DIRECTED BY Lasse Hallstrom
STARRING Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt
US 2005 111 mins.
THE PINK PANTHER *
DIRECTED BY Shawn Levy
STARRING Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Emily Mortimer, Jean Reno
US 2005 95 mins.
Sad but true: the world runs on brand-names – at least the corporate world, and Hollywood is nothing if not corporate. Take Casanova; total brand-name. The legendary 18th-century Italian lover has seen many screen incarnations, the earliest in 1918 (!). Donald Sutherland played Casanova (for Fellini). Bob Hope, of all people, played Casanova. But it’s not just a question of longevity: the name has brand recognition, promising high adventure and at least a taste of erotic titillation.
You might think a new Casanova is superfluous – but this latest version is a pleasant surprise, written as a farce and played with gusto. It’s got a lively scurrying naughtiness, the kind that was popular in bawdy 60s period romps like Tom Jones (1963) or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). I know I’m going to lose some people with these references, but I can definitely imagine Hugh Griffith as the grumpy Inquisitor who tries unsuccessfully to trap Casanova before being dispatched to Darkest Africa (the actor even looks like Hugh Griffith). And Michael Hordern, that great bloodhound-faced comedian, could’ve played the old-fashioned father of Casanova’s virginal betrothed, who insists on “no intercourse” before the wedding. “I mean, of course, social intercourse,” he adds hastily.
Enough 60s references! The film stands on its own merits, juggling numerous plot strands most of which involve mistaken identity and/or comic pratfalls, set to light classical music. If you need a more recent reference, think Shakespeare in Love (1998), another film that toyed with a famous brand-name – and indeed Tom Stoppard, the eminent playwright who wrote Shakespeare, is rumoured to have worked uncredited on Casanova. One of the credited writers, Jeffrey Hatcher, is also a playwright, and it’s not surprising – there’s a balance to its clockwork procession of exits and entrances that recalls the stage more than the screen.
The plot, in short, has the Great Lover pretending to be four different people (including himself), one identity assumed in order to woo the fiery feminist (Sienna Miller) who disapproves of Casanova, another to mislead the corpulent lard merchant (Oliver Platt) who’s her long-distance suitor. There’s more, but it wouldn’t do to reveal too much; the symmetries are predictable – you can tell who’s going to end up with whom long before they actually pair up – but no less satisfying for that, and the fringe benefits include British-Iranian stand-up comic Omid Djalili as Casanova’s canny sidekick-cum-manservant. All this and some luscious views of Venice, letting the magic-hour light ripple over stone, sky and water.
This is my first real look at Sienna Miller, a gossip-column staple in the UK (she was briefly in Alfie last year), and she’s not too bad – not as grating as Catherine Zeta Jones though they both have a prim, head-prefect style that gets in the way of sensuality; at least in this case it fits the character, though I’m guessing there weren’t many militant feminists in 18th-century Venice. Ledger seems to be everywhere at the moment – he made four films in 2005, and should by all accounts have won the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain – but the real scene-stealer is Platt, making his ebullient fatty both dynamic and insecure; he plays the foil superbly, but his wounded whimper when the others don’t recognise his lardy form in a too-flattering portrait brought a lump to my throat. What with this and his glorious performance in The Ice Harvest, he’s rapidly joining that select band of character actors whose presence alone is reason to see a movie.
Casanova works well, better than you’d think from the reviews (critics were mostly scathing, and audiences indifferent); yet there’s still something missing. Maybe it’s the brawling action climax, which feels tacky and dumbed-down – but a farce can end in a chase, so why not a punch-up? Maybe it’s something even simpler, namely there’s too much plot. Almost all the film’s energy goes into juggling its various plot strands, leaving little time for casual wit or the joys of decadence.
There should be more than pratfalls in a tale of Casanova – there should be something sly and debonair, taking its time, winking at the world. The hero, after all, is a great lover, and a great lover’s secret is always that he doesn’t rush things. Ledger’s Casanova should be standing half-outside his story, amused by the frantic goings-on; instead, he seems to be running just to catch up. Frantic is funny, but after a while it can start to feel machine-tooled – or even desperate.
