took his family to Paris and except for a cameo in Little Shop of Horrors (1986), didn’t act for four years.
 

SOURCES
 
Crouse, Timothy. “Bill Murray: The Rolling Stone Interview.” Rolling Stone. August 16, 1984.
 
Pollock, Dale. “Bill Murray on The Razor’s Edge After Ghostbusters.” The Victoria Advocate. October 29, 1984.
 
Weinstein, Wendy. “John Byrum Traverses The Razor’s Edge.” The Film Journal. September 1984.

Lost in Translation

In 1999, Sofia Coppola made her feature film directorial debut with the spellbinding adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, The Virgin Suicides. The film was a modest hit and heralded the young director as an emerging talent. Her follow-up was a much more personal project, written while she was going through a rough spot in her marriage and inspired by time she had spent in Japan trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She poured out her feelings of loneliness and confusion and the result was Lost in Translation (2003), an independent film starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson as two lonely people who meet in a posh Tokyo hotel and bond over insomnia and absent spouses. Coppola’s film is a fascinating fusion of the chatty meet-cute between two people in a foreign country from Before Sunrise (1995) with the stylish existential ennui of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000). It was a surprise hit, striking a chord with many who identified with the romantic longing that developed between the two main characters. Lost in Translation received numerous awards and critical praise while also establishing Coppola as a major talent.

With the first appearance of Bob Harris (Bill Murray), Coppola conveys that disorienting feeling of arriving in a strange place while being jetlagged. In this case, it is the neon-drenched urban sprawl that is Tokyo. He’s making a whiskey commercial instead of being at home where his wife is redecorating his study. Bob is also missing his son’s birthday and doesn’t seem all that upset about it; or rather he’s resigned himself to it. One gets the feeling that he’d rather be thousands of miles away than with his family. He’s an aging action movie star who has probably spent most of his time on movie sets.

Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is staying at the same hotel with her photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi). Much like Bob, she can’t sleep and stays behind in the hotel while he runs off on photo shoots with a band. We get some insight into how she’s feeling when the young woman calls a friend back in the United States. They start with the usual idle chit-chat, but pretty soon she’s choking back tears and blurts out, “I don’t know who I married,” before quickly ending the conversation so she can cry. It is an incredibly vulnerable moment that Scarlett Johansson conveys so well. All the feelings that have been bubbling under the surface finally come out. We’re never quite sure the source of marital strife between her and John, but it is probably getting married too young and that he is always busy while she follows him from job to job.

Bob bravely soldiers on through the commercial, but it isn’t made easy by his translator who is not telling him exactly what the director wants. Coppola doesn’t use any subtitles during this scene so that we are as bewildered and frustrated as Bob. Like Charlotte, he is unhappy; tired of pimping whisky and is eager to leave the country as soon as possible. That night, he takes refuge in the hotel bar where the house band (an ex-pat. group rather amusingly named Sausalito) performs a bad cover of “Scarborough Fair,” much to his and Charlotte’s bemusement, who is there with John. She buys Bob a drink and they exchange a nod of acknowledgement from across the room, but don’t actually meet. This is the beginning of relationship that develops between these two lonely people who feel lost in Japan and find solace in each other’s company.

As the film progresses, we get additional insight into the Charlotte and John’s relationship. Her feelings of estrangement are only reinforced when she and John run into Kelly (Anna Faris), a popular American actress in town to promote her latest movie (her press conference is a hoot as she spouts all kinds of cliché celebrities dish out during these kinds of junkets). John and Kelly engage in mindless banter (“Oh my god, I have worst B.O. right now,” she says at one point), much to Charlotte’s bemusement and thinly-veiled contempt. She has just graduated from college last spring and isn’t sure what she wants to do.

