Roger Ebert, Questions for the Movie Answer Man
Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1997
Allan Smithee is nothing more than a pseudonym-a commonly used smokescreen for the identities of filmmakers who, out of embarrassment or protest over the outcome of their work, have chosen to remove their name from the official credits of a given film.
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Q. How come on the Far and Away movie poster both Tom Cruise’s and Nicole Kidman’s names were featured, but this summer’s poster for The Firm has only his name on it? I thought Gene Hackman was also in this movie. Do you have to be married to Tom Cruise to have your name on his posters? (R. Sullivan. Lowell. Mass.)
A. Yes, and that’s where Hackman draws the line.
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When you can see the sound boom in a movie, it is usually not the fault of the filmmakers, but of the theater projectionist, who has framed the movie incorrectly. All movies contain more picture area than you are ever intended to see, in order to allow the picture to “bleed” over the sides of the screen. Sometimes a boom strays into the “head room,” but if the projectionist has done his framing correctly you will never see it.
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Q. I’m a photographer, and have been wondering-who started the Orange and Blue Movement? All those movies where each scene has to have something blue and something orange in it? A good example would be Trading Moms, with Sissy Spacek. There are lots of others in the last two years. I think it began with night city scenes mimicking neon reflections on faces. The actor usually has a warm (orange) main light on his/her face from a 45-degree angle, and has a cold (blue) kicker light skimming the shadow side of his face. Warm colors appear to move forward and cold colors recede, so it adds depth to an object. Someone grabbed this theme of color and a movement began. (Jim Langley, Phoenix, Ariz.)
A. Frankly, Jim, I thought you might be hallucinating. But I referred your question to the great cinematographer Owen Roizman, a five-time Oscar nominee. He responds:
“I don’t think he is hallucinating. When we are shooting at night we have a tendency to look for reasonable sources of light to justify or enhance what we are shooting. When we are in areas that don’t have many sources, we tend to turn to `moonlight’ as one of them. Some people fantasize that moonlight is blue whereas others envision it as a cold white light. Neither is correct, but that is a long story. The `blue’ believers generally use the ‘moonlight’ as a backlight or edge light, otherwise known as a kicker. What sets off the blue very nicely is a warm tone, such as orange. Hence the orange and blue.
“The other approach is that generally a warmer tone of front or side light is very pleasing at night, like fire or candlelight, or for that matter a dimmed lamplight. If everything is lit with just the warm tones it has a tendency to get ‘muddy’ looking but if some blue light is introduced somewhere, either in the shadows or backlight, etc., it gives the subject a much more pleasing quality.
“I used this approach on Wyatt Earp on almost all of my night work and I was very pleased with it. I must have done something right because I received a nomination for it. I know you hated the picture but I didn’t write it so I’m off the hook.”
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Laughter is a form of communication, which explains why we seldom laugh at funny movies we are watching by ourselves-unless they strike us as really funny, in which case our laughter is accompanied by mental notes to share the joke with friends, which is a form of delayed communication. In a small movie audience we laugh so that others will hear us, but in a theater we laugh so that the actors will hear us-and isolated individual laughter in such a live situation is inhibited because it feels like a personal, rather than an anonymous, communication to the stage. While we’re at it: Buddy Hackett once told me that his jokes worked better in Vegas rooms where the audience looked down at him than in rooms where they looked up at him. I have personally observed that comedies seem funnier when seen from a balcony, and dramas play better when one is looking up at the screen.
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There are forty-eight Tora-San movies, making it history’s longest-running feature film series with one actor. The beloved At- sumi, whose real name was Yasuo Tadoroko, was compared in Japan to Charlie Chaplin; he made two Tora-San movies a year until recently, when advancing age slowed him down to one a year. His films were rarely exported. I have seen only one of them. They all follow more or less the same story line, in which an everyman gets a few weeks off from his job, visits his family in their old neighborhood, doesn’t get along with them very well, and then decides to go on vacation to a famous Japanese tourist area. While there, he meets a beautiful girl and falls in love with her, but the romance never works out, and he ends up helping her in some way and then returning to his lonely bachelor life. Audiences enjoyed the predictability of this plot, which was repeated with variations in film after film. In their unassuming way, these human comedies reflected the Japanese notion of “nolo con aware,” or the bittersweet awareness of the transience of earthly things. Some of the “Tora-San” movies are available on video in the United States.
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Regarding your column about how certain details are changed when movies are dubbed into German, the reality in German theaters is a lot worse! In the German version of Die Hard, the German terrorists weren’t Germans anymore but Brits-and Hans Gruber was changed to “Jack” Gruber, even though Bruce Willis was still seen writing the name Hans on his arm. In the German version of the Gene Hackman flick Loose Cannons, it was not German terrorists, ‘cause that might imply to German audiences that Americans think all Germans are Nazis. Even when Hackman and Dan Aykroyd are standing in the German embassy and you see the German flag, in the German version they say they’re in some South American embassy. Yeah, those people really look South American.
