{"id":2073,"date":"2016-09-12T08:04:28","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T15:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2016-09-12T08:04:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T15:04:28","slug":"gene-and-grandma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/2073","title":{"rendered":"Gene and Grandma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"andmischief\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mischief<\/em> painting by Todd<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy blanket. My blue blanket. Gimme my blue blanket!\u201d Gene Wilder\u2019s line from The Producers<\/i><\/p>\n

Gene Wilder died in August. He was eighty-three. Thinking about him took me back to the first time I saw the movie Young Frankenstein<\/i> on the big screen in San Francisco in 1974. And I remember feeling as I watched the film that I was witnessing one of those extremely rare creations, a work of art that would never grow old and never be successfully imitated\u2014the result of the unique chemistry of six superlative actors and a brilliant director, none of them duplicable: Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Terry Garr, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, and Mel Brooks.<\/p>\n

To my surprise and dismay, many people did not agree with my assessment of Young Frankenstein<\/i>. Indeed, the three people I attended the movie with enjoyed the film, but thought it silly and forgettable. I saw the movie three more times during the initial release and found everything about the film more inspiring with each viewing. Indeed, I was so inspired by Young Frankenstein<\/i>, I wrote two screenplays and two plays imagining Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn in leading roles.<\/p>\n

Alas I was never able to get my creations to Gene or Madeline, but even now, four decades later, I still imagine them playing parts in my stories and novels and plays. As the neurobiologists say, I resonated profoundly with Gene Wilder. I enjoyed him in later films, but never again loved him as much as I did in Young Frankenstein<\/i>, Blazing Saddles<\/i>, and The Producers<\/i>, all directed by Mel Brooks.<\/p>\n

In 2007 I attended a party in Berkeley rife with college professors, and in the heat of talking about movies, and perhaps having had a wee bit too much to drink, I suggested that Young Frankenstein<\/i>, which I had recently seen again for the tenth time, was as magnificent and timeless as Shakespeare\u2019s The Taming of the Shrew<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I was immediately set upon by a pack of indignant academics, one of them saying, \u201cHow can you compare a goofy spoof of a horror movie to one of the greatest plays ever written?\u201d And I replied, \u201cMany of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, including The Taming of the Shrew<\/i>, were variations on previously produced plays written by other writers. Romeo and Juliet<\/i> is based on a classic Italian short story. Hamlet<\/i> was Shakespeare\u2019s takeoff on a popular play from Europe. Young Frankenstein<\/i> is two hours of flawless and wholly original genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Shakespeare\u2019s writing,\u201d said another of the professors, wringing her hands. \u201cThe poetry of his lines. His astonishing wit. How can you compare Young Frankenstein<\/i> to that?\u201d<\/p>\n

To which I replied, \u201cWhere in Shakespeare is there wit to compare to Gene Wilder saying to Marty Feldman, \u2018Are you telling me I just put an abnormal brain in the body of a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall\u2026gorilla!?\u2019 Or Gene saying to Marty, \u2018You know, Igor, I\u2019m an excellent surgeon. I could help you with that hump.\u2019 And Marty replying, \u2018Hump? What hump?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

My other favorite Gene Wilder performance is as the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles<\/i>. Never before or since has a movie of such supreme silliness featured a scene so long and slow-developing and entirely convincing as when Gene explains to Cleavon Little why he gave up gun-slinging and became an alcoholic.<\/p>\n

I think what made Gene Wilder such a unique star was that he was one of those rare male actors who was neither a macho tough guy nor a one-trick pretty boy. He was thoughtful, funny, emotional, intelligent, moody, rebellious, graceful, constantly surprising, and he thoroughly inhabited the character he was playing. I have known several men and a few women who felt Gene was effeminate and possibly gay, and I could only pity them for having so little appreciation of nuance and subtlety and originality.<\/p>\n

Sadly, like so many of America\u2019s best actors and actresses, Gene Wilder was only in a handful of movies worthy of his talent\u2014Hollywood the great debaser of genius. Thankfully, Gene made Willie Wonka<\/i> and those three fabulous movies with Mel Brooks, so we can rejoice in that.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.\u201d Francis Bacon<\/i><\/p>\n

Speaking of good movies and great actors, Marcia and I recently watched and deeply appreciated Grandma<\/i>, written and directed by Paul Weitz and starring Lily Tomlin. The trailers for the movie emphasize the comedic aspects of the film and give no hint of what a thought-provoking gem this movie is.<\/p>\n

Tomlin\u2019s performance as an aging cantankerous lesbian academic, once an impassioned poet, is so consistent and truthful, what might have been a drab pseudo-comedy becomes a profound character study and a potent examination of what it is to be a formerly revered artist, a product of the wildly creative 1960s and 70s, growing old in America today\u2014the intellectual vapidity of nearly everything in our post modern culture a source of vexation and dismay.<\/p>\n

Grandma<\/i> is a movie that would surely have devolved into tired clich\u00e9 in the hands of a less talented writer\/director working with less talented actors, but that never happens. Lily Tomlin\u2019s relentless cynicism might have implausibly vanished now and then in service to formulaic sappy moments and a forced happy ending, but she remains true to her character to the last frame of the film. Her fellow actors are also unwaveringly consistent, and the director is impeccably dedicated to his vision of a single day in a woman\u2019s life recapitulating her entire life.<\/p>\n

In this way, Grandma<\/i> reminded me of Young Frankenstein<\/i>, both films far greater than the sums of their parts, neither creation impeded by notions of idiot studio executives aiming to make the movies more marketable and palatable to audiences disinterested in the emotional intricacies of what it is to be a human being. Both films are ensemble pieces, and both films are especial delights.<\/p>\n

Todd\u2019s new novel Magenta<\/i> is now available at UnderTheTableBooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mischief painting by Todd \u201cMy blanket. My blue blanket. Gimme my blue blanket!\u201d Gene Wilder\u2019s line from The Producers Gene Wilder died in August. He was eighty-three. Thinking about him took me back to the first time I saw the movie Young Frankenstein on the big screen in San Francisco in 1974. And I remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3854,2295,2296,3847,3858,1680,3845,2297,3856,2481,2485,3853,995,698,2294,3846,1611,3857,3849,3851,512,3848,2298,3850,9,33,3855,3852,896],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2074,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}