In his own dry way, Bob has no illusions about his lot in life as he tells Charlotte that is trip to Japan is basically, “taking a break from my wife, forgetting my son’s birthday, and getting paid $2 million for endorsing a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere.” Bill Murray delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance that expands on the sad sack businessman he played in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1998). Much of the role in Lost in Translation calls for his trademark charm and dry sarcasm, but it also requires him to dig deeper the more time Bob spends with Charlotte, allowing her past his façade. In doing so, Bob lets us in as well and we sympathize with the actor because we get to know him as he reveals personal details to her.

Towards the end of the film, Bob’s relationship with his wife gets more fractured as she tells him how their kids miss him, “but they’re getting used to you not being here. Do I need to worry about you, Bob?” to which he replies, “Only if you want to.” This is quite possibly the most heartbreaking line in the film as one assumes that Bob is probably headed for a divorce once he returns home. His self-destructive habits surface and we get some insight into why he and his wife are so estranged. This also affects his friendship with Charlotte and the temporary spell that was cast over them has been lifted and reality rears its ugly head.

Interspersed throughout Lost in Translation are little visual interludes, like a nice shot of Charlotte sitting on the windowsill of her hotel room with the city surrounding her in the background, that suggest solitude. There is also a montage of sights and sounds when she leaves the hotel to experience Japanese culture, but finds navigating public transportation a bit disorienting and overwhelming, which Coppola conveys through hand-held camerawork that puts us right in the thick of the city’s hustle and bustle. We see Japanese culture through Charlotte’s eyes and Coppola does a nice job with these snapshots, gradually immersing us in this world so that we identify even more with Bob and Charlotte.

The centerpiece of Lost in Translation is when Bob and Charlotte go out for a night on the town and meet a few of her friends. This sequence not only allows us to see more of Japanese culture, but it also gives Murray a chance to riff on the situations and people Bob and Charlotte encounter. Coppola immerses us fully in the sights and sounds of the city, like the nightclub that is decorated with huge white weather balloons that allow images to be projected on them.

If, early on, Coppola seemed to be falling back on Japanese stereotypes of their people and culture (most notably the prostitute who wants Bob to “rip her stockings,” which is particularly cartoonish and awkward, temporarily breaking the hypnotic, dreamy spell that Coppola casts), it is here she goes deeper and we see that Charlotte’s Japanese friends are just like any other twentysomethings. There are all kinds of nice touches, like the conversation Bob carries on with a young Japanese man in French, or the playful image of Bob, Charlotte and their friends running through the streets while someone shoots at them with a BB gun. The night culminates in the best moment where they all hangout at someone’s apartment and end up singing karaoke. Charlotte (wearing an adorable pink wig) serenades Bob when she sings a cover of “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders while Bob sings “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” before working his way through a surprisingly moving rendition of “More Than This” by Roxy Music.

It is this scene where Bob and Charlotte forget their troubles and lose themselves in the moment. We see them smile, laugh and have a good time. The looks they exchange during this scene suggest a growing attraction between them. It is rather telling that she is able to sleep for the first time since she arrived in Japan after the special night they had together. He is even able to doze off in the taxi ride back to the hotel. What I find interesting is how their second night out is in sharp contrast to the first one. Charlotte meets Bob in a cavernous nightclub populated by unattractive-looking topless dancers gyrating to “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches. They don’t stay long, head back to the hotel where they stop briefly at the bar, but after spotting Kelly singing “Nobody Does It Better” horribly off-key they call it a night. Only insomnia keeps them both awake and eventually she hangs out in his room. They talk deep into the night and Charlotte eventually confesses to Bob that she’s “stuck” in her life and asks him, “Does it get any easier?” to which he replies, “The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”

Charlotte doesn’t know what she wants to do. She tells him that she tried writing and photography, but was unhappy with both. Charlotte asks Bob about marriage and if it gets any easier to which he replies, “That’s hard,” and speaks wistfully about how he and his wife used to have fun, but everything got complicated once they had kids. It’s a wonderful scene where we see these characters at their most vulnerable. Murray drops all his shtick and conveys an honesty that is surprising. What is so magical about it is how these two characters are able to coax all of this personal stuff out of each other. Once they are removed from all the noise and chaos of the world around them are they able to speak honestly to each other and let down their guard. By this point, we’ve grown to care about them and have become invested in their relationship.

