Misfits
Went to see The Misfits at the Brattle tonight, with an introductory conversation with Robert Brustein and Tony Kushner. The connection being that The Misfits was written by Arthur Miller (and features Marilyn Monroe), and Tony Kushner edited the recently published Library of America collection of his plays.
Kushner frustrates me; I agree with 95% of what he says, but he is so scattered and then there are these bizarre things, like introducing a movie he hadn’t seen (!), and then not sticking around to see it because he decided to go to dinner (!!) even though he just finished editing a collection which includes a novelization of the movie he was introducing and didn’t bother to see (!!!).
He is quite articulate, though. I was doing a small compare and contrast with the previous night’s activity, and was imagining a debate between Shane MacGowan and Tony Kushner.
“Mwahasdfjai. adkfm aiefnb!”
“Really, Shane, that’s extraordinarily perceptive of you, but I beg to disagree with your contention that…”
It’s funny, but then again, it’s not. A huge gulf exists between the two audiences, too, and it’s another indication of how segregated Boston is, even for white people. Last night, one of the opening acts were the Street Dogs, a local punk outfit of Irish-American kids from Dorchester. They sang songs about unions and had the mostly blue collar Boston Irish audience pumping their fists. I was wondering at tonight’s little event what would happen if one of the Street Dogs got up to ask a question during the Q&A. The entire audience would just freeze in their chairs even hearing the accent. Everybody in both camps is probably very far left of center; why do they seem so far apart? As Terri pointed out, this probably seems especially weird to us, being swing state babies.
We ran into Amanda, our former Cambridge landlady, there, and caught up with her. She’s opening an art gallery in Gloucester. She asked me, “Isn’t this nice? It’s all so… Cambridge-y!” I was thinking, but didn’t say, “yeah, kinda depressingly so.”
Oh, and there was a movie, too. Often, I love the Brattle and hate Brattle audiences. Tonight, that was the case. There was a stunning amount of that patented inappropriate Brattle laughter. Yeah, some of the performances are not so good, especially Marilyn Monroe, when she’s trying to hard to be a Serious Actor. Yeah, some of the dialogue is a little stilted, especially when Arthur Miller is trying too hard. So people laugh when these things happen, to tell us how sophistocated they are, to tell us you know that what you’re seeing is a little bit schlocky. Or worse, the laughter crops up when presented with something that a somewhat complicated emotion, something that’s beyond the pale of the viewer’s experience. Like when Clark Gable’s character, an aging cowboy whose gotten a little drunk bangs on the roof of a car and screams for his kids, and falls off into the dirt. Not funny. At all.
Kids, we go to movies to go beyond ourselves. Deal.
So it’s difficult to sort out what I really thought from all the nosie. But I know there was a lot of annoying stuff in it, including a lot of, “hey, check it out, that’s Marilyn Monroe, isn’t she H-O-T!? She’s my wife!” Montgomery Clift does a terrific job of playing a punch drunk young rodeo cowboy who’s taken one too many falls off a bull. Thelma Ritter, a great character actor, was great as always. Clark Gable really looked the part of the old cowboy, who is trying to live in a world that has changed in ways he doesn’t quite understand.
I can’t resist pointing out that his character’s name was “Gay”, so we have another precedent for a gay cowboy movie.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Earlier today, I wrote a massive response to this entry that was lost when I tried to post it. I am attempting to reconstruct the whole comment, save it on my computer, and repost. This comment comes with a side of technology angst!
So, I’m really glad we went last night. It prompted us to have good conversations and to think in productive ways.
I liked Tony Kushner. It didn’t bother me when he had to grope for a word or when his comments jumped around. By the time he finished, I could see how his thoughts were connected, and it was cool to watch his mind at work (and to hear what it produced).
I was pretty hungry as we watched the film, and that combined with the annoying people around us was a pretty significant distraction. On that level, I can’t blame Kushner for opting to go have dinner. At the same time, he must have had multiple opportunities in the past to see the movie, so he really should have seen it by now.
I mentioned us being swing state babies partly because of the weirdness of what we see here, but more because with my swing state background I feel like I have some sort of responsibility. I don’t think the audience for the Pogues was all Boston blue collar, though a lot of the people who showed up for the Street Dogs (who I wouldn’t necessarily describe as “kids”) seemed to be. I don’t think EVERYONE there last night would have frozen in their seats if someone like that had stood up to ask a question. (Heh… maybe that Brustein guy would have said something horrific.) Have a little faith! Hopefully some of those folks actually hold to their supposed ideals. (I hope we do.) This came up in our conversation last night, and it continually knocks me out—somehow there is a growing class disconnect among Democrats, while the Republicans—who aside from perhaps a few social issues do nothing at all for the “working class”—are building cross-class unity. They do it in lots of ways, and I can’t say I like their methods (acting stupid insults everyone). [And here some point I made earlier has slipped away. Oh well.]
There was quite a bit of political discussion, and I really liked when Kushner said that elections can make a difference. You could probably tell. I also liked his point that lefties need to get out from under the political cynicism that he draws back to the 1960s. It isn’t helping us any. We have a system in place. If we don’t use it, someone else will. Or someone else will destroy it (and there are some good things about it when it’s working). Take your pick; it’s all happening.
So, the movie. I was annoyed by the people sitting around us for all the reasons you state. I dislike the underlying assumption that they know the single correct way to react to the film. And yes, it is much easier to laugh than to deal with the sad, complicated things happening on screen.
The last time I saw The Misfits, I think I came away with a more positive impression of Monroe’s acting. She’s not amazing, but she does have her moments. She was such a mess when the movie was being filmed—it may have been too late at that point for her to learn to be a really good serious actress. Montgomery Clift is great, and you know I like Thelma Ritter. Clark Gable’s performance is more of a tough call. I found him annoying sometimes, but maybe that was intentional. I feel like I read somewhere that he did some of his own stunts, in spite of his age and heart problems. In a way, he was that character—this masculine ideal, past his prime, pushing forward into an era that has little use for people like him.
As for Marilyn and the focus on her as this gorgeous creature, I’m not so sure I see it the way you’ve described. Was Miller bragging about his hot wife? (She was aging, too—you can see it on the film, and in the way that Gable was his character, Marilyn was very much hers.) Or was he trying to paint a picture of her as someone whose beauty was both a blessing and a curse?