Trailer: Harold and Lillian, A Hollywood Love Story

Posted on January 11, 2017 at 3:44 pm

Anyone who loves movies — and anyone who enjoys a love story — will have a wonderful time at “Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story.” It’s a love story in two sense of the word. It is the story of a deeply connected marriage of 60 years and it is the story of a love for the world of film.

You know the scene in “The Birds” with Tippi Hedren in the phone booth? And the one where all the birds are ominously perched at the playground? The movie was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, but it was Harold Michelson, the storyboard artist, who imagined the way those scenes would look. He also came up with the idea for one of the most iconic shots in film history, this one:

His wife Lillian headed up research for several different studios. When the “Scarface” producers needed to know what a drug kingpin’s home looked like, they came to her. When the “Fiddler on the Roof” team needed to know what shtetl girls wore for underwear, they came to her. And she always found out.

The story of how they met and fell in love is worth a movie of its own. While they almost never received screen credit for their contributions, Dreamworks did pay tribute to their decades of essential work in “Shrek.” These characters are named Harold and Lillian in their honor.

Tribute: Mike Nichols

Posted on November 20, 2014 at 8:16 am

We mourn the loss of director Mike Nichols, who died yesterday at age 83, survived by his wife, television journalist Diane Sawyer. Nichols began as part of the 1950’s improvisational movement coming out of Chicago, and rose to fame as half of the comedy team Nichols and May, with Elaine May, who also became a director. Their humor was brainy and neurotic, part of the same genre that included stand-ups Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. He then became one of the most gifted directors of the late 1960’s through the present day, winning all four in the EGOT awards, Emmys (“Wit,” “Angels in America”), a Grammy (best comedy album with May in 1962), Oscar (“The Graduate”), and multiple Tonys including awards as producer of “Annie,” and director of “Death of a Salesman,” “Spamalot,” and “Barefoot in the Park.” He also received the nation’s highest artistic honor, the Kennedy Center Award, and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tliQwrukz6Y

Nichols was born in Germany as Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky and immigrated to the United States when he was seven. He dropped out of pre-med at the University of Chicago to study at the legendary Actors Studio in New York with Lee Strasberg. His first Broadway directing job was Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park,” a huge hit. He worked with Simon many more times, and Simon pays tribute to him in his book Rewrites: A Memoir as the smartest person in the world.

His first film was the groundbreaking “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring real-life battling spouses Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, followed by the even more groundbreaking “The Graduate,” a moment-defining film that spoke to what was then called the generation gap of the 1960’s and launched the careers of Dustin Hoffman and Simon and Garfunkel. Following an uneven version of the unfilmable “Catch-22,” he made the highly controversial “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Ann-Margret. The film, written by Jules Feiffer, had a then-highly controversial frankness about sex that got it banned as obscene in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that it was not pornography.

Nichols’ other films include “Working Girl,” “Heartburn,” “The Birdcage,” “Silkwood,” and “Postcards from the Edge.” Actors loved working with him and some of the best, like Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, worked with him many times. Only Nichols could have coaxed Melanie Griffith to what is by far her best performance in “Working Girl,” much less persuaded one of the most successful actors of all time, Harrison Ford, to appear in the film in a supporting role, but also one of his best and most natural and witty performances. Nichols was especially good with actors. Bergen, then very inexperienced, talked about how her helped her in the early scenes of “Carnal Knowledge.” When she was having a hard time finding the right note of nervousness and vulnerability for a college party scene, he had her wear a slip but no skirt while her close-ups were being filmed. In the same film he gave Ann-Margret a chance to show a depth and complexity no other director ever did and she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. Cher was not an established actress when he cast her in “Silkwood,” and audiences were surprised to see how grounded and natural she was as the title character’s lesbian roommate.

His television work included the outstanding adaptation of “Wit,” with Emma Thompson as a professor dying of cancer.

Nichols always put top-notch performers in even the smallest roles in his films, and his music, cinematography, and design partners in filmmaking were superbly chosen. His taste was impeccable. He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of work that will be appreciated for generations. May his memory be a blessing.

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List: Movie Weddings

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 3:57 pm

Ann Hornaday has a marvelous article in the Washington Post about one of the most popular themes in movies: weddings.

And why shouldn’t Hollywood love a good wedding? With its swirl of heightened emotions, its simmering leitmotifs of love and loss, fear and hope, all swathed in a frothy confection of pink roses, white butter cream and queen-for-a-day tulle, the wedding provides an irresistible trope, from the ditziest rom-com to the bloodiest gangster epic. It’s a tiny three-act drama in microcosm (the incident-filledrun-up to the ceremony, the ceremony itself, the aftermath) that can give audiences insta-catharsis. And whether a marriage is meant to be or doomed to fail, there’s something viscerally satisfying about a wedding, in all its reassuring ritual….We cherish them not just as classic examples of courtship at its most idealized but also as trenchant social commentaries. If they initially charmed audiences with gorgeous movie stars, dreamy romance and zany comedy, they endure because they’re such revealing reflections of their times.