Lost in Translation came from a very personal place, so much so that Sofia Coppola was worried that very few people would be able to relate to it. The film was inspired by the time she spent wandering around Tokyo after graduating from college. A friend of hers was doing a fashion show in Japan and asked for help producing it. Once there, she met Fumihiro Hayashi a.k.a. Charlie Brown (who plays himself in the film), who ran a magazine and hired her to take photographs. She spent a lot of time driving around in her friend’s car, listening to music and taking in the sights. “Tokyo is just such an exciting city – totally visually interesting, crazy and overwhelming.” She also wanted to capture the feeling of being jetlagged in a strange city: “I’ve had my share of jet-lagged moments. Being in a hotel, and jet-lagged, kind of distorts everything. Even little things that are no big deal feel epic when you’re in that mood. Your emotions are exaggerated, it’s hard to find your way around, it’s lonely.”

Coppola started off writing different little impressions she had of her time in Tokyo. From that, she wrote a bunch of short stories and collected pictures for the visuals. She then used that as the basis for her screenplay. When writing it, Coppola based the character of Charlotte on herself when she was younger and faced the dilemma of “What am I gonna do?” She was also trying to figure out her marriage to then-husband Spike Jonze, who, at the time, was a very in-demand music video director and filmmaker. She said in an interview, “My friends said, ‘Finish the script and you’ll know what to do.’ I think I had doubts, but I didn’t listen to them because I was young.”

The character of Bob Harris was written with Bill Murray in mind and came out of her imaging what he would be like in Tokyo. She said, “He has something that’s really sincere and heartfelt, but really funny and at the same time … tragic.” She was a fan of his movies and always wanted to work with him. Several moments in the film came from things she had observed in real life, like the hotel bar band covering “Scarborough Fair,” and seeing her friend Fumihiro Hayashi performing a karaoke rendition of “God Save the Queen.” After seeing her friend in action, she realized, “I have to put this in a movie.” She also wanted to specifically set it at the Park Hyatt hotel because she had stayed there during her press tour for The Virgin Suicides and was familiar with it. Coppola spent six months writing the script and during that time she got stuck after the first 20 pages and went back to Tokyo to remember the parts of the city she liked.

To help out with the music for the film, Coppola enlisted the services of Brian Reitzell, veteran member of the Los Angeles band Redd Kross and who had worked with her on The Virgin Suicides. Coppola told him the kind of mood she wanted to convey and, having spent time in Japan as well, he understood what she wanted. Per her request, Reitzell compiled three mixes, homemade CDs that contained ambient tracks with artists as varied as Brian Eno and The Jesus and Mary Chain. She listened to these mixes while writing the script and then played them while scouting locations. When it came to score the film, Reitzell licensed several tracks from his mixes and also enlisted the help of My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields to help compose some original music. Reitzell said, “I knew he could capture that droning, swaying, beautiful kind of feeling that we wanted.”

Coppola saw Scarlett Johansson in Manny & Lo (1996) and thought she was “a cute girl with that husky voice.” After a brief lunch meeting in a Manhattan diner Coppola cast the young actress in her film. The director said, “She can convey an emotion without saying very much at all.” With Murray, Coppola spent eight months tracking down and trying to convince the notoriously elusive comedian to star in her film by sending him letters, leaving voicemail messages and asking mutual friends, like filmmaker Wes Anderson, to put in a good word. All of this hustling paid off as Murray finally agreed to do the film. However, the actor had his doubts: “The whole thing felt slight, which was a little troubling,” but she was persistent and convinced him that this was a passion project for her.