That segues nicely into The Pink Panther, another case of a brand-name used and abused – though this particular franchise has already been much-battered by its original creators. Peter Sellers was inimitable as Inspector Clouseau but director Blake Edwards unwisely tried to keep Clouseau going after Sellers’ death in 1980, first by cobbling together Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) with deleted scenes and unseen footage, then trying to replace Sellers with the little-known Ted Wass in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983). Then there was Son of the Pink Panther in the 90s, with Roberto Benigni pointlessly recycling the old routines.
This new version, starring Steve Martin as Clouseau, seemed like the death-blow for the franchise. The trailer was spectacularly unfunny, with primitive slapstick and even a fart joke, so it’s a relief to find the film somewhat watchable (I didn’t laugh, but at least I can see how others might). Martin’s a terrible actor when he tries to ham it up – his pantomime villain single-handedly sank Looney Tunes: Back in Action a couple of years ago – and it’s painful watching him do a ‘funny dance’ and go overboard with the accent, but he does add a couple of bizarrely fey touches like the prissy way he exclaims “It’s my personalised cellphone ring!”, or when he’s asked “Do you ever get lonely?” and wistfully replies “Not since the internet”. Is Clouseau revealed as a closeted perv? Or was Martin just extremely bored that day?
The film isn’t horrible, but it totally misunderstands the original’s rhythms. Edwards worked in long takes, stretching Clouseau’s debacles out; the camera sat back and watched while Sellers gradually escalated from accident to fiasco to all-out disaster. This, on the other hand, is gags, almost all of them slapstick – Clouseau knocks a metal globe off its moorings, stabs Chief Inspector Dreyfus with his police badge, opens his car door and hits a passing cyclist, cuts a cable prompting a chandelier two floors down to crash to the ground, etc etc. Good or bad, funny or lame, we know there’s always another bit of slapstick coming up, geared to an audience with ultra-short attention spans. That knowledge is more depressing than anything in the movie.
I shouldn’t really mention Casanova and The Pink Panther in the same breath; one’s a major pleasure, the other barely passable. But they both have a similar flaw which is that they’re too busy, too frantic; it’s as though, having lured punters in with the draw of a brand-name, they feel a nervous need to keep them entertained at every possible moment, lest they lose interest. That’s the trouble with brand-names. Familiarity can so easily shade into contempt.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.am
azon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
GOAL!: Widely-derided, actually quite fun (in a cheesy, Roy of the Rovers way), football drama comes with features including “The Beautiful Game” featurette, “Golden Moments of the FA World Cup” and more. Perfect for your football-mad 9-year-old nephew. [UK]
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE: More kidstuff – but not just for kids. Glorious Japanese animation in 2-disc set featuring both Japanese and English versions, storyboards and more. UK edition includes an interview with children’s author Diana Wynne Jones, who wrote the original book. [US/UK]
THREE … EXTREMES: A collection of three horror shorts from cult Asian filmmakers Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer) and Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy), respectively Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Mr. Chan’s short also appears in a feature-length version. [US]
OLD FILMS
LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955) (50th Anniversary Edition): More cartoons? Why not? Special 2-disc set is crammed with extras including educational “PuppyPedia” feature, original 1943 storyboard version of the film and two deleted scenes including “Turning the Tables” – Tramp describes what it would be like if dogs were the masters and people were their pets. [US/UK]
MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO (1988): Even more cartoons? Why not? Possibly the best film by Hayao Miyazaki, the genius behind Howl’s Moving Castle, in a 2-disc set with both Japanese and English versions. [US/UK]
THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951): Moody woman-in-peril thriller with a concentration-camp sub-plot. Part of the ‘Fox Film Noir’ series, also including Fallen Angel (1945) and No Way Out (1950), featuring a young Sidney Poitier. [US]
I WALK THE LINE (1970): Nothing to do with Walk the Line (which is also out this week) but a too-little-known drama about small-town sheriff Gregory Peck falling for troublesome young girl Tuesday Weld. Surprisingly powerful. [US]
BUSTER KEATON: 65th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION (1939-41): Film Buff Alert! 10 shorts, made by Keaton in the twilight of his career. Not to be confused with the Silent masterpieces, but still worth seeing – and mega-rare. [US]
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, SERIES 1 (1979): Roald Dahl mini-thrillers, including (gulp!) ‘Man from the South’. [UK]
THE BRADY BUNCH, SEASON 5 (1973-74) & THE FLINTSTONES, SEASON 5 (1965-66): Happy families x 2! But which is the more prehistoric?…[US]