Hornaday points out that if you search for “wedding” on the Internet Movie Database, you will find “more than 2,157 hits — happily, 500 more than the number for ‘funeral.'”

There are weddings in romance movies, of course, and in comedies and dramas, but you can find them even in gangster movies, war movies, movies for children and movies for adults. Sometimes the main character is the bride or groom but very often the wedding couple are secondary characters and the wedding is just a place for all the drama or comedy or even action to play out. Sometimes a movie wedding is the culmination of the plot because the couple gets married and sometimes it is the culmination of the plot because the ceremony is interrupted. The Baxter makes the guy whose job in the story is to get left at the alter the center of the movie. (One of the highlights is the wonderful Peter Dinklage as a wedding planner.)

Before there were movies, there were fairy tales that often ended with a wedding. Weddings are in the same category as the lost ark or the secret formula or the capturing of the bridge or winning the big game. Love is life’s big adventure and a wedding is the symbol of its ultimate expression. And it is also a lot of fun to see other cultures and traditions. Here are some of my favorite movie wedding scenes. I’d love to hear yours, too.

1. The Godfather One of the greatest American films begins with a wedding reception that gives us unforgettable introductions to the entire cast, their values, and their relationships.

2. The Deer Hunter A agonizing film about the impact of the Vietnam war on three friends begins with an extended wedding scene that establishes the foundation for what is to come by making us not just care about the characters; after that wedding reception, filmed with such intimacy, we almost feel like part of the family.

3. The Philadelphia Story My all-time favorite movie is this sophisticated and witty story about the forthcoming wedding of a wealthy woman to an executive with political ambitions. Complications ensue when a reporter, a photographer, and her ex-husband show up for the festivities.

4. The Graduate A very few movies seem to express and even shape the themes of their time. And a small fraction of those hold up over time as works of art. “The Graduate” leads that category with brilliant direction from Mike Nichols, a haunting soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel, and superb performances by Dustin Hoffman as Ben, the title character, who symbolizes the disaffection of his generation and Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, the friend of his parents who symbolizes the emptiness of hers. When Ben finds something meaningful in a relationship with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, he ends up disrupting her wedding in a scene that has become iconic.

5. Four Weddings and a Funeral Screenwriter Richard Curtis based this on his own experience of finding himself at a seemingly endless stream of weddings. Charlie (Hugh Grant, in a star-making role) meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell) at the first of the weddings and their relationship evolves over the rest of the title ceremonies. But this is really the story of Charlie and his friends, all of whom find love by (but sometimes not until) the closing credits.

6. Bend it Like Beckham Parminder Nagra plays Jesminder, the daughter of a traditional Punjabi Sikh family in London who wants to play soccer. Her sister’s wedding plans provide a context for her struggles against her family’s reluctance to let her play, especially when it turns out that the soccer finals are at the same time.

7. Lovers and Other Strangers The wedding at the center of this film is the setting for a wide variety of happy and sad, healthy and dysfunctional love relationships among the extended family, played by a stand-out cast including Gig Young, Cloris Leachman, Anne Meara, Bea Arthur, and Anne Jackson. The Carpenters’ standard, “For All We Know” was written for this film.

8. Father of the Bride There has never been a more beautiful bride than Elizabeth Taylor in this affectionate comedy about the impact of a wedding on the family. Spencer Tracy plays the beleaguered father who is expected to pay endless bills and endure endless relatives on both sides. The scene where he comforts her after she (briefly) breaks off the engagement is one of my very favorites.

9. Fiddler on the Roof This classic musical based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem about a small Jewish village in late 19th century Russia. The main character is a poor milkman who has a lot of challenges in marrying off three of his daughters. The themes of tradition and change in the romances of the three daughters and in the community at large come together in the warm and loving wedding celebration (with the lovely song “Sunrise, Sunset”).

10. My Big Fat Greek Wedding Inspired by the real-life experience of Nia Vardalos, the daughter of Greek immigrants, this touching and hilarious story of a shy young woman in a big, noisy family who finds love with a kind-hearted teacher, leading to some confusion and misunderstandings but also a lot of laughter and new connections.

And don’t forget: The Wedding Crashers, The Runaway Bride, Rachel Getting Married, It Happened One Night, Goodbye, Columbus, Confetti, Cousins, and the French movie it was based on, “Cousin, Cousine.”