Coppola did very little rehearsing before filming; just once with Johansson and Giovanni Ribisi so that they could convincingly play a married couple. Leading up to principal photography, Coppola was still unsure if Murray was actually going to show up, but a week before it was to start he arrived in Japan, much to her relief. The shoot lasted 27 days in Tokyo on a $4 million budget with the cast and crew staying in the Tokyo Hyatt where much of the film was set. Johansson met Murray in Tokyo and the next day they started filming so the chemistry that develops between their characters mirrored the actors in real life. With very little money and shooting permits, Coppola and her small crew shot a lot of the film guerrilla style, utilizing hand-held camerawork on the streets and sneaking shots on public transportation.

Lost in Translation received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “Bill Murray has never been better. He doesn’t play ‘Bill Murray’ or any other conventional idea of a movie star, but invents Bob Harris from the inside out, as a man both happy and sad with his life – stuck, but resigned to being stuck.” In his review for The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell wrote, “Ms. Coppola has shown an interest in emotional way stations. Her characters are caught between past and future – lost in translation. Perhaps her films are a kind of ongoing metaphorical autobiography … There’s a lot up there on the screen, plenty to get lost in.” Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “Melancholy and longing have rarely looked so attractive – even desirable – nor has a movie with opportunities for ‘Lolita’-hood been turned so subtle, wise and often funny a study of chance encounter.” The New York Observer’s Andrew Sarris wrote, “Of course, Mr. Murray gets all the laughs with his exquisite timing and wry delivery, but Ms. Johansson makes an eloquent and charismatic listener; it’s in her alert and intelligent responses to Bob’s malaise that his passions toward her are ignited.”

USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote, “Coppola’s second feature offers quiet humor in lieu of the bludgeoning direct assaults most comedies these days inflict.” Time magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote, “Sofia Coppola has a witty touch with dialogue that sounds improvised yet reveals, glancingly her characters’ dislocation. She’s a real mood weaver, with a gift for goosing placid actors … and mining a comic’s deadpan depths.” In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, “Coppola evokes the emotional intensity of a one-night stand far from home—but what she really gets is the magic of movies … By the cold light of day it’s difficult to believe that, as individuated as the performances are, this sad middle-aged man and that restless young wife could ever feel so deeply for each other but it’s shivery to think so.” Finally, the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan wrote, “The film itself – tart and sweet, unmistakably funny and exceptionally well observed – marks the arrival of 32-year-old writer-director Sofia Coppola as a mature talent with a distinctive sensibility and the means to express it.”

Much like many of the protagonists in Wong Kar-Wai’s films, Bob and Charlotte connect for a brief moment in time. It may be fleeting, but that does not diminish its significance. They were there for each other when they needed human contact the most, someone to connect with at a low point in their respective lives when they felt alone and adrift in life. We’ve all felt this way at some point in our lives, which makes Lost in Translation very relatable. There is a yearning, not just by the characters, but we are meant to feel it too because we want to see Bob and Charlotte together despite their marriages to other people. Coppola sums up this wistful feeling of unrequited love best in the final scene that is scored to “Just Like Honey” by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Bob hugs Charlotte and whispers something unintelligible in her ear when the opening drumbeat of the song kicks in. It is a sublime moment that is rich with emotion because we’ve been on a journey with these characters and are invested in them. Bob and Charlotte head back to their respective lives, much like the main characters at the end of Before Sunrise, with the knowledge that their lives have been enriched by the brief time they spent together. Coppola ends on a series of shots of the city, but they look different because of the journey we’ve been on with these characters. We now see things in a different way.

SOURCES

Betts, Kate. “Sofia’s Choice.” Time. September 15, 2003.

Diaconescu, Sorina. “An Upstart, Casual But Confident.” The Times. September 7, 2003.

Galloway, Steve. “Sofia Coppola: The Trials, Tears and Talent.” The Hollywood Reporter. May 8, 2013.

Hirschberg, Lynn. “The Coppola Smart Mob.” The New York Times. August 31, 2003.

Hundley, Jessica. “An Invisible Role.” The Times. September 11, 2003.