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Q. Ever notice that when characters in costume dramas use a term modern audiences aren’t likely to understand, they immediately follow it with the definition? In Rob Roy, for example: “He’s a vile Jacobite! A supporter of the exiled King James!” (Rich Elias, Delaware, Ohio)
A. This is just a precaution. Hollywood learned its lesson with titles like Wrestling Ernest Hemingway and Searching for Bobby Fischer, which bombed because nobody knew who Ernest Hemingway or Bobby Fischer were. On the other hand, Beethoven’s 2nd was a hit because everyone knew Beethoven was a dog.
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One of the writers of the screenplay for The Big Sleep was the great novelist William Faulkner, who couldn’t make sense of the story. According to a Hollywood legend, he called Raymond Chandler, author of the original novel, and asked him for an explanation. After Chandler provided it, Faulkner pointed out several loopholes and inconsistencies. “Then I’m as confused as you are,” Chandler said.
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“Three techniques were used to hide Lt. Dan’s legs: (r) digital computer removal (very expensive and complicated): (2) an incredible “mirror” arrangement in the wheelchair, partially designed by magician Ricky Jay; and (3) holes in the bed, holes in the floor, and careful shooting. It’s the best effect of its type I’ve ever seen, and I swear, I’ve seen ’em all. If this movie doesn’t win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, they should digitally remove the Motion Picture Academy’s building on Wilshire Boulevard.”
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This may also be related to the fact that the movie stars of the 1940s looked older in their twenties than today’s movie stars look in their forties. Robert Mitchum never looked young. Robert Redford never looks old.
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Q. Can you tell me why the date of every movie appears in roman numerals? (Jean M. Dunne, Riverside, 111.)
A. Copyrights are in roman numerals on movies to make it harder to instantly determine the date, thus extending their shelf lives.
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Q. I am a mathematician by training, a computer nerd by profession, and a sci-fi nut from way back. After recently seeing the latest big-budget sci-fi flick Independence Day, my taste for “real” sci-fi was still unquenched, so I watched-for at least the tenth time-Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, and this time I picked up on a little tidbit that may interest you. The third segment, entitled “Jupiter Mission/18 Months Later,” begins fifty-two minutes into the film. About five minutes into this segment, crewman Frank Poole, played by Gary Lockwood, is engrossed in a game of chess with Hal, Discovery 1’s on-board computer/villain/genius. Frank is playing White. The chess position reached is shown on a computer screen, reproduced here:
WQ - - - - BR BK - - - BP - BB BP BP BP BP - - - - WN - - BN - - - - - - - - BN - - - - WP BO BB WP WP - WP - WP WP WP WR WN WB WB - WR WK -
The script goes as follows:
Frank: Anyway, Queen takes Pawn. Uhh … okay.
Hal: Bishop takes Knight’s Pawn.
Frank: What a lovely move. Uhh … Rook to King one.
Hal: I’m sorry, Frank. I think you missed it.
Queen to Bishop three, Bishop takes Queen, Knight takes Bishop mate.
Frank: Uhh … yeh. It looks like you’re right. I resign.
Hal: Thank you for a very enjoyable game.
Frank: Yeah, thank you.
There is something wrong here. Although this is a chess position that could very well arise in a game (it looks like a typical Amateur vs. Paul Morphy game) and Black does, indeed, have an overwhelming attack, Hal’s explanation of the winning line of play is flawed. He should have said “Queen to Bishop six,” not three.
Since a properly functioning computer would never make this type of mistake-a mistake in reporting a positional move-there are only two possibilities:
1. This is an inadvertent flaw in the film.
2. This is a deliberate hint, albeit a very subtle one, that something is wrong with Hal.
As 2001 is my all-time favorite film, I would like to think the second of these is correct, but perhaps only Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke know for certain. (Clay Waldrop Jr., Garland, Tex.)
A. Kubrick is as usual incommunicado, so I took your query to Arthur C. Clarke, via e-mail to Sri Lanka. He replies: “Meaningless to me-I deliberately avoided learning even the basic moves of chess when I was a boy-afraid I’d be engulfed. How glad I was-2001 would never have been made! Arthur.”
Q. I write this in response to the question about Hal’s mistake in 2001. Some have said that Hal is testing the pilots for their reaction and ability to acknowledge mistakes. I am certain that the chess miss was not an error on Kubrick’s part. He is by far one of the most anal directors working. Not that this is a bad thing by any means. He is also a huge chess player. He loves the game and has been seen playing the game with different actors and technical crew on the sets of his films. (Karsten Lundquist, Mankato, Minn.)
A. Kubrick of course is incommunicado. I admire his anal qualities while observing the perfectionism of his movies, but at times like these I wish he had a few oral aspects, too.
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Q. Heard a delicious rumor that The Madness of King George was originally named The Madness of George III, but they changed the title for the American release because they were afraid everyone would think this was a sequel! Is this true? (Molly Ivins, Austin. Tex.)
A. Absolutely true. And then there was the Hollywood producer who asked his partner, “Have you seen Henry the Fifth?” And the partner replied, “Hell, I haven’t even seen the first four.”