Mitchell, Wendy. “Sofia Coppola Talks about Lost in Translation.” indieWIRE. December 14, 2009.

Thompson, Anne. “Tokyo Story.” Filmmaker. Fall 2003.

Topel, Fred. “Sofia Coppola on Lost in Translation.” Screenwriter’s Monthly. September 23, 2003.

Vernon, Polly. “Scarlett Fever.” The Observer. December 27, 2003.

DVD of the Week: Fantastic Mr. Fox

When it was announced that Wes Anderson would be adapting Roald Dahl’s short story Fantastic Mr. Fox, it came as something of a surprise. Up to that point, Anderson had only made films based on original material that he created himself or with a co-collaborator. With The Darjeeling Limited (2007), many felt that the auteur had reached a creative cul de sac. Not only would he be adapting someone one else’s work but he would be doing it via old school stop-motion animation – virtually unheard of in this day and age what with the proliferation of computer animation. This change of direction seems to have paid off for Anderson who has delivered his most satisfying film since The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

Mr. Fox (George Clooney) used to steal birds but has reformed his ways and is now a newspaper man. He is getting old and tired of living in a foxhole. So, he consults with his real estate agent Stan Weasel (Wes Anderson). Before he takes the plunge, Mr. Fox talks with his lawyer Clive Badger, Esq. (Bill Murray) and ends up buying a treehouse so that he and his family can live in comfort. However, cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) comes to visit and makes Ash (Jason Schwartzman), Mr. Fox’s son, jealous with his athletic prowess. Meanwhile, in her spare time, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) paints portraits of thunderstorms.

Mr. Fox decides to pull one more job stealing birds to eat but this one is his most ambitious gig to date. With the help of his landlord Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), he plans to steal chickens from farmer Boggis, then the next night geese from farmer Bunce, and finally the following night he steals some of farmer Bean’s cider from his secret cellar. Understandably upset, the three farmers get together and plan to kill Mr. Fox. As a result, he and his family are on the run and hunted. They have to call in the favors of all their friends if they hope to evade the farmers’ wrath.

Anderson still has an uncanny knack for picking just the right song for a given scene. Early on, Mr. and Mrs. Fox playfully yet stealthily circumvent a farmer to steal one his birds all scored to the melodical strains of “Heroes and Villains” by the Beach Boys. Later on, Anderson pulls out the obligatory Rolling Stones cue and scores a sequence to “Street Fighting Man.” There is something thrilling about seeing these vintage tracks pop up in an animated film – a genre that tends to rely on mainly orchestral music or more contemporary songs.

The stop-motion animation actually gives the film a personal, handcrafted feel that has been absent from Anderson’s recent work and harkens back to his first couple of efforts, which are the ones where most people first noticed and fell in love with his films. The animation is incredibly rendered and executed, reminiscent of the vintage Rankin and Bass cartoons that kids of Anderson’s generation (and beyond) grew up on. There is a tangible quality to the characters and their environment that is still missing from most computer animation.

As the Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) progresses, it becomes apparent what drew Anderson to this project. Thematically, it fits right in with his other films. Mr. Fox is a charismatic yet rebellious patriarch, much like Royal in The Royal Tenenbaums and Steve Zissou in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Furthermore, the Fox family is a highly intelligent dysfunctional one much like the family in Tenenbaums. The casting is spot on with George Clooney and Meryl Streep playing Mr. and Mrs. Fox. They banter back and forth like a couple from an old screwball comedy. Anderson has not forgotten what the majority of animated films not made by Pixar seem to have – that the best of the genre appeal to both kids and adults. Fantastic Mr. Fox does not talk down to kids and also still manages to appeal to the Anderson faithful. This film is a delightful, entertaining adventure well worth experiencing.

Special Features:

“From to Script to Screen” briefly explores how Anderson and his co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach took Dahl’s short story and expanded on it, even creating characters but all done in the spirit of the source material. Anderson says that he approached the animated film as if it was a live-action one with collaborators commenting on how the director managed to infuse it with his distinctive style. To this end, he storyboarded the entire film and shot video of himself acting out the story so that the animators knew what he wanted.

“Still Life (Puppet Animation)” takes a look at the stop-motion animation process. It is very meticulous and time consuming but if done well, looks great. It’s amazing how the animators can get expressions and emotions out of these puppets.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Whack-Bat” is a humourous mock-featurette on how to play this bizarre sport within the film.

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

Where the Buffalo Roam

Many filmmakers over the years have tried to make films out of Hunter S. Thompson's books but the first completed effort did not surface until 1980 with Where The Buffalo Roam. It is not a good film. And yet, I find myself oddly fascinated by this deeply flawed effort. Perhaps it is Bill Murray’s truly inspired one-note performance and the stories of his deep immersion into the role. So deep that he has never fully been able to shake Thompson’s persona since. From articles that appeared at the time of its release, the project seemed doomed from the get-go with a first-time director clearly out of his depth and a problematic screenplay that Murray and Thompson tried in vain to improve during filming. The end result speaks for itself.

The film begins with a situation familiar to anyone who’s read Thompson’s work – under pressure to get an article done by a strict deadline for Blast magazine (aka Rolling Stone) for his long-suffering editor Marty Lewis (Bruno Kirby wasted in a thankless role). Up against it, he decides to write about his friend and attorney at law Carl Lazlo, Esq. (Peter Boyle). The film proceeds to flash back to San Francisco, 1968 and Thompson is holed up in a hospital room with a Wild Turkey I.V. drip (nice touch) and his own private nurse. Lazlo shows up (through the window no less) and springs his client for a road trip in a muscle car that bears more than a passing resemblance to the one James Taylor and Dennis Wilson drove in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).

After this promising start, the film stalls with a bit where Thompson pretends to draw a lady’s blood which is pointless and painfully unfunny. Although, things perk up slightly in the next scene where he attends a court case that Lazlo is working. In the courtroom, he proceeds to mix up a Bloody Mary while he waits for the proceedings to begin which is fairly amusing. Lazlo’s defense of four hippies stops the film cold. It is supposed to show his righteous fight for the underdog and the futility of working within the system. It is supposed to set up the struggle between the counterculture and the establishment which epitomized the 1960s. Instead, it just comes across as dull and preachy.

Where the Buffalo Roam jumps to Los Angeles, 1972 as Thompson covers the Superbowl as depicted in the book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. After a tedious bit where he checks in, the film reaches its funniest point (not a hard feat, mind you) as Thompson stages his own Superbowl in his hotel room. He corrals a maid and a room service waiter into playing an impromptu game and in the process trash the room in a humorous scene that is the closest this film gets to realizing Thompson’s writing that was often filled with absurdly comical passages.

However, the film stalls yet again when, surprise, Lazlo shows up to take Thompson (and us) away from fun and sidetracks the narrative with painfully obvious political and social commentary as the crazy attorney tries to get his client to join a band of revolutionaries. The whole sequence makes no sense and is a total bore but does make you thankful for the fast-forward button. At this point, I really appreciated what a great job Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp did adapting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) to the big screen.

Fortunately, Thompson doesn’t have much time for Lazlo’s revolution and splits. The film segues into an amusing example of one of Thompson’s infamous college lecture appearances where he conducts a rowdy Q&A session to an adoring crowd of students. It is here where he utters one of his most famous pearls of wisdom: “I hate to advocate weird chemicals or insanity to anyone but they’ve always worked for me.” For anyone who has seen vintage footage of Thompson at one of these college campus appearances, the film’s recreation is spot on – a rare moment of verisimilitude.

Where the Buffalo Roams ends on a high note as it traces Thompson’s misadventures on the campaign trail, pitting him against the elite press corp. as he invades the plane carrying respectable journalists from newspapers like the Washington Post, much to the consternation of a White House representative (played by Animal House alumni Mark Metcalf). Not surprisingly, Thompson gets banished to the “zoo” plane with all of the technicians. It’s a chaotic, noisy crowd where Thompson fits right in. He proceeds to get a straight-laced journalist (played wonderfully by Rene Auberjonois) whacked out of his skull on prescription drugs (he’s later found in the plane bathroom singing, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”). This allows Thompson to steal his press credentials, which he uses to meet President Richard Nixon in a bathroom where he proceeds to freak the man out with his Gonzo behavior.

Bill Murray certainly has Thompson’s distinctive voice and unique physical mannerisms down cold. In the opening scene, he nails the man’s tendency to sudden outbursts of anger and conveys his love and use of guns. Thompson also had a tendency to mutter to himself, often dictating into a tape recorder which Murray does quite well. Best of all, the comedian spouts many Thompson-erisms at certain points that make you wonder if they were the parts that Murray and Thompson rewrote or that Murray, channeling Thompson, improvised. But for all of this hard work it still feels like a caricature of Thompson, or rather his public persona, like the Uncle Duke character in Doonesbury, but it is still fun to watch. Murray’s performance does contain moments of inspired lunacy, like the hospital room scene and the hotel Superbowl sequence. He does the best with what he has to work with but it’s an uphill battle and he’s constantly thwarted by the unorganized screenplay and ho-hum direction.

In the late 1970s, Thompson’s agent Lynn Nesbit called him one day and told him that movie producer Thom Mount wanted to pay $100,000 for the rights to "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat," a eulogy for his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta which appeared in the October 1977 issue Rolling Stone magazine. Thompson agreed to have it optioned without seeing a script figuring that the film would never get made because Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had been optioned several times and never made. He remembers, “then all of a sudden there was some moment of terrible horror when I realized they were going to make the movie." In 1978, illustrator Ralph Steadman (who had worked with Thompon on numerous occasions) was asked to create a poster for the film. He used a drawing entitled, Spirit of Gonzo as the basis but this incarnation disappeared and in 1979 he created a completely different poster.

Thompson met with the film’s screenwriter John Kaye but felt that the man understood more than what was in the script. "I was very disappointed in the script. It sucks — a bad, dumb, low-level, low-rent script." By his own admission, Thompson admitted that he signed away having any control so that he couldn’t be blamed for the end result. In the early drafts, Lazlo’s surname was Mendoza but this was changed after Nosotros, a group of Chicano actors and filmmakers, threatened to generate controversy if the character was played by Anglo actor Peter Boyle.

Before principal photography began, director Art Linson took a four-month crash course on directing. Steadman observed the first-time filmmaker on the set and said that it was “pretty obvious that he was in no frame of mind to catch the abandoned pure essence of Gonzo madness, which can only happen in uncontrolled conditions.” However, Steadman also felt that Linson’s “fanaticism for the subject he was trying to portray was undoubtedly there, and his sincerity, too,” but that the director was under the impression that the film was going to be a runaway hit before he’d even begun filming it and therefore refused to take any chances with the material.

While making Where the Buffalo Roam, Murray hung out frequently with Thompson. They were known to pull some wild stunts, like the time, at Thompson’s Aspen, Colorado home, after many drinks and arguing about who was the better escape artist, the writer tied the comedian to a chair and threw him into the swimming pool. Murray nearly drowned before Thompson pulled him out. The comedian also hung out with Steadman, who gave Murray his impressions and observations of Thompson’s mannerisms. According to Steadman, within two weeks of Thompson being on set, Murray had transformed into him.

Just before principal photography began, Murray became apprehensive because of the shortcomings of the script. Kaye claims that Thompson and Murray changed parts of it during filming and, at that point, he chose to no longer be involved. Linson did allow Murray, with Thompson’s help, to add lines on the set. Years later, Thompson said that he and Murray wrote and they shot several different beginnings and endings for the film but none of them were used. Murray and Thompson continued to be concerned with the film’s lack of continuity and in early 1980 added voiceover narration. Where the Buffalo Roam was sneak-previewed in late March and the last two scenes and most of the narration were missing. Murray was reportedly furious. Universal ended up shooting a new ending and three days before release, a press screening was canceled because of editing problems.

Thompson even served as a consultant on Where the Buffalo Roam but this did little to translate the author's warped vision to the big screen. While watching the film, it becomes readily evident that, despite Murray's inspired performance, Kaye and Linson had no idea what Thompson's books were trying to say. The film seems more like a collection of rather tame highlights from the man's work, including Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, The Great Shark Hunt and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Where the Buffalo Roam owes more to the sensibilities of Animal House (1978), with its goofy humor, than Thompson’s savage political satire. Mount also produced Animal House and ended up casting a few of the supporting actors from that film in this one. With Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas we laugh along with Thompson and his attorney but at a certain point the film makes it a point to show that these guys aren’t very nice and are quite destructive – to themselves and those around them. It is this darkness that is missing from Linson’s film, which is a light-hearted romp, a slob comedy in the tradition of Animal House.

In an interesting post-script, Murray had a tough time shaking Thompson’s persona after filming. Murray made the film between the fourth and fifth seasons of Saturday Night Live. When the fifth season began, the comedian was still channeling Thompson, showing up to meetings with the long black cigarette holder and sunglasses. One of the show’s writers said, “Billy was not Bill Murray, he was Hunter Thompson. You couldn’t talk to him without talking to Hunter Thompson.” Early in the fifth season of the show, Murray sometimes looked bored on-air and was described as acting like “a tyrant” backstage by some. He seemed to be angry at everyone and very uncooperative. After the film was released and tanked at the box office, as well as being trashed by the critics, the studio quickly pulled it from theaters. Murray started to act more like himself and no one brought up the strange period where he acted like Thompson. Years later, Murray reflected on the film: "I rented a house in L.A. with a guest house that Hunter lived in. I'd work all day and stay up all night with him; I was strong in those days. I took on another persona and that was tough to shake. I still have Hunter in me.”

Where the Buffalo Roam was almost universally panned by critics. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "The movie fails to deal convincingly with either Thompson's addictions or with his friendship with Lazlo." However, the film critic also noted that "this is the kind of bad movie that's almost worth seeing.” In his review for the Washington Post, Gary Arnold wrote, "Well, the actors haven't transcended their material. They're simply stuck with it. Murray and Boyle don't emerge as a swell comic team, and they aren't funny as individuals either.” Newsweek magazine’s Jack Kroll wrote, "Screenwriter John Kaye has reduced Thompson's career to a rubble of disjointed episodes, and the relentless mayhem becomes tiresome chaos rather than liberating comic anarchy.” However, The New Yorker’s Roger Angell felt that “the most surprising thing ... is how much of Thompson’s tone gets into the picture.” In later years, Thompson still felt that the film was a disaster. “It was just a horrible movie. A cartoon. But Bill Murray did a good job ... Not to mention that I have to live with it. It's like go into a bar somewhere and people start to giggle and you don't know why, and they're all watching that fucking movie.”

After the film's dismal reception, no other adaptations were completed. It took actor Johnny Depp and his friendship with Thompson to get any kind of serious attempt at an adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas even considered. In the end, I think that the problems I have with Where the Buffalo Roam are best summed up in a speech Thompson gives at the end of the film where he says, “it just never got weird enough for me.” Amen, my brother.

SOURCES

Carroll, E. Jean (1993). Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson. Dutton. 1993.

Felton, David. "Hunter Thompson Cashed His Check." Rolling Stone College Papers. Spring 1980.

Felton, David. "When the Weird Turn Pro." Rolling Stone. May 29, 1980.

Hill, Doug; Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. William Morrow & Co. March 1989.

Steadman, Ralph. "Gonzo Goes to Hollywood." Rolling Stone. May 29, 1980.